Warning : this is a long post, and a bit of a rant. Feel free to ignore it and respond to the original post questions above. But I typed it, so I figured I would post it.
[RANT]
So far, I have not found one device on a which a Plex client exists that can accomplish all the above.
I have a house full of electronics without various displays from 4K HDR TV, 4K SDR monitors, 4K HDR projector, 3D 1080p TV, massive 480i CRT TV with component input (don’t laugh. OK yes, it’s OK to laugh), HTPC clients, streaming sticks, single board computers. There is enough network bandwidth to stream the full source from server to every client, which there is more than enough of through a combination of 10 Gbe ethernet for things on the main LAN, and Wave2 APs at 160 MHz for rooms that aren’t wired. Hell, there is a 114TB NAS.
So far, I can’t find a single device capable of accomplishing all of the above. In some case it’s due to hardware limitations, sometimes firmware, sometimes drivers, sometimes application limitation. In any case, the result is that the experience is a fail in some way. And it fails differently in every client. I would love to standardize on a single client device that can handle all the above. So far, I have been out of luck on locating one, unfortunately.
Samples of things that fail, for a room with a Sharp LC60LE835U 3D TV and a Marantz NR1603 receiver with a 5.1 audio system capable of TrueHD/DTS-HD decoding.
- Chromecast 3rd gen, Odroid N2+ can’t handle 3D content at all
- Chromecast 3rd gen, Raspberry Pi 3b can’t handle 4K movies at all
- Chromecast 3rd gen, Raspberry Pi 3b can’t handle bitstreaming of DTS-HD or TrueHD
So, to play 3D movies in that room, I have to use the Raspberry Pi with Kodi 18.9 and Plex add-on. But the audio gets downgraded to lossy DD+ or DTS.
To play 2D movies in that room, including 4K movies, I can use the Odroid N2+ with Kodi 19.2 and Plex on, and everything works beautifully including lossless audio.
The third streaming stick, the Chromecast is basically useless to me for Plex since it can’t play 3D or 4K, and even for 2D SD and HD movies, audio gets downgraded to lossy DD+. It’s there mostly to be able to cast my Android phone onto the TV, or Netflix (which could run under Kodi, but it’s a bit of a PITA).
This is the experience just for one room, my guest bedroom, and already two client devices are needed to play movies from Plex, and still a little audio quality is lost when playing 3D content.
I also have a home theater with Optoma UHD65 4K HDR 2D projector, Marantz SR7011 AV receiver, 15 speakers (11.1 with 4 subs), a Chromecast Ultra, Chromecast with Google TV, Amazon Fire Stick 4K, HTPC with Ryzen and nVidia GTX 1050Ti GPU. With that combo, still couldn’t find a Plex client that would do 4K HDR with Atmos/DTS-HD tracks. I can have 4K HDR with some of the sticks, but then audio gets downgraded. I can have lossless audio with the HTPC, but HDR doesn’t work in the Plex client. Automatic refresh rate change only seems to work in the Firestick 4K.
My master bedroom upstairs has a Samsung Q70R 82" TV (2019 model) with Marantz SR8015 receiver and 11 speakers (9.1 with two subs), a Chromecast with Google TV and HTPC with nVidia GT1030 GPU. Again, with that combo, still couldn’t find a Plex client that would do 4K HDR with Atmos/DTS-HD tracks. The TV’s built-in Plex client triggers a transcode when subtitles are enabled. The Chromecast with Google TV Plex doesn’t properly bit stream audio. It also doesn’t switch refresh rate correctly. The HTPC Plex Windows client will bitstream audio, but doesn’t do HDR. Nor does it switch refresh rate.
Those are the 3 main rooms I’m concerned with, and they all have fairly modern hardware, by which I mean all the electronics are less than 10 years old (some speakers are not).
My bar does have a Sony 32" CRT 480i TV and 2.0 system with non-HDMI receiver (SPDIF in). There are Raspberry Pi3B and a Chromecast audio attached to it. I’m not really expecting to play 4K or 3D movies in this room. Audio, yes. I may try Rasplex on it, though.
The home office PC on which I’m typing this also has 3 monitors including two LG 4K SDR hooked up to a GTX 960 monitor. And an Echo Firewire 12 audio card, hooked up to an old Yamaha RX-V2500 receiver through the 7.1 analog multi-channel input, and a 4.1 audio system. Again I won’t normally play movies in this room. The Echo audio drivers are buggy. They can’t handle missing channels at all.
[/RANT]
