Panasonic hx800 (2020 tv) is playing 4K movies in 1080p

Plex Players Smart TVs
1

Pretty annoyed having bought a Panasonic TX-40HX800B that it forces a 4K-1080p transcode.

Having read this New PLEX version for Panasonic - When? it seems a it seems Panasonic’s player needs to support 4K HEVC which it must not. Shame as this is a 2020 model

My LG c8 can do this with easy

2

I’m not familiar with that particular model.
Keep in mind there’s many potential reasons why the video is being transcoded, such as:

  • bad network reception resulting in not enough bandwidth for the 4K media (based on the location, other external impact, bad antenna placement…)
  • playback restriction to certain formats when using a 3rd party app
  • something about your videos not being supported (e.g. subtitles, audio… some fancy flavor of the video) or exceeding device thresholds (e.g. max bitrates, max. encoding levels within HEVC…)

TL;DR… vendors seem to spend a lot of effort to keep their specs ambiguous about those factors. The specs page of Panasonic is similarly vague when it comes to the interesting limitations/restrictions.

You could take a look at the logs of your Plex Media Server to see what limitation it sees/perceives that’s blocking it from direct-playing the 4K videos.

Edit: digging through the user manual:

Supported format

[…]

= Note =

  • Some files may not be played back even if they fulfill these conditions.
  • Some subtitles or chapter functions may not be available.
  • Do not use multi-byte characters or other special codes for file names.
  • Connected devices may become unusable with this TV if the file or folder names are changed.
  • Supported formats are different in Media Player and media server.

reads more like a disclaimer than a manual :frowning:

3

Keep reading the thread. Plex no longer supports Panasonic TVs, so do not expect an app update.

4

yeah not something i would of thought of in 2020! just assumed it would work. I’ll have to plug a media player but was trying to get rid of extra boxes.

5

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