Latest plexserver installed. QNAP NAS server.
Please be kind- not too savvy on the finer points of Plex and QNAP.
I have Plex running on a QNAP NAS drive for my home use. All my movies were transcoded from DVD at 1024x576 resolution. I currently play these to my iPads or my 65” Panasonic hidef tv. The movies are not real crisp but look just fine on the tv. Acceptable.
My question; how will Plex/QNAP play those same 1024 files on a modern 4K tv?
I am concerned about blocky and jagged images. Will the 4K TVs (example Samsung q90) upres the file to be clear or is this a function of Plex? I am a little bit confused about what to expect and the last thing I want to do is purchase an expensive tv that makes the above content look bad. I am hoping for some sort of clever upres trick thru Plex or the tv to make this acceptable.
I do not have a lot of blue ray files and no 4K content.
Old school. We find dvd resolution is acceptable but as TVs get higher in resolution there will be a point where this will not work very well.
I am hopeful someone can provide an answer how this might look on a newer modern tv.
I was told that DVD content looks like crap on 4K TV’s. Which is why I havent invested in one yet. Im not 100% sure how upscaling works. Maybe someone could chime in on upscaling and if it will help you out. Im kinda intrested in that myself.
Thanks for the interest- I did a search yesterday and was surprised how little there was to find on this topic.
It was almost as if the world has moved on and I am just being a dinosaur that has not caught up yet. (Partly true)
The dvd content after being transcoded up to 1024x576 is not perfect but ok on HD tv.
My hope is that after already getting a boost up during transcoding from native dvd resolution, it might not be a long jump to display on 4K.
Seem to remember Plex does transcoding on the fly to match the display device- true? Also, 4K TVs do up-res on content.
Anyone that can shed light here would be welcome.
Comments about dvd looking bad on 4K are understandable yet looking for an acceptable solution or answer- I am NOT going to discard my dvd library.
Cheers!
John
I am told upscaling on most 4K TVs is done very well - so well, in fact that it’s amazing… so I’m told.
I think it would be in 4K TV manufacturers’ best interest not to kill the old cow when it gives birth to a new calf. IF the ONLY thing you can watch on your 4K TV is 4K - it’s gonna get pretty boring around the cabin.
John! This is a good question. In general, when you have a data file, your film, and you send that to a player, it’s the function of the player to upscale the video to match the output device.
But you can imagine a situation where a DVD player is only putting out 480p, and then it’s the job of the TV set to upscale the video.
So there are two different upscale situations.
You can find reviews of 4K TVs that talk about how the TV upscales SD content, DVD content, or 4:3 content from older TV shows on PBS or Netflix. Pick a TV that does a very good or excellent job.
In the situation where you start with a data file, the player could exist on the TV, on a Chromecast, an AppleTV 4K, or a NUC running Linux and Plex Media Player for example. Each has it’s own method of upscaling inside of Plex’s software, adjusting the mpv engine upscaling code. That last one you can customize the upscaling code to use the highest level lanczos resizing. The following thread has links to get your started if you’re the kind of person who likes running Linux and adjusting config files from Plex Media Player. "mpv.conf" for HQ Upscaling
I would run some tests yourself to compare PMP with lanczos to your LG’s player’s upscaling.
I would also buy a top of the line Chromecast, Firestick, and AppleTV 4K before I bought a 4K TV.
I would have one of those do all the playback and send out a perfect signal over HDMI to the TV.
I think it might be time to drop your love of DVD quality movies, and I say that politely. Consider
how upscaling has to work in order to provide a good picture - guessing at colors & blends through algorithms. I’m running Plex on a 4bay QNAP NAS 253be with 5TB of movies and TV. About 12 home users and i’m finding content is more about accessibility than quality these days, unless you’re worried about DVD quaility
On the fly upscaling and transcoding should be a last resort as that utilizes resources required for serving out the movies and TV you want. My external friends and family are enough for the system load - which already does some conversion based on the ISP speeds that day.
Please just rethink your entire data stream…starting with the file (audio / video track encoding, overall size and network medium, space requirements (4K content can easily be 100GB per file - and very possibly mostly audio content), resources used by upscaling & transcoding tasks on each of the devices, and even possibly your power supply (is that clean). I use a power conditioner on AV components at home to ensure quality just as much as safety. This affects both audio & video - including sharpness.
Good response if a bit over my head.
Assume I am not going to tinker with code, one thing I forgot to mention is the file gets played as such; resides on a QNAP NAS drive; where the Plex media server resides- gets sent to my Apple TV gen 4; and then to my 65” HD tv.
As I said, not real crisp but ‘ok’.
The picture reminds me of the “old days” before movie theaters showed digital 4K movies. They were not perfectly clear either. And that was ok.
I am ok with what I see now- it is “good enough”.
Appreciate your comments- I assumed I would drop the Apple TV box from my Plex data stream as most new TVs have apps built in. Perhaps I will have to keep it.
Hmmmm… will have to see.
Cheers
Please know that I’m not much of an Apple fan. That being said, don’t drop your ATVg4. TVs cannot keep up with platform updates, and often do not get them in timely fashions. TVs won’t have the CPU power that an Apple TV has, IMHO.
