Playback Resolution: Playing from External Drive vs Airplay Mirroring

Plex Labs
1

So I’m trying to figure out how to get my physical DVDs onto a server and streaming on my TV via my wireless network. In my first test run, I noticed that when I run Plex on my TV (file is on a hard drive) the resolution is 480p, but when I run Plex on my MacBook and then Airplay mirror to my TV it’s clearly HD (1080p or higher). I don’t want to use Airplay because it is a little laggy–ideally I would have the resolution of using Plex on my Mac, but via Plex on my TV.

  • Film is LotR Extended on DVD (which I think is natively 480p), ripped with MakeMKV
  • TV is a Samsung 7 series with Plex App installed
  • Macbook is an OS Catalina MacBook Pro from 2018

I just don’t understand why it is so crystal clear when I Airplay from my Mac but not when I play through the TV.

Thanks in advance for answers!

2

Plex will playback files at their original resolution. Your TV is then responsible for upscaling to match the actual resolution of the screen.

When using Airplay mirror, you are mirroring the screen on your Macbook which has already upscaled the video. So basically your Macbook is better at scaling the video, which isn’t surprising considering it probably has a lot more processing power than your TV.

3

Thanks so much for explaining–that makes sense.

This raises the question then of how I want to set up my Plex server. I don’t want to use Airplay because of the lag, but I don’t want lower quality video using my TV. I’m guessing an NAS like WD My Cloud would also have lower processor power? I guess my question now is where should I host my Plex server if I want good quality video but not have to something clunky like pug my Mac into the TV.

4

In your case, where the server is won’t matter. You have a 480p DVD file. Plex Media Server does not upscale so it doesn’t matter where you are hosting the file from. If you had 4K file, then yes, you’ll want a fairly powerful computer to handle that.

Your better option is to use a better Plex client. Something that can handle the upscaling. The NVidia Shield can upscale to 4K and these look great. Roku and AppleTV also work well, but I can’t personally say how well their upscaling is.

5

Ok thanks–that’s very helpful. It sounds like I can store my movies on an NAS as the server, and then run my Plex client on an Nvidia Shield, which will then broadcast to my TV. TY!

6

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.