Found the reason
The airings are showing as 720x480
What is in your library got changed to 704x472
Are you changing this in your post processing?
Doh! I’m using HandbrakeCLI and a 1080 profile so I’d expect it to not modify the resolution but just change the encoding. But I’m admittedly a novice at video transcoding.
I didn’t expect Plex to be so sensitive to resolution. Thought it would be more of HD / SD granularity not 8 pixels 
I’ve been avoiding ffmpeg for transcoding given the command line complexity but I guess I should jump off the deep end and give it a go.
Greatly appreciate all your help finding my problem as I work my way up the Plex DVR learning curve!
well 720 x 480 is higher resolution than 704 x 472 and you have that option enabled
I am raising an internal issue on this to get it discussed and see if we can relax the comparison
Use the proper anamorphic (Custom) settings in Handbrake and create real 480p encodes:
HD on Top - 480/576 beneath.
Result:
General
Unique ID : 105032461527606455657927531656435811124 (0x4F04842ADA25D22498892469CFCD4334)
Complete name : G:\TV - Shows\I Know This Much Is True\Season 01\I Know This Much Is True - S01E03 - Episode 3.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4
File size : 545 MiB
Duration : 1 h 1 min
Overall bit rate : 1 237 kb/s
Encoded date : UTC 2020-05-25 15:04:04
Writing application : Lavf58.42.100
Writing library : Lavf58.42.100
ErrorDetectionType : Per level 1
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1 h 1 min
Bit rate : 850 kb/s
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.000
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.103
Stream size : 365 MiB (67%)
Writing library : x264 core 157 r2935 545de2f
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=850 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : Identity
matrix_coefficients_Original : BT.709
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 1 h 1 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : 20 ms
Stream size : 169 MiB (31%)
Title : English
Writing library : Lavc58.77.101 ac3_fixed
Language : English
Service kind : Complete Main
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Text
ID : 3
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration : 1 h 1 min
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
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This has now been addressed in Plex Media Server 1.21.2.3939 - a 20% margin has been added and re-recording would only arise of the resolution is more than 20% higher
Release Note Plex Media Server - #391 by StSimm1
- (DVR) server would sometimes re-record shows that already existed in library, but were slightly smaller due to custom postprocessing (#11689)
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