I have a lot of content, most of which is HD. However, with a new 4K HDR TV and ShieldTV I started to explore the new and amazing world of 4K HDR. At any rate, I have 6 users on my Plex server and all of the devices save for my new one are not 4K. My concern is that Plex will not always have an alternative to the 4K content and have to transcode. I don’t want to have to keep separate libraries for items that don’t have a HD alternative for Plex to automatically choose. Is there any way to just prohibit these items from playing so as to save CPU power?
@derekcentrico said:
I have a lot of content, most of which is HD. However, with a new 4K HDR TV and ShieldTV I started to explore the new and amazing world of 4K HDR. At any rate, I have 6 users on my Plex server and all of the devices save for my new one are not 4K. My concern is that Plex will not always have an alternative to the 4K content and have to transcode. I don’t want to have to keep separate libraries for items that don’t have a HD alternative for Plex to automatically choose. Is there any way to just prohibit these items from playing so as to save CPU power?
In my case I use separate directories that I don’t share.
That’s exactly what I have been doing. But, it’s kind of annoying how it displays especially when there are two of the same movie for me to select from in the recently added. It’d be nice to just have Plex choose like it is designed to and prohibit transcoding of 4K to 1080p, etc.
You can also optimize the files, I believe. Select all the 4k videos you have and choose “Optimize…” from the menu. Select your quality and it will run the conversion that one time. Then, I believe, Plex will automatically choose the better video file when playback begins. If you create a 1080p version of a movie and play it back on a 1080p TV, it should use that version. Maybe some testing is required to figure out?
I do what wowza7125 does, except I have a playlist created for all my 4k movies (filtered by resolution). Then I just optimize the playlist. When I add a new 4k movie, it automatically gets added to the playlist and my server creates an alternate 1080p version for those devices that can’t play 4k. Very little transcoding is done in real time that way.
Thanks folks. It would just be nice to bar certain formats from being playable if it requires transcoding or something. But, I’ll play with these.
I’m considering the Movies library having an additional 4K folder for content that came with both HD and 4K copies so that it links together for Plex’s smart switching.
@kingmotley said:
I do what wowza7125 does, except I have a playlist created for all my 4k movies (filtered by resolution). Then I just optimize the playlist. When I add a new 4k movie, it automatically gets added to the playlist and my server creates an alternate 1080p version for those devices that can’t play 4k. Very little transcoding is done in real time that way.
This is all good except when HDR is thrown into the mix.
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Okay, so I tested this idea of having two separate copies. That sucked. Plex chose to decode the 4Ks video and audio instead of using the 1080p which would fit the old Samsung TVs abilities. What the heck?
Tautulli alerted me to this issue.
STREAM DETAILS SOURCE DETAILS
BITRATE 2828 kbps 27182 kbps
RESOLUTION 720p 4k
QUALITY 3 Mbps 720p -
CONTAINER transcode
CONTAINER MPEGTS MKV
VIDEO transcode
CODEC H264 HEVC
BITRATE 2495 kbps 26318 kbps
WIDTH 1280 3840
HEIGHT 536 1604
FRAMERATE 24p 24p
ASPECT RATIO - 2.35
AUDIO transcode
CODEC AC3 TrueHD
BITRATE 333 kbps
CHANNELS 6 8
It should’ve used this stream and limited the transcoding by a lot:
Media
Video Resolution 1080p
Duration 2:23:50
Bitrate 6478 kbps
Width 1920
Height 800
Aspect Ratio 2.35
Container MKV
Video Frame Rate 24p
Video Profile high
Part
Duration 2:23:50
File 1.mkv
Size 6.51 GB
Container MKV
Video Profile high
Codec H264
Bitrate 5838 kbps
Bit Depth 8
Chroma Location left
Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0
Color Primaries bt709
Color Range tv
Color Space bt709
Color Trc bt709
Frame Rate 23.976 fps
Height 800
Level 4.0
Profile high
Ref Frames 4
Scan Type progressive
Width 1920
Codec EAC3
Channels 5.1
Bitrate 640 kbps
Language English
Audio Channel Layout 5.1(side)
Sampling Rate 48000 Hz
Codec SRT
Language English
I’d keep a single copy, but create two libraries. One that you use yourself that has all your movie folders, and the other only has the folders containing 1080p/720p movies and you share that one.
@KarlDag said:
I’d keep a single copy, but create two libraries. One that you use yourself that has all your movie folders, and the other only has the folders containing 1080p/720p movies and you share that one.
Exactly what I do. No-one has access to my 4K remux files not even if theyre stored on Google. If they get more capable clients then that may change.
You could also use labels as a restriction to what the user has access to.
@Peter_W said:
You could also use labels as a restriction to what the user has access to.
I thought sharing labels where positive orientated; so, if something is labelled then you can select to share only labelled items. I did not think that you could, say, place ‘4K’ into the label field and then select to NOT (negative) share all content labelled with 4K.
Okay, so I originally started this thread where I had separate 4K libraries. The commentary was to keep them in one but have separate copies for different device needs so that 4K wasn’t always transcoding down. Not every device has used the 4K to transcode down, only two really old Samsung TVs with old school craptastic Plex apps built-in. The rest seem to use the 1080p variant.
Separate libraries end up with the same movie displaying twice and just looks ugly/is annoying should a device be signed in on my Plex account. Plus, I’ve got to be sure I clicked the correct one if going from recently added or I’ll be enjoying the lesser quality one.
Using the way suggested in here of sharing the same library but containing different variants makes the most sense if Plex would ensure the most proper one is used to stream thereby either not transcoding or only doing so to a lesser extent by not having to transcode both audio, video, and container.
Well hell, PS4 connected to a 1080p TV is doing the same taking a 4k steam and having it transcoded down to 1080p even though a perfectly viable 1080p variant is there to stream and would match all codec requirements. This is a depressing thing.
@derekcentrico said:
Well hell, PS4 connected to a 1080p TV is doing the same taking a 4k steam and having it transcoded down to 1080p even though a perfectly viable 1080p variant is there to stream and would match all codec requirements. This is a depressing thing.
Yup, Plex isn’t smart enough to choose optimised files over ones that require transcoding… We’ve requested that to be fixed since the optimiser was introduced, because it makes it useless, but it still isn’t fixed.
As for labels, I’ve never used them, but if they only work for positive filtering then use them “only share 720p and 1080p” instead of “not 4k”
@KarlDag said:
@derekcentrico said:
Well hell, PS4 connected to a 1080p TV is doing the same taking a 4k steam and having it transcoded down to 1080p even though a perfectly viable 1080p variant is there to stream and would match all codec requirements. This is a depressing thing.Yup, Plex isn’t smart enough to choose optimised files over ones that require transcoding… We’ve requested that to be fixed since the optimiser was introduced, because it makes it useless, but it still isn’t fixed.
As for labels, I’ve never used them, but if they only work for positive filtering then use them “only share 720p and 1080p” instead of “not 4k”
But then you’ve got a lot of labelling to do, rather than the few 4K files.
You can mark all files and label them once, not necessary to label them one at the time.
Well this just sucks. Good job Plex in making optimization copies useless. Yay.
@Peter_W said:
You can mark all files and label them once, not necessary to label them one at the time.
Yep, you can. But much better to just label those to exclude. Seeing as plex doesn’t do this, i would have thought opening up the poster art and adding a 4K stamp to it would not be too hideous; have too versions side-by-side isn’t that bad. I wonder how Emby handles this kind of thing.
I made three folders and share with users after what they have to view contents on.
- Normal 1080p x264
- 1080p x265/HEVC
- 4k and 4k HEVC both 8 and 10bit HDR:
This way my processor does not get overloaded.
