I have Alpha 7 Gen 2 and it’s just fine, now is it going to be 75" or 86"? Oh the frustration, it’s too much. I forgot bigger better, you knew that. 
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I checked the PassMark score, for my older Xeon it’s 13.646, is that enough? Thanks for the insight! There is just a few 4K movies in my library that use any CPU power that I can notice, I never had situation that transcoding is bottleneck. I just want to replicate current situation but with a bigger screen.
17k is the plex recommendation.
Less may work for some transcodes, but I would not expect everything to be problem free.
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SE56, just one more question: do you use multichannel media (DD, DTS) on your webOS LG with an external AVR? Does it work? Can Plex client pass all 5.1 or 7.1 audio over optical output? Thanks!
Optical does not support 7.1, I believe.
As for AV Receiver pass thru TV > Receiver will be limited with hardware compliance, example eARC on both.
If your wanting the best possible you need a Nvidia Shield 2019 pro, connected Via HDMI 2.1
True.
I see. Ok, but 5.1 does work on LG webOS over optical out? And 7.1 will work over HDMI ARC?
With a Nvidia shield 2019 Pro to AV Receiver by HDMI 2.2 that is set for 7.1 Channel output. Otherwise it will mixdown
HD 7.1 will not work with ARC maybe with eARC
So many combinations. Ok, in Plex client, in general, when you have 7.1 media, is there an automatic mixdown to 5.1 over optical or it goes to plain stereo?
there have been no confirmed combinations of TV+soundbar/receiver+plex that pass HD audio over EARC.
EARC appears to be designed ONLY for HARDWARE hdmi devices, such as bluray players.
EARC does not appear to support any SOFTWARE/APPS, like plex.
I would love to be proven wrong, but I’m pretty sure I won’t be at this point.
Not sure about that one but I see Tekno on now. If your not sure spend some time on the AVS forums, they may enlighten your questions.
Here a discussion that will give some information of the complexity Of Audio.
In general you should simply avoid optical and use hdmi ARC, which will pass dolby digital/dts up to 7.1.
(edit: there is nothing wrong with optical/coax, and I have nothing against it, it simply an extra cable that is not needed whenever hdmi/arc is available)
note this is not HD/lossless audio, its lossy ac3/dts like from dvd.
plex will deliver what audio that the tv says it is compatible with, and will transcode the audio as needed, ie from truehd to ac3, or dts to ac3, etc.
https://www.google.com/search?&q=hdmi+arc+vs+optical
lots of info and discussion @ Plex, 4k, transcoding, and you
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The thing is that if I connect sound with the HDMI ARC my TV built in speakers are offline (as they should be) and there are situations where I use AVR for music from other source and at that time TV should be working with interal speakers (on low volume of course). With optical there is no problem and I don’t have to switch it off/on in the menus, so it’s an elegant solution. But, ok, this not a dealbreker. So, can we conclude that webOS Plex client works fine with multichannel audio if using ARC and it can work with 5.1 over optical? I am missing something?
Hello Tekno, appreciate this clarification. I just wanted to confirm if you are talking about the current implementation of eARC, say on 2019 LG OLEDs, or you are talking about eARC as a format as a whole.
I was looking to upgrade from a 2016 LG OLED to the 2020 LG OLED lineup, but my hope was that these TVs would properly support eARC for software apps as well. It’s not the end of the world since I can buy an NVIDIA Shield if needed, but with only 3 non ARC HDMI slots on the TV, it feels like the eARC sort of becomes useless if it would only ever be for hardware devices.
I hope it is just the current implementations, I suspect it is the earc specification.
Tv and streaming services don’t use hd audio. They use streaming audio like ac3/aac.
The only source of hd audio, is 4K/Blu-ray, which only legally comes on disks played with Blu-ray players.
The industry has no reason to support people who rip/download content when they would rather us paying for streaming services (which don’t use hd audio).
The fact that Blu-ray is even rippable is an anomaly, and we should be thankful that a device like shield even exists, that can directly play ripped 4K/Blu-ray content in a mainstream easy to use manner.
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Here is what I see with HDMI-ARC. I’m not setup to test with optical. However, results should be similar, if not the same, for optical and HDMI-ARC. As others noted, neither can pass 7.1 audio nor lossless audio such as TrueHD and dts-HD MA.
Setup:
LG B7 OLED <–HDMI ARC–> Denon AVR-X4300H with 5.1.2 speaker configuration
Plex for LG v4.19.1 / webOS 3.8.0
AC3/EAC3/DTS all enabled in Plex LG app
PMS v1.18.4.2171 on Synology DS918+
Edit: Added EAC3 7.1 info.
AC3/EAC3 5.1: Audio direct plays. Denon display shows Dolby Digital / Dolby Digital + and channel map shows it is receiving 5.1 channels.
EAC3 5.1 + Atmos: Audio direct plays. Atmos information is passed. Denon display says “Dolby Atmos.”
EAC3 7.1: Audio direct plays. LG sends audio to Denon as Dolby Digital 5.1. Denon front display says “Dolby Digital” and channel map shows it is receiving 5.1 channels. Left Side Surround / Right Side Surround audio sent to Left Rear Surround / Right Rear Surround channel.
TrueHD 7.1 (including + Atmos): Audio transcoded by Plex Media Server to AAC 5.1 (and any Atmos info lost), as shown in Plex Dashboard and Tautulli. LG sends audio to Denon as Dolby Digital 5.1. Denon front display says “Dolby Digital” and channel map shows it is receiving 5.1 channels.
dts 5.1: Audio direct plays. Audio passed to Denon as dts 5.1. Denon front display shows it is receiving dts 5.1 audio.
dts-HD MA 5.1 and 7.1: Audio direct plays. The dts 5.1 core is passed to the Denon. The “-HD MA” portion is discarded. Denon front display shows it is receiving dts 5.1 audio.
AAC 5.1: Audio direct plays. LG sends audio to Denon as Dolby Digital. Denon front display says “Dolby Digital” channel map shows it is receiving 5.1 channels.
AAC 7.1: Audio direct plays. Audio sent to Denon as AC3 5.1. Audio sent to Left Side Surround and Right Side Surround is dropped. Denon front display says “Dolby Digital” channel map shows it is receiving 5.1 channels.
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Thank you so much! 
I think I’ll go for LG.
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