A new TV offers the possibility to watch 4k movies to me. I am thinking about upgrading my library but I’m not sure if I want to replace my 1080 collection. I’ve read that some use a separate 4k library.
Do you? How do you deal with it? I mostly add movies with trakt and radarr automatically. Do you use separate accounts?
I think people who have separate libraries don’t have access to hardware transcoding, or prefer not to use it. That’s the only reason I can see for it. My library is fully mixed, if a connection or device cannot support the resolution or codec, my server will transcode it in real time. Is transcoding the best quality? No, but if it’s transcoding because a device can’t handle higher quality I’m unlikely to notice the difference between a 1080p file and a live transcode of a 2160p file. We don’t have a ton of TVs in the house and the main event TV is high enough quality that I’m now downloading most things in UHD.
This is the perspective of someone with a dedicated 24/7 media server with plenty of storage that is easily expanded.
Or we don’t have the upload pipe for it. Or both.
Most people would be streaming to another TV in their home.
The OP and I are talking about hosting video for people outside our homes. I have many friends and family who use my Plex server all over the world
OP doesn’t say anything about that.
I meant the OP of the comment I’m referring to, wrong terminology I guess
You and I are the only two people in this thread, that’s why I was confused.
Clearly I am confused too
I keep multiple versions in the same library. I use Emby, and, as long as my naming is good, I get one listing for each movie, and the ability to select which version to watch.
I honestly can’t tell the difference between 4K and 1080 unless I’m right up to the screen, so I only have a few choice favorites (that are heavy on the special effects) in 4K. It’s such a massive amount more space just for a slightly better picture.
I’m pretty close to this, I still don’t keep 4k, I re-encode to 2k and save buckets of space for the things I want a really nice copy of. Even on my big screen I’m hard pressed to tell the difference.
I remember an article explaining 4k in theater was interesting only if your screen was over 10meter wide, it was maybe 7 or 8 years ago.
Back then the debate for theaters was should be the “next gen” be 48fps, or 4k.
This right here. We can obviously tell a difference but the leap in quality from 1080p (Blu-ray) to 4k is not the leap that dvd to Blu-ray was. I have most in 1080p and my very few favorites or very iconic movies that benefit from the higher res, in 4k.
I think the only difference is the encoding quality of 1080p can beore noticeable, but if it’s a high quality file then it’s fine. Other than that, dark movies. Dark movies seem to greatly benefit from 4k even on 1080p displays.
Could be the encode again, but I’ve tried a few different versions of files
Yes, I run two instances of Radarr and Sonarr. One caps out at 1080p, the other one only allows 2160p.
Jellyfin just has two separate libraries for them.
I’m mostly doing this to prevent unecessary transcoding away from home where streaming 4k HDR is unlikely. At some point I will merge them but bandwidth for 4k streaming is not there yet and proper HDR tone mapping is still rare.
Can I ask why your Jellyfin has two libraries for them? Why not set the naming scheme in your 4K library to do “movie title (year) - 4K.mkv” ? Then Jellyfin recognizes the two quality versions and gives you a version selector for each film that has more than one version
Yes, I don’t want external users to accidentally play the 4k version so I only give access to people who I know can handle it.
If you’re only watching on 1 TV, I don’t think there’s any reason to keep them a separate 4k library. And if your server can handle transcoding easily, there’s still not much reason.
If you have an often-used second (or third, etc) TV with lower resolution and your server doesn’t handle transcoding well, then it’s probably worth keeping them separate.
I’ve also started to disagree with the guide about file size. I don’t think I can tell the difference, and I’m not trying to preserve media for the future. So long as the video has the features I want, I think just about any file size is fine.
If you’re only watching on 1 TV, I don’t think there’s any reason to keep them a separate 4k library
The only problem is that Radarr doesn’t support multiple copies/editions. You need to run two Radarr instances.
Why wouldn’t you just have the 4k versions then? It’s not like 1080p screens are making a comeback.
I have kids that like to stream on their own devices, and they’re not all 4K. Saves my server from overworking itself by not having to transcode.
Ah, I tend to avoid transcoding. Browsers are pretty shit for codec support.
Yes - I have two separate instances of Radarr, each storing their movies in dedicated top-level folders (“Movies” and “Movies-4k”).
Overseerr is used to manage requests, with all 1080p requests being automatically approved, and 4K requests requiring my approval (so I can be frugal with NAS space).
Plex merges both folders into a single Movies library, where I can play either resolution of a given movie (assuming both resolutions exist).
I would try the „retina formula“ to see, if the upgrade would benefit me.
Basically apples retina displays are engineered, that either the selected pixel density, pixel size and typical viewing distance, single pixels cannot be seen by the human eye. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_display?wprov=sfti1#Rationale
If you have a small tv and it is several meters away from you, my guess would be that the difference is not that big.
I’ve replaced all my media with 4K remuxes, when available, 1080p remuxes otherwise, unless it’s a movie I’m only getting by request, then I might get an encode. Felt good to wash away all the 1080p and especially 720p stuff. 4K with HDR makes a HUGE difference. A lot of the time the picture has been remastered (maybe the for the first time, maybe more) and is exclusive to the UHD. Also, you often get upgraded with Dolby Atmos or DTS:X tracks, which rule.
I download 4K if I can get it. I delete after I’ve watched it.
You have been banned from r/DataHoarder.
Yep. My Plex server can’t handle multiple 4K streams and neither can my ISPs bandwidth. So it’s 4K download simply for stuff we watch at home and the rest of Plex content is 1080p
Typically I only seek out 4K content if it’s an “event” type of movie like a big budget blockbuster or something like that. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I typically don’t have a problem watching my movie collection in HD when I grew up watching beta and VHS cassettes.
LOL meanwhile even if I have a 4k monitor I still choose 720p to save space and have quantity over quality
I have a lot of 720p movies that I watch on my 4k TV. I’m always surprised at how good they look.
You guys are talking about 4k meanwhile I’m digging in bargain bins and going to garage sales for DVDs.
EDIT: Didn’t see the community when I posted. It makes a lot more sense now.
I think my DVD days are mostly done. Even with a decent upscaler (Nvidia Shield) 480p looks terrible on my 4K TV.
It’s just the way I prefer it. I prefer paying for a copy if I can and downloading a copy when I can’t. I get the appeal, but if there’s a way to show companies I prefer a tangible copy over paying monthly/perpetual license I prefer going that route.
I’m not above downloading a copy if they don’t sell a copy if you get where I’m coming from. I consider it sort of abandoned at that point, even if it’s on a streaming service.
I get you. I do something similar. I love physical discs and have a healthy blu ray collection. I tend to buy older or more obscure cult movies that I’m worried may not be readily available on streaming. But I avoid DVDs specifically because of the low resolution. For some movies it just can’t be helped. Very obscure content may even only be available on VHS transfers and I’ll watch those if I’m really interested in the movie or show.
Personally i get the highest quality i can. Often 4K REMUX . If a device is not capable of showing 4K i just transcode the stream at the server.
I have two libraries for movies because my home theater can let 4k + HDR shine while my Internet connection doesn’t have the upload to send that to family. They get stuck with 1080 and have never complained. My server has the power to transcode on the fly but for now I have the free space to keep both.
TV is almost entirely 1080 unless there is a super good reason to upgrade past that. I’m not actually sure if I’ve ever done that.
I tried but it was way too much of a pain, especially when Plex does transcode just fine (w/ Intel 11th gen QSV). Except for DV of course, so I have to make sure I get the HDR version.
