Need suggestion/help for PLEX server and PLEX player

[R0n1n]

Hello everybody, 

I'm looking for help and suggestion for building a better plex server and a plex player capable to play 4K,HDR content and support 7.1 surround sound (DTS-HD, DTS-MA, etc)

My actual setup is decent but I'm having some issues with high audio quality: 

• PLEX server: Lenovo M900 i7 6700-T, 32 gig ram
• Main Plex player:
  • TV: SONY android TV XBR-55X700D with the PLEX installed
  • Audio/Vidéo receiver: SONY STR-800 DN 
• I have a PLEXPASS

The TV and the a/v receiver is connected througth HDMI (ARC). The stream is going throught my smart TV and the audio is streamed by my A/V receiver.

I can Play HDR and 4K content with 5.1 surround sound (DTS 96/24, DTS Neo:6, DTS decoder, DTS-ES Discrete 6.1, DTS-ES Matrix 6.1, DTS-ES decoder, DTS-HD decoder, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital EX, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Pro Logic II, Dolby Pro Logic IIx, Dolby TrueHD) perfectly.

But if I Play HDR and 4K content with 7.1 surround sound (DTS 96/24, DTS Neo:6, DTS decoder, DTS-ES Discrete 6.1, DTS-ES Matrix 6.1, DTS-ES decoder, DTS-HD decoder, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital EX, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Pro Logic II, Dolby Pro Logic IIx, Dolby TrueHD), the video stream lag, the audio is unsync and ultimately the stream stop. 

 

I Know that the high bandwith audio content is not supported on TOSLINK and the ARC port has the same limitation. 

 

I would like too know what kind of player I could build to be able to play high resolution and high quality audio. 

I'm on a tight budget and I don't want bulky HTPC 

 

Thanks 

 

 

[RageTester]

PLEX is a CPU hog, on both ends and if resolution or file format doesn't match it's even worse.

So you need a server with at least 4 core CPU all above 3GHz to do transcoding.

Have you ever tried KODI for your media library instead?

[LIGISTX]

26 minutes ago, R0n1n said:

Hello everybody, 

I'm looking for help and suggestion for building a better plex server and a plex player capable to play 4K,HDR content and support 7.1 surround sound (DTS-HD, DTS-MA, etc)

My actual setup is decent but I'm having some issues with high audio quality: 

• PLEX server: Lenovo M900 i7 6700-T, 32 gig ram
• Main Plex player:
  • TV: SONY android TV XBR-55X700D with the PLEX installed
  • Audio/Vidéo receiver: SONY STR-800 DN 
• I have a PLEXPASS

The TV and the a/v receiver is connected througth HDMI (ARC). The stream is going throught my smart TV and the audio is streamed by my A/V receiver.

I can Play HDR and 4K content with 5.1 surround sound (DTS 96/24, DTS Neo:6, DTS decoder, DTS-ES Discrete 6.1, DTS-ES Matrix 6.1, DTS-ES decoder, DTS-HD decoder, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital EX, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Pro Logic II, Dolby Pro Logic IIx, Dolby TrueHD) perfectly.

But if I Play HDR and 4K content with 7.1 surround sound (DTS 96/24, DTS Neo:6, DTS decoder, DTS-ES Discrete 6.1, DTS-ES Matrix 6.1, DTS-ES decoder, DTS-HD decoder, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital EX, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Pro Logic II, Dolby Pro Logic IIx, Dolby TrueHD), the video stream lag, the audio is unsync and ultimately the stream stop. 

 

I Know that the high bandwith audio content is not supported on TOSLINK and the ARC port has the same limitation. 

 

I would like too know what kind of player I could build to be able to play high resolution and high quality audio. 

I'm on a tight budget and I don't want bulky HTPC 

 

Thanks 

 

 

There is A LOT to this....

 

So, I run a plex server on my homelab with 2 threads of my i3, and it can do ~3-4 1080p to 720p transcodes, but can't do any 4k to 1080p; just some performance metrics for you.

 

Now with that..... its really difficult to get lossless audio AND HDR, you basically need everything in the chain to be capable of all the codecs. So, what I had to do, I got a nvidia shield TV (it supports every codec), plug that into my denon receiver which supports all the HDR formats as well as atmos, then from there I juse use HDMI to my TV. Android TV is on the Nvidia shield, so it has a great plex app. This is basically the only way to get full 4k HDR AND atmos or DTS MA to work correctly through plex.

 

For more information, give this a read: https://forums.plex.tv/t/info-plex-4k-transcoding-and-you-aka-the-rules-of-4k/378203

 

Once you read that, if you have more questions please feel free to ask. I have gone through a few iterations to get it all working 100%, and finally, it is, and it works fantastic.

[tikker]

7 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

Now with that..... its really difficult to get lossless audio AND HDR, you basically need everything in the chain to be capable of all the codecs. So, what I had to do, I got a nvidia shield TV (it supports every codec), plug that into my denon receiver which supports all the HDR formats as well as atmos, then from there I juse use HDMI to my TV. Android TV is on the Nvidia shield, so it has a great plex app. This is basically the only way to get full 4k HDR AND atmos or DTS MA to work correctly through plex.

Seconding this. I recently bought the 2019 Shield Pro for my Plex needs and it's the best decision ever. It can decode pretty much anything out there and supports passthrough for the lossless audio formats and it's as simple as Shield > AVR > TV. No more transcoding, Direct Play for everything.

 

Another recommendation is to connect it with a gigabit ethernet connection, as 4k bitrates can greatly exceed the standard 100 Mbps.

[Donut417]

10 hours ago, RageTester said:

o you need a server with at least 4 core CPU all above 3GHz to do transcoding.

Wrong. The OP has Plex Pass, that means GPU transcoding. Intel iGPU's at least the newer ones are great at doing this. Nvidia GPU's are probably the best. 4K, might be an issue, but I know that Nvidia workstation cards generally have little trouble with it. The only CPU work load the OP would have will be audio transcoding if they used a GPU, from what I have read, audio transcoding shouldn't take a lot of power. On the other side of this, It highly suggested on the Plex Forum that you DONT transcode 4K content. For resolution differences you just make sure you have lower res content for those devices. So have a 4K copy and lets say a 1080p copy of a video, this way no transcoding has to happen at all.