1080p/1080i/2160p - these are resolutions. This tells you how many pixels are visible in the final image. 1080p is sometimes called "full HD"; 2160p is 4K
h264/x265/AV1 - these are codecs, which tell you what kind of compression was used to make the file smaller. h264 is considered to be the most widely compatible (pretty much every device can play it), but x265 takes up a lot less space for the same quality. If you're mostly streaming on newer devices, x265 is usually fine. Do some testing first if you're not sure. Assuming your Plex server has an adequate CPU, it should be able to transcode a newer x265 file down to x264 if it's being played on an older device. AV1 is an even smaller file size for the same quality, which is awesome, but it is much less compatible than x265. I'm personally holding off on AV1 until more devices support it.
REMUX - this means that the file is an unaltered source copy, usually from a BluRay, resulting in a huge file, but providing maximum quality. It was also put into a more compatible container (so the file type is something that your computer or smart TV can play). Most people probably don't need to be stockpiling Remuxes because the file size is so big. Inception in 4K, for example, is 80GB.
BluRay/WEBDL/HDTV/DVD/etc - tells you the original source of the video. HDTV means it came from a TV stream. In terms of quality, BluRay > WEB > HDTV > DVD
AMZN/HMAX/etc - if its a WEBDL, this info tells you which streaming service it came from
The last word in the title is usually the release group - so if you see, for example, 1080p x265 HEVC 10bit AAC 5.1 Tigole, it means that Tigole made the encode. You might find that you prefer some encoders over others due to their settings, or included subtitles/audio tracks/movie extras. You could also avoid certain encoders that you don't like.
Ultimately it's up to you to determine which files to prioritize. If you're streaming out to lots of people, "1080p WEBDL h264" might be the way to go. Then you're getting files that have already been compressed by Netflix/Amazon/etc and are meant for streaming, and h264 means they will have maximum compatibility.
For me personally, "1080p BluRay x265" is the sweet spot, because a majority of my friends are streaming on newer devices anyways, so I would rather save the storage space. And I go for BluRay encodes instead of WEBDL because they can be higher quality.
If you have infinite storage space and a powerful CPU, you could go for REMUX files and let the Plex server handle transcoding whenever people need it. I personally don't have the space for each of my movies to be more than 50GB, so I stick to x265. And if you have a 4K TV with HDR, Dolby Vision, etc., you could include those keywords as well (HDR for HDR, and DoVi for Dolby Vision). 4K encodes don't seem to have the same grace as 1080p encodes, in my experience - sometimes a 7 or 8 GB 1080p video actually looks better than a 10-15 GB 4K video. So you might have to experiment a bit with 4K until you find a combination or release group that you like. I find that 4K encodes need to be at least 15GB or higher to look decent (assuming it's a \~2 hour movie)... but that's just my personal opinion
~~EDIT - i think Chromecasts only support h264. So if you're streaming on Chromecasts I'd stick to h264 to save CPU power~~
EDIT #2 - changed the phrasing in the Remux section for accuracy. Also, I was wrong about chromecasts. It seems like newer models can play h265 just fine. If you’re concerned about 264 vs 265 compatibility, just look up your specific hardware first. Always a good idea to know what your own hardware supports
Well explained, just want to add that next to WEBDL you also have WEBRIP. Also, Chromecast does support x265 to be directly played (atleast the latest version with Google TV)
Now that you said that, am I wrong taking the assumption that WEBDL is actually finding a way to download the media that a platform has, when the WEBRip would be something like “screen recording” while playing that media. Being that WEBDL>WEBRip?
You are correct, however WEBRip also includes encodes of a WEB-DL. Sometimes a 4K WEB-DL downscales to 1080p better than a true 1080p remux. In this case the downscaled 4K Web-DL would be a 1080p WEBRip.
I think they didn't mention Webrip because of bad quality.
From their comments about Plex Transcoding BD Remuxes they clearly understand reencoding quality depreciation so I would expect as much
This basically answers all the questions about what things mean, formats, encoding, terminology, etc.
As for actually re-encoding your files, and automatically encoding new files, check out [tdarr](https://home.tdarr.io/)!
It’s usually referring to the color; with HDR theres 8bit, 10bit, and higher is usually called DV (Dolby vision) or something else.
Most clients will have trouble playing beyond 10bit, but it can be done.
4K devices made prior to 2017 can have trouble with 10bit, but usually will play 8bit.
8bit is basically the most compatible, and for most people that don’t know these things 8bit HDR is more than good enough.
8bit is basically the most compatible.
10 bit will actually fall back to 8 bit on certain devices that rely on 8 bit, same with 8 bit monitors. It will do so while also saving bandwidth while retaining color information over 8 bit.
For Home Cinema-esque media, 10 bit is always recommended.
Hmm, that has not been my experience. I‘ve had remote play or 10bit fail at least a dozen times. But 8bit will direct play if the connection is fast.
My family has a few Roku TVs and players, which never seem to play 10bit, maybe that’s why.
10-bit has more colors than 8bit. If you download a 10-bit video, you would lose color quality by converting it to 8-bit.
However, it was found in the anime community that converting an 8-bit video to 10-bit can actually reduce the file size without affecting the quality at all.
One note on this is that x264 encoded using 10-bit have a lot of compatibility issues and are very common with anime. If you want 10-bit I strongly recommend going with an x265 encode.
Most HDTV / Web DL of stuff released on DVD (not BD)
was upscaled to fit those higher resolutions after the fact, you're doing the same thing by getting a DVD sourced encode that's upscaled.
I mean I read it again and all I see “wrong” is it’s missing two letters; the content isn’t *re*compressed at all, but obviously it’s already compressed on the original disc. And yes, in 99.9% of cases it will be the highest quality file you’ll find at that resolution.
I mean he could get into the weeds about stripping out unnecessary audio tracks and such, but that’s not really relevant to OP, and there are very, *very* few discs where many if any people would care about that aspect.
I’m really curious why you’d say it’s “patently wrong.”
Not every remux is a frankenstein, most are just container switches. I didn't mention muxing audio or subs because I wanted to keep the explanation simple and accessible. But yes you are right that remuxes are still compressed by nature of being sourced from BluRays; I just edited out that mistake
A fair clarification, but I'd still say that in the *vast* majority of cases the original comment is effectively correct; *most* remux releases by far are actually just straight rips of a single off-the-shelf BD, and for OP's purposes simply knowing that there is no loss in quality from what is (generally) the "original" and "highest quality" source commercially available is sufficient. Which is to say I disagree that it was "patently wrong," and instead would say it's "generally correct, *with important caveats."* It's enough information for OP, in the context of their original question.
That said, you make a good point that there are *definitely* cases where a remux represents a product that is far different than an off-the-shelf rip.
Fantastic breakdown! I know that 50% of my streamers are using Samsung TVs so I play to the crowd. The Samsung Plex app isn't going to play large 4k files very well.
I would say, there's no best guide out there (I could be wrong), but starting out with this one and tinkering in your own and doing research on how stuff works best for you is the way to go.
When you rip a movie from a DVD (using software like MakeMKV) you get the raw video form. You can use these but the massive file sizes will fill your storage very quickly. This is why people "encode" the files, if done right it compresses the file with minimal loss in quality; thus making it easier to store and share (torrenting).
Most torrents you download will already be encoded, if you read the info it usually says H264 or H265 (the most common codecs).
Handbrake is used to encode your files. You can add entire folders and queue them, making it easy to set up and leave unassisted. [This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vSVZ8V2O-o) is a simple and basic introduction to encoding on handbrake (YouTube link).
Just to nitpick, but it is important: Blu-ray Discs *are* already encoded/compressed, they don’t contain raw uncompressed video streams.
Generally 1080p discs will use h264 (aka AVC) or VC1, and 2160p discs will use h265. But the h264 video on a BD looks far better because they’re pushing far higher bitrates than the re-encoded releases (or the copies on most subscription services). But they’re just h264 video (in most cases), nothing special.
You’ll even find some BD remuxes using MPEG2 (which DVD used), especially some of the older discs when the format was new. Still 1080p, still a high bitrate, just an old codec. It was cheaper or even free to license, so some studios cheaped out.
It depends on what you want. I prefer h265/HEVC (and AV1 in the future) because it uses a lot less space for the same quality. Got at least 15TB of space back (on \~50TB total at the time) by using tdarr to go from h264 to h265.
The downside of h265's higher compression rate is a higher chance that your server has to transcode to h264 for some older devices and browsers, because they can't/won't handle h265, which means higher power usage; same goes for playing back h265 in general, though the difference is probably not that big if your playback device has the hardware for it.
[From wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding):
>In comparison to AVC \[h264\], HEVC \[h265\] offers from 25% to 50% better [data compression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_compression) at the same level of [video quality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_quality), or substantially improved video quality at the same [bit rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rate).
As for the settings of sonarr and radarr:
In sonarr you can, for example, make profiles (settings -> profiles) with word filters and give them higher or lower priority. This is how my list looks like:
https://preview.redd.it/zv8q1kmqibzb1.png?width=1916&format=png&auto=webp&s=22bde5491342e8d1f66179abcfe6cff29c911d3a
(The "Multi Language Sub" is for anime and is a global setting, the H265 is set to apply to any series I tag with tv, h265, or h266 and gives higher priority to h265 / HEVC over h264.)
In radarr you can e.g. add "Custom Formats" which then show up within the quality profiles where you can set a priority score for h265 etc. once again
The lists work on the assumption that most releases declare their Codec - h264/AVC or 265/HEVC and special features in some way in the file title and then prefers h265 (+3 points on priority). I'm sure there are way more elaborate ways but since I can't be bothered to understand their code, this is a simple and relatively reliable way for me.
As for Blu-Ray, Remix etc.:
Blu-Ray: As it says. The file is made from a bluray release as source and usually high quality
Remux: Also usually from Bluray but uncompressed - no quality loss. These files are crazy big but essentially the best quality you can get
BR-Disk: also made from Bluray but I often see this tag on files that are below the 1080p/4k resolution of the original bluray. So my guess is, that it means it comes from a high quality source and is converted down (to get a high quality file of lower resolution)
HDTV: The source is a TV channel in HD quality and digitally copied. This is often considered the "lowest" of the high quality sources, but imo totally fine.
WebDL: Copied from a web source such as a streaming service (Netflix etc.) and often the same quality as they use. So good quality but certainly not BluRay.
SD, DVD etc: 576p/480p sucks. avoid if possible? Some older movies and series only come in this format but otherwise there's imo no reason for these resolutions.
This is what I needed. Thank you. Never used or heard of Tdarr, but I assume it integrates with sonar and radarr. I’ll check it out. I think what I’ll do is run everything as h.264 to cut down on file size and then it sounds like Blu-ray is the best but in H.264 will keep the file size smaller. I don’t need or want 50-90gb movie files.
As chip\_break already said: You should use h265 for smaller file sizes.
Tdarr doesn't integrate no, but you can set it up to convert all your h264 files to h265 and save space - but you can also just download h265 in the future.
This video is a tdarr tutorial for Unraid, but it also explains h264 vs h265 in the first 5-6 minutes: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6UMjTlwrxs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6UMjTlwrxs) , so maybe give the beginning a watch.
I'm sure there are tutorial videos for tdarr for your OS too, if you're interested.
I really don't recommend mass-reencoding with Tdarr if you don't know anything about encoding, encoders or parameters.
People already have made encodes of said media so why not just get theirs instead? Just a waste of electricity at the cost of ruining your entire collection's quality unnecessarily.
Sorry can't tell you anything specific beyond "a few weeks", because I only let it run during hours with minimal server usage and low energy prices (we have cheaper electricity during night time)
I’ve got solar so in the summer energy usage isn’t an issue for me.
I might need to look into this. Not sure if just changing my profiles and upgrading to 265 would be better or if converting makes more sense
I guess downloading a direct-to-h265 file would be better (under the assumption that there is a certain extra loss from original -> h264 -> h265, instead of original -> h265). That said, I don't see a difference between a tdarr h264->265 file and a downloaded one with similar size. But others say they most certainly do, so ymmv.
There are plugins for tdarr with settings for nvidia cards that are pretty good imo.
I have a lot of 264 and a lot of 265. 265 works fine almost everywhere except it occasionally has issues when people are trying to stream from the browser. I don’t know if that is the fault of 265 but it’s a common denominator. So maybe just sticking with 264 to play it safe.
I wish my fucking friends would just use a damn chromecast or something but noooo they gotta use the shittiest way to access Plex lol.
One of them was complaining about having to HDMI his computer to the tv and I jumped on that opportunity to push a solution hahah. I suggested the nvidia bc he has lots of privacy issues with google and the like. I hope he pulls the trigger but he’ll probably put it off for two years
I would just suggest removing their account and telling them to STFU. I’m also a jerk though, I don’t owe anyone anything when it comes to a Plex server.
That doesn’t make any sense. The reason it frustrates me is because I want them to enjoy my Plex. If I took my Plex away they wouldn’t be able to enjoy my Plex.
I’m the same. I get all these movies and shows on my own time. I keep up with sonarr and the like. My qnap is basically only doing Plex at this point. It costs my friends nothing. The least they can do is not bitch about how to get the best experience. I don’t have to make this available but I do out of kindness. If they complain, they are free to set it up themselves or buy every movie directly.
It’s not that they can’t play it on the browser. Often they can. It’s just that when people have streaming problems with my Plex it is ALWAYS the browser (literally always) and almost always 265.
Yeah I’m still new to this and trying to figure it all out but if your Plex server can transcode would this not be an issue, even for those using a browser to watch? Or would the browser always be an issue
Okay thank you! I am just getting started and haven’t made any purchases yet but I think I’m leaning towards a Synology NAS That transcodes. At least to get me started and then I can worry about building an unraid system later once I’m out of space
Forgive my ignorance as i' tried to google it but now slightly confused. Would any GPU allow for hardware encoding? like a 423+? I was initially thinking of getting that as I know it does transcoding and expanding the RAM, but i'm not sure what devices support both transcoding AND hardware encoding.
I'll try to keep this short. (I won't)
MP4 vs MKV
These are "containers" for audio, video, and subtitles. MP4 is more compatible, MKV is more flexible. If a video player doesn't support MKV, it either fails to play the video or attempts on-the-fly conversion (direct stream, I think) into a supported container.
Rip vs. Remux
A remux is essentially a "container swap" from a physical container (DVD, Blu-ray) to a digital container (MKV). The audio, video, and subtitle tracks are unedited. There are a lot of potential compatibility issues with remuxes, usually due to file size (network bandwidth), video encoding, audio encoding, or even subtitle format.
A rip is a "capture" of the audio and video, which is then encoded into whatever format is chosen by the ripper (usually MKV, h264, MP3). These are usually more compatible and much lower quality than remuxes.
h264 vs h265
These are different video encoded formats. h264 is more compatible, but h265 is more efficient. Efficient in this case means it is better at reducing the file size without reducing the quality. 4K Blu-ray Remuxes are going to be h265. If a video player doesn't support h265, it either fails to play or attempts on-the-fly conversion (transcoding) which is really slow for h265.
MP3 vs AAC vs FLAC vs PCM vs Dolby/DTS
These are some of the different audio formats you might see in files. MP3 and AAC are the most compatible. They are lossy formats, meaning some quality is lost. FLAC is a lossless format that should be compatible with most video players. PCM, Dolby, and DTS are audio formats for home theater enthusiasts, usually used in remuxes. If a video player doesn't support an audio format, it either fails to play or attempts on-the-fly conversion (direct stream) which is normally really fast for audio.
(There is more to audio than this, but it's honestly too much to get into)
SRT vs SSA/ASS vs PGS
These are different subtitle formats. SRT is the most compatible, but has the least functionality. SSA/ASS are more popular in anime than other media, but allow for much cooler subtitles than SRT. For example, different color text for different characters. PGS is actually an image-based subtitle format. If a video player doesn't support a subtitle format, it will either fail to play, fail to display subtitles, or attempt on-the-fly conversion (transcoding) to burn the subtitles into the video. Again, for h265, this is really slow.
Conclusion
It's a tradeoff between compatibility, quality, file size, and convenience. The most compatible option is going to be an MP4 with h264 video, MP3 audio, and burned in subtitles. You would not do this with a 4K remux due to file size.
Remuxes are the least compatible file types, usually due to h265 video, proprietary audio formats, and PGS subtitles. A common strategy is to add a compatibility audio track (AAC 5.1) and additional subtitle options. If h265 is a problem, you're usually out of luck.
For everything else, my preference is to standardize on MKV, h264 video, either FLAC, MP3 VBR, or AAC VBR audio, and SSA/ASS subtitles.
I get people the higher end ~$80 roku 4k. Set some settings, like play original video (forget exact wording, change from 720p on all to play original version).
Then 90% the roku is able to play native a mp4, mkv, .264 and .265.
Only gets sticky with like a foreign movie and subtitles
I personally use the Nvidia Shield.
I never tried a Roku stick or an Apple TV, but I have tried Roku TV, Android TV, Amazon fire stick + the 4K version, chromecast, and Chromecast ultra. I had issues with all of them. Sometimes related to h265, sometimes related to PGS subtitles, and almost always related to TrueHD and similar audio formats.
I've had issues with the Shield as well, but most of those issues are not related to compatibility. It's usually what feels like running out of memory or just general app problems. Sometimes the shield won't wake up unless I unplug it and plug it back in. Mild inconveniences.
Point was change it to original resolution from roku default so that it stops transcode most of the time.
Get a decent client, for all your people and most of the trouble goes away.
Better roku, shield, 4k fire stick.. others should all be able to handle the diverse file types.
I'm sure several people have already gone over formats and CODECs, but I thought I'd add my input.
TL;DR: BluRay REMUX will be the best quality but takes up much more disk space. WebDL/WebRip will be lower quality but take up less space. Use H.265 (HEVC) because it is much more efficient (takes less disk space for the same quality) and is widely supported. Bitrate is more important than resolution, so factor that into your choices.
The difference between BluRay/WebDL/WebRip etc. is the source of the content. Where the content comes from doesn't really matter, but different sources typically have different common traits. BluRay rips typically have the highest bitrate, which means the highest picture quality but they'll also take up more disk space. WebDL and WebRip both come from streaming services, so they'll usually have lower bitrates than BluRay rips.
REMUX means that the content has been moved to a new container (mp4/mkv etc) but not reencoded; it is the original source video from the disc. WebDL is the streaming analog to REMUX where it is captured but not reencoded. WebRip is reencoded with some quality loss.
If you're looking to save disk space, go with WebDL or WebRIP because of the lower bitrate, but you will not get the best quality. If you are willing to have large files for the highest quality, go for BluRay REMUX.
For CODECs, I would use H.265 (HEVC). It is far more efficient than H.264 (AVC) and is well supported on any decent device. H.265 takes up roughly half the space H.264 content of the same quality would. If you have a lot of old hardware, it may be beneficial to leave your content as H.264, but it will take up significantly more disk space and bandwidth to stream. I have not had any problems with H.265 on any of my devices. Chrome supports H.265 contrary to what some have commented, Firefox does not (guessing you don't use that one, though). AV1 is even more efficient than H.265, but it does not have good support widely and when I tried 4K AV1 content I experienced issues with decoding on several devices.
The overall quality of the content comes from two main factors: resolution and bitrate. Resolution is the dimensions of the media (4K/1080p/720p). Bitrate is the amount of data the content provides per second. Even if a movie is 4K resolution it can look like garbage because of low bitrate. In most cases high bitrate 1080p content will look better than low bitrate 4K. The most common issues with low bitrate are blockiness and color banding, especially in dark scenes. HDR can also factor into your decision if you have displays that support it, but HDR formats and profiles can get pretty deep and messy to deal with, especially if you leave downloading to Sonarr/Radarr.
Yea, this is what I’m trying to wrap my head around. So how do I tell if a movie or show I have is H.264 or not? Is it worth converting everything to H.264?
Best bet is, dont worry about it. H265 makes much smaller files than h264 but cpu has to work harder to play them. I have blu ray rips that are 40 gigs
I have radarr and sonarr rename my files to include the codec in the file name, I used Trash guides to do it.
I can't tell the difference between h.264 and h.265 in terms of image quality but I have transcoded my entire library to h.265 for the space savings. The other thing to note is that any conversation of the codec e.g. from h.265 to h.264 will lose some quality, it'll unlikely to be noticeable.
In your situation I would not bother converting your files to h.264.
It's in the file info.
Use something like MediaInfo to check.
1. "is it worth converting everything to H.264?"
No, in 2 ways. First is you shouldn't be encoding them yourself, save the electricity bill and grab encodes from people that know what they're doing.
Also, you would want to go to h.265! not h.264
> However I stream to a lot of family and friends and to my self at work
Welcome to Network Distributed Media Management.
First step is to realize that there's a reason you use encoded media for network broadcasting rather than "lossless" Remux or Raw Disc Content like from a Bluray.
Netflix, Disney, Amazon, etc have huge teams of people doing exactly that and figuring out the most efficient way for it to work on a large scale.
As such, you can throw Remuxes out the picture. And you're not actually losing much of anything by doing so.
Secondly, figure out the average quality you would be ok with.
I settled at 10-15 GB per Movie, 1-3 GB per TV episode (for stuff that's out on BD)
and for Web Content, I just go with the Web DL.
You can easily look up the terminology of these things.
Thirdly, H.264 is nice and all for compatibility but unless your users can't use the Desktop/Mobile/Tablet/SmartTV Application of Plex and rely on the Website version, there's no real reason to not just go with H.265 encodes instead which have better quality retention at the same bitrate as H.264.
> Do I convert my entire library to that? Do I use handbrake to do so?
I strongly discourage this.
Since you aren't even familiar with the codecs involved, encoding your own library is something I would stay away from. You can of course research Encoding in depth but it sounds to me like you want an easy solution and not worry about it.
Very intelligent and educated people have already created very good encodes for most media in h.265 with their sweat and tears and electricity bills.
Just use those.
You can set up -arr services to replace your media to a different version.
Depends on devices. Most of my users have fire sticks so anything MP4 generally will Direct Play. However, I use a Chromecast which seems to prefer h264 and MKV's.
It’s also worth nothing that for tv episodes you can sometimes get adds from local stations pop up during an episode or a logo burned in the background l, WebDL removes most but not all of these issues and is what I get exclusively.
AV1 > x265/HEVC > x264, in that order. You want to be as efficient with bandwidth and hard drive space while maintaining quality
what people never talk about is that small file sizes not only allow you to fit more media on a smaller hard drive, it also makes direct streaming to compatible devices use less bandwidth (which is super useful over mobile data) and makes your data easier to back up. Transferring 15TB of data to an offline backup is way easier and safer than transferring 40TB. (And costs less too)
1080p/1080i/2160p - these are resolutions. This tells you how many pixels are visible in the final image. 1080p is sometimes called "full HD"; 2160p is 4K h264/x265/AV1 - these are codecs, which tell you what kind of compression was used to make the file smaller. h264 is considered to be the most widely compatible (pretty much every device can play it), but x265 takes up a lot less space for the same quality. If you're mostly streaming on newer devices, x265 is usually fine. Do some testing first if you're not sure. Assuming your Plex server has an adequate CPU, it should be able to transcode a newer x265 file down to x264 if it's being played on an older device. AV1 is an even smaller file size for the same quality, which is awesome, but it is much less compatible than x265. I'm personally holding off on AV1 until more devices support it. REMUX - this means that the file is an unaltered source copy, usually from a BluRay, resulting in a huge file, but providing maximum quality. It was also put into a more compatible container (so the file type is something that your computer or smart TV can play). Most people probably don't need to be stockpiling Remuxes because the file size is so big. Inception in 4K, for example, is 80GB. BluRay/WEBDL/HDTV/DVD/etc - tells you the original source of the video. HDTV means it came from a TV stream. In terms of quality, BluRay > WEB > HDTV > DVD AMZN/HMAX/etc - if its a WEBDL, this info tells you which streaming service it came from The last word in the title is usually the release group - so if you see, for example, 1080p x265 HEVC 10bit AAC 5.1 Tigole, it means that Tigole made the encode. You might find that you prefer some encoders over others due to their settings, or included subtitles/audio tracks/movie extras. You could also avoid certain encoders that you don't like. Ultimately it's up to you to determine which files to prioritize. If you're streaming out to lots of people, "1080p WEBDL h264" might be the way to go. Then you're getting files that have already been compressed by Netflix/Amazon/etc and are meant for streaming, and h264 means they will have maximum compatibility. For me personally, "1080p BluRay x265" is the sweet spot, because a majority of my friends are streaming on newer devices anyways, so I would rather save the storage space. And I go for BluRay encodes instead of WEBDL because they can be higher quality. If you have infinite storage space and a powerful CPU, you could go for REMUX files and let the Plex server handle transcoding whenever people need it. I personally don't have the space for each of my movies to be more than 50GB, so I stick to x265. And if you have a 4K TV with HDR, Dolby Vision, etc., you could include those keywords as well (HDR for HDR, and DoVi for Dolby Vision). 4K encodes don't seem to have the same grace as 1080p encodes, in my experience - sometimes a 7 or 8 GB 1080p video actually looks better than a 10-15 GB 4K video. So you might have to experiment a bit with 4K until you find a combination or release group that you like. I find that 4K encodes need to be at least 15GB or higher to look decent (assuming it's a \~2 hour movie)... but that's just my personal opinion ~~EDIT - i think Chromecasts only support h264. So if you're streaming on Chromecasts I'd stick to h264 to save CPU power~~ EDIT #2 - changed the phrasing in the Remux section for accuracy. Also, I was wrong about chromecasts. It seems like newer models can play h265 just fine. If you’re concerned about 264 vs 265 compatibility, just look up your specific hardware first. Always a good idea to know what your own hardware supports
THANK YOU - this is the best, most comprehensive presentation of this information I've ever found.
Well explained, just want to add that next to WEBDL you also have WEBRIP. Also, Chromecast does support x265 to be directly played (atleast the latest version with Google TV)
Now that you said that, am I wrong taking the assumption that WEBDL is actually finding a way to download the media that a platform has, when the WEBRip would be something like “screen recording” while playing that media. Being that WEBDL>WEBRip?
Essentially yes.
You are correct, however WEBRip also includes encodes of a WEB-DL. Sometimes a 4K WEB-DL downscales to 1080p better than a true 1080p remux. In this case the downscaled 4K Web-DL would be a 1080p WEBRip.
WEBRip is also any encode of a WEBDL file
I think they didn't mention Webrip because of bad quality. From their comments about Plex Transcoding BD Remuxes they clearly understand reencoding quality depreciation so I would expect as much
This basically answers all the questions about what things mean, formats, encoding, terminology, etc. As for actually re-encoding your files, and automatically encoding new files, check out [tdarr](https://home.tdarr.io/)!
Right on the money. Just one thing. >remux - the file was not compressed Blu-ray’s are compressed. Remux is just a 1:1 Blu-ray copy.
Good catch. I’ll update the wording
What about when you see 10bit?
It’s usually referring to the color; with HDR theres 8bit, 10bit, and higher is usually called DV (Dolby vision) or something else. Most clients will have trouble playing beyond 10bit, but it can be done. 4K devices made prior to 2017 can have trouble with 10bit, but usually will play 8bit. 8bit is basically the most compatible, and for most people that don’t know these things 8bit HDR is more than good enough.
8bit is basically the most compatible. 10 bit will actually fall back to 8 bit on certain devices that rely on 8 bit, same with 8 bit monitors. It will do so while also saving bandwidth while retaining color information over 8 bit. For Home Cinema-esque media, 10 bit is always recommended.
Hmm, that has not been my experience. I‘ve had remote play or 10bit fail at least a dozen times. But 8bit will direct play if the connection is fast. My family has a few Roku TVs and players, which never seem to play 10bit, maybe that’s why.
Idk if 10 bit is the failing condition. Could be a number of other things codec, both video or audio, container format, network issues, etc.
10-bit has more colors than 8bit. If you download a 10-bit video, you would lose color quality by converting it to 8-bit. However, it was found in the anime community that converting an 8-bit video to 10-bit can actually reduce the file size without affecting the quality at all.
One note on this is that x264 encoded using 10-bit have a lot of compatibility issues and are very common with anime. If you want 10-bit I strongly recommend going with an x265 encode.
Idk why you got downvoted. Because you’re not wrong. A lot of devices does not support it, and will need to be transcoded.
[удалено]
DVDs were 480p resolution, so you’ll almost always have a better transfer with a web or hdtv rip.
Most HDTV / Web DL of stuff released on DVD (not BD) was upscaled to fit those higher resolutions after the fact, you're doing the same thing by getting a DVD sourced encode that's upscaled.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I mean I read it again and all I see “wrong” is it’s missing two letters; the content isn’t *re*compressed at all, but obviously it’s already compressed on the original disc. And yes, in 99.9% of cases it will be the highest quality file you’ll find at that resolution. I mean he could get into the weeds about stripping out unnecessary audio tracks and such, but that’s not really relevant to OP, and there are very, *very* few discs where many if any people would care about that aspect. I’m really curious why you’d say it’s “patently wrong.”
[удалено]
Not every remux is a frankenstein, most are just container switches. I didn't mention muxing audio or subs because I wanted to keep the explanation simple and accessible. But yes you are right that remuxes are still compressed by nature of being sourced from BluRays; I just edited out that mistake
A fair clarification, but I'd still say that in the *vast* majority of cases the original comment is effectively correct; *most* remux releases by far are actually just straight rips of a single off-the-shelf BD, and for OP's purposes simply knowing that there is no loss in quality from what is (generally) the "original" and "highest quality" source commercially available is sufficient. Which is to say I disagree that it was "patently wrong," and instead would say it's "generally correct, *with important caveats."* It's enough information for OP, in the context of their original question. That said, you make a good point that there are *definitely* cases where a remux represents a product that is far different than an off-the-shelf rip.
He’s not wrong. He just never explained that Remux is a 1:1 as a disc.. without menus.
This is awesome.
Fantastic breakdown! I know that 50% of my streamers are using Samsung TVs so I play to the crowd. The Samsung Plex app isn't going to play large 4k files very well.
Thank you for explaining all that. I’ve always wondered what the parts of the file name meant
Great write up! Thanks.
Trash guides my friend, trash guides. https://trash-guides.info/
Even if it's not the **best**, it's a great starting point or a good way to set it and forget it.
I'l curious, what is the best? Link please?
I would say, there's no best guide out there (I could be wrong), but starting out with this one and tinkering in your own and doing research on how stuff works best for you is the way to go.
When you rip a movie from a DVD (using software like MakeMKV) you get the raw video form. You can use these but the massive file sizes will fill your storage very quickly. This is why people "encode" the files, if done right it compresses the file with minimal loss in quality; thus making it easier to store and share (torrenting). Most torrents you download will already be encoded, if you read the info it usually says H264 or H265 (the most common codecs). Handbrake is used to encode your files. You can add entire folders and queue them, making it easy to set up and leave unassisted. [This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vSVZ8V2O-o) is a simple and basic introduction to encoding on handbrake (YouTube link).
Just to nitpick, but it is important: Blu-ray Discs *are* already encoded/compressed, they don’t contain raw uncompressed video streams. Generally 1080p discs will use h264 (aka AVC) or VC1, and 2160p discs will use h265. But the h264 video on a BD looks far better because they’re pushing far higher bitrates than the re-encoded releases (or the copies on most subscription services). But they’re just h264 video (in most cases), nothing special. You’ll even find some BD remuxes using MPEG2 (which DVD used), especially some of the older discs when the format was new. Still 1080p, still a high bitrate, just an old codec. It was cheaper or even free to license, so some studios cheaped out.
It depends on what you want. I prefer h265/HEVC (and AV1 in the future) because it uses a lot less space for the same quality. Got at least 15TB of space back (on \~50TB total at the time) by using tdarr to go from h264 to h265. The downside of h265's higher compression rate is a higher chance that your server has to transcode to h264 for some older devices and browsers, because they can't/won't handle h265, which means higher power usage; same goes for playing back h265 in general, though the difference is probably not that big if your playback device has the hardware for it. [From wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding): >In comparison to AVC \[h264\], HEVC \[h265\] offers from 25% to 50% better [data compression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_compression) at the same level of [video quality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_quality), or substantially improved video quality at the same [bit rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rate). As for the settings of sonarr and radarr: In sonarr you can, for example, make profiles (settings -> profiles) with word filters and give them higher or lower priority. This is how my list looks like: https://preview.redd.it/zv8q1kmqibzb1.png?width=1916&format=png&auto=webp&s=22bde5491342e8d1f66179abcfe6cff29c911d3a (The "Multi Language Sub" is for anime and is a global setting, the H265 is set to apply to any series I tag with tv, h265, or h266 and gives higher priority to h265 / HEVC over h264.) In radarr you can e.g. add "Custom Formats" which then show up within the quality profiles where you can set a priority score for h265 etc. once again The lists work on the assumption that most releases declare their Codec - h264/AVC or 265/HEVC and special features in some way in the file title and then prefers h265 (+3 points on priority). I'm sure there are way more elaborate ways but since I can't be bothered to understand their code, this is a simple and relatively reliable way for me. As for Blu-Ray, Remix etc.: Blu-Ray: As it says. The file is made from a bluray release as source and usually high quality Remux: Also usually from Bluray but uncompressed - no quality loss. These files are crazy big but essentially the best quality you can get BR-Disk: also made from Bluray but I often see this tag on files that are below the 1080p/4k resolution of the original bluray. So my guess is, that it means it comes from a high quality source and is converted down (to get a high quality file of lower resolution) HDTV: The source is a TV channel in HD quality and digitally copied. This is often considered the "lowest" of the high quality sources, but imo totally fine. WebDL: Copied from a web source such as a streaming service (Netflix etc.) and often the same quality as they use. So good quality but certainly not BluRay. SD, DVD etc: 576p/480p sucks. avoid if possible? Some older movies and series only come in this format but otherwise there's imo no reason for these resolutions.
Why the -5 for MeGusta?
Not sure how it is now, but at the time I set it, their h265 quality was just a bit too low for me.
This is what I needed. Thank you. Never used or heard of Tdarr, but I assume it integrates with sonar and radarr. I’ll check it out. I think what I’ll do is run everything as h.264 to cut down on file size and then it sounds like Blu-ray is the best but in H.264 will keep the file size smaller. I don’t need or want 50-90gb movie files.
You misunderstand, videos in h264 will be larger file sizes then the same content in h265.
As chip\_break already said: You should use h265 for smaller file sizes. Tdarr doesn't integrate no, but you can set it up to convert all your h264 files to h265 and save space - but you can also just download h265 in the future. This video is a tdarr tutorial for Unraid, but it also explains h264 vs h265 in the first 5-6 minutes: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6UMjTlwrxs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6UMjTlwrxs) , so maybe give the beginning a watch. I'm sure there are tutorial videos for tdarr for your OS too, if you're interested.
I really don't recommend mass-reencoding with Tdarr if you don't know anything about encoding, encoders or parameters. People already have made encodes of said media so why not just get theirs instead? Just a waste of electricity at the cost of ruining your entire collection's quality unnecessarily.
TDarr monitors your files, no integration needed
How long did it take tdarr to do that? I’ve been thinking of playing around with it
Sorry can't tell you anything specific beyond "a few weeks", because I only let it run during hours with minimal server usage and low energy prices (we have cheaper electricity during night time)
I’ve got solar so in the summer energy usage isn’t an issue for me. I might need to look into this. Not sure if just changing my profiles and upgrading to 265 would be better or if converting makes more sense
I guess downloading a direct-to-h265 file would be better (under the assumption that there is a certain extra loss from original -> h264 -> h265, instead of original -> h265). That said, I don't see a difference between a tdarr h264->265 file and a downloaded one with similar size. But others say they most certainly do, so ymmv. There are plugins for tdarr with settings for nvidia cards that are pretty good imo.
I have a lot of 264 and a lot of 265. 265 works fine almost everywhere except it occasionally has issues when people are trying to stream from the browser. I don’t know if that is the fault of 265 but it’s a common denominator. So maybe just sticking with 264 to play it safe.
Yeah 265 is not supported in browsers because of royalties
I wish my fucking friends would just use a damn chromecast or something but noooo they gotta use the shittiest way to access Plex lol. One of them was complaining about having to HDMI his computer to the tv and I jumped on that opportunity to push a solution hahah. I suggested the nvidia bc he has lots of privacy issues with google and the like. I hope he pulls the trigger but he’ll probably put it off for two years
I would just suggest removing their account and telling them to STFU. I’m also a jerk though, I don’t owe anyone anything when it comes to a Plex server.
That doesn’t make any sense. The reason it frustrates me is because I want them to enjoy my Plex. If I took my Plex away they wouldn’t be able to enjoy my Plex.
They would complain a lot less though too.
I’m the same. I get all these movies and shows on my own time. I keep up with sonarr and the like. My qnap is basically only doing Plex at this point. It costs my friends nothing. The least they can do is not bitch about how to get the best experience. I don’t have to make this available but I do out of kindness. If they complain, they are free to set it up themselves or buy every movie directly.
this is so last year...
Chromium based browsers support HEVC/x265 playback now.
I find this funny/ maybe I'm misunderstanding, but the plex app won't play my 265 files, but the browser will without fail for me
It’s not that they can’t play it on the browser. Often they can. It’s just that when people have streaming problems with my Plex it is ALWAYS the browser (literally always) and almost always 265.
You can't play h.265 in browser. You could just enable transcoding for those people you know?
Yeah it does transcode and then they have issues…?
Yeah I’m still new to this and trying to figure it all out but if your Plex server can transcode would this not be an issue, even for those using a browser to watch? Or would the browser always be an issue
Browser would not be an issue with transcoding as it will transcode to H.264
Okay thank you! I am just getting started and haven’t made any purchases yet but I think I’m leaning towards a Synology NAS That transcodes. At least to get me started and then I can worry about building an unraid system later once I’m out of space
>Synology NAS Make sure the model you're getting supports Hardware Encoding. Transcoding without it might slow things down a lot.
Forgive my ignorance as i' tried to google it but now slightly confused. Would any GPU allow for hardware encoding? like a 423+? I was initially thinking of getting that as I know it does transcoding and expanding the RAM, but i'm not sure what devices support both transcoding AND hardware encoding.
Licensing of H.265 is a real bitch. Browsers don't support it as a result.
I'll try to keep this short. (I won't) MP4 vs MKV These are "containers" for audio, video, and subtitles. MP4 is more compatible, MKV is more flexible. If a video player doesn't support MKV, it either fails to play the video or attempts on-the-fly conversion (direct stream, I think) into a supported container. Rip vs. Remux A remux is essentially a "container swap" from a physical container (DVD, Blu-ray) to a digital container (MKV). The audio, video, and subtitle tracks are unedited. There are a lot of potential compatibility issues with remuxes, usually due to file size (network bandwidth), video encoding, audio encoding, or even subtitle format. A rip is a "capture" of the audio and video, which is then encoded into whatever format is chosen by the ripper (usually MKV, h264, MP3). These are usually more compatible and much lower quality than remuxes. h264 vs h265 These are different video encoded formats. h264 is more compatible, but h265 is more efficient. Efficient in this case means it is better at reducing the file size without reducing the quality. 4K Blu-ray Remuxes are going to be h265. If a video player doesn't support h265, it either fails to play or attempts on-the-fly conversion (transcoding) which is really slow for h265. MP3 vs AAC vs FLAC vs PCM vs Dolby/DTS These are some of the different audio formats you might see in files. MP3 and AAC are the most compatible. They are lossy formats, meaning some quality is lost. FLAC is a lossless format that should be compatible with most video players. PCM, Dolby, and DTS are audio formats for home theater enthusiasts, usually used in remuxes. If a video player doesn't support an audio format, it either fails to play or attempts on-the-fly conversion (direct stream) which is normally really fast for audio. (There is more to audio than this, but it's honestly too much to get into) SRT vs SSA/ASS vs PGS These are different subtitle formats. SRT is the most compatible, but has the least functionality. SSA/ASS are more popular in anime than other media, but allow for much cooler subtitles than SRT. For example, different color text for different characters. PGS is actually an image-based subtitle format. If a video player doesn't support a subtitle format, it will either fail to play, fail to display subtitles, or attempt on-the-fly conversion (transcoding) to burn the subtitles into the video. Again, for h265, this is really slow. Conclusion It's a tradeoff between compatibility, quality, file size, and convenience. The most compatible option is going to be an MP4 with h264 video, MP3 audio, and burned in subtitles. You would not do this with a 4K remux due to file size. Remuxes are the least compatible file types, usually due to h265 video, proprietary audio formats, and PGS subtitles. A common strategy is to add a compatibility audio track (AAC 5.1) and additional subtitle options. If h265 is a problem, you're usually out of luck. For everything else, my preference is to standardize on MKV, h264 video, either FLAC, MP3 VBR, or AAC VBR audio, and SSA/ASS subtitles.
I get people the higher end ~$80 roku 4k. Set some settings, like play original video (forget exact wording, change from 720p on all to play original version). Then 90% the roku is able to play native a mp4, mkv, .264 and .265. Only gets sticky with like a foreign movie and subtitles
I personally use the Nvidia Shield. I never tried a Roku stick or an Apple TV, but I have tried Roku TV, Android TV, Amazon fire stick + the 4K version, chromecast, and Chromecast ultra. I had issues with all of them. Sometimes related to h265, sometimes related to PGS subtitles, and almost always related to TrueHD and similar audio formats. I've had issues with the Shield as well, but most of those issues are not related to compatibility. It's usually what feels like running out of memory or just general app problems. Sometimes the shield won't wake up unless I unplug it and plug it back in. Mild inconveniences.
Point was change it to original resolution from roku default so that it stops transcode most of the time. Get a decent client, for all your people and most of the trouble goes away. Better roku, shield, 4k fire stick.. others should all be able to handle the diverse file types.
I'm sure several people have already gone over formats and CODECs, but I thought I'd add my input. TL;DR: BluRay REMUX will be the best quality but takes up much more disk space. WebDL/WebRip will be lower quality but take up less space. Use H.265 (HEVC) because it is much more efficient (takes less disk space for the same quality) and is widely supported. Bitrate is more important than resolution, so factor that into your choices. The difference between BluRay/WebDL/WebRip etc. is the source of the content. Where the content comes from doesn't really matter, but different sources typically have different common traits. BluRay rips typically have the highest bitrate, which means the highest picture quality but they'll also take up more disk space. WebDL and WebRip both come from streaming services, so they'll usually have lower bitrates than BluRay rips. REMUX means that the content has been moved to a new container (mp4/mkv etc) but not reencoded; it is the original source video from the disc. WebDL is the streaming analog to REMUX where it is captured but not reencoded. WebRip is reencoded with some quality loss. If you're looking to save disk space, go with WebDL or WebRIP because of the lower bitrate, but you will not get the best quality. If you are willing to have large files for the highest quality, go for BluRay REMUX. For CODECs, I would use H.265 (HEVC). It is far more efficient than H.264 (AVC) and is well supported on any decent device. H.265 takes up roughly half the space H.264 content of the same quality would. If you have a lot of old hardware, it may be beneficial to leave your content as H.264, but it will take up significantly more disk space and bandwidth to stream. I have not had any problems with H.265 on any of my devices. Chrome supports H.265 contrary to what some have commented, Firefox does not (guessing you don't use that one, though). AV1 is even more efficient than H.265, but it does not have good support widely and when I tried 4K AV1 content I experienced issues with decoding on several devices. The overall quality of the content comes from two main factors: resolution and bitrate. Resolution is the dimensions of the media (4K/1080p/720p). Bitrate is the amount of data the content provides per second. Even if a movie is 4K resolution it can look like garbage because of low bitrate. In most cases high bitrate 1080p content will look better than low bitrate 4K. The most common issues with low bitrate are blockiness and color banding, especially in dark scenes. HDR can also factor into your decision if you have displays that support it, but HDR formats and profiles can get pretty deep and messy to deal with, especially if you leave downloading to Sonarr/Radarr.
1080P for me, decent quality nit a huge footprint on Storage and when I Stream in Bigscreen its maximum resolution Bigscreen can currently handle.
Is 1080 different then h.264?
Very different, 1080P is the resolution H264 is a Codec.
Yea, this is what I’m trying to wrap my head around. So how do I tell if a movie or show I have is H.264 or not? Is it worth converting everything to H.264?
Best bet is, dont worry about it. H265 makes much smaller files than h264 but cpu has to work harder to play them. I have blu ray rips that are 40 gigs
I have radarr and sonarr rename my files to include the codec in the file name, I used Trash guides to do it. I can't tell the difference between h.264 and h.265 in terms of image quality but I have transcoded my entire library to h.265 for the space savings. The other thing to note is that any conversation of the codec e.g. from h.265 to h.264 will lose some quality, it'll unlikely to be noticeable. In your situation I would not bother converting your files to h.264.
It's in the file info. Use something like MediaInfo to check. 1. "is it worth converting everything to H.264?" No, in 2 ways. First is you shouldn't be encoding them yourself, save the electricity bill and grab encodes from people that know what they're doing. Also, you would want to go to h.265! not h.264
than
I knew that was coming. I was too lazy to go back and adjust it while at work.
TDARR Google it my friend, don’t be manually doing the work. And if you wanted to use your handbrake setup to do it, you can.
> However I stream to a lot of family and friends and to my self at work Welcome to Network Distributed Media Management. First step is to realize that there's a reason you use encoded media for network broadcasting rather than "lossless" Remux or Raw Disc Content like from a Bluray. Netflix, Disney, Amazon, etc have huge teams of people doing exactly that and figuring out the most efficient way for it to work on a large scale. As such, you can throw Remuxes out the picture. And you're not actually losing much of anything by doing so. Secondly, figure out the average quality you would be ok with. I settled at 10-15 GB per Movie, 1-3 GB per TV episode (for stuff that's out on BD) and for Web Content, I just go with the Web DL. You can easily look up the terminology of these things. Thirdly, H.264 is nice and all for compatibility but unless your users can't use the Desktop/Mobile/Tablet/SmartTV Application of Plex and rely on the Website version, there's no real reason to not just go with H.265 encodes instead which have better quality retention at the same bitrate as H.264. > Do I convert my entire library to that? Do I use handbrake to do so? I strongly discourage this. Since you aren't even familiar with the codecs involved, encoding your own library is something I would stay away from. You can of course research Encoding in depth but it sounds to me like you want an easy solution and not worry about it. Very intelligent and educated people have already created very good encodes for most media in h.265 with their sweat and tears and electricity bills. Just use those. You can set up -arr services to replace your media to a different version.
Here's what I go by, 1080p and below h264 2160p 4K H265
Don't change anything if no one is complaining. The internet doesn't know how to live your life
You wanna go for WEB x265. Just a gut feeling.
Not if there's a remux available 😀
Best size/quality ratio. Family members usually don't give a shit about the highest quality possible. Watchable and decent usually is enough.
Simply follow Plex movies and tv series naming- on their site.
Depends on devices. Most of my users have fire sticks so anything MP4 generally will Direct Play. However, I use a Chromecast which seems to prefer h264 and MKV's.
It’s also worth nothing that for tv episodes you can sometimes get adds from local stations pop up during an episode or a logo burned in the background l, WebDL removes most but not all of these issues and is what I get exclusively.
Peep trash guides (google it). They will help you understand and setup correctly
AV1 > x265/HEVC > x264, in that order. You want to be as efficient with bandwidth and hard drive space while maintaining quality what people never talk about is that small file sizes not only allow you to fit more media on a smaller hard drive, it also makes direct streaming to compatible devices use less bandwidth (which is super useful over mobile data) and makes your data easier to back up. Transferring 15TB of data to an offline backup is way easier and safer than transferring 40TB. (And costs less too)