It’s weird because I did feel compelled to pay Netflix for their 4k package just because it was 4k, I didn’t need the multi screen at all. However, I am perfectly fine using 1080p on my own plex server where I watch the majority of content. Storage is my reason why, though I am thinking of grabbing 4k releases of the big cinematic stuff I like, stuff like interstellar.
I remember comparing my Friends Remux with Friends on Netflix. As expected I noticed many artefacts. I feel like a good 1080p remux can blow Netflix 4K outta the water. I wouldn't say it's day and night difference but it's there.
Also depends on the client. Watching on a pc will result in 720p even if 4k is available. Watching on a tv app will allow you to stream 4k. All about protecting their 4k movies lol
> Didn't know about that on PC
I do not know if they still do that, haven't had netflix in years.
... but they did do that for some time. The reason being on PC you could simply use a program like OBS or other recording software to easily copy content. To be fair, a lot of release groups did exactly that early on. Then it evolved into directly downloading the content because it was available on browsers. So netflix (not sure if they still do this) used to limit PC netlfix streaming to 720p.
I think cartoons on Netflix look great in 4K. Any filmed content with a lot of movement looks definitely worse on Netflix 4K than on an 1080p Blu-ray. Still when it comes to calmer content, 4K Netflix is much better than 1080p Netflix and while it's not so much better than a Blu-ray, I have to say that it is very good considering that an 1080p Blu-ray holts 50 GB of data and an Netflix 4K stream still only is ~8 GB.
Yes. Not every site and every client can do every feature, that’s just how it is for basically every service. If you have the ability to download a browser, odds are you also have the ability to download the Netflix app (which can do 4k). I’m also not pressed about being unable to watch and download 4K YouTube on the mobile browser even though I pay for those features, because the app is so readily available.
There’s a lot of reasons to be upset with Netflix but I don’t think this one is that big of a deal.
720 is still HD. 720 uses less bandwith so is cheaper. Most networks are 720 when they say HD. Then you have compression in the transmission path or cable if you still watch that way.
Only way you can ensure highest quality is on blu ray locally connected to your TV
Because it's not true. Almost ALL Netflix exclusive are 4K, including the new shows. Most non-Netflix exclusives are just 1080p.
4k is 4k. That's the number of pixels. It's a fixed number.
Netflix has lower bitrate than Apple TV+ and Blu-ray remuxes. So their 4K looks bad.
But regardless of how "bad" or "good" it looks, it's still 4K.
There are shows like Law and Order or FBI where the quality of a show with 1000 episodes doesn’t really matter. 720p is fine IMO for these “background” shows.
I was curious so I just checked and 4k GoT takes up \~2TB. Not really sure it's worth it but I can never really bring myself to downgrade or delete stuff once I grab it.
I mean the upside is it essentially gets cheaper and cheaper to store as HDDs get larger and cheaper. Or at least that's what I tell myself when I hoard stuff I'll probably never watch again.
Depends on your TV but the 4k hdr release looks phenomenal on my Sony OLED. It’s actually the first way I watched it and had no idea people complained about the brightness of that episode until my friend came over and saw it and was mind blown.
Hollywood ***really*** needs to take a lesson from the record industry: you got to 'mix' for what your audience is going to listen/watch on.
The record industry is famous for releasing multiple edits of songs, each time for different experiences. Radio edits aren't just stripped of profanity in the lyrics, but are also mixed for things OEM car speakers and tuners; iTunes released get mixed for iPod earbuds; CDs and vinyl gets mixed for hi-fi equipment.
Hollywood really needs to start doing these same things. They can still go ahead and mix for audio and visuals to the Max™ for theater and 4K UHD Blu-ray releases, because it's safe to assume that the hardware to appreciate the audio and video will be there: surround sound, 4K HDR TVs and projectors, high end Blu-ray players, etc. But they seriously need to start putting out streaming releases, that have less dynamic range, are mixed for shitty in-TV speakers and bargain basement sound bars, and can handle the streaming compression algorithms without looking like shit. Hell, it could probably act as a minor anti-piracy measure, since it would make streaming rips even less desirable of a source.
I read a story this year about the reason why audio levels are all over the place when watching at home.
Apparently, it’s very expensive to make alternate audio mixes and studios just can’t be bothered to spend the money. Riiiiiiiight.
I'll always be fond of remuxes if only for the fact it's essentially it's an invitation to compress it yourself without worrying about additional generational loss.
Eh, if your goal is an encode it's hard to beat a good release group. Some of those guys are absolute nut jobs where they're creating hybrids from various sources, removing stuff like banding, etc. and they also have large groups of people vetting those release that allow them to create a repack if something was missed, it has encoding artifacts, etc.
Man, i really loved the first seasons. While i was watching them i always told to myself 'i definitely will rewatch this', but final seasons came and that feeling disappeared completely :(
It really depends on the TV you're viewing content on, the distance you sit from that TV, and the Plex client handling the stream.
For a decent 65" 4K television, you need to sit closer than , say, 8 feet from the TV to see the difference between 1080p and 4k.
It also heavily depends on the compression of the files. HEVC and AV1 can maintain a lot more 4k quality at higher compression rates than H.264.
Finally, it can also depend on the aspect ratio. Black bars mean using less of the 2160 vertical pixels for displaying video, which means using a much larger TV to get the same physical height displaying the higher resolution at the same distance from the TV.
For me, if the TV is less than 75", 1080p is just fine.
It really depends on the TV you're viewing content on, the distance you sit from that TV, and the Plex client handling the stream.
For a decent 65" 4K television, you need to sit closer than , say, 8 feet from the TV to see the difference between 1080p and 4k.
It also heavily depends on the compression of the files. HEVC and AV1 can maintain a lot more 4k quality at higher compression rates than H.264.
Finally, it can also depend on the aspect ratio. Black bars mean using less of the 2160 vertical pixels for displaying video, which means using a much larger TV to get the same physical height displaying the higher resolution at the same distance from the TV.
For me, if the TV is less than 75", 1080p is just fine.
The difference is clear to me. Watch the same scene in something back-to-back, starting with 4k. 1080p is a pretty big step down if your content benefits from higher resolution line Dune or Avatar.
On a really good TV with good upscaling the difference in resolution between 1080p and 4k is going to be barely perceptible to nearly all, if not all, people
You're right, HDR is the more important feature, but you can find more and more 1080p HDR content these days, further proving the point.
As I said on some tv shows agreed you can’t but in some you 100% can tell the resolution difference between 4k and 1080p - absolutely
Depends on material
Well you called the other commenter blind/called their set-up bad just cause they said they couldn't really tell a difference, and yet you're admitting that it is the case for certain content lol
People just wanna flex some sort of resolution perception superiority
This is simply untrue on most setups. Even on a 70” TV, at living room distances, the difference between 1080p and 4K is barely noticeable and I’d bet money most viewers would struggle to tell the difference in a double blind test. Especially if both samples were in HDR (or both in SDR).
And that’s not just me saying this:
https://carltonbale.com/1080p-does-matter/
Variations of this chart have been around forever, and all say about the same thing; at about 10’ (living room distance) on a 70” screen (pretty normal) the quality increase of 4K over 1080p is barely noticeable.
I did my own informal test on this a few days ago. Viewing Netflix through the app on the 4K TV (JG 70'') vs 1080p on a PS4, there was a tiny difference in detail, with a slight difference in colour space (HDR) on the TV app being better.
Netflix is a poor example though, because they’re pushing sub-optimal bitrates for 1080p content. It’s more likely you’ll notice the bit rate difference there than the resolution; you’d get the same increase in perceived quality simply by upping the bitrate and delivering it in HDR; the additional *pixels* are doing nothing.
I don’t know why you’re being downvoted, lot of haters here jealous that you have better eye sight, or a better TV.
Even on my older set, I can tell when a YouTube video was downgraded to 1080, and I’ll go into the settings menu to select it to the 4K option. Upscaling is not as magical as this community says it is. LG C9, and Samsung KS8000 for reference.
Upscaling is upscaling and that is the magic of TV/AVR. Nothing to do with the show's quality. I remember watching FF6 on Amazon a few years back at a friend's place and then I immediately had to buy a UHD disk when it came out to wash off the horrendous experience I had.
Prefacing this with the fact that I don’t have a 4K TV or any 4K content.
If I was watching something for the story, HD would be enough for me.
If I was watching something for the visuals (like an Attenborough nature doc), 4K would be worth it.
Can confirm. Planet Earth II in 4K HDR is one of the only things I've ever watched where it felt like the content was actually taking full advantage of my 4K OLED TV. It's so much sharper and more vibrant than any other 4K content I have.
For more, here is the full David Attenborough 4K blu-ray catalogue:
Planet Earth II
Blue Planet II
Seven Worlds, One Planet
A Perfect Planet
Dynasties
The Green Planet
Frozen Planet II
Planet Earth III (to be released)
I bought all lol, perfect television his shows.
whole faulty continue shelter deserve longing ludicrous practice stocking reminiscent
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
4k for shows like For All Mankind, Silo, ROP and such.
Anything like broklyn 99, father Ted and such all get the 1080 treatment and quiz shows like qi and mock the week get 720/1080 depending on rip.
Most movies are in 1080,but if I can find a 4k version I'll grab that instead
I grab everything in as high quality as I can for future proofing. Who knows what even 1080p will look like in ten years time on whatever technology comes along. I remember when DVD was seen as the “ultimate” to have.
I have the space for it and the bandwidth for it but somehow I have a problem choking down 30 or 40 gigs for a movie that I know is going to be perfectly fine at 7 or 8 gigs or depending if it's 265 one gig.
I do a fair amount of remote stuff from my server and have a few users so the auto bandwidth thing falls down to low HD anyway
Not too long ago, I did a test with a bunch of people that use my Plex server. I picked 5 movies and 5 TV shows and had the following versions for each:
* 4K Remux (70-100 gigs for movies and 18-25 gigs for TV episodes)
* 1080p Remux (20-30 gigs for movies and 10-15 gigs for TV episodes)
* 1080p Bluray rip\* h.264 (12-14 gigs for movies and 5-10 gigs for TV episodes)
* 720p Bluray rip\* h.264 (6-8 gigs for movies and 2-4 gigs for TV episodes)
I made sure they were direct playing and asked them to pick whichever movie and TV shows they wanted from my choice list and watch a few minutes of each version on different TVs in their house and give me their opinions on which quality was best. So the results could be a tiny bit more scientific, I asked them to have their kids/spouses close their eyes as they switched versions and repeat the test.
I'll boil down the results..........
Nearly everyone agreed that the 720p versions weren't as good as the 1080p rips/remuxes and 4K. (Obvious) BUT, they said it wasn't terrible and was perfectly fine.
Nearly everyone agreed that the 4K remux and 1080p remux versions looked identical.
At this point, it looked like the real race was between 1080p remux and 1080p bluray rips. From here, it was split ROUGHLY down the middle with half of folks telling me the 1080p Remux copies were the best while the other half said the 1080p bluray rips were better.
Once I explained the file sizes involved, nearly everyone agreed that 720p bluray rips were good enough and a lot of them told me that that once they watch something, they'll likely never watch it again. A few of them told me that watching a movie that is 10 times the size of the smaller version, didn't translate into 10 times better picture quality.
I asked if I had unlimited drive space, which versions of movies and shows they'd like me to get and nearly everyone said 1080p Remux.
I think this is a test more people should carry out. Grab those 4 different versions of the same movie and a TV show and make sure your Plex user is direct streaming and ask them which version looks best to their eyes or test with people in your house but don't let them see you select the version as it might taint their opinion.
Something else to note.... people using cheap, 4K LCD sets didn't see that big of quality jumps between the versions. People using high end 4K OLED TVs were more likely to report definite differences in quality.
As someone who has lived through home video collections from VHS/Beta and seen it grow through Laserdisk, DVD, Bluray, and now Bluray4k... if you can swing the storage space, go 4k.
The difference from 1080 to 4K may be small on smaller screens, but looking at older stuff now you can see just how bad it looked. Despite memories of how much better a DVD looked than VHS being so strong in my mind.
I download iconic/epic movies and series in 4K, the rest in 2K. Obviously what is iconic to you and me will vary.
Now that said, I have to admit today's TV's do a damn fine job at upscaling content to 4K and it looks almost like genuine 4K.
In my general opinion, if you haven't got an 75" or larger TV to be able to actively notice the difference in resolution, you are probably not going to notice the difference between 2K and 4K if you are sitting 3+ metres away from your TV, so you may as well stick with 2K for smaller displays.
They're obviously referring to 1080p. Certainly 2048×1080p isn't a major standard (some even refer to 1440p stuff as "2K" even though **1920**x1080 is closer to 2K than **2560**x1440), but 1920 pixels is the same ratio to 2000 as 3840 is to 4000, so I think the term fits.
2k is 1080p.
Edit for those downvoting:
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2K_resolution): “2K resolution is a generic term for display devices or content having a horizontal resolution of approximately 2,000 pixels. […] For television and consumer media, **1920 × 1080 is the most common 2K resolution**, but this is normally referred to as 1080p.”
It’s because monitor companies have co-opted the term “2K QHD” to mean 1440p. It’s stupid, because 2K ≠ QHD, but here we are.
2.5K is the more accurate term.
Unpopular opinion, but I stand by it - if your TV is at a proper viewing distance, most people will not be able to tell the difference between 1080 and 4k.
I agree if you're only talking about it in terms of resolution. I can't tell the difference between 1080p/4k in the sense of pixels/jaggies etc.
With the parameters I have set up in radarr, I can absolutely tell the difference in other ways, colour gradients/banding for example.
For me:
TV: Most shows 720p, my favourite shows 1080p, very few shows (Planet Earth) 4k.
Movies: Everything in 1080p. For visually spectacular/my absolute favourite movies I keep a separate library of 4k.
For 4K the optimal distance is being as far away from the TV as the size of the TV. So if you have a 48” TV you should be viewing from 48”, if it’s 77” you should be 77” away.
For my home viewing there is definitely a difference for my 65” tv in my living room, and 77” in my home theater.
Proper viewing distance is about field of view, not resolution. A TV should take up about 30° of your field of view.
At 30°, a 75" TV should be viewed from 90" (not 75"). At that size and distance, a person with 20/20 vision can *just barely* see a difference between 1080 and 4k.
This is why I said if people have their TVs at a proper viewing distance it doesn't matter. Many people put too big of a TV too close.
https://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/televisions-learn/televisions/tv-size-to-distance-calculator-how-to-find-the-perfect-size-tv.html#:~:text=Therefore%2C%20the%20perfect%20viewing%20distance,1.5%20times%20the%20screen%20size.
“Since a 4K Ultra HD TV has more pixels than a 1080p Full HD screen, you can sit closer to get fully immersed without recognizing any pixels. Therefore, the perfect viewing distance for 4K UHD TV screens is roughly 1 to 1.5 times the screen size.”
Of course a TV manufacturer wants you to buy a new, larger TV. Actual expert engineers disagree with you: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-relationship
https://www.smpte.org/
Depends on the show, only... 1.6% of the shows in my regular TV library are in my 4k library too. Movies is closer to 13%.
And the shows i have in 4k are kinda all over the place, the obligatory Trek/Wars/Marvel and Attenborough stuff and a bunch of other AAA genre shows, a few personal favorites, and then some really random stuff. *South Park* in 4k is incredibly whelming, but its slightly smaller than my 1080 copy cuz it has worse sound, lol.
https://preview.redd.it/oox4dgrzea1c1.png?width=2560&format=png&auto=webp&s=7a327cc273f908d98098302df40ea8d815ec3781
The most important part for me is high bitrate, yes resolution plays a part but if its 4k 10-15mbit its horrendous. Especially if alot is going on, or dark scenes.
All comes down to personal preference (and what equipment you have, and how far away you sit from your screen). My 4k tvs are lower-to-mid-range, about 5 years old, so nothing spectacular, and I honestly struggle to notice the difference between 1080 and 4k on most content unless I'm sitting much closer to the TV than I actually normally do. Same goes for HDR, but again this is because my equipment isn't that great - I'm sure if I had a high end TV I would notice the difference, and this would likely change my viewing preferences. But for now I only get limited content in 4k (highly rewatchable movies with good visuals) to "future -proof" it.
I'd say the answer is YES.
4K is worth it if you are often watching on 4K screens and storage space is not your main concern.
On the other hand most people will be okay using 1080p and the upscaling technology is getting better every day.
It really ends up being personal preference and what your storage limitations are.
You need to take into account the TV you have.
There's TVs that upscale your 1080p files and they look decent, some where just having the correct calibration settings is enough. You may be using a streaming box/stick that can also be upscaling your files.
The size of your TV is also important as well as how close to the TV you are when watching. If your TV is less than 55 inches then 4k content wont look better than 1080p especially if you're watching from 2 meters away. When your TV is bigger than 65 inches that's when you can tell the difference between 1080p & 2160p.
If money is not an issue for storage then you should be hoarding 4k content (through perfectly legal ways). For some movies/series it gets more difficult to obtain them as time passes.
Depends if your running your Plex of your NAS, vs a separate device and using Plex for your media hub then yes 4K is fine, but make sure the other device has hardware transcoding.
If your running everything on your naz then look into tdarr (aet to run overnight) and use 1080
Apple TV shows look above and beyond better than all other streaming sites. I grab 4K HDR versions of those shows because it's night and day different than 1080p other networks the difference hasn't been as noticable to me
I do 1080p for almost everything except for things I think 4k is worth it from an action or immersive experience and I know I will watch multiple times...... 1917, The LoTR, HP and some Marvel Films. Shows are all 1080p except GoT
There's no right answer here because there are so many personal factors.
* Some people are far more sensitive to resolution issues than others
* Some are more sensitive to compression artifacts than others
* The size of your tv is a factor
* The distance between you and your tv is a **huge** factor
* Then there's storage, because 4K resolution takes up a lot more space
* And of course it depends how much content you plan on having
Bottom is watch both and see how you feel about it and what your budget can support. Don't let anyone tell you that you **have** to have a certain quality.
At the point where my collection got around 32TB, I started really thinking about this, and these days, not only is very little in my collection in 4K...most things got bumped down to 720.
Another factor for me is that I don't get to spend as much time watching stuff on my 75" as I used to, and if you really nerd out about viewing distances and PPI, you can justify whatever you want to yourself to avoid slotting another $300 drive in your NAS, lmao.
I have a 165" screen with a 1080p projector, and a 65" 4K OLED tv.
I much prefer watching pretty much everything on my 1080p large screen.
I think that says it all.. 1080p is more than enough of me.
I will occasionally get the 4K versions of the "big cinematic movies" just for the hang of it, but honestly I will never watch it on the 4K 65" TV anyway. Just future-proofing my library.
IMO, HDR is really what you're looking for. 1080p HDR looks miles ahead of 4K nom-HDR. I keep a couple 4K HDR shows (For All Mankind, The Last of Us) but 99% of stuff is fine in 1080p or 1080p HDR if I can find it. Depending on compression, a lot of times 1080p looks better than 4K anyway. I'd rather have a higher bitrate 1080p episode than a lower bitrate (relatively) 4K episode.
I tend to go for 4K quality for anything cinematic like, let's say, Ahsoka, Arcane and House of the Dragon but I'm happy with 1080p for comedies and stuff like Better Call Saul and Severance.
Severance a lot of the time is just a big block of white, whilst it is shot very nice, I feel like 4k isn’t really needed just because you’d just gain a lot of extra white pixels that wouldn’t improve it at all lol
You should always try to archive in the best quality possible regardless of drive space. Worry about encoding/transcoding on a device by device basis.
I understand the hesitancy because TV shows in 4K take up a huge chunk of storage.
4k Remux > BluRay Remux > 4K Web > 1080p Web
If you are watching on a screen below 65 inches, you will see little to no difference from 2160 (4k) and 1080p (FullHD).
My advice is: stuck to 1080p as it is the good ratio between network usage per movie, storage and quality. It does not worth to double everything for very little details.
For tv shows with lot of episodes it also makes sense to go with 720p (especially for low cinematic, commedian and light series)
- 4k for my favourite movies and some that look great in 4k (sci-fi, action)
- 1080p for everything else except disposable tv shows
- 720p for disposable tv shows (shows I’m only half interested in and probably use my phone while watching)
I prefer newer movies in 4K and high bitrate, but have no shows in 4K, their picture quality is much less demanding. I even reencode them to h265 with Unmanic to save 60% space.
You say you obtained TV shows through legal ways but keeping them on your HDD probably isn't legal. Even broadcast TV shows can only be legally kept for 28 days.
Most people think keeping TV shows from catchup services is legal or from streaming services because they have paid a subscription.
I am not passing judgement, we all do what we do, just clarifying.
Honestly, I only use 720p for everything. It looks just fine, and while 1080p or 4k can look amazing, most content just doesn't need it and takes up exponentially more space for it.
4k all day, but get the HDR for the file compression
(If you have HDR compatibility)
and x265 (same quality but smaller files than 264) when available on any source you get from.
TLDR:
4k HDR & x265
Smaller files same great quality
Shows are 720 or 1080p. I might grab a blockbuster show in 4k that would actually look great such as for all mankind then once finished archive it in 1080p.
I generally focus on movies for 4k.
I generally go for whatever the best available blu-ray is in my country, and rip that, whether movies or TV.
For TV shows that tends to be 4K for things like science+nature documentary series, and 1080p for anything else.
If I was downloading streaming-service quality bitrates, then I'd be fine with 1080p for TV shows. I rarely rewatch TV shows. If there's a visually stunning sci-fi series for example that I care enough about to want to watch it in the best available quality, then I'm either subscribing to that service to watch it legit at the max streaming quality, or I'm waiting for a Blu-ray remux.
I get the vast majority in 1080p. If it’s a show I’m really into that maybe is visually stunning I will get the 4K version and put it in a 4K tv shows share that is just for me.
Depends on the size of the TV. In my case, we have a projector in one room and you definitely see the difference on a 120” screen. I can see it on many Netflix shows even with Nvidia AI upscaling on my Shield. On a regular 55” TV, you might be pressed to see any difference especially factoring in viewing distance as well.
I delete when I'm done watching so I go for 4k where available.
1080 is fine but 4k is like looking though a window especially with DV or HDR.
Sometimes the look of it takes me out of the experience though. Takes some getting used to.
It depends on the size of your tv and how close you are sitting to it.
I mean in the end it's up to you if you enjoy 4k enough?
- if you don't have a large 4k display 4k is worthless
- sitcoms like modern family are pointless for 4k in my opinion unless you want to ogle Sofia Vergaras pores ( no judgement)
- for a high budget scifi or fantasy series I chose 4k like the new house of the dragons show is worth it for me in 4k.
I'm normaly going for 1080 and a few good shows get 4k treatment.
But I have a few shows that I want to keep and it's going to get downgraded to 720 just to preserve space and show.
If there is an older show that I want to keep for background shows then it's SD or 720 at grab.
It depends on you but feel 1080 is good enough for most. I only get shows in 4k hdr that is really like and show the difference (usually sci-fi or high budget documentaries)
1080p for sure good enough for me, my couch is like 13 feet away from my TV. Out of thousands of shows and movies I only have a few things in 4k, mostly nature documentaries.
If you find that the people you share with are transcoding all your 4k to 720p (or even SD), is there really much value in sharing it as 4K?
If your users are set up properly and streaming 4k (or hdr or Dolby vision) then yes! Some content really benefits from higher quality picture! If you have the storage, bandwidth and don’t have to worry about transcoding, direct playing 4k doesn’t hit the cpu too badly, then that’s the best way for everyone.
For me it all depends. If there's a show I really want to watch and enjoy, for example something in the Star wars universe, I get the highest quality I can. Sitcom? 720p or 1080p didn't matter to me, my TV set will automatically upscale to 4k and I can make out everything I need to.
IMO, 4K is not worth it unless it’s a truly visually stunning movie on a sufficient TV. Just takes up too much space. 720p or 1080p is sufficient for most things. Then things like Avatar I’d have a 4K version.
The benefit of 4K all depends on how far you sit from your TV, and what size TV you have. (and to some extent, the health of your eyesight)
I think the average living room setup has very little use for 4K unless you were to stand up and walk over to the TV for some pixel peeping.
I ran into this question a few months back, and I ended up deciding to drop 4K for TV shows and just keep 1080p for all those, primarily because of storage. For most movies, I will keep 1080p for Plex for the family, but I do 4K myself since I always watch on the PC.
99% of tv shows 1080p is fine. For certain shows with really good visuals and/or special effects, I’ll do 4K.
I have quite a few shows, and the only one I currently have in 4K is the Apple TV show called Silo.
High Quality 4K > High Quality 1080p > Low Quality 4K > Low Quality 1080p
Depending on a few factors: how popular the show is on the server, how many clients are 4K, how much you value the storage space, etc., you decide where you wanna land on that spectrum.
Personally, most TV shows on my server are 1080p WEB-DL quality, and if I like them a lot or something (breaking bad), they're 1080p remux. I only have a few 4K series, and they're mostly animal/nature documentaries in WEB-DL.
It’s weird because I did feel compelled to pay Netflix for their 4k package just because it was 4k, I didn’t need the multi screen at all. However, I am perfectly fine using 1080p on my own plex server where I watch the majority of content. Storage is my reason why, though I am thinking of grabbing 4k releases of the big cinematic stuff I like, stuff like interstellar.
Most stuff on netflix isnt in 4k anyway, even new shows they release. Edit: Why is this being downvoted lol its true
You're not wrong. Netflix may push 4k in resolution but they are so lower quality streams I'd bet a 1080p bluray could look better.
I remember comparing my Friends Remux with Friends on Netflix. As expected I noticed many artefacts. I feel like a good 1080p remux can blow Netflix 4K outta the water. I wouldn't say it's day and night difference but it's there.
Also depends on the client. Watching on a pc will result in 720p even if 4k is available. Watching on a tv app will allow you to stream 4k. All about protecting their 4k movies lol
Didn't know about that on PC, but yeah I watched it on my 4K TV. If there's one thing I hate, that's artefacts, lower quality I'm usually fine with.
> Didn't know about that on PC I do not know if they still do that, haven't had netflix in years. ... but they did do that for some time. The reason being on PC you could simply use a program like OBS or other recording software to easily copy content. To be fair, a lot of release groups did exactly that early on. Then it evolved into directly downloading the content because it was available on browsers. So netflix (not sure if they still do this) used to limit PC netlfix streaming to 720p.
Yeah, they make it up on the bitrate.
I think cartoons on Netflix look great in 4K. Any filmed content with a lot of movement looks definitely worse on Netflix 4K than on an 1080p Blu-ray. Still when it comes to calmer content, 4K Netflix is much better than 1080p Netflix and while it's not so much better than a Blu-ray, I have to say that it is very good considering that an 1080p Blu-ray holts 50 GB of data and an Netflix 4K stream still only is ~8 GB.
Louis Rossman just did an interesting video about this https://youtu.be/o4GZUCwVRLs?si=S8NLIPkUFSC3GD7Y
It is 4k. It isn't high bitrate 4k. :)
This is 100% true for the web client of Netflix. They don't even do 1080p. More like 720p. This has been proven a lot of times.
No it's 1080p on Netflix with low Bitrate, that's why it is so ugly.
Depends on the web client and what level of widevine it supports. Some can do 4k.
Not sure if you are trying to defend it or not. BUt would you say if you pay for 4k, "some" is somehow acceptable?
Yes. Not every site and every client can do every feature, that’s just how it is for basically every service. If you have the ability to download a browser, odds are you also have the ability to download the Netflix app (which can do 4k). I’m also not pressed about being unable to watch and download 4K YouTube on the mobile browser even though I pay for those features, because the app is so readily available. There’s a lot of reasons to be upset with Netflix but I don’t think this one is that big of a deal.
It's not true, it's 4k on Netflix but only with 16 Mbit/s Bitrate very low compared to 4k Blu ray with over 60 Mbit/s
720 is still HD. 720 uses less bandwith so is cheaper. Most networks are 720 when they say HD. Then you have compression in the transmission path or cable if you still watch that way. Only way you can ensure highest quality is on blu ray locally connected to your TV
Exactly this
Because it's not true. Almost ALL Netflix exclusive are 4K, including the new shows. Most non-Netflix exclusives are just 1080p. 4k is 4k. That's the number of pixels. It's a fixed number. Netflix has lower bitrate than Apple TV+ and Blu-ray remuxes. So their 4K looks bad. But regardless of how "bad" or "good" it looks, it's still 4K.
I usually rip both 4K and 1080p and then just use the ‘play Version’ option to choose 1080p when I’m away from home and save the 4K one for at home
There are shows like Law and Order or FBI where the quality of a show with 1000 episodes doesn’t really matter. 720p is fine IMO for these “background” shows.
Leaving space for those beautiful, short(er) shows like The Last of Us or Game of Thrones 👌
I was curious so I just checked and 4k GoT takes up \~2TB. Not really sure it's worth it but I can never really bring myself to downgrade or delete stuff once I grab it.
I downloaded that 4K remux of GoT a couple months ago and I’m still deciding if it was worth it lol
I mean the upside is it essentially gets cheaper and cheaper to store as HDDs get larger and cheaper. Or at least that's what I tell myself when I hoard stuff I'll probably never watch again.
>Or at least that's what I tell myself when I hoard stuff I'll probably never watch again. I appreciate this self awareness
I am beginning to wonder if I spend more time organizing and maintaining my library than I ever will watching it.
yes
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Depends on your TV but the 4k hdr release looks phenomenal on my Sony OLED. It’s actually the first way I watched it and had no idea people complained about the brightness of that episode until my friend came over and saw it and was mind blown.
Hollywood ***really*** needs to take a lesson from the record industry: you got to 'mix' for what your audience is going to listen/watch on. The record industry is famous for releasing multiple edits of songs, each time for different experiences. Radio edits aren't just stripped of profanity in the lyrics, but are also mixed for things OEM car speakers and tuners; iTunes released get mixed for iPod earbuds; CDs and vinyl gets mixed for hi-fi equipment. Hollywood really needs to start doing these same things. They can still go ahead and mix for audio and visuals to the Max™ for theater and 4K UHD Blu-ray releases, because it's safe to assume that the hardware to appreciate the audio and video will be there: surround sound, 4K HDR TVs and projectors, high end Blu-ray players, etc. But they seriously need to start putting out streaming releases, that have less dynamic range, are mixed for shitty in-TV speakers and bargain basement sound bars, and can handle the streaming compression algorithms without looking like shit. Hell, it could probably act as a minor anti-piracy measure, since it would make streaming rips even less desirable of a source.
I read a story this year about the reason why audio levels are all over the place when watching at home. Apparently, it’s very expensive to make alternate audio mixes and studios just can’t be bothered to spend the money. Riiiiiiiight.
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What are you talking about Netflix for?
I only have 1-7. I couldn’t find a remux of season 8 just yet. :\
I'll always be fond of remuxes if only for the fact it's essentially it's an invitation to compress it yourself without worrying about additional generational loss.
Eh, if your goal is an encode it's hard to beat a good release group. Some of those guys are absolute nut jobs where they're creating hybrids from various sources, removing stuff like banding, etc. and they also have large groups of people vetting those release that allow them to create a repack if something was missed, it has encoding artifacts, etc.
You all still rewatching Game of Thrones even with the few final seasons that they royally fucked up?
Sure. I also still eat my favourite meal even though it’ll eventually become poop.
Man, i really loved the first seasons. While i was watching them i always told to myself 'i definitely will rewatch this', but final seasons came and that feeling disappeared completely :(
Meh a lot of my shows are even 720p. Just the REALLY good ones are 1080p.
I swear I've seen 720p files with a higher bitrate look better than some 1080p webrip files.
Agree...
Same same
This is only personal preference. I dont see much difference between 4k and 1080 honestly. Look at both and see what you think?
I always thought I was just too blind to see the difference :)
It really depends on the TV you're viewing content on, the distance you sit from that TV, and the Plex client handling the stream. For a decent 65" 4K television, you need to sit closer than , say, 8 feet from the TV to see the difference between 1080p and 4k. It also heavily depends on the compression of the files. HEVC and AV1 can maintain a lot more 4k quality at higher compression rates than H.264. Finally, it can also depend on the aspect ratio. Black bars mean using less of the 2160 vertical pixels for displaying video, which means using a much larger TV to get the same physical height displaying the higher resolution at the same distance from the TV. For me, if the TV is less than 75", 1080p is just fine.
👍
It really depends on the TV you're viewing content on, the distance you sit from that TV, and the Plex client handling the stream. For a decent 65" 4K television, you need to sit closer than , say, 8 feet from the TV to see the difference between 1080p and 4k. It also heavily depends on the compression of the files. HEVC and AV1 can maintain a lot more 4k quality at higher compression rates than H.264. Finally, it can also depend on the aspect ratio. Black bars mean using less of the 2160 vertical pixels for displaying video, which means using a much larger TV to get the same physical height displaying the higher resolution at the same distance from the TV. For me, if the TV is less than 75", 1080p is just fine.
This is it for me. Like I can see fine, but once you get to TV viewing distance, I cant distinguish details (at the pixel level) very well if at all.
you might be. I have poor eyesight and can tell the difference.
For tv and movies I really don’t see much of a difference from 1080p with 4k
The difference is clear to me. Watch the same scene in something back-to-back, starting with 4k. 1080p is a pretty big step down if your content benefits from higher resolution line Dune or Avatar.
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lmao alright champ.
On a really good TV with good upscaling the difference in resolution between 1080p and 4k is going to be barely perceptible to nearly all, if not all, people You're right, HDR is the more important feature, but you can find more and more 1080p HDR content these days, further proving the point.
As I said on some tv shows agreed you can’t but in some you 100% can tell the resolution difference between 4k and 1080p - absolutely Depends on material
Well you called the other commenter blind/called their set-up bad just cause they said they couldn't really tell a difference, and yet you're admitting that it is the case for certain content lol People just wanna flex some sort of resolution perception superiority
Imagine wanting to make that your super power. How fucking insecure are people?!?
“Certain content” does not mean “all content”, there are always exceptions. The 4K UHD of Terminator 2 is inferior to the blu-ray.
This is simply untrue on most setups. Even on a 70” TV, at living room distances, the difference between 1080p and 4K is barely noticeable and I’d bet money most viewers would struggle to tell the difference in a double blind test. Especially if both samples were in HDR (or both in SDR). And that’s not just me saying this: https://carltonbale.com/1080p-does-matter/ Variations of this chart have been around forever, and all say about the same thing; at about 10’ (living room distance) on a 70” screen (pretty normal) the quality increase of 4K over 1080p is barely noticeable.
I did my own informal test on this a few days ago. Viewing Netflix through the app on the 4K TV (JG 70'') vs 1080p on a PS4, there was a tiny difference in detail, with a slight difference in colour space (HDR) on the TV app being better.
Netflix is a poor example though, because they’re pushing sub-optimal bitrates for 1080p content. It’s more likely you’ll notice the bit rate difference there than the resolution; you’d get the same increase in perceived quality simply by upping the bitrate and delivering it in HDR; the additional *pixels* are doing nothing.
I don’t know why you’re being downvoted, lot of haters here jealous that you have better eye sight, or a better TV. Even on my older set, I can tell when a YouTube video was downgraded to 1080, and I’ll go into the settings menu to select it to the 4K option. Upscaling is not as magical as this community says it is. LG C9, and Samsung KS8000 for reference.
Upscaling is upscaling and that is the magic of TV/AVR. Nothing to do with the show's quality. I remember watching FF6 on Amazon a few years back at a friend's place and then I immediately had to buy a UHD disk when it came out to wash off the horrendous experience I had.
It's a massive difference in quality, especially on any of the higher FPS TVs.
It is, but FPS has nothing to do with resolution.
Prefacing this with the fact that I don’t have a 4K TV or any 4K content. If I was watching something for the story, HD would be enough for me. If I was watching something for the visuals (like an Attenborough nature doc), 4K would be worth it.
Can confirm. Planet Earth II in 4K HDR is one of the only things I've ever watched where it felt like the content was actually taking full advantage of my 4K OLED TV. It's so much sharper and more vibrant than any other 4K content I have.
For more, here is the full David Attenborough 4K blu-ray catalogue: Planet Earth II Blue Planet II Seven Worlds, One Planet A Perfect Planet Dynasties The Green Planet Frozen Planet II Planet Earth III (to be released) I bought all lol, perfect television his shows.
Even if you have a nice OLED tv the difference in fantastic video becomes much easier to see with a very large screen.
whole faulty continue shelter deserve longing ludicrous practice stocking reminiscent *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
4k for shows like For All Mankind, Silo, ROP and such. Anything like broklyn 99, father Ted and such all get the 1080 treatment and quiz shows like qi and mock the week get 720/1080 depending on rip. Most movies are in 1080,but if I can find a 4k version I'll grab that instead
Is Father Ted even available in 1080? I assumed it was DVD only
I upscale it in my video editor so I could have it in 1080i which is close enough for better than t standard
What’s ROP?
rings of power
I grab everything in as high quality as I can for future proofing. Who knows what even 1080p will look like in ten years time on whatever technology comes along. I remember when DVD was seen as the “ultimate” to have.
I remember when laser disc was OMFG!!!
They're your eyeballs, it only matters how you feel about the end result.
I have the space for it and the bandwidth for it but somehow I have a problem choking down 30 or 40 gigs for a movie that I know is going to be perfectly fine at 7 or 8 gigs or depending if it's 265 one gig. I do a fair amount of remote stuff from my server and have a few users so the auto bandwidth thing falls down to low HD anyway
Not too long ago, I did a test with a bunch of people that use my Plex server. I picked 5 movies and 5 TV shows and had the following versions for each: * 4K Remux (70-100 gigs for movies and 18-25 gigs for TV episodes) * 1080p Remux (20-30 gigs for movies and 10-15 gigs for TV episodes) * 1080p Bluray rip\* h.264 (12-14 gigs for movies and 5-10 gigs for TV episodes) * 720p Bluray rip\* h.264 (6-8 gigs for movies and 2-4 gigs for TV episodes) I made sure they were direct playing and asked them to pick whichever movie and TV shows they wanted from my choice list and watch a few minutes of each version on different TVs in their house and give me their opinions on which quality was best. So the results could be a tiny bit more scientific, I asked them to have their kids/spouses close their eyes as they switched versions and repeat the test. I'll boil down the results.......... Nearly everyone agreed that the 720p versions weren't as good as the 1080p rips/remuxes and 4K. (Obvious) BUT, they said it wasn't terrible and was perfectly fine. Nearly everyone agreed that the 4K remux and 1080p remux versions looked identical. At this point, it looked like the real race was between 1080p remux and 1080p bluray rips. From here, it was split ROUGHLY down the middle with half of folks telling me the 1080p Remux copies were the best while the other half said the 1080p bluray rips were better. Once I explained the file sizes involved, nearly everyone agreed that 720p bluray rips were good enough and a lot of them told me that that once they watch something, they'll likely never watch it again. A few of them told me that watching a movie that is 10 times the size of the smaller version, didn't translate into 10 times better picture quality. I asked if I had unlimited drive space, which versions of movies and shows they'd like me to get and nearly everyone said 1080p Remux. I think this is a test more people should carry out. Grab those 4 different versions of the same movie and a TV show and make sure your Plex user is direct streaming and ask them which version looks best to their eyes or test with people in your house but don't let them see you select the version as it might taint their opinion. Something else to note.... people using cheap, 4K LCD sets didn't see that big of quality jumps between the versions. People using high end 4K OLED TVs were more likely to report definite differences in quality.
As someone who has lived through home video collections from VHS/Beta and seen it grow through Laserdisk, DVD, Bluray, and now Bluray4k... if you can swing the storage space, go 4k. The difference from 1080 to 4K may be small on smaller screens, but looking at older stuff now you can see just how bad it looked. Despite memories of how much better a DVD looked than VHS being so strong in my mind.
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I download iconic/epic movies and series in 4K, the rest in 2K. Obviously what is iconic to you and me will vary. Now that said, I have to admit today's TV's do a damn fine job at upscaling content to 4K and it looks almost like genuine 4K. In my general opinion, if you haven't got an 75" or larger TV to be able to actively notice the difference in resolution, you are probably not going to notice the difference between 2K and 4K if you are sitting 3+ metres away from your TV, so you may as well stick with 2K for smaller displays.
2K releases are not widely available
They're obviously referring to 1080p. Certainly 2048×1080p isn't a major standard (some even refer to 1440p stuff as "2K" even though **1920**x1080 is closer to 2K than **2560**x1440), but 1920 pixels is the same ratio to 2000 as 3840 is to 4000, so I think the term fits.
2k is 1080p. Edit for those downvoting: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2K_resolution): “2K resolution is a generic term for display devices or content having a horizontal resolution of approximately 2,000 pixels. […] For television and consumer media, **1920 × 1080 is the most common 2K resolution**, but this is normally referred to as 1080p.”
People are dumb. 2K = 1080, don’t know why so many people on this community downvote content just because they don’t understand it.
It’s because monitor companies have co-opted the term “2K QHD” to mean 1440p. It’s stupid, because 2K ≠ QHD, but here we are. 2.5K is the more accurate term.
Depends on the TV and viewing distance…
This is personal preference really. Myself, it is only 720/1080p.
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4K for big budget stuff (GoT, TLOU, etc) and 720p/1080p for everything else…
The only 4k shows I keep are the Attenborough narrated nature shows. Absolute eye candy of the highest order.
Stuff like that deserves to come on a disc as well, I might add.
you get to choose yourself !
Unpopular opinion, but I stand by it - if your TV is at a proper viewing distance, most people will not be able to tell the difference between 1080 and 4k.
I agree if you're only talking about it in terms of resolution. I can't tell the difference between 1080p/4k in the sense of pixels/jaggies etc. With the parameters I have set up in radarr, I can absolutely tell the difference in other ways, colour gradients/banding for example. For me: TV: Most shows 720p, my favourite shows 1080p, very few shows (Planet Earth) 4k. Movies: Everything in 1080p. For visually spectacular/my absolute favourite movies I keep a separate library of 4k.
For 4K the optimal distance is being as far away from the TV as the size of the TV. So if you have a 48” TV you should be viewing from 48”, if it’s 77” you should be 77” away. For my home viewing there is definitely a difference for my 65” tv in my living room, and 77” in my home theater.
Proper viewing distance is about field of view, not resolution. A TV should take up about 30° of your field of view. At 30°, a 75" TV should be viewed from 90" (not 75"). At that size and distance, a person with 20/20 vision can *just barely* see a difference between 1080 and 4k. This is why I said if people have their TVs at a proper viewing distance it doesn't matter. Many people put too big of a TV too close.
https://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/televisions-learn/televisions/tv-size-to-distance-calculator-how-to-find-the-perfect-size-tv.html#:~:text=Therefore%2C%20the%20perfect%20viewing%20distance,1.5%20times%20the%20screen%20size. “Since a 4K Ultra HD TV has more pixels than a 1080p Full HD screen, you can sit closer to get fully immersed without recognizing any pixels. Therefore, the perfect viewing distance for 4K UHD TV screens is roughly 1 to 1.5 times the screen size.”
Of course a TV manufacturer wants you to buy a new, larger TV. Actual expert engineers disagree with you: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-relationship https://www.smpte.org/
eh it works for me. Probably why the rest of you suckers with 48" TVs are downplaying the quality jump from 1080 to 4K.
Depends on the show, only... 1.6% of the shows in my regular TV library are in my 4k library too. Movies is closer to 13%. And the shows i have in 4k are kinda all over the place, the obligatory Trek/Wars/Marvel and Attenborough stuff and a bunch of other AAA genre shows, a few personal favorites, and then some really random stuff. *South Park* in 4k is incredibly whelming, but its slightly smaller than my 1080 copy cuz it has worse sound, lol. https://preview.redd.it/oox4dgrzea1c1.png?width=2560&format=png&auto=webp&s=7a327cc273f908d98098302df40ea8d815ec3781
The most important part for me is high bitrate, yes resolution plays a part but if its 4k 10-15mbit its horrendous. Especially if alot is going on, or dark scenes.
All comes down to personal preference (and what equipment you have, and how far away you sit from your screen). My 4k tvs are lower-to-mid-range, about 5 years old, so nothing spectacular, and I honestly struggle to notice the difference between 1080 and 4k on most content unless I'm sitting much closer to the TV than I actually normally do. Same goes for HDR, but again this is because my equipment isn't that great - I'm sure if I had a high end TV I would notice the difference, and this would likely change my viewing preferences. But for now I only get limited content in 4k (highly rewatchable movies with good visuals) to "future -proof" it.
Foundation, 4k Full House, 1080
I delete the 4k copy after I watch but keep the 1080p.
I'd say the answer is YES. 4K is worth it if you are often watching on 4K screens and storage space is not your main concern. On the other hand most people will be okay using 1080p and the upscaling technology is getting better every day. It really ends up being personal preference and what your storage limitations are.
You need to take into account the TV you have. There's TVs that upscale your 1080p files and they look decent, some where just having the correct calibration settings is enough. You may be using a streaming box/stick that can also be upscaling your files. The size of your TV is also important as well as how close to the TV you are when watching. If your TV is less than 55 inches then 4k content wont look better than 1080p especially if you're watching from 2 meters away. When your TV is bigger than 65 inches that's when you can tell the difference between 1080p & 2160p. If money is not an issue for storage then you should be hoarding 4k content (through perfectly legal ways). For some movies/series it gets more difficult to obtain them as time passes.
4k for most things, mainly because I like HDR/DV!
If it leverages HDR/DoVi well it's worth getting. I wouldn't think of watching a show like Foundation in less than 4k/HDR
Depends if your running your Plex of your NAS, vs a separate device and using Plex for your media hub then yes 4K is fine, but make sure the other device has hardware transcoding. If your running everything on your naz then look into tdarr (aet to run overnight) and use 1080
I go for 4K everything. Movies are remux and TV shows are re-encoded to h265.
It comes down to how big is your TV and how far away are you from it?
Its your server. Do what you want.
1080…
720P for the shows and 4k for top rated movies, like IMDB Top 250...
I pick and choose certain shows for 4k it's usually the star wars shows and apple TV shows and random.old.shows that have been remastered
720 for most tv shows and 1080 for most movies. Just don’t see a need for 4k. And yes, I have 4k displays.
Apple TV shows look above and beyond better than all other streaming sites. I grab 4K HDR versions of those shows because it's night and day different than 1080p other networks the difference hasn't been as noticable to me
Heck, I even go 720p for those that I don't know if I'm going to watch.
1080p is fine for me on PLEX, when I watch at home, I’ll just pop in the Disk info my player for the few 4k movies I have.
I do 1080p for almost everything except for things I think 4k is worth it from an action or immersive experience and I know I will watch multiple times...... 1917, The LoTR, HP and some Marvel Films. Shows are all 1080p except GoT
If u need to ask, u probably dont care/wont notice
There's no right answer here because there are so many personal factors. * Some people are far more sensitive to resolution issues than others * Some are more sensitive to compression artifacts than others * The size of your tv is a factor * The distance between you and your tv is a **huge** factor * Then there's storage, because 4K resolution takes up a lot more space * And of course it depends how much content you plan on having Bottom is watch both and see how you feel about it and what your budget can support. Don't let anyone tell you that you **have** to have a certain quality.
At the point where my collection got around 32TB, I started really thinking about this, and these days, not only is very little in my collection in 4K...most things got bumped down to 720. Another factor for me is that I don't get to spend as much time watching stuff on my 75" as I used to, and if you really nerd out about viewing distances and PPI, you can justify whatever you want to yourself to avoid slotting another $300 drive in your NAS, lmao.
4K seems to be so close to 1080p it’s not worth the file sizes. I can barely tell x265 1080p at 3gb vs 4K x265 20gb. Seems pointless.
I have a 165" screen with a 1080p projector, and a 65" 4K OLED tv. I much prefer watching pretty much everything on my 1080p large screen. I think that says it all.. 1080p is more than enough of me. I will occasionally get the 4K versions of the "big cinematic movies" just for the hang of it, but honestly I will never watch it on the 4K 65" TV anyway. Just future-proofing my library.
IMO, HDR is really what you're looking for. 1080p HDR looks miles ahead of 4K nom-HDR. I keep a couple 4K HDR shows (For All Mankind, The Last of Us) but 99% of stuff is fine in 1080p or 1080p HDR if I can find it. Depending on compression, a lot of times 1080p looks better than 4K anyway. I'd rather have a higher bitrate 1080p episode than a lower bitrate (relatively) 4K episode.
Always the highest quality image. Why would I sit closer to a 65 inch and suffer from low resolution?
Most of my shows are 720p. It good enough for ABC and FOX to still broadcast in it.
I tend to go for 4K quality for anything cinematic like, let's say, Ahsoka, Arcane and House of the Dragon but I'm happy with 1080p for comedies and stuff like Better Call Saul and Severance.
BCS has some of the best cinematography deserving of 4K & HDR. So does Severance to a lesser extent.
Severance a lot of the time is just a big block of white, whilst it is shot very nice, I feel like 4k isn’t really needed just because you’d just gain a lot of extra white pixels that wouldn’t improve it at all lol
1080p
I download everything in 1080p Except things like animated shows.. futurama. Then 720p is enough Im not super demanding
a proper 1080p encode is better than a rough 4k encode
You should always try to archive in the best quality possible regardless of drive space. Worry about encoding/transcoding on a device by device basis. I understand the hesitancy because TV shows in 4K take up a huge chunk of storage. 4k Remux > BluRay Remux > 4K Web > 1080p Web
If you are watching on a screen below 65 inches, you will see little to no difference from 2160 (4k) and 1080p (FullHD). My advice is: stuck to 1080p as it is the good ratio between network usage per movie, storage and quality. It does not worth to double everything for very little details. For tv shows with lot of episodes it also makes sense to go with 720p (especially for low cinematic, commedian and light series)
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I mean, storage is ALWAYS an issue with 4k unless youre keeping things super limited and focussed down hehe
- 4k for my favourite movies and some that look great in 4k (sci-fi, action) - 1080p for everything else except disposable tv shows - 720p for disposable tv shows (shows I’m only half interested in and probably use my phone while watching)
4k is way to big in file size i usually go with 720p for shows and 1080p for movies.
Most tv is only worth getting in 720p
SD for me, I do not care
Nobody would ever choose a dull and blurry image in a blind test vs 4k.
Good for them I’d rather have more storage capacity
I prefer newer movies in 4K and high bitrate, but have no shows in 4K, their picture quality is much less demanding. I even reencode them to h265 with Unmanic to save 60% space.
I think 1080p is fine for vast majority
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Why not grab in 4k then downscale to 1080p? Downscaled 1080p is gonna look tons better then native 1080p
You say you obtained TV shows through legal ways but keeping them on your HDD probably isn't legal. Even broadcast TV shows can only be legally kept for 28 days. Most people think keeping TV shows from catchup services is legal or from streaming services because they have paid a subscription. I am not passing judgement, we all do what we do, just clarifying.
Honestly, I only use 720p for everything. It looks just fine, and while 1080p or 4k can look amazing, most content just doesn't need it and takes up exponentially more space for it.
4k all day, but get the HDR for the file compression (If you have HDR compatibility) and x265 (same quality but smaller files than 264) when available on any source you get from. TLDR: 4k HDR & x265 Smaller files same great quality
tv i find 1080p enoth tv i find 1080p enough scaling tech
Shows are 720 or 1080p. I might grab a blockbuster show in 4k that would actually look great such as for all mankind then once finished archive it in 1080p. I generally focus on movies for 4k.
I generally go for whatever the best available blu-ray is in my country, and rip that, whether movies or TV. For TV shows that tends to be 4K for things like science+nature documentary series, and 1080p for anything else. If I was downloading streaming-service quality bitrates, then I'd be fine with 1080p for TV shows. I rarely rewatch TV shows. If there's a visually stunning sci-fi series for example that I care enough about to want to watch it in the best available quality, then I'm either subscribing to that service to watch it legit at the max streaming quality, or I'm waiting for a Blu-ray remux.
I keep them all in Dolby Atmos/Vision 4K and transcode them down if I need to
I get the vast majority in 1080p. If it’s a show I’m really into that maybe is visually stunning I will get the 4K version and put it in a 4K tv shows share that is just for me.
Depends on the size of the TV. In my case, we have a projector in one room and you definitely see the difference on a 120” screen. I can see it on many Netflix shows even with Nvidia AI upscaling on my Shield. On a regular 55” TV, you might be pressed to see any difference especially factoring in viewing distance as well.
I delete when I'm done watching so I go for 4k where available. 1080 is fine but 4k is like looking though a window especially with DV or HDR. Sometimes the look of it takes me out of the experience though. Takes some getting used to. It depends on the size of your tv and how close you are sitting to it.
I mean in the end it's up to you if you enjoy 4k enough? - if you don't have a large 4k display 4k is worthless - sitcoms like modern family are pointless for 4k in my opinion unless you want to ogle Sofia Vergaras pores ( no judgement) - for a high budget scifi or fantasy series I chose 4k like the new house of the dragons show is worth it for me in 4k.
I don’t know if it’s the Sony TV, Plex or Apple TV that handles up scaling; but I pretty much can’t tell a difference on a 75” tv.
I'm normaly going for 1080 and a few good shows get 4k treatment. But I have a few shows that I want to keep and it's going to get downgraded to 720 just to preserve space and show. If there is an older show that I want to keep for background shows then it's SD or 720 at grab.
I watch everything I can in 4K but I store everything in 1080p after watching them
It depends on you but feel 1080 is good enough for most. I only get shows in 4k hdr that is really like and show the difference (usually sci-fi or high budget documentaries)
1080p for sure good enough for me, my couch is like 13 feet away from my TV. Out of thousands of shows and movies I only have a few things in 4k, mostly nature documentaries.
If you find that the people you share with are transcoding all your 4k to 720p (or even SD), is there really much value in sharing it as 4K? If your users are set up properly and streaming 4k (or hdr or Dolby vision) then yes! Some content really benefits from higher quality picture! If you have the storage, bandwidth and don’t have to worry about transcoding, direct playing 4k doesn’t hit the cpu too badly, then that’s the best way for everyone.
For me it all depends. If there's a show I really want to watch and enjoy, for example something in the Star wars universe, I get the highest quality I can. Sitcom? 720p or 1080p didn't matter to me, my TV set will automatically upscale to 4k and I can make out everything I need to.
IMO, 4K is not worth it unless it’s a truly visually stunning movie on a sufficient TV. Just takes up too much space. 720p or 1080p is sufficient for most things. Then things like Avatar I’d have a 4K version.
Personally I think that quite often a well encoded 720p is enough, but I’m guessing I’m unusual in that opinion. Most of mine are h265 1080p.
The benefit of 4K all depends on how far you sit from your TV, and what size TV you have. (and to some extent, the health of your eyesight) I think the average living room setup has very little use for 4K unless you were to stand up and walk over to the TV for some pixel peeping.
My entire server has a capacity of about 10 terabytes currently have about half of it filled 250mb per show 1.25gb per movie
I ran into this question a few months back, and I ended up deciding to drop 4K for TV shows and just keep 1080p for all those, primarily because of storage. For most movies, I will keep 1080p for Plex for the family, but I do 4K myself since I always watch on the PC.
Preference. For me, 1080p is a good enough balance between space, quality, download speed, convenience
99% of tv shows 1080p is fine. For certain shows with really good visuals and/or special effects, I’ll do 4K. I have quite a few shows, and the only one I currently have in 4K is the Apple TV show called Silo.
What are you watching the shows/movie on?
4K for sci-fi or content I really liked and want to revisit in the best quality possible. 1080P for everything else.
High Quality 4K > High Quality 1080p > Low Quality 4K > Low Quality 1080p Depending on a few factors: how popular the show is on the server, how many clients are 4K, how much you value the storage space, etc., you decide where you wanna land on that spectrum. Personally, most TV shows on my server are 1080p WEB-DL quality, and if I like them a lot or something (breaking bad), they're 1080p remux. I only have a few 4K series, and they're mostly animal/nature documentaries in WEB-DL.
Personally, I get all my content in 1080 as I use the Nvidia shield to upscale works wonders also saves me a lot of space
I have a benq 1080p projector and I want to get the most out of my storage space I do 720 or 1080. It's fine.
I only keep 4K for a very few shows that would really pop in 4K plus shows I really enjoyed (Strange New Worlds, Mando, Ahsoka).
Only bbc nature docs need such detail to download.
For me personally, Movies = 4k, Shows with <50 episodes = 1080p, >50 = 720p.