What is Direct Play? Direct Play is an important streaming technique where the file is sent directly to the client’s device “as is” without alteration.Transcoding is a necessary task to ensure that the content reaches the widest audience possible with different devices and Internet resources. This is the reason why Youtube and Netflix are kings of streaming, as they have massive computational resources to transcode plus Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to reduce network latencies. It converts an encoded digital file (MPEG4, for instance) into a “new version” to reduce size, and to better meet the viewer’s hardware and network resources. What is Transcoding? A vital mechanism for adaptive streaming.With the increasing popularity of 4K content, Plex has introduced support for 4K streaming.īefore we move on to how Plex supports that, let’s first define a few technical concepts:

Plex media server allows users to stream their favorite movies, TV shows, and music to any device. How to know if your 4K video is being transcoded or direct-played?.The 4K Plex stream client requirements.Server-side 4K Plex streaming requirements.Compression standards when streaming 4K.You’ll also learn a few tips and hints to improve your experience and avoid annoying buffering. You’ll learn the requirements from the Plex server, the client, the network, and the media files. With this step-by-step guide, you’ll become a master in Plex 4K streaming. But transcoding 4K can be an expensive workload.īut what if you have those computational resources? How can you accomplish a smooth 4K streaming playback on Plex? Transcoding a media file, especially a 4K, saves you from such compatibility issues, and gives other benefits like lower network overhead and expenses. Not every device is compatible with every container format, audio and video codec, subtitle stream, etc. Direct-playing a 4K stream also introduces compatibility challenges. If you want Plex to direct-play a 4K stream, the server will need the proper resources, including CPU, GPU, disk and lots of network resources. Streaming a 4K media file requires resources.

Hosting plex in the cloud