4k VS 1080p Streaming/Server impact

[Jonathan1683 29]

Hello,

I currently serve mostly 1080p content on my server remotely and I have a personal 4k collection that is not viewable remotely. What do you guys think the server impact would be like if I made that public. My biggest concern is that my bandwidth is limited and possibly hardware usage. Most clients are capped around 7 Mb/s -15 Mb/s I am wondering if it would make any sense to offer 4k content. Would it even look better encoded at that bitrate or would it be better to just let everyone stream the 1080p files instead. I usually have around 1-5 people on at a time.

 

My server Specs

40Mb/s upload

1070ti GPU

i5-12600k

64GB ram

 

[Jdiesel 1431]

It's not worth it imo. Your hardware is capable enough but until we get h265 transcoding we have to rely on tone mapping instead of passing through the HDR metadata untouched but a lower bitrate. In my experience transcoded 4K HDR looks worse than transcoded or direct play 1080p SDR.

The only benefit is having to maintain a single 4K version over multiple versions.

[RanmaCanada 494]

You should be using the igpu on your 12600k instead of the 1070ti. But as mentioned, it's not worth it. I only have family members and friends who can direct play content to have access to the 4k libraries I have. I'm of the belief that content should never be tone mapped as tone mapped content looks like garbage. Your speed is only 40mbit, which would be saturated rather quickly with 4k. If it was 40MB/s (320Mb/s) it would not be a problem.

[rbjtech 5284]

A lot depends on what you consider 4K content.

4k UHD disk Remux's range from 60-100 Mbit/sec - along with HD Audio.

4k UHD 'streaming' range from 15-40 Mbit/sec - generally with compressed EAC3/Dolby Digital+ Audio.

So given your clients are capped at the bottom end of the 4k streaming range, everything would be transcoded/tonemapped, so you lose reason you went with 4K  in the first place.

So in summary - as advised above - stick with 1080p - only when you can direct play 4K remotely is it then worth looking into.