Just trying to get basic understanding

[EZEd 60]

Okay, I know this has been covered in a myriad of threads here in the forum but I've read so many and gotten very confused over what is what.  Maybe some here can help unravel.

My server rig is a Windows 10 x64 desktop with AMD Radeon HD6450 graphics card running latest stable server.  I have HW acceleration turned on in server settings.  This is being served house wide to all clients via wired gigabit lan.

At the distant ends (two pictures below) I have a Roku Premiere and Jetstream Ematic Android TV box,  Roku is standard 2K HD, Android TV box is 4K HD.  The picture is playing the same film, a straight MKV rip (using MakeMKV) from a standard BluRay (2K) and DTS-MA/HD soundtrack.

Both boxes are "transcoding" according to stats for nerds.

Questions:

1) What is transcoding?  Is it the server that is transcoding to the client boxes because neither can play DTS-MA/HD soundtracks directly?

2) ... or is the server passing the raw stream to the clients and then the clients are transcoding because they can't direct play DTS-MA/HD audio natively?

3) How do I know if my server is doing the heavy lifting versus my clients?

4) How can I rip/save my files (BluRay rips) such that nobody is doing heavy lifting and nothing is transcoded (at either the server OR client level)?

Any help/advice would be appreciated.

Roku Image:

Android TV Image

[Luke 42077]

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1) What is transcoding?  Is it the server that is transcoding to the client boxes because neither can play DTS-MA/HD soundtracks directly?

Hi, yes that is exactly what it is.

[Luke 42077]

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2) ... or is the server passing the raw stream to the clients and then the clients are transcoding because they can't direct play DTS-MA/HD audio natively?

On other apps/devices we sometimes do this, but Roku is not capable of this.

[Luke 42077]

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3) How do I know if my server is doing the heavy lifting versus my clients?

If it says anything other than direct playing, then the server is doing the work.

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4) How can I rip/save my files (BluRay rips) such that nobody is doing heavy lifting and nothing is transcoded (at either the server OR client level)?

Convert your media into streaming friendly formats that don't require transcoding. The Emby Server convert media feature can help with this.

[EZEd 60]

Okay, thanks Luke.  Just trying to understand what's going on and how/what (if necessary) I need to do to improve my implementation.

Thanks again
Ed