There are things that don't work right: I have constant buffering on a couple of my devices, even at (say) 720p just serving up files with no transcoding, when Netflix et al have no problem serving me 4K to the same device without buffering. (My guess is its a problem with the client app, but I haven't really looked into it.)
There are things that are weird: If you have more than one version of the same movie or show, it lets you select between them not by (say) file name or runtime, but by video quality. So, for instance, I recently ripped a TV series and several of the episodes have extended editions. There's no way to tell which version is which until I start playing one of them.
There are things missing: Hardware acceleration on my i9 is the big one right now for me.
There seem to be regular updates, but they're often things that don't affect me as well. So it feels like updates are slow. (Like a fix for DVR service, which I don't use; or say an update to an XBox client.)
All that said... I'm not saying this to discourage anyone. Like I said, it's serviceable.
I think about the library I could have in ten years spending the money on Blu-Ray discs (on sale of course) instead of shelling out money to Comcast/Netflix/Amazon/HBO/Hulu/etc every month. And the best part is, I know it'll still be there when I'm ready to watch it or rewatch it.
Apples and geo-redundant and highly-available by design oranges, isn't it? Netflix has invested millions in their infrastructure, seems only logical they'd have the edge in content delivery especially to remote devices. Plex on the other hand, if it's just you on your residential copper line connection, well...there you have it.
Netflix can get me 4K content from the internet, through my ethernet, to my device. Plex can get me 4K content from my internal server, through my ethernet, to several of my devices.
Certain Plex client apps choke on any quality coming from the same Plex server over the same ethernet.
I can only assume a residential internet connection, which typically packet filters and shapes for uploading content? It's only a guess though, you might have much better options for residential ISP than I do.
Plex can get me 4K content from my internal server, through my ethernet, to several of my devices.
Across the internet as well or when you're on your local network? My experience has been (and like with all things YMMV) infinitely better watching at home than connecting to my VPN and trying to tunnel back, but I fully expected that because the local ISP places a pretty well enforced limit on uploads from residential lines.
Comparatively though, I don't think either of our connections for streaming content from our respective home media servers holds a candle to the infrastructure of Netflix, which is why my expectations are rather measured regarding the capabilities of Plex.
That said, I love it for what it is.
I'm measuring Plex on my LAN against Plex on my LAN. Some of my clients accept 4K streams with no problems. Other clients buffer an unwatchable amount even on 480p from the same server.
My purpose of bringing up Netflix was only to show that the client devices that are choking on 480p from Plex are capable of handling 4K streams.
Sampling all the way down to 480p is definitely odd behavior on a LAN--can't say I've run into that. Have you had much help from the usual spots? I'd be curious to help troubleshoot this sometime, sounds like an interesting nut to try cracking, or is it something inherent to the clients with the way they're decoding?
Since encoding is one of the things the PLEX team gets from open-source, hardware encoding is a frustrating feature to pay-walled in their premium subscription.
It does seem like we're due for a new open-source media server.
Go outside. Read a book. Spend quality time with your family.
We take our culture of hyper-consumption for granted so much that people scoff when you suggest "well, why not consume less? What's the big deal?"
It's not like we need more posts of people vocalizing how begrudgingly they subscribe to Netflix in every Netflix thread. As if unsubscribing is never an option. It's a bit exhausting to scroll through.
(preferably indie ones, the "AAA" game industry is about as bad as hollywood)
The movie industry also creates physical disks that you can trade but they have had copy protection since the analog era.