Because Plex is a bitch and often doesnt play nice when you have different resolutions of the same movie/episode. So in order to keep things working properly (as in, only transcode when absolutely needed, or never) a lot of people have their 4K content in a separate library from the other stuff. And then they only share the 4K libraries with those users who are capable of directplaying it for example. This avoids a lot of issues. And as a result of that you also have separate 4K instances of Radarr/Sonarr so things dont get mixed up.
Of course someone will comment “but it works perfect for me duh!”
You’re right but I just want to mention for many this is unnecessary. If your userbase is small, especially when they’re all on the same network using modern devices with Findroid/Swiftfin/JMP they can easily direct stream 4K and in my personal case my GPU can handle multiple 4K transcodes so when it does have to do that it’s not a big deal.
I never understood why people have a separate 4K instance of sonarr/radarr. Can someone explain?
Because Plex is a bitch and often doesnt play nice when you have different resolutions of the same movie/episode. So in order to keep things working properly (as in, only transcode when absolutely needed, or never) a lot of people have their 4K content in a separate library from the other stuff. And then they only share the 4K libraries with those users who are capable of directplaying it for example. This avoids a lot of issues. And as a result of that you also have separate 4K instances of Radarr/Sonarr so things dont get mixed up.
Of course someone will comment “but it works perfect for me duh!”
You’re right but I just want to mention for many this is unnecessary. If your userbase is small, especially when they’re all on the same network using modern devices with Findroid/Swiftfin/JMP they can easily direct stream 4K and in my personal case my GPU can handle multiple 4K transcodes so when it does have to do that it’s not a big deal.