High quality content

[DeanoVIP]

Is it better to have a media file with different variations of conent. For example, 720p, 1080p and 4k?  Most of my TVs are 1080p but I do plan to upgrade one or two of them to 4k.

I was unsure whether it's better to just have the highest quality and let it transcode, or to have a variety.  I do actually have one TV on WiFi that signal is not the best so 720p seems to work better, assuming it's smaller to send.

[user5621]

It's a trade off you probably don't want everything you can in 4k since it will take alot more space. It is pretty easy to tell 720p vs 1080p. 4k is noticeable if your really looking at the detail but 1080p is fine as well.

If your going to upgrade some of the TV's to 4k I would just get a roku ultra or NVIDIA Shield for the older tv's and then you should be able to direct play most files and you won't have to worry about transcoding or keeping multiple versions of one file.

For the TV with the bad signal, you can set a max streaming bitrate on a device, 1080P should still be fairly low bandwidth but you can play around with it.

[bitmap]

Rule of thumb: match your media with your clients. If your TVs are 1080p and you'll watch on a mobile device as well sometimes, match that resolution and keep to compatible audio tracks as well as video codecs.

I avoid transcoding 4K because that will always cause tonemapping, which is a suboptimal experience. A 1080p remux will look better than a transcoded and tonemapped 4K remux, IMO.