Media Server Guys Which Video format should i convert my library to?

when you say 'library' what are you referring to?

i know i gave up on getting decent quality rips from my own copies of DVD a long time ago...

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I don't think so. Are you going to be using Plex?

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I am using plex.

I use mp4. MKV is better, but the files tend to be larger and some programs don’t like them. Mp4 is fairly universal it seems.

The biggest pitfall I recall was in the surround sound. MP4 has limitation on the audio while MKV can use the true surround from Blu-ray Discs.

I’m not watching on high end equipment or anything special, so mp4 and decent 1080p HD rips are good enough for me.

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That's none of your damn business and I'll thank you to stay out of my personal affairs.

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So they all accept MP4 and MKVs.

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I did mp4 for a while, made the switch to MKV a few months back. While there is definitely an increase in quality, I also changed the hardware I was using to do my transcoding and compressing, so it's not exactly fair to compare them. If I remember correctly, I made the switch to keep the superior audio channel formats in MKV that aren't available in mp4.

Most of my files are recorded tv that I make available on a plex server in another room to
1) have DVR access throughout the house (I get live TV through an HDHomerun on the network)
2) have access to my library when I'm stuck on call at the hospital

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Most the MVK media i have, has srt files separate. does MKV combine the srt files into the MKV video file?

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mine are separate. I honestly don't know whether I'm letting Plex download them or using MCEBuddy to pull them from the .wtv file. I believe I do the latter, but it's definitely a separate file on my system

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basically want to get my whole library to both or either MP4 and MKV, all as single video files instead of some folders and some not.

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I actually ran conversions on 1.8 TB of recorded TV to move from mp4 to mkv. Like I said, it's better. I'm not certain how much of that had to do with an inferior CPU that was stressed during conversion or not. I lean towards it having some effect.
Mass conversation will take a while. I think mine took a little over a week (think I'm using the cheapest 6th Gen i7 cpu to do that).

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Also Im planing to add more drives. How are yall setting up your drives

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Windows storage spaces is actually pretty good. I use Parity, which is essentially a scalable software RAID5 (assuming drives are equal size, you get N-1 drives of space. When they are unequal, it still absolutely works- I just am not certain of the calculation it uses and how much of your available space is useable as storage). I like it. I think it's probably the best "bang for the buck" once you get above 3 drives. It should still require 2 drives to fail, again assuming drives of equal size.

I wound up going with Win10 over FreeNAS, because I wanted it to play nice with a Homegroup I had setup. Probably would have been just as well off with FreeNAS, but I wanted to play around in Windows a little to see how it acted as a home server.

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i didnt really know plex did that. so should i just delete all the srt files i have?

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I wouldn't worry about it as they aren't that big, but you may be more particular about it than I am.

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How has Homegroup worked for you? I

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It's "always up" and works fine. I think turning it on/off or restarting stuff frequently tends to screw with it a little from past experience.

Htpc (w8.1)records and converts a file, a script on the "server" (w10) runs every 15 minutes looking for new files in that directory. I think it's been right around 6 months, and I don't think I've had a problem with either seeing the other's network share. It does take a little playing around and finding the right buttons to share a directory + allow write access to everyone in the homegroup, but once it's up, it's up.

Maybe for whatever reason when it's infrequently used it tends to "sleep" and disappear?
One thing that may be fun is to set it up on two devices and have one backup a file and have the other one pull the backup and see if/when it stops working or if the reliability really is use-related?

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It's "always up" and works fine.

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Just to be clear, when you go into Explorer, do you see remote machines and all their expected shares under "Homegroup"? That's what always ends up messing up for me, and it's eventually done so since Windows 7. Networking, however, continues to work fine, including the shares I set up as part of the Homegroup, because I use the same password-protected account on all my machines. If I didn't try to use the Explorer Homegroup shortcut to view shares on remote machines, I wouldn't know anything was amiss. I use the Network shortcut to view the shares, and that's fine.

Honestly, I've given up on trying to keep Homegroup stable. I was just wondering if it works right over time for anyone.

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It's crazy how many obscure features like this exist, but I still can't get decent audiobook support.

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there's a few plugins for handling smart light integration (dimming lights when you start a plex movie) but its also frustrating how crappy the integration is on that.

alexa has spoiled me. once you connect to [insert smart light company here] it just works.

why can't something as popular as plex get this right?