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Plex hardware transcode


maxime

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The simple answer is, Plex transcodes. It's a transcoder, that's what it does. If your CPU is compatible, Plex is transcoding.

 

Perhaps you want to know if it's transcoding a 20TB 4k rip of a movie down to a resolution more compatible for your device. You can go to the Plex Server UI and look at activity (under settings) to see what Plex is actually doing, or check the logs. 

 

It's my understanding that different devices can support any number of formats natively and this information is passed to Plex, which may decide not to bother to transcode. For example, you have a 720p mpeg4 that can be played natively, and you're playing it on a 480p screen. Plex may just pass the stream down and let the device "transcode". That's more about the settings that the device provides to Plex via the client software. You can go into the client app, and set how high a quality you want, effectively telling Plex to give you a lower than native resolution for the purposes of saving bandwidth.

 

You might also just google for how to tell if Plex is transcoding a particular file for a particular device. But in general, yes, Plex is transcoding unless you've told it via a setting somewhere not to, and your device can accept the native stream.

 

I'm not a Plex expert, but this is my understanding. 

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Hi,
 
Hardware transcode it's only on DS916+.
I have a Xpenology (DS3617xs) baremetal server with intel CPU 7700 (kaby lake), no hardware transcode it's possible (no VAAPI drivers are installed) 
That's not really true, Plex can transcode on any x86 CPU even within a hyper visor in fact (though not very fast). If you're using DS Video on the other hand, then there are a few factors to consider if you want video transcoding.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

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2 hours ago, stefauresi said:

Hi,

 

Hardware transcode it's only on DS916+.

I have a Xpenology (DS3617xs) baremetal server with intel CPU 7700 (kaby lake), no hardware transcode it's possible (no VAAPI drivers are installed) 

Are you sure that DSM 5.2 have no VAAPI drivers? Are you on DSM 5.2 or 6.X?

 

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10 hours ago, aol said:

The simple answer is, Plex transcodes. It's a transcoder, that's what it does. If your CPU is compatible, Plex is transcoding.

 

Perhaps you want to know if it's transcoding a 20TB 4k rip of a movie down to a resolution more compatible for your device. You can go to the Plex Server UI and look at activity (under settings) to see what Plex is actually doing, or check the logs. 

 

It's my understanding that different devices can support any number of formats natively and this information is passed to Plex, which may decide not to bother to transcode. For example, you have a 720p mpeg4 that can be played natively, and you're playing it on a 480p screen. Plex may just pass the stream down and let the device "transcode". That's more about the settings that the device provides to Plex via the client software. You can go into the client app, and set how high a quality you want, effectively telling Plex to give you a lower than native resolution for the purposes of saving bandwidth.

 

You might also just google for how to tell if Plex is transcoding a particular file for a particular device. But in general, yes, Plex is transcoding unless you've told it via a setting somewhere not to, and your device can accept the native stream.

 

I'm not a Plex expert, but this is my understanding. 


Transcode is always made. The difference is from SOFTWARE transcode (made by CPU) and HARDWARE transcode (made by GPU).
I would to test if my Plex server made software or hardware transcode

 

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5 hours ago, maxime said:


Transcode is always made. The difference is from SOFTWARE transcode (made by CPU) and HARDWARE transcode (made by GPU).
I would to test if my Plex server made software or hardware transcode

 

Right I said I wasn't a Plex expert and so I'm not, and I'm learning here. I did not know that Plex can only hardware transcode on a GPU. Most Plex Servers are running on machines without a GPU. Synology boxes don't have GPUs, server class machines generally don't, or don't have a GPU that would help much. So sounds like you're saying you're on hardware that does have a GPU and you don't know if Plex is using the GPU to transcode. That's way past what I know, maybe hit the Plex forums! Peace.

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3 hours ago, aol said:

Right I said I wasn't a Plex expert and so I'm not, and I'm learning here. I did not know that Plex can only hardware transcode on a GPU. Most Plex Servers are running on machines without a GPU. Synology boxes don't have GPUs, server class machines generally don't, or don't have a GPU that would help much. So sounds like you're saying you're on hardware that does have a GPU and you don't know if Plex is using the GPU to transcode. That's way past what I know, maybe hit the Plex forums! Peace.

Every PC has a GPU; some PC have integrated GPU, others PC have discreet GPU. GPU have instructions for hardware transcode; if Plex doesn't recognise supported GPU, transcode is done by CPU, emulating via software GPU instructions. 

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Interesting. I see that Plex released GPU-based encoding as a Plex Pass feature earlier this year, and initially supported Intel GPUs only, YMMV with other GPUs. On my old xpenology box (a headless server) it used an older Intel CPU without an integrated (or discrete) GPU, but my current build-a-box has a recent Intel CPU with a built-in GPU. I'll have to investigate whether I can take advantage of it.

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16 hours ago, aol said:

Interesting. I see that Plex released GPU-based encoding as a Plex Pass feature earlier this year, and initially supported Intel GPUs only, YMMV with other GPUs. On my old xpenology box (a headless server) it used an older Intel CPU without an integrated (or discrete) GPU, but my current build-a-box has a recent Intel CPU with a built-in GPU. I'll have to investigate whether I can take advantage of it.

 

I've tested GPU trans-coding myself but the quality is always noticeably worse than doing it with the CPU. That may change in the future but right now GPU trans-coding isn't a viable alternative unless you really can't afford a budget CPU made in the last 3 years.

 

My i3 6100 for example can trans-code high bit-rate blu-ray rips quite easily (though CPU usage is high as you'd expect).

Edited by filippo333
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  • 1 month later...

Are there any news on that? Any possibillity to install this vaapi drivers on a baremetal 3615xs box?

I've read that it might be a problem using a DS916+ image on a Intel Xeon 1245 v6 CPU because the kernel is optimized for Braswell CPUs?

 

So I really like to use Xpenology, but without this hardware-transcode feature it's really shit because I bought a xxxx5 CPU just because of that ... .:-/ 

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7 hours ago, smokers said:

Intel Xeon 1245 v6

that one has a gpu and came out ~1 year after the Pentium N3710 that is inside the 916+

did you try to use the 916+ image? my guess would be that it might work (in the back of my mind there is something about kaby lake working and apollo lake does not, but i cant find it)

 

 

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@IG-88

 

Hardware transcoding under apollo lake is working. Here is a how-to to get it working. It's from @Bob the Builder. Unfortunatelly it's in russian language (I don't know this language) but with Google translator it's easy to understand everything.

This is the proove that Hardware transcoding is working under apollo lake (Intel Celeron J3455 is apollo lake)

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2 hours ago, Huberer said:

Hardware transcoding under apollo lake is working. Here is a how-to to get it working

thanks, wrong "lake" i meant CoffeLake, the latest generation from intel

but still he should try it

 

with the "correct lake" i also found the reference i was thinking about, but its not about whats availible for xpenology for now (newer kernel 4.4, that will be the 918+ mentioned or may be DSM 6.2? its still open i guess as it depends on the hardware synology is using in 2018, backporting everything to kernel 3.10.102 might be to bothersome at some point and they might switch completly to a newer kernel, but maybe thats whishfull thinking)

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 8.11.2017 at 7:59 AM, Huberer said:

@IG-88

 

Hardware transcoding under apollo lake is working. Here is a how-to to get it working. It's from @Bob the Builder. Unfortunatelly it's in russian language (I don't know this language) but with Google translator it's easy to understand everything.

This is the proove that Hardware transcoding is working under apollo lake (Intel Celeron J3455 is apollo lake)

 

So did I get this right, hardware transcode with 916+ image but with a different microachitecture like kaby lake won't work?

tried this on my Xeon E3-1245 v6 but didn't get it work - the /dev/dri device is missing and I have no clue why.

 

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@smokers

 

did you use Plex Media Server (Plex Pass version) to check if hardware transcoding is working? What I know is that PMS doesn't need "/dev/dri/*".

"dev/dri/*" is needed for Hardware transcoding under Emby Media Server.

Kaby Lake should be supported by the DSM-Image.

 

If you need /dev/dri for Emby hardware transcoding than you can try the following. Install a latest linux (Debian, Ubuntu,...) and save this folder. When you have installed DSM copy the saved folder to the System drive, give it the nesseary righst (chmod 755) and check under emby if hw transcoding is working. But be aware that after a reboot this folder is gone (so it was under my VM-DSM - I had to copy it again but didn't do this because under VM-DSM hardware transcoding via Emby didn't work). You can copy the folder again (by hand) or you make a script to do it automatically.

 

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16 hours ago, Huberer said:

@smokers

 

did you use Plex Media Server (Plex Pass version) to check if hardware transcoding is working? What I know is that PMS doesn't need "/dev/dri/*".

"dev/dri/*" is needed for Hardware transcoding under Emby Media Server.

Kaby Lake should be supported by the DSM-Image.

 

If you need /dev/dri for Emby hardware transcoding than you can try the following. Install a latest linux (Debian, Ubuntu,...) and save this folder. When you have installed DSM copy the saved folder to the System drive, give it the nesseary righst (chmod 755) and check under emby if hw transcoding is working. But be aware that after a reboot this folder is gone (so it was under my VM-DSM - I had to copy it again but didn't do this because under VM-DSM hardware transcoding via Emby didn't work). You can copy the folder again (by hand) or you make a script to do it automatically.

 

Hi, thanks for your answer :)

 

yes I tried with plex pass pms 1.9.xx 64 but Version. I activated the option in menue and tried to „optimize“ the big buck bunny video to „optimized for TV“ and the conversion worked but only with software transcode. No „(hw)“ was shown. 

 

Thought it have to be the missing /dev/dri device so far, but now I‘m confused. 

 

Maybe Input File (big buck bunny) and selected transcode to tv optimized did not suite for a HW transcoding, .... but is there a defined testcase (input video, transcode profile) in which it should definitely work if everything is setup correctly ?

 

Main goal here is plex so far, no experiences with emby. 

 

Thanks in advance !

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Hello,

 

I don't have a PC to test with DS916-bootloader. My Intel nuc is only running with DS3615 (with DS916 no chance to get it work)

Here is a good how-to you can follow. I know it's in russian language but with Google translator (russian => english or your language) you can find out what to do (I don't speak/read russian language but with Google it was ok).

What I can read over there is, that you have to activate Hardware transcoding under "Video Station" (you have to install in the package center). You can see the settings in the link.

 

Try to follow this guide and if it's not working come back here. It's good when you can post the result here anyway.

 

 

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