[Guide] Hardware Transcoding: The JDM way! QuickSync and NVENC

Thank-you roo_my-dude. I will try that.

I tried doing that and was unable to figure it out after checking with :sudo mount -a. I was met with mount.nfs: access denied by server while mounting

Any ideas?

did you add something similar to /etc/fstab
192.168.1.2:/Archive /home/dbott/NFS nfs nfsvers=3,rsize=65536,wsize=65536,tcp,noatime,intr

Where 192.168.1.2 is the IP address of the NAS, Archive is the shared folder and /home/dbott/NFS is the mount point on the Ubuntu box.

The other thing to check is that you have added the Ubuntu IP address to ā€œroot privilege-enabled hostsā€ in Frontview > Share Listing > NFS :

Yes to the Fstab I added the Nas IP, along with the username and password under so it could gain access. I added an account in the Netgear -admin page using my username for My linux HP 290.

What does the /etc/fstab look like? I think with trying to figure this out I changed a few things in there that is causing errors.

Hello there,

New member here :slight_smile:

Registered because this tutorial is just really well put together. Amazing job!

I still have some questions even tho i have read a lot through it, and i am sorry if this has been asked before.

I donā€™t have a NAS yet. I want to keep it as cheap as possible.

I have mostly 4K HDR rips, which play fine at my place (duh! :stuck_out_tongue:). Now i wanted to give access to 3 or 4 friends, of which only 1 of them has 4K capable, and none of them have Dolby Atmos capable devices.

4K Transcoding is something to forget due to tone mapping issues, so i would have to reencode each movie to 1080p as well.

So the idea of a transcoding server would be purely to allow several users to watch at the same time (my connection has 40mbit Upload speed)

I would get a server like the HP 290 or a Dell 7010 that have been referenced here a lot, and host my media from there. Get some NAS HDDs to put inside the HP/Dell.

Everybody here seems to have storage device and Transcoding server separated. Is there a particular reason for that?

I really donā€™t mind if it takes a long time to copy the files ovrr USB to the server (i leave it copying at night), and i wonā€™t be constantly adding/removing content either.

Cheers and keep up the good work

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Alot of us have extensive storage devices. You canā€™t fit 45 drives in an HP290. There is also the fact that transcoding with quicksync doesnā€™t require a powerful cpu, but if you add a file server function then you start needing a beefier processor. Can it be done if you need just 1 drive for storage? Sure, but it wont be ideal.

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Thanks for the reply

Iā€™d only need 1 or 2 HDDs and PMS and Nextcloud would be the only requirements for me :slight_smile:

I live in Germany and i canā€™t find a decent priced HP 290ā€¦ The cheapest i found was around 350$ with an i3-8100, 4GB and i still had to add an SSDā€¦ Dell Optiplex are more expensive as well.

Sadly the recommended HW Links provided in this thread donā€™t open the desired Item on Ebay :frowning:

Have to keep looking for something decent.

BtW: i have a few other questions if you donā€™t mind:

Is ECC Ram really necessary for my use case?
What sound and subtitle format do you use, so that it wonā€™t be transcoded with the CPU (AAC and SRT)?
If i then proceed to build a NAS following the guides on this forum, do i need to pay special attention that it is as well QuickSync compatible, or just make sure that it has a snappy CPU and enough RAM?

Cheers and thx again

The hp290 is just an example. Almost any of the prebuilt systems with a 8th gen processor with igpu would work. You can also build one yourself if you can source the individual components. I think one of the issues you run into is that with the hp290 or similar system being a dedicated plex box is that you can jsut run ubuntu on it. If you combine it with a NAS function you end up running ESXI, Freenas, or unraid on it and then do plex in a VM. Itā€™s possible but the complexity goes up.

I seeā€¦ That makes sense of course.

Soā€¦ If i manage to build/buy a machine like that, do i need to have a transcoding capable NAS as well for storage?

Or basically any NAS will do?

Thanks again :slight_smile:

Edit: i found some of these on Ebay, letā€™s see if i can get hold of one. Itā€™s not the newest CPU but fpr 100ā‚¬ā€¦

Esprimo Q556, 16 GB, 512 GB SSD, Win 10 Pro

CPU: Intel Core i5 6500T, 2,50 GHz Prozessor mit 4 Kernen, vPro
Speicher: 16 GB (1 Modul)
Festplatte: 512 GB, SSD
Grafik: Onboard
Sound: High Definition Audio
LAN: Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base Gigabit LAN
2 x USB 2.0
4 x USB 3.0 SuperSpeed
DP
DVI
Seriell
TPM 1.2
Windows 10 Pro x64

See thats a 6th gen processor, which wont lok as good as the 8th gen. I have 7th gen and its fine, but i know some people prefer the 8th gen.

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:confused:

If only i had the same prices you have in the United Statesā€¦ 8th generation Build will cost me 350/450ā‚¬ with 8GB Ram and SSDā€¦ 6th will be half of that.

Then another 300/400ā‚¬ for the NAS Storage.

May be i should just reencode my 4K HDR Rips to 1080p with AAC Sound and .srt subtitles, and keep that Version on the NAS as well for direct play.

Anyways, thx a lot for your help so far, will keep you posted :grimacing:

Cheers

6th gen still looks fairly good. 4th gen and older is the one to avoid for quicksync imo.

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Hello guys,

So iā€™ve been all over EBay the last couple of days and i came to one conclusion: you are some lucky b*****s when it comes to Hardware prices :smiley: :rofl:

HP 290 with i3-8100, 4Gb Ram, 1TB HDDā€¦ +450$ over here. Usedā€¦!

But today i found this:

Dell T40, 8GB Ram ECC RAM, E-2224G (QSync support), 1TB HDDā€¦ For around 500$ NEW!

Since it has ECC RAM, and i really only need it for Storage, Nextcloud and Plex, i thought i might as well use this as a 2in1 device. This was my idea from the start

Buy another 8GB RAM and SSD, done.

What do u guys think?

Whatā€™s the consensus for the j5005? Under Ubuntu what performance have people been getting? Also, is it expected that the cpu be pretty much 100% all the time?

Trying to decide to make a new setup or just keep the current setup I have running on my main rig.

Can you start with detailing your experience? Youā€™re asking some leading/specific questions.

I want to move plex off of my current main computer. I love the guide and really want to make this work. I picked up a chembro 4 bay case, j5005, 8 gb of ram, four 8tb drives and a pci SATA card for the boot drive.

As stated in your guide, windows isnā€™t recommended. For fun, I have it a shot and the cpu hit 100% with hw transcoding to my iPhone, and the whole pc basically started to lock up.

So, I will install Ubuntu and try that. The issue I have is itā€™s a new OS that I know nothing about. Iā€™ve played with it before and struggled. To be honest, I feel I could just get a new 4bay NAS and just continue to run it off my main pc. BUT, I want to learn and give this a shot.

Ok, well I havenā€™t specifically recommended the J5005 (itā€™s not listed in the guide) as I have no experience with it. Itā€™s a pretty low end processor as well.

Your experience with Windows ā€œlocking upā€ isnā€™t super relevant, as Iā€™m not recommending use of the computer as anything other than a dedicated server. I donā€™t recommend using it as a desktop in addition to QS duties.

Were you sure hardware transcoding was taking place? Was the server doing other tasks such as library scanning, transcoding audio, detecting intros, etc.? What file type were you transcoding from/to?

Ubuntu is free and easy to install/use. If you follow the guide above strictly, it should be very easy. Also, weā€™re just a quick shout away - you can ask questions if you have any here or on the discord.

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Thanks for the help and advice. Trying to stay positive and not just toss in the towel. Currently I have a 2 bay qnap that has two 10tb drives it in that the plex pulls from.

I was on the Homelab discord and they sent me here and suggested the j5005. I donā€™t mind getting a mini itx board and an i3 or i5 processor . Iā€™d prefer to stay away from a GPU is possible, but as the guide explains, there is really no need for one.

The pc is only to be unused for plex and storing extra files and such. When it was transcoding I had only brought over one single season of a tv show. I made sure it was done with intros and all that fun stuff. It sat idle before I started playing a video. But that was windows.

The issues I had before involved sonarr/radarr, Ubuntu permissions and accessing the shares from my Mac. I know those may seem like little things, but it was a struggle for me. Would be cool if there was a media version already compiled with that stuff!

Give Ubuntu a shot and see how it turns out. Make sure to post screenshots along the way when you get down to testing. The Plex dashboard and Tautulli will tell you information as to whatā€™s going on with your streaming/transcoding.