I cheated and set up ApacheGuacamole on my NAS.
Is there any data on how temps scale with # of QS transcodes? Planning my buildâs heatsink and airflow right now, wondering if QS even has a significant impact on heat. I donât see it mentioned anyways so Iâm guessing there is minimal impact?
It doesnât have a significant impact on heat. What case and heatsink were you looking at?
Cool, thanks for the tip! Looking at Fractal Design R5 and probably the largest Noctua cooler that doesnât impede on my RAM slots. Just curious, is that also true for NVENC? If not it seems like a major benefit of QS is better thermals?
Excellent guide, picked up a used HP Elitedesk 800 G5 Mini and moved my Plex server installation over to it.
Thank you for this interesting guide, just to clarify, the transcoding of multiple 4K HDR videos simultaneously is not possible even with Quick Sync enabled, correct?
Itâs possible, but the point of having 4K content is quality. Why transcode 4K into a lower quality?
I have a 4K library for personal viewing and would like to make it available for others via remote access without having to download and store the same a second time in a lower quality (as I have been doing in the past). Someone with a NUC reached out to me in the meantime and let know that an entry level NUC can just about handle two simultaneous 4K HDR â 1080p SDR transcodes, which is an improvement compared to the single one my NAS can do but not enough for me to justify the investment.
No need for a NUC. Outside of the form factor, youâll get worse cooling, less upgradability, and higher cost, just to name a few things. Go with a HP 290 or HP S01 instead, both are socketed CPUs and will allow for upgrades in the future.
If your 4K is on a separate library, thatâs fine - but a separate server is better (I recommend on the NAS itself). That way you can disable transcoding entirely, and leave transcoding turned on for the main library.
Iâm still a bit confused on this. Right now I have Plex server on Windows hosting both server and video library, and recognize its limitations (due to Windows).
If I have a server with Unraid (with 8th gen intel) holding my video library, is it best practice to have the Unraid machine run plex server, or have a dedicated plex transcoding box like the HP 290 (holding the server metadata but not the raw video files)?
In my opinion, yes. You will maximize the performance by having separate storage and Plex server.
Let your NAS do the file management and ingestion.
Hi JDM - have purchased an HP ProDesk 600 G3 Micro Tower (MT) after reading your guide - wanting to stick to 7th gen or above. It has i5-7500, 8GB and 256 M2 built in - and is also replacing my existing computer with which I do a bunch of other things as well.
For anyone interested I ended up scoring it for $265 AUD, got 7% off ebay promo and used 5% off ebay gift cards bringing the total price to $234.13 AUD picked up in Sydney.
There is another unit that the guy is selling if anyone happens to be in Sydney here it is:
I intend on sticking up to 6x 2.5" Sata drives into it and running a RAID 5 with a controller which will all fit thanks to the MT size. We have 2TB portable drives for as little as $59 AUD brand new then just rip out of the casing or maybe I will go for higher capacity we will see.
I really want to play 4K content @ 4K - is the tone mapping issue sorted now ?
I havenât upgraded to Plex Pass yet either - itâs $159 AUD a bit expensive I am hoping that a deal comes out soon that makes it more affordable - or otherwise do you know of any other way of getting it cheaper ?
I was also curious what ever happened to that IOWAIT issue regarding NVENC and QS - the conversation seemed to fizzle out ?
So update: 4K struggles to transcode on the i5 7500 which now feels like a complete waste of time, effort $$ etc even with a 1 month free plex pass and HW transcoding turned on (Dashboard shows âhwâ for played files)
I found that my Roku Plex App has the ability to Force Direct Play which plays all 4K content just fine. A bit miffed that Plex doesnât direct play it when the setting on the Roku is set to Auto.
Long story short - there is absolutely no reason why I would need to transcode if I wanted to play it on my new Roku and at least now I save $160 AUD for the Plex Pass.
Overall a pretty ballstastic experience - but hey the computer has been upgraded so bonus to a degree.
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If you were trying to transcode 4K with tone mapping on a Windows server I think that is expected. I can squash a 4k HDR remux down for a 1080p SDR client with a i3-7100 server â if itâs running Linux with the OpenCL stuff installed.
Stop trying to transcode 4K. Thereâs no point.
If you have a separate transcoding box from your NAS, then make a 4K server on your NAS for only 4K content, and disable transcoding.
You could probably say that a little bit nicer instead of like demanding people to stop doing something. isnât one of your rules âBe kind to your fellow community members.â one of the big reasons I left the Discord smh. you could just say " Hey, we donât advise transcoding 4K , but if you wish to do so then understand we cant help on this cause the software doesnât have the capability to do this correctly"
Hope you take this as âConstructive criticismâ and not an attack.
You could be a little more charitable with your interpretation of what Iâm saying, instead of assuming that Iâm being mean.
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Well I see what you are saying and yeah I could ⌠if this was my first time being here and interacting with you. But its not and you and one of your other admins (specifically the other guy but you too) are not very nice to people how have genuine questions. an not just me, I seen a few people getting the short end of the stick on your discord. So from my experience on this form and on the discord, yâall can be pretty rude sometimes. and the âcharitable with your interpretationâ well when its nothing by Text you have nothing but interpretation.
I know I am just one person but I am saying this so maybe you can understand here I am coming from.
anyways you did a really good to write up of all this, this walk through helped me out a lot on decisions to make on this type of stuff, before this came along I have a 1080 with hacked drives with a R7 2700x running 24/7. being able to use just a low powered CPU ( Laptop with an 8th gen i3) has saved me in power cost.
I can sometimes be short with my answers. It gets to be a bit tiresome answering the same questions over and over because people donât take the time to read or search before posting.
So now I donât answer questions that have been already asked repeatedly since I donât want to be accused of being rude or mean.
If someone with more patience chooses to answer, thatâs great. If the question goes unanswered, hopefully they find their answer somewhere else.
So I just want to show with windows 10 and forcing Plex and the transcoder to use the igpu ( i3 8100) I am able to get 10 streams (Thatâs as far as I got before my pc I was using remotely started to freak out) and could go for more with hardware transcoding all 10 of them. To assign an application to a GPU, head to Settings > System > Display. Scroll down and click the âGraphics Settingsâ link . Select the application you want to configure
hope this helps someone like myself cause I hate Linux and cant stand how you have to mount drives in it. And not trying to knock on Linux by any means just showing that this can be done in windows too you just have to force it or you will only get about 6 ( sometimes less) Transcodes before it just craps out on you.
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