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

Builds [LGA1151,LGA1200] NAS Killer 6.0, Plex QSV Builds
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510

There’s still no reason to transcode 4K.
Ideally, all 4K content will be kept in a separate location from non-4k content.
Most of us run a separate 4k server instance for a few reasons:

  1. You can disable transcoding at a server level, not at a library level.
  2. You can change certain thumbnail generation settings only at a server level.
  3. It’s easier to share/unshare an entire server than it is to share/unshare a certain library.
  4. For those of us that have separate NAS and QS boxes, the 4k server runs on the NAS, and the non-4k runs on the QS box.
2 Likes
511

JDM, I want to do this using Truenas Core instead of Unraid. Do you have something on how to configure for Truenas?

512

You’d have to figure out how to run the passthrough in TrueNas Core then.

513

I am just referring to step 1 from the guide. Using Truenas instead

1. Configure Unraid

Enable NFS under settings, nfs
Go to users, add user and add a user that will have the same credentials as your ubuntu account
Go to shares and select the share you want to export to linux
Under nfs security settings change export to yes, change security to private

514

This is my first time using Truenas. I am doing some reading. I will figure it out. Just throwing the question out there in case there is a guide to refer to.

515

I don’t think you want to do this using TrueNAS. It’s not really an ideal OS for home media storage.

516

Ok, Thanks

517

This may seem dumb, but how do I update my Plex Server on ubuntu 20.04?

518

I’m assuming you have Plex Pass.

Run these three commands in terminal:

  1. This command retrieves the latest Plex Pass version.
    wget --content-disposition 'https://plex.tv/downloads/latest/5?channel=8&build=linux-x86_64&distro=debian&X-Plex-Token='

  2. after the _1. in this command press tab, it will auto-fill your version number.
    sudo dpkg -i plexmediaserver_1.

  3. this next command deletes the package after it’s installed.
    sudo rf -f plexmediaserver*

2 Likes
519

Hi, so I do have a HP-290 and a separate Unraid system. At the time I was lazy to install Ubuntu but I’m thinking about switching now. I don’t have more than 10 people watching anything at the same time (and not all transcoding) so here are two questions:

  1. Does it really help switching to Ubuntu instead of the Windows 10 (I sometime use this for some browsing)
  2. and if I make the switch, does it clear all the episode and movies watched for every user or that is part of each person’s Plex account?

Thank you

520

Going from Windows to Linux while keeping all watch history requires some editing of the database with a SQL editor. It’s a bit more involved than migrating Plex within the same OS. Plex support states that moving from one OS to another is not officially supported, but I was able to do it successfully after a bunch of research. Some resources for your research:

You basically move over Media, Metadata, Plug-ins and Plug-in Support folders. (Turn off scan libraries. Stop plexmediaserver service on Ubuntu. Delete Media, Metadata, Plug-ins & Plug-in Support from var/lib/plexmediaserver/Application Support/Plex Media Server and paste the folders from Windows in that location. It will take a while.) Edit the Preferences.xml with MachineIdentifier & ProcessedMachineIdentifier info from your Windows registry. Record that information before you start the migration. Then chown -R plex:plex ./Library And you edit the database to fix the paths.

1 Like
521

Thanks for the reply, I will look into it for sure. But what about the first question, does it worth doing it at this point?

522

Honestly, I wouldn’t bother moving the metadata unless you have tons of custom collections or custom posters. You could move the view state and ratings to the new install pretty easily by following these instructions from Plex.

3 Likes
527

I am hoping someone can help me here:

I followed the guide and was able to setup Truenas for the shares. I was able to select the folders in plex however I can not see the contents in plex. I setup the same user in truenas and Ubuntu so I am a bit confuse now that it is not working. These are my mounts:

movies -fstype=nfs4,ro,timeo=100,noatime 192.168.20.2:/mnt/Mich-NAS/Plexmedia/movies
tv -fstype=nfs4,ro,timeo=100,noatime 192.168.20.2:/mnt/Mich-NAS/Plexmedia/tv
music -fstype=nfs4,ro,timeo=100,noatime 192.168.20.2:/mnt/Mich-NAS/Plexmedia/music
photos -fstype=nfs4,ro,timeo=100,noatime 192.168.20.2:/mnt/Mich-NAS/Plexmedia/photos

Is there anything that I misunderstood?

528

Thanks! Worked like a charm.

529

After some investigation, it appears this was a permission issue in plex.

530

This is a very good guide. However, if the reader is fairly new to Ubuntu and Plex Media Server as well as not done his homework on permissions, he/she will still be a bit confused why Plex Media Server still does not work.

531

so rather than saying “fixed it” What exactly was the problem and the solution.

532

Thanks for your comment. However, my response was not “fixed it”. It was simply that permissions are not covered in the guide. A helpful hint perhaps to others like me.

The issue is by default Plexmedia Server is run under user “plex”. The easiest way to fix this is to add the “plex” user to whatever group on the Ubuntu computer that has access to the Plex Media Library folders. The current user on the Ubuntu computer should also be added to the “render” and “video” groups.

534

Just spent a fair bit of time trying to work out why I couldn’t find the global shares settings in step 2 of the software guide. Seems that is on the unraid server, not the ubuntu server despite it being in that step. Bit confusing as i am yet to install unraid, I am just trying to migrate my plex server first to a quicksync box before i move the main server to unraid.