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

Thanks for sharing the tip about giving Plex server read/write access. I have followed your recommendation but I still get an error when I try to delete a movie from Plex.tv… any thoughts? Here is a screenshot of my rule under movies share folder:

This M710q appears to be a pretty good option, right? $150 with an NVMe for a complete 7th gen system.

Yeah it’s a fantastic deal for that form factor, though if you buy one be sure to verify the item you receive is as described - people in Discord have received 6th gen CPUs from that seller + listing.

I’m only seeing $99 with 8GB RAM and 500GB HDD, no NVMe.

Sorry, didn’t specify. Purchase that with a $50 512gb Sabrent nvme.

You know, JDM, what do you think of this deal? I would say it’s pretty good for the market we’re in.

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Hi all - just looking for some advice a- Im not decided whats best to do yet
Currently running a microserver gen 8 with a Xeon1265l v2 so Ive maxxed the cpu in it …all working great to be honest but Ive also recently gone and bought a G4 Mini 35W with a Gen8 i5 -8600T in it. Thjis has quicksync also

My initial plan was to install home assistant through proxmox on that elitdesk but I just haven’t got round to it yet. In the meantime ive started downloading some 4K content and noticed that the 4K TV plays great with direct streaming but the other TVs that are 1080p… the server really cant cope with transcoding 4k down

Im all Cat6 wired here too and my clients in the house are both Nvidia Shields

So my question really is whats better to do in this sort of scenario
Use the G4 Mini as a Plex Server (and using the microserver as a nas) - or would it be best to forget 4K transcoding and maybe just have a 4K folder specifically for the 4K TV as I have heared that mentioned a few time too

Thanks

Looking to buy into a QS transcoding machine (either the HP PD400 or 600). Everything I’ve read thus far (including the threads talking about the HP290) seem to talk about setting up the server as the Plex transcoding box and having one’s media on a NAS. (Hopefully, I am interpreting this correctly.)

My question is does setting up the QS transcode box and attaching something like a QNAP TR004 (via USB 3.0) still apply here? I have that storage box with 52 TBs (2 x 14 + 2 x 12).

Currently running PMS on my super old and nearly tapped out, modernized 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 (Catalina 10.15.3). And it’s generally fine (with 62GB RAM (RAM transcoding in place mostly for working with Live TV & DVR–using HDHomeRun, but suffers when multiple transcodes (1080p to various user players–never more than 2 at a time), Radeon RX 580 8GB Graphics).

I’d like to get my MP back for all the stuff I use the Mac for, and simply plug in the QNAP into one of these QS transcode boxes. Of course, I’d like to know that I have a modicum of success potential before I invest the time, money and energy only to find out I’m missing some crucial, obvious factor that would prevent the positive outcome I’m hoping for.

Thanks, in advance, for thoughts and suggestions. Cheers.

Update: My offer ($251) was accepted (eBay) for the HP Pro Desk 600 G4 Mini (i5-8500T, 2.1Ghz, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) with taxes (& free shipping) only $275. The display ports on back are the two standard and the swappable being a VGA. No WiFi on this one, but not planning on needing that as it will sit right on top of my attached storage box.

Additionally, I’ve picked up the Sabrent 1TB NVMe from the list above, now priced at $100 plus the heat sink for $9. All in–a shockingly low $384!

Can’t wait to put this puppy together!

Hey mate. I originally (and only a few weeks ago) purchased a HP PD400 with i58500 to use as a quicksync box.

My last few weeks were focused on installing Plex and Ubuntu on it and also converting my entire existing windows build to unraid with the existing hardware.

I’m now looking at pulling the motherboard out of the unraid server and simply making it a DAS to the HP instead and running unraid from there. As far as I have researched there shouldn’t be anything preventing us from running it as an all in one.

Please pardon my ignorance regarding things raid-y or unraid-y! When you say you are going to pull the motherboard and run unraid from there, not sure what you mean, exactly. My guess is that you are going to run unraid on Ubuntu? TIA

Yeah sorry that wasn’t very clear.

Right now I have unraid on my older dual xeon server and Plex on my Ubuntu HP PD400.

Plan is to remove the motherboard (CPU, ram etc) from the current unraid box so that it is just a PSU + drives (i.e a DAS)

Then I will move my unraid USB over to the HP and boot into unraid from there instead of Ubuntu. I will have to move my Plex install to unraid of course and I will be connecting the drives in the DAS to the HP using an HBA LSI card which I already have.

The intent is to not use the dual xeon motherboard anymore which will save me more than a dollar per day in electricity.

Considering how expensive HP 290s are right now in EU I was thinking of getting a Gigabyte Brix barebone with an Intel Celeron N5105 (10th gen 10w), which supports 1 DIMM and 1 2.5" SATA. Would this be acceptable for a Plex QuickSync machine as described in this guide? Thanks.

The N5105 is not in the same class CPU IMO. They do not perform well in my experience. Stick to Celeron or higher laptop or desktop class CPUs.

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Why would you want to run the QNAP over USB instead of ethernet? Over ethernet every system on the network will be able to access the data, and you can easily move the components to different rooms/areas without worrying about anything other than an ethernet cable.

Because this is just a hard drive enclosure. It’s not a NAS.

And neither is your QS box.

What is your hardware situation like now, aside from the hard drives you have?

I run PMS on an early 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 w/2x3GHz Quad-Core Xeons, 62GB of usable RAM, Radeon RX 580 8GB, running Catalina 10.15.3. 28TB internal and 52TB external in the QNAP. This set up serves me and my household rather well, however, I’d like to serve out to a couple of friends without that load overwhelming my current set up. Also, the MP is a power hog and spews massive heat which isn’t optimal (right now in the winter it’s fine :wink: )

I’ve been reading up on a lot of your theories and the QS transcoding boxes really interest me. I had to send back to the ebay seller the first HP Prodesk 600 as it didn’t seem to want to boot correctly. I’ve found another Pro Desk 600 which should be delivered this next week.

My thought at this point is to simply follow your build guide to get the HPPD installed with Linux, set up PMS and move my external storage to the new QS box.

Is this flawed thinking at this point? Cheers. I’m grateful for the input.

I would recommend a quicksync box, and transferring your storage over to an unraid nas killer. I used to have my PMS and storage tied to my main gaming/household PC. Once I got unraid setup and running i just thought “what the hell took me so long to do this?”. The setup does not generate very much heat and sits idle for the most part. Once up and running I have had to do very little maintenance on the server.

It sounds like you would be able to get the NAS setup and start transferring data over and doing the HD shuffle and have minimal impact to your service. And unless you are doing intensive rendering or working with heavy files you will notice no difference in having your storage on the network instead of attached. I do light photo editing over the network (1gbe) and have no issues.

SoIi have a few more questions:

  1. is your Mac really only used as a plex server?
  2. If I am connecting the dots here, are you transcoding streams in-house? I am guessing your xeons do not have quicksync, or you do not have plex pass for hardware transcoding and thats why you start to struggle with transcodes. AMD GPUs do not transcode with Plex.

JDM does this require you to have two separate PLex Pass?

Why would you need two?