Artifacting when using hardware acceleration transcoding with integrated intel graphics

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
22

Ah my apologies for not catching that before I provided input.

23

Version 1.18.7.2457 does include some Transcoder fixes.

  • (Transcoder) Hardware decoding could produce corrupt video when burning subtitles on Apollo Lake-based processors. (#10753)
  • (Transcoder) Hardware encoding on older Intel processors could produce very low-quality output in some cases. (#10863)
  • (Transcoder) Transcoder request for session segment would hang if we killed the transcoder job and OS fails to complete the process kill (#10886)
  • (Transcoder) Transcodes could fail in some cases due to thread scheduling conditions (#10831)

Can anyone confirm if the issues have been finally fixed? I am still on downgraded 1.17 since I do not believe in a real fix yetā€¦

24

I just upgraded to Version 1.18.7.2457 looking to see if the transcoder provided for any improvements for video acceleration for the i5-7600k. I can tell you that with v1.18.7.2457 there has been zero improvements whatsoever as far as transcoding w/ goes with integrated intel graphics.

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25

I also upgraded to v. 1.18.7.2457 and still experienced severe artifacting when using hardware acceleration. I too was hopeful, but no changes or improvements as of yet.

26

same here :confused:
and Iā€™m running linux and plex via docker

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27

Tested the latest version as well, still no fix, very annoying! And no response at all so far if the bug is being taken care of? So back to 1.17 for me thanā€¦againā€¦

28

I am using 1.16.2.1321- and all is good, but it seems audio transcoding is taking more resources.
I downgraded from 1.17.0.1709 because it had an issue with the Dashboard. All new movies werenā€™t added, even thou they were in the folder. Once I downgrade to 1.16 all was good. But an issue is high load for audio transcoding compared to 1.17 version.

For now, I will stick with 1.16.2. if all is working on debian 9 Platform

29

Win server here. the same problem bothered me since first1.18 until version.2457, I had to fall back to version 1.17.0.1841, and the hardware transcoding quality was normal.

30

Any progress here?

31

The new beta version v1.19.xx fix this bug, but it is not as good as v1.17.xx, you can try it.

32

I just tested it with the 1.19.1.2621 beta server build. Thereā€™s zero improvements to the hardware transcoding whatsoever for the integrated Intel GPUs.

1 Like
33

@elan @ChuckPa @StSimm1 @sa2000 @BigWheel

Can I please a response on this thread? This transcoding encoding/decoding issue w/ the integrated Intel graphics has been ongoing since the release of PMS v1.18 which was released late last year. It was indicated in the change log for version: 1.18.7.2415 a fix for the transcoder was implemented:

  • (Transcoder) Hardware encoding on older Intel processors could produce very low-quality output in some cases. (#10863)

This is not the case, and there hasnā€™t been any improvement for situations where transcoding is required to watch foreign films/shows that need subtitles. Details and examples as to the issue were previously provided on the top thread.

Iā€™ve been trying each PMS server release (up to 1.19.1.2630) and this still hasnā€™t been corrected, and have been rolling back each time. PMS servers 1.17 and lower did not produce artifacts when the videos needed to be transcoded to burn in the subtitlesā€¦ Itā€™s been 5+ months now and as a Plex Pass holder, I should be able to utilize hardware acceleration. Iā€™m less than thrilled about this ordeal and even more so now with the API change where the scraper no longer works pulling TV shows unless you have a 1.18+ version of PMS.

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34

I donā€™t have a Windows VM anymore. Strictly Linux. I cannot be of any assistance with Windows issues.

On my systems, No quality problems whatsoever
I have an i7-7700 and an i7-8509g in both NUC8 and QNAP NAS.

I did notice, 6 referenc frames? The standard FFMPEG is 1-4
I donā€™t know that impact that may have.

35

Then find another of engineers with windows system to solve this problem, A basic hardware transcoding problem. For paying users, this feature bug that continues to exist for so long, even across versions, is unacceptable.

1 Like
36

Ubuntu 18.04 - i5-4690k
Version 1.18.9.2578

I donā€™t think this is an Windows specific problem. I noticed I see alot of artifacting on any media that has subtitles enabled. However, once I disabled hardware acceleration, I see no artifacting at all whatsoever.

Perhaps, I should consider rolling back as well, seems like it was a decent workaround for now.

1 Like
37

I am still on 1.17 and no issues. Will not try any newer version as long as it is not clear if this issue is/was adressed. Question is also, a couple of new Intel driver updates came out in the meantime, but not sure if this is changing anything. An update would be highly appreciated.

38

The same problem on my QNAP with intel N4005 , HD600 , I just deleted the new transcoding driver to get a temporary fix, there are two drivers in plex server folder, find it and delete the one for intel HD.

39

Which driver file is the Intel one?

40

Which OS platform?

41

Windows 10.