No matter what I do, I can’t get it to work. What am I missing?
Same problem here with an i5 2520M Sandy Bridge:
I have tried multiple Plex versions including final as well beta builds 1.11.3.4803, 1.9.3.4290, 1.9.1.4272, 1.8.1.4140, 1.6.0.3720 and 1.4.0.3224 and Intel driver versions 19.17.10.4229(15.28.24), 19.17.10.4101(15.28.23) and 9.17.10.3347 without any luck. Handbrake is encoding fine with qsv enabled and Plex software works but hardware transcode fails.
I was hoping things would just work in the public release and this was pretty much the only reason why I purchased a Plex Pass 
Thank you for mentioning Handbrake. It seems that you and I have different problems, as I installed Handbrake and it shows ‘QuickSync hardware not detected or enabled!’
This is the processor that I have:
I’ve looked in the BIOS and everything related to graphics is enabled. I am running Windows Server 2016 though. Could it not have the needed bits?
edit: The answer is sorta. Since it’s a server, I overlooked installing the graphics driver. I’ve since done that, and now Handbrake detects it. However, Plex still refuses to use it.
Great. I would have happily changed my OS if you were able to made it work 
Some graphics drivers/cards require a monitor to be attached to work properly. Any chance you’re running headless? If so, you can get a dummy plug.
When I installed the graphics driver, I had a head on it. Although IIRC, everything I’ve read says that running headless only effects Win8 and below.
Yes, I think something to do with the security model not allowing access to GPU frame-buffer when the system is locked or headless.
i hope someone with Sandy Bridge can help us with OS/driver version specific details. I’m sure the preview folks had it running flawlessly on Sandy Bridge for it to make Plex’s minimum recommendation.
Running as Windows service, perhaps?
This only allows for hardware encoding, but not decoding.
Oh crap. Seriously? Yep, its running as a service. Is there any workaround, other than running interactively?
@fly said:
Oh crap. Seriously? Yep, its running as a service. Is there any workaround, other than running interactively?
None that I know of, unfortunately.
https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-media-sdk/topic/386001
Okay, so this seems to indicate that there is something Plex can do at some point. Apparently if it’s used with DX11, services can use QuickSync. It seems that excludes Windows 7, but with mainstream support of 7 ending years ago, does that even matter?
I’m sure all this has been discussed in another thread though…
Hmmm… but then shouldn’t it at least work as an interactive process? It’s not working like that either.
@rbks80 said:
Hmmm… but then shouldn’t it at least work as an interactive process? It’s not working like that either.
AFAIK you need to install the Intel graphics driver software. Don’t rely on the stuff that comes with Windows.
Yep I tried the latest Intel drivers:
As well as the previous version (in case Intel had broken Media SDK 2.0 support):
And yopu have a monitor connected?
What type of file are you playing? ( Plex XML info would help)
@fly said:
Oh crap. Seriously? Yep, its running as a service. Is there any workaround, other than running interactively?
Fly are you saying you can get it to work interactively? Or have you not tried because you only want to run it as a service?
@OttoKerner said:
And yopu have a monitor connected?What type of file are you playing? ( Plex XML info would help)
Oh I am trying to play this on a T420 with display. Example media info for an x265 file is given below but i have tried it on x264 files as well with no success.
Video Resolution 1080p
Duration 53:20
Bitrate 1699 kbps
Width 1920
Height 1080
Aspect Ratio 1.78
Container MKV
Video Frame Rate 24p
Audio Profile he-aac
Video Profile main 10
Part
Duration 53:51
File Earth 1.mkv
Size 648.37 MB
Audio Profile he-aac
Container MKV
Video Profile main 10
Codec HEVC
Bitrate 1699 kbps
Bit Depth 10
Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0
Color Range tv
Frame Rate 23.976 fps
Height 1080
Level 4.0
Profile main 10
Ref Frames 1
Width 1920
Codec AAC
Channels 5.1
Bitrate 197 kbps
Language English
Audio Channel Layout 5.1
Profile he-aac
Sampling Rate 48000 Hz
Codec ASS
Language English
View XML
H.265 is out of the question. That old cpu doesn’t have a hardware decoder for it.
For the H.264 file it is also important to know which ‘Level’ it uses and if it was encoded with 10 bit color accuracy (‘Hi10’).
True, I wasn’t expecting decoding but it should still be able to do sw x265 decode + hw x264 encode.
Here is an x264 example which also does not transcode:
This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.
<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="3" librarySectionTitle="Other Videos" librarySectionUUID="0938ccde-9de9-4b72-ab69-6327dd190fea" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1518701078">
<Video ratingKey="71" key="/library/metadata/71" guid="com.plexapp.agents.none://c009ec2e2f16fc48ec3e99c6abf64fa0b6c6a5f0?lang=xn" librarySectionTitle="Other Videos" librarySectionID="3" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/3" type="movie" title="Tigre" summary="" viewOffset="536043" lastViewedAt="1520137796" year="2018" thumb="/library/metadata/71/thumb/1520137535" art="/library/metadata/71/art/1520137535" duration="9592480" originallyAvailableAt="2018-02-27" addedAt="1519689861" updatedAt="1520137535" createdAtAccuracy="epoch,local" createdAtTZOffset="0">
<Media videoResolution="1080" id="57" duration="9592480" bitrate="8553" width="1920" height="816" aspectRatio="2.35" audioChannels="6" audioCodec="dca" videoCodec="h264" container="mkv" videoFrameRate="24p" audioProfile="dts" videoProfile="high">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="57" key="/library/parts/57/1519689861/file.mkv" duration="9592480" file="F:\Media\Hindi\Tigre.mkv" size="10255615090" audioProfile="dts" container="mkv" videoProfile="high">
<Stream id="136" streamType="1" default="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="7017" bitDepth="8" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" colorPrimaries="bt709" colorRange="tv" colorSpace="bt709" colorTrc="bt709" frameRate="24.000" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="816" level="41" profile="high" refFrames="3" scanType="progressive" title="DDR" width="1920"/>
<Stream id="137" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="dca" index="1" channels="6" bitrate="1536" language="हिन्दी, हिंदी" languageCode="hin" audioChannelLayout="5.1(side)" profile="dts" samplingRate="48000" title="DDR"/>
<Stream id="138" streamType="3" selected="1" default="1" codec="srt" index="2" bitrate="0" language="English" languageCode="eng"/>
<Stream id="139" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="3" bitrate="0" language="العربية" languageCode="ara"/>
<Stream id="140" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="4" bitrate="0" language="bahasa Melayu, بهاس ملايو" languageCode="may"/>
<Stream id="141" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="5" bitrate="0" language="Bahasa Indonesia" languageCode="ind"/>
<Stream id="142" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="6" bitrate="0" language="ไทย" languageCode="tha"/>
<Stream id="143" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="7" bitrate="0" language="Español" languageCode="spa"/>
<Stream id="144" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="8" bitrate="0" language="Français" languageCode="fre"/>
<Stream id="145" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="9" bitrate="0" language="Nederlands" languageCode="dut"/>
<Stream id="146" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="10" bitrate="0" language="Português" languageCode="por"/>
<Stream id="147" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="11" bitrate="0" language="Italiano" languageCode="ita"/>
</Part>
</Media>
<Extras size="0"></Extras>
</Video>
</MediaContainer>
F:\Media\Hindi\Tigre.mkv
Media
Video Resolution 1080p
Duration 2:39:52
Bitrate 8553 kbps
Width 1920
Height 816
Aspect Ratio 2.35
Container MKV
Video Frame Rate 24p
Audio Profile dts
Video Profile high
Part
Duration 2:39:52
File Tigre.mkv
Size 9.55 GB
Audio Profile dts
Container MKV
Video Profile high
Codec H264
Bitrate 7017 kbps
Bit Depth 8
Chroma Location left
Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0
Color Primaries bt709
Color Range tv
Color Space bt709
Color Trc bt709
Frame Rate 24 fps
Height 816
Level 4.1
Profile high
Ref Frames 3
Scan Type progressive
Title DDR
Width 1920
Codec DCA
Channels 5.1
Bitrate 1536 kbps
Language हिन्दी, हिंदी
Audio Channel Layout 5.1(side)
Profile dts
Sampling Rate 48000 Hz
Title DDR
Codec SRT
Language English
Codec SRT
Language العربية
Codec SRT
Language bahasa Melayu, بهاس ملايو
Codec SRT
Language Bahasa Indonesia
Codec SRT
Language ไทย
Codec SRT
Language Español
Codec SRT
Language Français
Codec SRT
Language Nederlands
Codec SRT
Language Português
Codec SRT
Language Italiano
View XML
