Just wondering what the current status of PMS & 4K transcoding is? Is it still basically recommended to just Direct Play / Stream 4K content and not even bother trying to transcode it?
I ask because I have a decent PMS Setup. It is as follows…
Dual Intel Xeon E5-2620 v3 2.4 GHz Processors
32GB Of RAM
Intel NVMe PCIe Hard Drive (C:\ Drive - Plex Installed)
Nvidia GTX 1660 Super Graphics Card (Not Hacked / Unlocked)
10GBe Mellanox Connection to Network
All movies are stored on a Synology NAS with a 1GBE Connection (I consistently get 95 - 100 MBps when transferring files across)
I’ve started to acquire 4K Movies now due to the fact that they usually include a Blu-Ray Copy of the movie and are not significantly more than the Blu-Ray / DVD Version.
I’m able to rip the 4K Disks and store them on my NAS I am also able to direct play them with Infuse on my Apple TV (Non 4K) and Nvidia ShieldTV. However as soon as I try to transcode them down to a 1080P file they stutter every second. My Plex server says Buffering and Playing every second or 2.
If I pause the movie for a bit it will play fine for a little while and they start do the pause / play thing again. I’ve tried hardwire and wireless and it makes no difference. My GPU usage is 25% or less than what the card can handle. It’s one stream only. But it’s a little frustrating that I still can’t get 1 stream to play smoothly.
The wifi to my phone is consistently between 100Mbps & 200Mbps sometimes it can be over 400Mbps. So the Wifi Throughput to the phone shouldn’t be an issue. My AppleTV only has a 10/100Mbps connection so that could be an issue since it’s hardwired. I haven’t tried transcoding a 4K to 1080p on the Nvidia ShieldTV but will for fun.
It’s just annoying “ONE” 4K → 1080P Transcode won’t play smoothly.
But IMO with gpu and tone mapping support, given new/sufficient enough hardware, you should be fine with 4K transcoding.
Still keep in mind, that it is much less load to direct play a 1080 Blu-ray, than it is to transcode 4K to 1080/720 etc, and tone mapping may be good enough, but a normal sdr Blu-ray will still have the original colors (vs hdr/sdr converted).
Hi @Dunseith_Family … Have you checked that you are actually getting HW transcoding?
The reason I ask, is because when I lookup the benchmarks for your Dual Xeon, you are getting a passmark of 13427, which is fairly good, as I believe around 8000 is required to CPU software transcode a 4K video.
And therefore if you are not getting HW transcoding working correctly, this could possibly account for the problems?
Thanks for the reply guys… Yes I am getting Hardware Support and have Plex Pass. I see the HW beside my Video Transcodes. Direct Stream at Original Quality works fine to my phone or tablet for 4K files within the Plex App. But the minute I transcode it to a lower quality it plays for a second, buffers for a second, plays for a second, buffers for a second. At least that’s what the Plex Dashboard is showing.
I did determine that when I deselect “Enable HDR Tone Mapping” it doesn’t buffer and plays / transcodes a 4K file to 1080P no problem.
I guess my CPU’s are not fast / powerful enough to complete the Tone Mapping. Weird, I thought with all those cores it would be enough to do 1 movie at least! As I understand this is a CPU intensive task and not a GPU task. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Weird with a Passmark of 13K it won’t handle 1 stream that requires 8K.
Thanks a bunch guys… It’s not a deal breaker obviously as I can Direct Stream it but it’s been bugging me! Looks like I’ll at some point have to upgrade my Motherboard and CPU!
Would you go Intel QSV over a Nvidia GPU or would you still use a GPU for Hardware Transcoding? Wondering as QSV starts to narrow down the CPU Choices.
all you need is a 7x00 series intel or newer, with intel gpu 600 series or newer for quicksync.
I would recommend sticking with quicksync, since you save money and energy from having to use a separate gpu for just transcoding.
If you are using PMS on a gaming or other PC, then perhaps an nvidia gpu might be more important.
You can always add an nvidia gpu later, if the quicksync isn’t good enough, but not sure there is much performance/quality difference, and # of transcodes generally comes down to how much video ram is available.
Does anyone know if you have a Intel Quick Sync compatible CPU and then add a Graphics Card later will Plex Media Server still use Quick Sync for Transcoding or will it use the newly added GPU? Does Plex prioritize one over the other? Or would you somehow have to shutoff Quick Sync to force Plex to use the GPU? Assuming that you added a GPU with more power than your Quick Sync CPU.
Also just to confirm is my statement that Video Transcoding can be completed by the GPU but Tone Mapping has to be completed by the CPU correct?
You can always make a 1080p optimized version of the movie so it does not require transcoding and if you need to still transcode down to a lower resolution Plex will use the optimized version to transcode instead of the 4K version.
GPUs are built to wade through fields of video frames like almost nothing else…
That’s where the magic ends.
GPUs can’t stop what they’re doing to do something else - like fiddle with complicated conversions or even figure out where subtitles should go and make it happen.
GPUs are big brawny soldiers armed with Lamp Posts to crush the enemy.
CPUs are gentle (and clean) spies working behind the lines.
Can’t win the war without them both - sometimes - but know where to send who to do what.
