You still get hardware decode and hardware encode of the video with the DS218+ and a PlexPass.
What none of us get, even with an i7-7700 or better, is hardware-anything (this is important) when the subtitles must be burned-into the image.
That’s important. There are two types:
Image based (PGS, VOBSUB, and DVRRIP by name) which must be burned in because nothing exists to overlay images on images (subtitles on video )
Text based images (SRT, ASS, and SSA) can be handled by almost all the players if the player asks for the 3rd stream (vido, audio, subtitle). The player does the painting on the TV. That’s easily done compared to image overlay
Intel never gave us the ability to burn in the images with the hardware. Theoretically, it can do it but no software exists to do it yet. Maybe someday? It will take someone at Intel or like that to write such software.
For you with the DS-218.
HEVC (H.265) or AVC (H.264) , Text based subtitles — easy peasy.
Audio transcoding is the simple “how much does it take to convert audio X -> Y”
There is a major limit also in the J3355 which is not in its big brother (J3455)
The J3355 won’t do UHD video. it will do 4K 8 bit/SDR but not 10 bit HDR.
You’d need the J3455 for that.
