DS218+ hardware transcode, not working.

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
23

the 64 bit download is here.

zangpnaz9f3d.png660Ɨ681 28.6 KB

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Thank you very much for this information. I was pulling my hair out. :slight_smile: Itā€™s a little challenging to find good specific information. I was trying everything I could. I thought I had it with the 64 bit install. Then I finally see I need the pass to simply enable hardware acceleration.

I couldnā€™t find that information anywhere but here, after a bunch of googling and YouTubing. I appreciate your help very much.

I was wondering why all these YouTube videos were saying, ā€œLook, two 1080p streams from my Synology!ā€ Meanwhile I was buffering at 1080p with a single stream and had to back it down to 720p.

BUT BUT BUT BUTā€¦

Now that I have everything seemingly setup correctly, Iā€™m struggling to stream a lossless MKV rip of Harry Potter to my Roku3, wired to the router. Every 10-30 seconds it buffers. I tried it in original quality, and then 1080p 10Mbps. Both buffer. It finally appears that 720p works. (EDIT: Nope. Just buffered)

My Formula 1 file works at 1080p/10Mbps (before having the pass I could only do 720p). That is a 1080p H.264 file (it also says ā€œ.ts fileā€). The entire file size for that is 4.0Gb.

My cpu never exceeds 59% and my memory never exceeds 30%. This is a little frustrating when I see Lon Seidman doing simul-1080p streams. :confused: :slight_smile:

DS218+
Roku3
All wired

I can get more info if necessary. I snagged this Log about 5-10 minutes into Harry Potter, after a handful of buffers (just to give a performance/time reference).

1 Like
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Thank you for your help. I continue to learn.

Now I have to figure out if I want to use my laptop/desktop for transcoding or convert my hundreds of files to MPEG4. :slight_smile:

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@AdamB5000 said:
Thank you for your help. I continue to learn.

Now I have to figure out if I want to use my laptop/desktop for transcoding or convert my hundreds of files to MPEG4. :slight_smile:
Iā€™m no expert but it will only be the VC1 encoded files you need to convert. If you check the ā€˜get infoā€™ on the options of each film you will be able to determine which are VC1 and which are H264.

From my own experience most movies seem to be h264 these days. All my VC1 files were older blu Ray releases like Bourne.

I think I had about a dozen in total. I let plex optimise them in original quality and now they play without a hitch

28

Hi,

I thought I was getting closer to figuring out why my DS218+ is unable to transcode fast enough, but Iā€™m still having issues and I do not have access to the option ā€œHW transcodingā€.

  1. I uninstalled the Plex Media server on my Synology (I had the 32 bit version as well)
  2. I downloaded the 64 bit version from Plex.tv/download
  3. I did a reboot on my Synology
  4. I signed out and signed back in on the updated Plex Media Server (I have a Plex Pass Subscription)

When I go to ā€œSettingsā€ > ā€œServerā€ > ā€œTranscoderā€ , I now only have 2 options to choose from:

  1. Transcoder Quality (set at Automatic)
  2. Maximum simultaneous video transcode (set at Unlimited)

Iā€™m Uploading my Blu-Ray DVD collection and theyā€™re typically:
32Mbps bitrate
30GB file size
1080p
24fps
Codec VC1
Was the DS218+ the right purchase or am I out of luck?
Iā€™ve attached my logs for your reference.

Any advice would be great!?

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  1. Please turn off and never again turn on Verbose logging unless requested. Data is lost due to the extreme volume
  2. With Verbose OFF, please recreate.
  3. Again collect and attach the ZIP files
  4. This time, please also include the XML of the file being played
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Please see the screenshot below. I went and checked to make sure Verbose logging was turned off, and it was. Iā€™m not sure why the logs say it was on.
Attached are the latest logs.

Youā€™ll have to forgive me, but Iā€™m not sure how to take a movie file (.mkv) and produce a XML file. Iā€™ve been using MakeMKV to produce a bunch of .mkv files and upload them.

Iā€™m currently on a Mac OS. Is there an easy way to give you this XML thatā€™s quick and easy?

31

To obtain the XML (raw information you see in the Media Info)

Hover over the item, expose the ellipsis, click it, Get Info -> View XML in the popup.

Copy/paste the XML (making certain to use Code paragraph formatting found at the top of the Reply window.

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Thanks for that. I thought VC-1 is enabled now for HWtranscoding. Iā€™ve asked the transcoding team to confirm what should be seen

Re HW transcode, youā€™ll find the setting to enable it in Settings - Server - Transcoder near the bottom as ā€˜hardware accelerationā€™

If you still done see it using the 64 bit version, Iā€™ll need you to check at the OS level whatā€™s happening

34

Thank you. I do see Hardware Acceleration as an option now. I went ahead and checked the box and clicked ā€œSave Changesā€.
I will test out a few videos to see if this helps or not.

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@ChuckPA said:
Thanks for that. I thought VC-1 is enabled now for HWtranscoding. Iā€™ve asked the transcoding team to confirm what should be seen

Re HW transcode, youā€™ll find the setting to enable it in Settings - Server - Transcoder near the bottom as ā€˜hardware accelerationā€™

If you still done see it using the 64 bit version, Iā€™ll need you to check at the OS level whatā€™s happening

In order to obtain VC1 HWtranscoding do you have to be running the latest firmware?

36

I have some good news and bad news.

Bad: VC-1 HW decode isnā€™t yet available
Good: Theyā€™re working on it now. The recent fixes upstream by Intel and FFMPEG were pulled into PMS

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How well does the 218+ handle transcoding? I have a few people that use it over the internet set at 3 mbps 720p, and it isnā€™t all that often they do use it maybe a couple times a day. Locally it gets used all the time direct play and transcode. Really donā€™t want to spend the extra $100 on the 718+ if I donā€™t need to.

39

@cplatt10 said:
How well does the 218+ handle transcoding? I have a few people that use it over the internet set at 3 mbps 720p, and it isnā€™t all that often they do use it maybe a couple times a day. Locally it gets used all the time direct play and transcode. Really donā€™t want to spend the extra $100 on the 718+ if I donā€™t need to.

I own a DS418play, which uses the same processor than the 218+. With hardware transcoding activated it can handle up to three 1080p streams at the same time quite easy :slight_smile:

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@ā€œReinhard Moserā€ said:

@cplatt10 said:
How well does the 218+ handle transcoding? I have a few people that use it over the internet set at 3 mbps 720p, and it isnā€™t all that often they do use it maybe a couple times a day. Locally it gets used all the time direct play and transcode. Really donā€™t want to spend the extra $100 on the 718+ if I donā€™t need to.

I own a DS418play, which uses the same processor than the 218+. With hardware transcoding activated it can handle up to three 1080p streams at the same time quite easy :slight_smile:

This is perfect info, I didnā€™t expect it to handle 4k since it canā€™t access the transcoding engine that synology uses. Being able to do 3 1080p at one time is perfect.

41

Hi,

iā€™ve scanned this conversation but is my conclusion correct that if i would like to have hardware transcoding enabled on my DS218+ i need to run the latest DSM, the latest 64bit PMS and need to have a PlexPass to enable the ā€œhardware transcodingā€ option in the PMS setting?

kind regards,

Mike

42

Mike,
You are correct. An active PlexPass is required to enable Hardware Transcoding (Settings - Server - Transcoder - Show Advanced is where it will become visible).