I have been waiting a long time for Plex to be able to support HEVC. But alas, encoding a movie in x265 took 3 days to encode on my 8 core 32GB computer. I have a video card (GeForce GTX 960) that supports hardware encoding, but I was unable to find software to support the encoding. Now, there is a new version of StaxRip (freeware) that supports Nvidia H.265, Nvidia H.264 and Intel H.264 hardware encoding as well as other common encoders. I can now encode a 1.5 hour 1080p video in HEVC in about 20 minutes. And I find the quality very good and am very impressed. If you have a Nvidia video card that supports H.265 encoding (Kepler), you might want to check it out. H.264 hardware encoding is supported on many of the older Nvidia cards. To use Intel H.264 hardware encoding, you have to have the appropriate hardware. You can find it on Sourceforge by googling staxrip. I am using version StaxRip 1.2.2.0
I don’t see the problem being the time to initially encode in HVEC. I want my devices to be able to play it without transcoding. Allot more cpu is needed to deal with videos encoded in HEVC with plex. If everything you have is HEVC you basically cut your streaming ability to about half if not less then what it would be with h.264 encoded source.
The other problem is compatability with play back devices. So my tv supports HEVC and I have yet to find the right combination of settings to encode movies to always play smoothly when direct playing them. With the mature encoders and hardware decoders in devices now, you almost have to go out of your way to encode a h.264 video that won’t play.
I don't see the problem being the time to initially encode in HVEC. I want my devices to be able to play it without transcoding. Allot more cpu is needed to deal with videos encoded in HEVC with plex. If everything you have is HEVC you basically cut your streaming ability to about half if not less then what it would be with h.264 encoded source.
The other problem is compatability with play back devices. So my tv supports HEVC and I have yet to find the right combination of settings to encode movies to always play smoothly when direct playing them. With the mature encoders and hardware decoders in devices now, you almost have to go out of your way to encode a h.264 video that won't play.
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i love h.265 for encoding my favorite tv shows/cinema and once you find the right setup on your pc it works great. im currently encoding bsg, in full 1080p and hdma-dts 5.1 sound. the files all come in under 3gb and look just as good as the actual bluray discs.
i dont know what settings or programs op is using but i have a much weaker computer than him and it only takes a few hours to complete an episode.
if plex added it to pass i would definitely pay for it. people say space is cheap, but h.265 literally encoded the bsg episodes to less than half their original size.....that is a lot of space over the span of a 5 season show.
if you want help running it, i have found a client in beta that works extremely well.
The problem isn’t exactly how to encode it. Or the space, it is how the playback works. None of the clients support h.265 so everything you encode that way requires transcoding. That transcoding is a cpu hog because it take more resources to decode the file before the conversion to work for your client.
I could encode my entire library into h.265. I could create a profile within the My Movies app and just let it run. Then my server could transcode so I can watch on my clients. The problem is that I would be limited to a single transcode at a time. If I continue to use h.264 instead I can sustain 3 transcode and direct play to most of my clients.
Also your analysis of space savings isn’t that impressive. In most cases content I encode with h.264 is less the 1/3 of the original source material size. So size difference is negligible. At that they still retain almost all of there visual quality. I have also compared the same video in h.265 to h.264 and video pulled right from blu-ray. The key with them is until you take the time to do that comparison it is hard to see any clarity loss. Even then it can be difficult, but h.265 looses because the encoders aren’t optimized yet. Not by much so hopefully h.265 wil be mature enough to be mainstream in a year or too. It is only getting better though.
The HEVC playback on Plex is not as fluent as it should be, so I choose encode HEVC/H.265 to h.264 with Pavtube first, and then add to Plex for viewing, that plays beautifully.
The HEVC playback on Plex is not as fluent as it should be, so I choose encode HEVC/H.265 to h.264 with Pavtube first, and then add to Plex for viewing, that plays beautifully.
Is not fluent because of transcoding....and the CPU is not powerful enough to smoothly convert on the fly. When PHT will be upgraded to include H265 the story will be different.
Is not fluent because of transcoding....and the CPU is not powerful enough to smoothly convert on the fly. When PHT will be upgraded to include H265 the story will be different.
Yes and no. It will certainly be an improvement, but one client does make the experience across the board better. Plus the requirements to playback H.265 video on a HTPC I suspect are all but beyond the newest built systems in that class. I know the software I use recommends at least a 3rd Gen i5 cpu for h.265 playback.
You also can't forget about all of the platforms PHT is on. Those that don't use full fledged x86 CPU's will require upgrades with proper decoders backed in.
It is going to be interesting to see how plex handles the transition as the codec really gets mainstream support.
Yes and no. It will certainly be an improvement, but one client does make the experience across the board better. Plus the requirements to playback H.265 video on a HTPC I suspect are all but beyond the newest built systems in that class. I know the software I use recommends at least a 3rd Gen i5 cpu for h.265 playback.
You also can't forget about all of the platforms PHT is on. Those that don't use full fledged x86 CPU's will require upgrades with proper decoders backed in.
It is going to be interesting to see how plex handles the transition as the codec really gets mainstream support.
You right. My HTPC, Broadwell CPU, supports a mixed SW/HW H265 decoding. So yes, CPU will be important in any case.
The problem isn't exactly how to encode it. Or the space, it is how the playback works. None of the clients support h.265 so everything you encode that way requires transcoding. That transcoding is a cpu hog because it take more resources to decode the file before the conversion to work for your client.
I could encode my entire library into h.265. I could create a profile within the My Movies app and just let it run. Then my server could transcode so I can watch on my clients. The problem is that I would be limited to a single transcode at a time. If I continue to use h.264 instead I can sustain 3 transcode and direct play to most of my clients.
Also your analysis of space savings isn't that impressive. In most cases content I encode with h.264 is less the 1/3 of the original source material size. So size difference is negligible. At that they still retain almost all of there visual quality. I have also compared the same video in h.265 to h.264 and video pulled right from blu-ray. The key with them is until you take the time to do that comparison it is hard to see any clarity loss. Even then it can be difficult, but h.265 looses because the encoders aren't optimized yet. Not by much so hopefully h.265 wil be mature enough to be mainstream in a year or too. It is only getting better though.
Plex doesn't transcode to and use h.265 to send to clients. If you already have it in that format and your playback device supports it. Then you can use h.265 direct play with minimal impact. This isn't a PHT thing but simply the nature of direct play. H.265 shouldn't be to bad to add to PHT, but adding support for the codec without using a hardware dencoder is going to break most PHT HTPC's. It takes allot of cpu to do the decoding.
Ok, you are saying that if I have a 980 TI card in my client machine, I should be able to use PHT in Windows to play h.265 material without the PMS ever transcoding it?
But ONLY if the Plex Dev add support to PHT right? it’s not it will do it “now”.
@mbze430 said:
Ok, you are saying that if I have a 980 TI card in my client machine, I should be able to use PHT in Windows to play h.265 material without the PMS ever transcoding it?
But ONLY if the Plex Dev add support to PHT right? it’s not it will do it “now”.
I know this is old, but for anyone else looking the answer is yes.
If that card supports H.265 decoding, and you have the correct codecs installed (like K-Lite Codec Pack) whenever you direct play in PHT, it should work fine.
If that doesn’t work, you could always run Kodi with the Plex plugin (or without it, if you don’t mind updating the library separate). Kodi has supported H.265 since 2014.
