Hardware transcoding buffers more than software transcoding (Celeron J4105)

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
1

I bought Plex Pass to utilize hardware transcoding on my Asustor AS5304T NAS, as using software transcoding buffers occasionally, when watching H.264 1080p 17.5 MB/s video with subtitles.

But with hardware transcoding, the video buffers constantly. Maybe every 30 - 60 seconds (haven’t timed it, but it’s unwatchable). My transcoding settings (should) be stock, I did try playing around with the “Transcoder default throttle buffer” option, but at least increasing it to 120 made no difference at all.

Could this be a driver related issue or a Plex bug? Or is the hardware decoder/encoder so weak on the J4105, that it just can’t keep up?

Server Version#: 1.32.5.7349
<If providing server logs please do NOT turn on verbose logging, only debug logging should be enabled>
Plex Media Server Logs_2023-08-31_20-13-43.zip (4.1 MB)

2

This is a known issue when it comes to subtitle burning, that Plex refuses to acknowledge while I’m not sure if it could be fixed.

Subtitle burning is CPU work, but somehow its slower when combined with HW transcoding than it is when using SW transcoding.

In older versions you could switch the driver to i965 and that worked flawless with subtitle burning, but Plex broke the i965 driver recently.

3

I’m guessing I should then get a refund for my Plex Pass then?

4

See this post regarding an Asustor specific setting: [Solved] No HW transcode (again) on Asustor AS6704T (N5105 CPU) - #28 by Pili

Also, hardware accelerated transcoding is broken on Linux based systems with Gemini Lake (Celeron J4xxx) CPUs. The workaround is to fall back to Plex Media Server 1.32.1.6999 or earlier.

Here’s the latest updates I’ve seen on the topic:

5

I don’t have a setting to enable Media Only mode. And the HW transcoding works, it’s just a lot slower than software

6

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.