Hardware transcoding on Synology DS918+?

General Discussions
1

Hi Everyone,

I’ve just purchased a Synology DS918+ NAS. I thought that Plex supported hardware transcoding on this device, but I’m not able to enable it. I think I’ve met all of the requirements:

  • Intel CPU with Quick Sync (Intel Celeron J3455 - apollolake)
  • 64-bit architecture and 64-bit Linux (Linux media-server 4.4.15+ #15217 SMP PREEMPT Wed Dec 20 18:19:46 CST 2017 x86_64 GNU/Linux synology_apollolake_918+)
  • Plex Media Server 1.11.0.4666
  • Active and logged-in Plex Pass subscription
  • Advanced options enabled

But, my “Settings > Server > Transcoder” settings page does not include a “Use hardware acceleration when available” option.

I know that originally, a special version of Plex Server had to be downloaded, but I think this capability is included in anything afer 1.9.3 - is that true?

Any ideas?

2

Have you updated DSM since having installed PMS? If so, that update most likely reset the hardware configuration (they seem to like doing that)

  1. Stop PMS in Package Center
  2. Uninstall the binaries
  3. Reinstall the same SPK
  4. Verify the server is logged in to your Plex account
  5. Settings - Server - Transcoder will now show the option
3

Will uninstalling and reinstalling effect the settings or library in any way?

4

No.

I store the application binaries in the @appstore.

Your PMS library data is stored out on the main storage volume (whichever volume you selected or moved it to)

5

Hi there,

I have the same configuration since a couple of weeks and I am experiencing the same issue.
I tried following the steps, however I still do not have the option. The server seems to be running under the plex user, as it can read and write the appropriate folder appointed for media, however I am not too sure how do I double check this (tried task manager and ps -A -all on PuTTy with no luck - the user is not reported), the user is part of the “video” group as well.

Also, (maybe completely different issue), for me the server link does not work at http://my-internal-ip:32400/web/index.html …can this be related?

The server works fine, this apart.

Thanks :slight_smile:

6

Would you please recreate the problem, let it play for a few seconds, stop playback, then gather the logs? Settings - Server - Help - Download Logs and attach the ZIP file?

Where did you download PMS from? Synology? or directly from Plex? If you downloaded from Synology, they only offer the 32 bit version which will not work for hardware transcoding.

Regarding the ps command: ps -ef not ps -A The username is reported in output column 1.

User plex 's default group is users as per Synology requirement. It is added to the video group in order to access the GPU.

7

@ChuckPA said:
Where did you download PMS from? Synology? or directly from Plex? If you downloaded from Synology, they only offer the 32 bit version which will not work for hardware transcoding.
First installation was done by Synology, then I have updated from the Plex server page, downloading the plk directly and installing it manually. However, this suggestion about the 32 bit version did the trick! I actually had x86 installed, so I downloaded x64 from the download page, installed it, and woila, the option is now there! Thank you :wink:
Regarding the ps command: ps -ef not ps -A The username is reported in output column 1.
Confirmed - it runs under plex. Thanks for the tip, learning something new every day!
User plex 's default group is users as per Synology requirement. It is added to the video group in order to access the GPU.
I can confirm I have set it like this, plex is basically in both the groups, users and video.

8

Yes, plex is in both groups. (hint: I wrote the installer for Synology :wink: )

9

Thanks @ChuckPA. I’m getting back to this thread quite late, but your suggesting regarding 32-bit vs 64-bit fixed the issue for me.

I had actually upgraded from a DS415play (32-bit) to a DS918+ (64-bit). But, the version of Plex on the system was still 32-bit. I downloaded and installed the 64-bit version, and now it works fine.

10

Is there any way to see if an active transcoding is using hardware or software (I have a DS1817+, 2.4 GHz, 4 cores, DSM 6.1.4, Plex 1.11.0.4666 and have enabled the option in Server->Transcoder->Advanced)?

11

@HeartWare42

  1. Inspect “Now Playing” with video actively playing and see (hw) indication
  2. Observe CPU utilization in the DSM desktop
  3. Use Resource monitor
  4. Examine the log files
12

ERROR - [FFMPEG] - Cannot load libcuda.so.1
WARN - avcodec_open2 returned -1313558101 for encoder ‘h264_nvenc’
DEBUG - Codecs: hardware transcoding: testing API vaapi
ERROR - [FFMPEG] - No VA display found for device: /dev/dri/renderD128.
DEBUG - Codecs: hardware transcoding: opening hw device failed - probably not supported by this system, error: Invalid argument

Do I need to install/set up anything on my DS1817+, or doesn’t it support hardware encoding?

13

The DS1817+ is an Atom C2538 CPU. It doesn’t support HW transcoding.

14

Okay - thank you. Do you know of any Synology NAS that supports HW transcoding?

15

Any of them with the J3355 and J3455 (DS918+, etc). Just look around this subforum… threads are everywhere