Help getting hardware transcoding working

Plex Media Server
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Server Version#: 1.32.8.7639
Player Version#: Web player (Firefox on Windows)

Hello, I’m trying to get hardware transcoding work so I can transcode 4k movies to play on other devices that aren’t 4k like my computer. I’ve read the help article on this and I think things should be working, so I am looking for some help. Here are the details:

  • I am a Plex Pass member
  • Server process is an Intel i5-3570K. This supports quick sync.
  • The machine also has an AMD Radeon HD 7800 GPU.
  • “Use Hardware-accelerated video encoding” is enabled in the server settings.

Any idea what I am missing? Thanks.

Untitled

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That Intel CPU and Radeon GPU are both from 2012. Neither has encoding support for any 4k codecs, at least as far as I can see looking on Wikipedia.

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Your hardware might not be capable of dealing with hardware accelerated transcoding.

From what I can find, the iGPU might support Intel Quick Sync… but at a very limited level (actual HEVC support only started with Kaby Lake; that’s several HW versions later).

Codec Supported
h265 / HEVC (8 bit) No
h265 / HEVC (10 bit): No
h264: Yes
VP8: No
VP9: No
AV1: No
AVC: Yes
VC-1: Yes (decoding only)
JPEG: Yes (decoding only)

Source: https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-intel_core_i5_3570k

According to Wikipedia, the Radeon HD 7800 supports HW encoding for h264 full HD content – but 4K support in h264 was only added later (h265 even later).

1 Like
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HDR to SDR Tone Mapping

As @tom80H and @NateTheBrewer mention, your current hardware does not support transcoding 4K HDR media.

You need to add a GPU that is (a) capable of decoding HEVC 10-bit video, and (b) supported by Plex.

This means a Nvidia 1050 Ti or later.

Nvidia lists supported codecs in their Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix.

Elpamsoft has transcoding performance information for some Nvidia GPUs.

Also, read the Elpamsoft information regarding GPU VRAM. Basically, you want to avoid 2GB cards.

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Thanks everyone. Sounds like it is time to put the old hardware to bed.

Is there a preference between using a GPU or CPU for transcoding? It would be easier to upgrade the GPU since whatever I get will be compatible with my old motherboard, but if I want to rely on the CPU I’ll need to upgrade both the CPU and the motherboard.

Thanks.

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See my prior post. If you want to transcode 4K HDR media, then add a Nvidia GPU. Intel GPUs are not supported when running Windows.

1 Like
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Picked up a GTX 1060 on Ebay, we’ll see how it goes!

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Got the card, installed it, and hw transcoding is now working (yay!).
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However, I am still getting buffering/stuttering for high quality media. The Plex dashboard and Task Manager don’t show any system resources maxing out, and in fact it seems to not be using any resources after sitting for a minute. Any ideas why it would be hanging? The server and client are on the same network and have ethernet connections.

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Client Bandwidth
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Server Bandwidth
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Can RAM be a bottleneck? When I’ve read about transcoding it’s not usually an issue, but when I was trying this from my iPad that was the system resource that was hitting 100%. The server has 8GB of RAM.

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EDIT: I went ahead and ordered 16GB more of RAM, we’ll see if this helps.

Thanks.

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What is running on the PC that is using so much RAM?
Stop some of the apps and see if that helps.

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Firefox :slight_smile:

I closed it, and now RAM usage is lower, still getting buffering.

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Some things to check.

Make sure you are running the 64-bit version of Plex Media Server. It is required for hardware accelerated tone mapping to work.

Pull the server log files via Settings → Troubleshooting. Unzip. Look at the first line in Plex Media Server.log. You want to see windows-x86_64 windows.

Example: Dec 22, 2023 11:59:38.475 [10100] INFO - Plex Media Server v1.40.0.7775-456fbaf97 - Microsoft PC x64-x64 - build: windows-x86_64 windows - GMT 01:00


In Settings → Transcoder:

  • Set Hardware Transcoding Device to the Nvidia GPU (versus Auto)
  • Set Transcoder Quality = Auto

Have you tried other devices / Plex clients? Just to rule out it is specific to the PC & Firefox you were testing with earlier.


What is the target bitrate/resolution for the transcode?

If you lower the bitrate to something like 720p/4Mbps, does it buffer less?

1 Like
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Dec 22, 2023 04:30:03.305 [2620] INFO - Plex Media Server v1.32.8.7639-fb6452ebf - Microsoft PC x64 - build: windows-x86 windows - GMT -06:00

Looks like I may not be using the 64 bit version? I will upgrade.

Transcoder quality is set to Auto and the Nvidia GPU is specified as the transcoding device.

Yes, I’ve tried the desktop app, the iPad app, streaming to a Chromecast. Target resolution is 1080p. Setting to a lower resolution doesn’t help much. Hard to tell if it is helping at all.

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I think upgrading to 64 bit fixed it! I’m hw transcoding to two clients right now with no stuttering on either of them! Woo! :man_dancing:

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