Interesting link. Thanks for sharing. Gaming isn’t really a direct comparison to film or TV, but it is intriguing nonetheless.
Got a serious case of PEBKAC and looking for help. I’m running the latest HEVC preview on my M1 Mac Mini. With Plex’s HDR tonemapping feature enabled, I see in the logs that Plex has chosen the hardware accelerators (VideoToolBox), and labels this as a HW-accelerated HEVC stream.
However, there are no signs of using the encoder on my Mac. CPU usage spikes to 600%, GPU usage remains 0%. If I were to turn off the HDR Tonemapping feature, the HW accelerator is obviously being used and CPU usage remains near-zero, but with an obviously washed out feed.
I understand that Plex on the M-series doesn’t support HW tonemapping, but I thought the point of the HEVC functionality was that tonemapping was simply passing metadata through to the client to parse. Are there certain HDR encodings (I know there’s many of them) that doesn’t support this passthrough? Or am I misunderstanding the whole thing?
If it helps, this is the sample file I’m using: Google Drive - Virus scan warning (from Kodi’s sample wiki)
Thank you in advance, and I apologize for my ignorance.
Which version are you running. This was broken for mac on many of the early versions
I’m running version 1.41.2.9239 on macOS 15.2!
Is it possible that PMS was doing some background tasks when you were testing? For instance, on my M2, Plex Transcoder CPU usage hovers around 500% when it is doing Credit Detection on a UHD file (I’ve got one going now, and there are no clips playing back).
If I transcode and play your test file while that credit detection is running, the Plex Transcoder service still hovers around 500%.
Also, keep in mind, HEVC and h264 transcoding on a M series Mac is handled by Apple’s Media Encoding Engine on the processor and not the GPU. So, while it is “Hardware accelerated” processing, I don’t believe that Activity Monitor reports it as GPU usage like we would see on a PC with an Nvidia or Intel chip.
Edit: JellyFin actually notates this for their macOS setups using VideoToolBox:
It is normal to see the GPU usage close to 0. For pure transcoding, everything is performed on a dedicated accelerator, and that will not count as GPU usage under macOS.
Thank you for the helpful information! I have a better understanding of how macOS displays encoder usage (I’m coming from a linux/nvidia background — experimenting with Apple Silicon).
However, the question I’m still left with is, then, why does disabling tone mapping in Plex server settings result in a significant performance improvement & more GPU usage listed in the Activity Monitor then with it enabled? Even with tone mapping enabled, I thought the point of HEVC would be that tone mapping wouldn’t be required.
This is what it looks like with tone mapping enabled (0 GPU usage)
This is what it looks like with tone mapping disabled (notice the GPU usage)
In both cases, the dashboard looks like this.
Hi really appreciate building this feature!
I have a minor feedback on the dogfooding/testing process though.
I’ve had this enabled throughout, in hope of getting/using features like this one before it was publicly released.
At least for this feature, it seem the only way to test this is via a custom binary, and then it directly goes to prod?
Does Plex still use this toggle to test any features?
Goes live on Wednesday.
The code is already in the public release. Plex flips a switch on their end to make it available to those with a Plex Pass.
Yeah I know and that’s my point.
Would’ve been nice to allow those with the “experimental feature” on to be able to use it before it is “publicly” released.
This is not an experimental feature anymore.
This is a production feature which will be made live (enabled) for everyone on the 22nd.
The “experimental” features are for those which are still in development / being tweaked.
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Do clients need to be updated? Or they’re already updated and waiting for that feature flag on the 22nd?
Clients are updated.
I do recommend everyone confirm they are running the latest release of the client.
If this release is as past were done, once announced as as Available, restarting the server will enable the feature in the server. ( The server downloads the features for your account when PMS starts )
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I think ya’ll are missing @luther’s point which seems easy enough to address. They know this is no longer an experimental feature and that it is going live (shortly).
One of the ninja’s or team members can clarify this portion but I am pretty sure the experimental features option is still in use, it is just maybe not that active.
Based on my observation from this thread, I am pretty sure this feature fell outside of the experimental features and was a forum preview that specifically needed to be loaded because of the amount of change being done. By the time that was all tested out, Plex most likely just did not consider it to fall under the experimental scope anymore and was just waiting for the greenlight from all departments to go live.
I could be mistaken about that last paragraph, but that is what luther is trying to understand. Essentially, why was this feature not enabled with the experimental option being enabled in the server settings vs having to separately install it.
I could be completely wrong about everything I just said, but it seemed like a misunderstanding was occurring in the replies to me.
-Shark2k
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No particular known target version(s) for the endpoint apps?
The most recent version of Plex on iOS is from December, v8.44–is that new enough, or will there be a newer version released by Weds? Trying to plan ahead for my folks!
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I do not know the target versions.
The only thing I’ve been told is that marketing won’t release for everyone until all the apps are HEVC ready.
Keep an eye on your apps versions. It would NOT surprise me to see one or two apps have an update from last week through tomorrow.
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Thank you for summerizing it better than I did.
Yeah I just felt it would been nice to be able to test it earlier by having that toggle on.
But if there are underlying reason this feature can’t be done through that or if I misunderstood what that toggle is supposed to be, that’s fine too.
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@Protocol_7 We have actually found a bug in the web client which limits HEVC transcodes to 8 bits, which triggers tone mapping to down convert from 10 bit HDR. All other clients appear to be functioning correctly.
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@chris_decker08 Gotcha! Thank you—that helps clear my confusion!
hi chris sorry for going a little of topic but i have an issue with the transcoder in the current live and beta releases and have had no help or feedback in a month. i cant optimise my media because all that is created is a file with audio only, no video or subs. transcoding on the fly works fine just cant optimise
the last version that i know that works is 1.41.1.9057
