Intel Nuc HW transcoding (Intel Pentium Silver J5005)

General Discussions
1

Hi guys

Short question, were someone of you able to get the HW transcoding (Intel quick sync) running on a Windows Server 2016 or on a Windows 10 machine. I am using the Intel NUC June Canyon NUC7PJYH2 with the Intel Pentium Silver J5005 processor. (supports Intel Quick Sync)

  • HW transcoding in enabled in the server settings
  • I have the Plex Pass
  • All drivers should be installed

Let me know when you have an idea how I can fix this.

Kind Regards
Pascal

2

Are you running Plex as a service? If so, hardware transcoding typically won’t work.

Do you have a monitor plugged into the NUC? For Windows, that’s a requirement for hardware transcoding. (You can work around it with an “HDMI dummy plug”).

Those are usually the starting points for this kind of problem.

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3

Hi, thanks for your answer. My nuc in plugged into my samsung tv. Can you explain plex as a service? I used the default “Plex Media Server for Windows” installer.

4

If you were using Plex as a Service, you would know it! It’s not the standard installer. If it’s plugged into the TV, that’s definitely fine, too.

A few other questions:

  • What kind of files are you trying to transcode? If you’re not sure, you can go to one of the videos in Plex and choose “Get Info” from the menu.
  • How can you tell it’s not working?
  • What OS are you using right now? As far as I know they both work, but it’s useful info.

There’s a point soon where logs may be necessary, which can be downloaded in the help area of the settings… But one of the Plex admins may need to look at it, if they’re around.

5

To answer your question- yes- on my NUC it does HW TC “mostly”. I have noticed a few things while watching it in operation.

  1. Commercial Skip does not use HW TC.
  2. Plex Transcoder does not use HW TC.
  3. When trying to optimize certain media, if HW TC is turned on, I get a “Unable to convert” failure. When turned off, the media converts fine. (I turn this on when not needing to optimize media, off when I see failures)
  4. Some media that still needs to transcode depending on the client WILL use HW TC.
  5. Handbrake “mostly” uses HW TC. (Provided I use the right settings that took a bit of Trial/Error)
  6. I update my Intel drivers as I see updates from Intel
  7. Depending on the Plex features fixed in an update I “may” be on the most recent beta release. (Except if I’m getting ready to go out of town because updates will ALWAYS break things seriously while I’m out.)
  8. And I am running Plex as a service using PMS Service 1.1.7.0
6

The J5005 is not in the official list of QuickSync supporting CPUs: https://ark.intel.com/Search/FeatureFilter?productType=processors&QuickSyncVideo=true

7

In the Asrock website, QuickSync is available :https://www.asrock.com/MB/Intel/J5005-ITX/index.asp#Specification

Okay not explicitly with QuickSync name

8

What i can tell you is that I have a j4105 mobo and I’ve never been able to Enable correctly hw transcoding on Windows. Under any linux is working correctly. Try Plex on docker on UnRaid :slight_smile:

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9

Thanks for your answers and suggestions how I could fix the problem. Unfortunately there is a bug in the current version of Plex, which isn’t able to detect the hw transcoding in Windows. This youtuber is a Plex specialist and described the same issue. (https://youtu.be/o82NWFnoDZw?t=2m45s)

I found a workaround to run Plex on Ubuntu 18.04. The hw transcoding is working without any problems or limitations and the performance is breathtaking. I’m able to transcode 8 streams simultaneously.

10

I have Plex running on Debian 9 and the J5005, but don’t get any HW acceleration. Is there something I need to do to get this to work?

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