Everywhere I turn, I get conflicting information. From what I understand when it comes to the GPU taking on some of the processing load (use hardware acceleration when available) is not dependant on the CPU (I.E., you need an Intel CPU that runs Quick Sync), but is solely dependant on whether the software has been written to take advantage of this capability (http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3777839/offloading-cpu-processing-gpu.html).
Taken that the above is correct, does it purely then come down to CPU Passmark which the determines how effective a CPU is at transcoding (which the majority of people seem to say it is). Does not the total cores and threads also have an effect on how EFFICIENTLY the CPU transcodes various CPU demanding files? Am on a limited budget and am trying to work out whether I should go Intel or AMD when it comes to transcoding ability?
plex with a supported intel gpu, windows and linux supports both gpu decoding (critically important for 4k) and encoding.
plex with supported nvidia gpu on linux, currently, only nvidia ENCODING is supported. Nvidia DEcoding is being worked on, no eta, don’t ask, read the already many threads on the subject.
plex with supported nvidia gpu on windows supports decoding and encoding
4k decoding on all but the newest powerful cpus without gpu acceleration is painful and pretty much pointless.
Hey Techno, some good information above - but what I’m trying to determine is if I have a system that is running say a GTX 1080Ti, is it better (and especially, more cost effective/bang for buck) to run an Intel or AMD CPU? Say I download 4K content and don’t want to go through the hassle of re-encoding for direct play, and just want to play the 4K content simply as it is on my 4K TV. Which CPU technology (leave onboard GPU out of the equation) transcodes the most efficiently/effectively?
I.E., using the following table (https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html), if it were purely down to CPU Passmark, 1 x AMD Threadripper (25.7K Passmark) should approximately transcode twice as fast as say an AMD Ryzen 5 2600X (13.5K Passmark) - if the CPU Passmark is the pure guide to CPU transcoding abilities. But would that really be the case in reality - or would there be something in the internal design of the Threadripper (as opposed to Ryzen’s internal design) that would enable the Threadripper to transcode say 3 times faster than the Ryzen?!? The same argument can probably be applied Intel chips when it comes to Xeon chips versus non-Xeon chips.
Some CPU’s are better at processing single or fewer processing threads, where other CPU’s excel when it comes to multi-threading. From my very limited understanding, I think that PMS transcoding is handled better by processors that are more multi-threaded based - but really, I have no idea.
So hopefully someone can shed some light here for me…
Amd gpu’s are absolute trash right now as plex is written…had a 580 in my plex server and it increased the lag before a video started by a lot while only transcoding a few streams. The options are basically - to my mind- either a good intel chip with modern quicksync or if you want to go the nvidia route a p2000 which can do a lot of streams
EDIT: On the quicksync side here are some comparisons - hardware encoding off some of the newer i5s are about 6 transcodes (1080p to 1080p high quality) with quicksync hardware running - up to 14 https://slothtechtv.com/2018/12/using-the-nuc8i7beh-bean-canyon-nuc-as-a-plex-server
any gpu supported by plex will always be faster and more efficient than any cpu.
it’s not. because the cpu shouldn’t be doing the transcoding. and you shouldn’t be transcoding in the first place.
I don’t know if there is an equivalent comparison to passmark for gpu’s, but any gpu will run circles around a cpu in regards to transcoding.
If you want the most bang for buck for plex is generally going to be the best i5 intel cpu 7xxxx to 9xxx with an hd600 series cpu or better, that fits your budget.
One of those cpu will support transcoding without an external gpu, so you don’t need to spend another 700+ on a 1080 or whatever.
Alternatively, for an existing system you could buy a quadro p2000 which seem to be pretty highly rated for plex gpu transcoding.
For Pascal, a single nvenc can do about .6-.7 transcoding 4k.
You’d need at least 1 for real time.
1080ti has two nvenc chips and can do 1.2-1.4.
Right now plex doesn’t do tone mapping for transcodes so HDR content will look bad even on a 1080ti.
Turing nvenc performance is supposed to be twice as fast as Pascal so in theory, a single inexpensive Truing gpu should be able to do 4k.
The Pascal Quadro P400 with modded drivers to remove the encode limit is probably the best bang for the buck as far as hardware encoding goes. Modern quicksync (kaby lake+) is also decent for performance but has worse quality than Pascal nvenc.
The video should not be transcoding. If it is, you need to figure out why it is transcoding before investing in another system.
Plex transcodes all 4K to H.264 1080p. If you’re transcoding 4K video to watch on a 4K TV, you’re really watching 1080p at best. Also, as @anaander mentions, Plex does not perform tone mapping, so any HDR material will have washed out colors and look quite poor.
Firstly, thank you for all the awesome input - you have no idea how long I’ve been struggling with all of this…
OK, I did some more investigation. I setup a 2nd display so that I could run Task Manager and PMS whilst using the plex app that installs onto our Samsung Q7F 4K TV. I’m running 64bit Windows 10 pro version 1809 with PMS version 1.15.0.659. I have an AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, a Gigabyte GTX 1080Ti Extreme 11GB, 32GB RAM and the OS is sitting on 2 x 1TB Samsung 970 Pro M2 NVMe’s in a Raid 0 config and the content is sitting on 2 x 12TB Seagate IronWolf PRO NAS in a raid 0 config.
When playing most (if not all) of my 4K content, when viewing PMS ‘Status/Now Playing’ it generally says ‘Transcoding - Converting’ - with it sometimes saying ‘(Throttled)’ after ‘Converting’. Under that where it says ‘Video’, it is then followed with ‘Direct Stream’.
Where it says ‘Audio’, it is followed by ‘Transcoding TRUEHD to AAC’, or 'DCA to AAC (or something like that). Just a thought on this, I read somewhere with PMS that when it has to transcode audio, that it also transcodes the video even when it doesn’t need to - not sure if this is correct or not.
With the majority of all 4K content (approx. 60%), I have no problems playing the 4K content - and I know some have said that it won’t display in 4K, nor will the HDR come across, but I have compared 4K blueray HDR content played on the Xbox One X with the same content downloaded, and there was no visible difference between the two. Additionally, our TV actually auto detects whether content being displayed on it is HDR10+ or not - and all 4K HDR content played via the installed app on the TV shows up as being HDR. So not sure what the go is there with people saying HDR doesn’t work on PMS?!?
The problem I seem to have is with the remaining 40% of 4K content. It buffers - like quite a lot. Running task manager (whether it’s buffering or not), the CPU runs generally around 5%, but can hit 20% with some content, the memory is flat at 6GB, the disk usage on both raid arrays is generally less than 1%, the network speed varies quite a bit, but generally tops out at about 110Mbps (everything is gigabit or above here at home), and the GPU sits around 5% - 10% (rarely it might go to 40% - but that’s very rare). So can anyone please tell me - why all the buffering?!? What am I missing here?!?
Yea ok so if you would have started with that, you could have gotten help faster.
the problem is you are trying to play content with audio streams that are not compatible with your tv.
If you wish to avoid transcoding, and you absolutely should want to direct play, then you need to select an audio stream that is compatible with your TV. IE try ac3/dts 5.1 or stereo.
You have these options;
manually choose the appropriate compatible audio stream for each movie
outside of plex, manually remux your content so that ac3/dts 5.1 or stereo is the FIRST/default audio stream. Or remove the HD audio stream entirely
get an nvidia shield, connect it into a 4k/atmos receiver, then connect your tv to your receiver.
unless you have a fully 4k/hd audio compatible pipeline, you will have problems with 4k. and 4k smart tv apps just don’t cut it.
Hey Techno, I sort of understand what you’re saying (still trying to get my head around everything), but how do you manually select a compatible audio stream for each movie? I haven’t seen an option where to select this. I was trying to stay clear of remuxing - but will try this with a movie that buffers and see if that helps.
When it comes to receivers, I chose not to go with a non-Dolby Atmos reciever, because unless our room could take advantage of it, it would be a waste. It’s running HDMI 2.0b which is as goods as it gets ATM. For a smallish area and not wanting to get a sub (overkill), the Bose 700 Soundbar provides beautifully wide, rich and deep sound. Couldn’t be happier with it…
on the plex ‘pre-play’ screen, the one that shows the details of the movie/episode, it should be some kind of option or settings button that will allow you to choose from available audio streams.
it is pretty much the same as if you wanted to enable or choose a different subtitle.
You can also change the audio stream and/or subtitles if you bring up the onscreen display/pause overlay while a movie is playing. This assumes the movie will start to play at all.
Unfortunately, with 4k content (ie 4k bluray rips) you get both 4k video and HD audio.
Even if you don’t care about audio or surround, unless your setup supports the HD audio, you will always have problems.
Unless you do one of the options previously provided.
Another stumbling block are subtitles. Audio incompatibilities in conjunction with using subtitles will often cause both the audio and the video to be transcoded, which will cause you to loose both 4k and HDR, along with the hd audio loss.
So, whether you like it or not, HD audio is part of 4k, and you need to solve it one way or the other.
edit:
In a completely unrelated comment, I hope you fully understand that raid 0 is a great way to lose your data.
Firstly, JoePhelps - you’re right, my bad - should’ve been Mbps, soz…
Techno, man, thank you!!! I found the setting when looking at your libraries through PMS, you can set the sound files there. Tried on one that buffered the hell and changed to AC3 5.1 which resulted in Direct Play - and with the exception of minor buffering at the beginning, it played fine. Tried on another and didn’t really work - but at least it’s given me something to work on (although, really don’t want to remux, but just may have to).
Again, thanks for the info - very much appreciated!!!
One thing I’d like to ask you (if you wouldn’t mind) is to have a look at this link (https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00062218/), and under the video codecs section, which audio codec will give me the highest audio quality for what my TV supports? Just want to make sure that If I have to remux, that I get the best result possible for direct play.
With respect to Raid 0, agreed with respect to fault tolerance. When I can afford 2 more 12TB drives, I will change it to Raid 5. In the mean time, my old PC that contains 8 x 3TB WD Red drives through an Adaptec 7805 raid card enables me to perform regular backups of my main system. I’m glad the old beast was useful for something…
Yeah, I had a go at Samsung lead support in Australia RE: 100Mbps Ethernet NIC. They reckoned that gigabit was overkill and not required - took me a while but eventually showed them why that was stupid. You know what’s worse? Their manual says that you needed a Cat 7 cable if you wanted to hard connect the TV to the network. All of my devices (Xbox One X, PS4 Pro, PCs, soundbar, HDHomeRun, and other TV) are all connected via ethernet - the 4K TV however is connected via AC wireless over 5G. Lucky for me I have an AC wireless router and range extenders. Mobiles use 2.4G to connect to network. If I didn’t live in a unit, I really wouldn’t be fussed about having to use WIFI - but I do and congestion is an issue. Nothing is ever simple, eh?!?
Techno, thanks for the advice RE: DD/DD+ audio. In anticipation of having to remux last year, I purchased Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate, so am hoping this will do the job for me. Get stuff that doesn’t direct play in native BlueRay format and remux. Any tips on how to get best results that will also work with direct play? Container info, etc - as I’m still a bit iffy on that kind of stuff…
Not sure about TrueHD, but if you have files with DTS HD audio tracks, they should always contain the standard DTS 5.1 track in addition, so if your TV is not able to play DTS MA at least it might Direct Play standard DTS 5.1 if it supports that. So have a look at your files if you find some with DTS audio track and have a go with them.
