@MightyMikeS2000, my tv will play certain 4K HDR contact. Just depends on how it was encoded. That’s why I would rather have a nas powerful enough to transcode instead of making sure everything is encoded a certain way
A little Synology DS1813+ can Direct Play 4K HDR to a TV when properly prepared.
The key, imho, is preparing your media upfront. If you just throw everything at it, be prepared to buy a machine which can handle everything, including the kitchen sink.
As demonstration: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B57qR6p2QjXpSG9MdXpxbjJ0UG8
The ultimate authority for all processor capability question is the Intel “Ark”
On my DS918+ I have tested the following files from Jellyfish http://jell.yfish.us/.
Happy to try any specific files anyone wants me to test, CBF testing the entire lot 
The test client device is a Samsung UA65JS8000
Ok
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-h264.mkv -direct play
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv - direct play
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv - direct play
Fail
jellyfish-140-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit - Attempted transcode, 100% cpu and wouldn’t start.
jellyfish-400-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit - Direct Play. 4% CPU, Artefacts and barely showed 3 frames., TV sounded like it was going to fry.
The test client device is an iPhone 7 +
Ok
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-h264 - Was ‘direct stream’. worked well, barely any CPU registered on the NAS.
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc - Transcoding, CPU reached 20% on the NAS, buffer was fine and kept well ahead of the output on the client.
Fail
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv - almost kept up ahead of the stream, using around 95+ CPU, but server not powerful message shortly after.
jellyfish-400-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit.mkv - LOL? Queue the fire extinguisher
Good results!
That’s 100% consistent with what’s expected. The DS918+'s GPU isn’t strong enough to do HEVC 10 bit (HDR) and yes, you will smell metal nearing the point of melting
Remember, a KabyLake-class GPU is required for HEVC HDR (10 bit).
Hi, I would like some advice. I’m trying to decide which of the new models I should acquire to fill my needs, all I want is to watch my movies without any problems, so I need transcoding I guess. The crappy devices I have are these:
-DS216j, which is painfully slow pretty much for everything.
-1080p Samsung TV. (I won’t be using 4k anytime soon and I only have one personal TV).
-Roku stick.
After having doing some research on Synology website I found some interesting information:
DS218+ and DS418play have the exact same processor/graphics (Celeron J3355 - Intel® HD Graphics 500)
DS718+ and DS918+ have the exact same processor/graphics (Celeron J3455 Intel® HD Graphics 500)
So all they share the same graphics right???
For me, the 718+ is overpriced at $400. The DS418+ is $430 but it has, as mentioned, the same CPU as the DS218+. I don’t care about link aggregation feature because mostly I will be using wireless connection to transmit to my Roku. So this narrow my options to DS218+ or DS918+ but the price difference is significant ($300 and $550 respectively). I am somewhat inclined to the DS218+ but I’m not sure if this will be sufficient to have a smooth playback experience without lags, what do you think? I know the 918+ or 718+ are better option because the quad-core they have, but I’m not sure if any of those are going to be overkill for what I need.
-In my opinion the DS918+ should have a better CPU to justify the price difference.
-Does anybody know why Synology says that the DS218+ and DS418play can only have a max of 6gb of ram? Because the specs for the (Celeron J3355) support up to 8gb of DDR3L or DDR4 according to Intel, take a look at: https://ark.intel.com/products/95597/Intel-Celeron-Processor-J3355-2M-Cache-up-to-2_5-GHz
I’m a new in the world of NAS and Plex so any advice will be appreciated. Thanks!
Looked at KabyLake class QNAP’s and little outta my price range with still having to buy hard drives and comes with more hard drive bays than I can justify. Ended up ordering a Qnap TVS-882 with six 6tb hard drives. Hopefully this will last me many years to come
@ChuckPA, is there any benefit of using Plex vs using HDMI and having it plugged differently into a tv? My current nas is sitting right below my tv so it would only make since to run the hmdi to it. Just wasn’t sure if there was anything more beneficial using Plex. Regardless I will run Plex for my ipads, just wasn’t sure about capabilities being how Synology has never put an HDMI on there nas.
Synology does things, ummmm, their way.
As long as all the bits get from the file to your screen, it doesn’t matter how you do it.
(I’m a bit-hoarder and want everything put on the disc. I keep every bit stored on the disc)
@“Mi Key” said:
On my DS918+ I have tested the following files from Jellyfish http://jell.yfish.us/.Happy to try any specific files anyone wants me to test, CBF testing the entire lot
The test client device is a Samsung UA65JS8000
Ok
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-h264.mkv -direct play
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv - direct play
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv - direct play
Fail
jellyfish-140-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit - Attempted transcode, 100% cpu and wouldn’t start.
jellyfish-400-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit - Direct Play. 4% CPU, Artefacts and barely showed 3 frames., TV sounded like it was going to fry.The test client device is an iPhone 7 +
Ok
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-h264 - Was ‘direct stream’. worked well, barely any CPU registered on the NAS.
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc - Transcoding, CPU reached 20% on the NAS, buffer was fine and kept well ahead of the output on the client.Fail
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv - almost kept up ahead of the stream, using around 95+ CPU, but server not powerful message shortly after.
jellyfish-400-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit.mkv - LOL? Queue the fire extinguisher
Hi Mi Key
Just to be clear, these results were when you were using a recent Plex [1.9.4/1.9.5] 64-bit with 'Use hardware acceleration when available ’ enabled [on menu ‘Server / Trancoder’] & Status showed with ‘(HW)’ string. Your DS918+ was lightly loaded [running DSM 6.1?]
TIA
M
@sugob said:
@“Mi Key” said:
On my DS918+ I have tested the following files from Jellyfish http://jell.yfish.us/.Happy to try any specific files anyone wants me to test, CBF testing the entire lot
The test client device is a Samsung UA65JS8000
Ok
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-h264.mkv -direct play
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv - direct play
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv - direct play
Fail
jellyfish-140-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit - Attempted transcode, 100% cpu and wouldn’t start.
jellyfish-400-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit - Direct Play. 4% CPU, Artefacts and barely showed 3 frames., TV sounded like it was going to fry.The test client device is an iPhone 7 +
Ok
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-h264 - Was ‘direct stream’. worked well, barely any CPU registered on the NAS.
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc - Transcoding, CPU reached 20% on the NAS, buffer was fine and kept well ahead of the output on the client.Fail
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv - almost kept up ahead of the stream, using around 95+ CPU, but server not powerful message shortly after.
jellyfish-400-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit.mkv - LOL? Queue the fire extinguisherHi Mi Key
Just to be clear, these results were when you were using a recent Plex [1.9.4/1.9.5] 64-bit with 'Use hardware acceleration when available ’ enabled [on menu ‘Server / Trancoder’] & Status showed with ‘(HW)’ string. Your DS918+ was lightly loaded [running DSM 6.1?]
TIA
M
Yep, using latest versions of all software with HW transcoding on.
@“Mi Key” said:
@sugob said:
@“Mi Key” said:
On my DS918+ I have tested the following files from Jellyfish http://jell.yfish.us/.Happy to try any specific files anyone wants me to test, CBF testing the entire lot
The test client device is a Samsung UA65JS8000
Ok
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-h264.mkv -direct play
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv - direct play
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv - direct play
Fail
jellyfish-140-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit - Attempted transcode, 100% cpu and wouldn’t start.
jellyfish-400-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit - Direct Play. 4% CPU, Artefacts and barely showed 3 frames., TV sounded like it was going to fry.The test client device is an iPhone 7 +
Ok
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-h264 - Was ‘direct stream’. worked well, barely any CPU registered on the NAS.
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc - Transcoding, CPU reached 20% on the NAS, buffer was fine and kept well ahead of the output on the client.Fail
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv - almost kept up ahead of the stream, using around 95+ CPU, but server not powerful message shortly after.
jellyfish-400-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit.mkv - LOL? Queue the fire extinguisherHi Mi Key
Just to be clear, these results were when you were using a recent Plex [1.9.4/1.9.5] 64-bit with 'Use hardware acceleration when available ’ enabled [on menu ‘Server / Trancoder’] & Status showed with ‘(HW)’ string. Your DS918+ was lightly loaded [running DSM 6.1?]
TIA
MYep, using latest versions of all software with HW transcoding on.
Mi Key
Thanks for coming back!
As I believe [Linux] Plex uses the vaapi library “to provide access to graphics hardware acceleration capabilities for video processing” i.e. use the graphics capabilities in your NAS Intel CPUto decode/encode video, when PMS is upgraded to the very recently released va-api 2.0 then maybe worth re-running your tests [for picture quality and performance]
That’d be a good reason to increment to PMS to 2.0…but maybe delay testing until 2.0.1 
TIA
M
P.S. Anyone know how PMS transcodes sound - is there any hardware assist as I’m sure it must also eat up CPU cycles?
@sugob said:
@“Mi Key” said:
On my DS918+ I have tested the following files from Jellyfish http://jell.yfish.us/.Happy to try any specific files anyone wants me to test, CBF testing the entire lot
The test client device is a Samsung UA65JS8000
Ok
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-h264.mkv -direct play
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv - direct play
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv - direct play
Fail
jellyfish-140-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit - Attempted transcode, 100% cpu and wouldn’t start.
jellyfish-400-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit - Direct Play. 4% CPU, Artefacts and barely showed 3 frames., TV sounded like it was going to fry.The test client device is an iPhone 7 +
Ok
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-h264 - Was ‘direct stream’. worked well, barely any CPU registered on the NAS.
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc - Transcoding, CPU reached 20% on the NAS, buffer was fine and kept well ahead of the output on the client.Fail
jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv - almost kept up ahead of the stream, using around 95+ CPU, but server not powerful message shortly after.
jellyfish-400-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit.mkv - LOL? Queue the fire extinguisherHi Mi Key
Just to be clear, these results were when you were using a recent Plex [1.9.4/1.9.5] 64-bit with 'Use hardware acceleration when available ’ enabled [on menu ‘Server / Trancoder’] & Status showed with ‘(HW)’ string. Your DS918+ was lightly loaded [running DSM 6.1?]
TIA
M
I also have a DS918+ running Plex natively (not in Docker). I can confirm similar results with Mi Key. 4K 10 bit just doesn’t play when sending to a Samsung TV as well. Most files below that does work. Really impressed how easy everything was to setup. Grabbed the packages directly from Plex and manually loaded in the Synology and everything was straight forward in setting it up.
I think we need some DS 418 play owners to chime in to see if this model has the same behavior
Anyone try transcoding MPEG2VIDEO to H264? MPEG2VIDEO is the format used in the OTA digital tuners. For me, when using hardware transcoding my stream freezes for 5-10 seconds once a minute, when using software transcoding CPU utilization goes from 0 to 90% utilization but works fine. Anyone know if the 918+ GPU is capable of transcoding from MPEG2VIDEO?
Hello!
Same problem for me with the 918+ when I want to transcode MPEG2 recording from my digital tuner on my Sony android TV.
I don’t understand why it is not direct play on my android TV since it is direct play on my Apple TV.
MPEG2VIDEO hardware decode has not yet been enabled by engineering.
- So are Synology being just difficult here and should we complain to Synology?
- Does Hardware Transcoding on the QNAP suffer the same kind of outage?
@Skar said:
- So are Synology being just difficult here and should we complain to Synology?
- Does Hardware Transcoding on the QNAP suffer the same kind of outage?
Please qualify (clarify) ?
@ChuckPA said:
MPEG2VIDEO hardware decode has not yet been enabled by engineering.
Thanks for the feedback. Do you have a timeline for MPEG2VIDEO hardware decode? =)
I’m overtly suggesting they put priority on it. That’s all I can do.
