Server Version#: 1.25.3.5410 - NVidia Shield PMS - Shield Pro 2017
Hi, I’ve very recently switched over from running PMS on windows to PMS on the shield which hasn’t been plane sailing mainly due to the borked recent upgrade to Android 11.
However prior to this (about a week) it was sort of working ok, bar the odd drive not been available issue.
When using remote connections over 4G I could playback 1080p and 4k HEVC content ok, although my testing was limited to just a few files and I never checked to see if it was displaying (HW) transcoding or not via plex dash app or plex dashboard.
Since the update I’ve noticed everything I play and force to transcode on the shield PMS, the (HW) icon doesn’t show, not even on 1080p transcodes to 720p etc. but they do play smooth.
If I try and play a HEVC they take an age to start up before playing for a few seconds and then stop to buffer again, not feasible to watch…
So should I be seeing the HW transcoding icon for all H264 and H265 content on the shield, assumed it work the same way as windows?
I’ve tried turning tone mapping off and no difference for HEVC content still unplayable due to constant buffering.
Perhaps the Android 11 update has also borked the hardware transcoding feature of PMS?
Just to be clear everything direct plays fine at home, the reason I want HW transcoding is for when I am out and about, to ensure optimum playback over 4G/5G and I don’t think it is working on any content at the moment.
Open to ideas, might head into the logs to see if any breadcrumbs in there.
Just tried to play a 1080p video over 4G and found the following snippets from the logs:
DEBUG - [Transcode/c511cdff2cd8bc41-com-plexapp-android] TPU: hardware transcoding: final decoder: mediacodecndk, final encoder: mediacodecndk
ERROR - [Transcoder] MediaCodecNDK binder library (libndkbinderutil.so) not loaded
ERROR - [Transcoder] Error while opening decoder for input stream #0:0 : Encoder not found
DEBUG - TPU: hardware transcoding: enabled, but no hardware decode accelerator found
DEBUG - [Transcode/c511cdff2cd8bc41-com-plexapp-android] TPU: hardware transcoding: enabled, but no hardware decode accelerator found
DEBUG - [Transcode/c511cdff2cd8bc41-com-plexapp-android] TPU: hardware transcoding: final decoder: , final encoder:
It appears the shield is not HW transcoding my content as I had suspected
IIRC this is expected behavior if you’re playing media from that Shield through the same Shield as there’s a limited number of decoding/encoding slots and those are apparently prioritized to be used by the player part.
I’m confused by your response, I’m not playing anything on the shield that hosts PMS, at the same time I am accessing it remotely? It’s good to know there is limitation in this circumstance however, but what is the default number of decoding/encoding slots?
I only have 1 set in “Maximum simultaneous video transcode” so with no other playback occurring on the shield, that shouldn’t be the cause of it not HW transcoding.
I think this is another Android 11 upgrade anomaly. Can plex/forums users test to see if they can get the shield to HW encode any H265/H265 content please during playback?
