# Offload transcoding to another device **URL:** \ **Category:** Feature Suggestions\ **Created:** [August 21, 2017, 2:02am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/offload-transcoding-to-another-device/203223 "2017-08-21T02:02:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![justflie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e274bd/32.png) [@justflie](https://forums.plex.tv/u/justflie)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 2:02am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/offload-transcoding-to-another-device/203223/1 "2017-08-21T02:02:00Z")
For those of us running PWS on a low power NAS, we have to survive without transcoding. Sometimes that goes well, sometimes it doesn’t. For the latter, when we really need that transcode, it would be nice if PWS could tap into a more powerful network device to do the heavy lifting. If it could reach out to my desktop Mac (for example) to transcode that file, it really gives us the best of both worlds. If the preferred transcoding device is unavailable (ie off network because someone shut it down), it can still throw up the traditional error for low cpu power available. I know Compressor or Final Cut used to (maybe still can) be able to do this. I think it would be a real boon for your users. Maybe you just need PWS running on the desktop machine. Enable networked wake from sleep and poor, you can now handle anything the server can throw at it. ---
**Author:** ![justflie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e274bd/32.png) [@justflie](https://forums.plex.tv/u/justflie)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 2:02am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/offload-transcoding-to-another-device/203223/2 "2017-08-21T02:02:38Z")
Also, I’d love to read other users’ thoughts on the matter. ---
**Author:** ![OttoKerner](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/ottokerner/32/10079_2.png) [@OttoKerner](https://forums.plex.tv/u/OttoKerner)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 12:26pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/offload-transcoding-to-another-device/203223/3 "2017-08-21T12:26:21Z")
duplicate feature request > [@Distributed Transcoding/Scaling](https://forums.plex.tv/t/distributed-transcoding-scaling/76681/1): > > I realize this is a longshot but right now my plex server is a quad socket system and it's barely keeping up with user load, looking at 8 socket systems and they are just astronomically expensive which got me thinking about the huge surplus of cheap dual socket blade servers   what if there was a way of scaling plex itself to have separate compute/transcode nodes instead of just having one giant server...   so for example, you have one box running plex itself, then several slaved boxes that … closing please respect the rules for this subforum - search first if the request has already been posted before - only [one feature per post](https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/46128/rules-for-this-forum-inc-how-to-vote#top "one feature per post") ---
**Author:** ![OttoKerner](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/ottokerner/32/10079_2.png) [@OttoKerner](https://forums.plex.tv/u/OttoKerner)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2018, 9:43am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/offload-transcoding-to-another-device/203223/4 "2018-08-13T09:43:37Z")