Server Version#: Version: 1.13.8.5395-10d48da0d
Player Version#: (chrome being served by above)
Hi! I’ve signed up with Plex Pass to see if I can get hw transcoding to work.
I’m interested to see if I can get my (poor) hardware working under ubuntu18 for hw transcoding, and if not, what hardware I should be looking at getting. My job is large scale ops (in dcs and aws) with linux systems, so I have decent background knowledge and can fill knowledge gaps on working with this quickly. Just would like to find where this special information is so I can self-serve.
I see mention of the existence of threads that are only visible to plex pass members. and mentions of a beta that supports hw decoding (separate to transcoding). But I can’t find these things. Can someone point me in the right direction? And where I should be posting to get help on this side as a plex pass member? thanks
Right now, on Linux, Intel’s QSV feature of the CPU is what Plex uses for HW transcoding.
It’s been integrated into PMS since early 1.9.x. Settings - Server - Transcoder - Show Advanced.
To check your CPU, go to ark.intel.com and lookup the processor. If it references the Intel QSV (Quick Sync Video) capability as Yes. then you have HW transcoding.
The amount of acceleration depends of family. (the -xxxx number of the cpu)
You need to install, configure, and set it up yourself because that uses the nVidia proprietary solution.
Some report success while others can’t make it work. Achieving this depends entirely on one’s skill level with Linux.
I don’t know why you’re saying that. That is very misleading. You know well that plex’s current transcoder is not built with support for nvidia’s hw decoder (cuvid or nvdec). It is only built with support for nvenc which is nvidia’s hw encode.
Another plex team member recently commented (in reply to you) that plex will be building their transcoder with support for nvdec soon.
On windows, the hw decode is handled by dxva, which supports nvidia.
I know it has nvenc in it.
To use the transcoding capability of an external GPU, requires manual intervention on your part.
Libva 2.1 is partially integrated into the transcoder.
The transcoder team is working on native support for external GPUs.
As you will find in the other thread, NVDEC, which you need as well as NVENC,
and we’ll be including it in a future update once we’ve integrated it and gone through testing. I can’t give any estimates on when that’ll happen, but it is on our radar.
Thanks for the replies. Went and tested ffmpeg manually and that led me to double checking and my card doesn’t have the support I thought it did. And my case won’t support any that do that that are in stock. So it’s htpc upgrade time either way.
