as igowas, i’d liek to know if this could work with plex server being in a unRaid docker ! i’ve already this setup running tho so a vm would not be possible for me. Another question (maybe already answered in the past 25 pages of this thread) : does this work whit hardware acceleration on the slave transcoding computer ? i’ve got a spare GPU that would be great for this use !
@thil3000 said:
as igowas, i’d liek to know if this could work with plex server being in a unRaid docker ! i’ve already this setup running tho so a vm would not be possible for me. Another question (maybe already answered in the past 25 pages of this thread) : does this work whit hardware acceleration on the slave transcoding computer ? i’ve got a spare GPU that would be great for this use !
I’ve tried a number of OS and the only one that I had success with is Ubuntu 16.04 as a server.
Issues I had were that hardware transcoding is not currently supported. Even when the slaves and master are identical machines I could not get it to work.
Note that hardware transcoding must not be selected in PMS in order to get PRT to work at all.
DVR/Live TV transcoding also doesn’t work on a slave.
and there are other conditions where the slaves can’t transcode, so it’s passed back to the master.
as to the docker I just don’t know…
I’ve given up on this project for the time being, waiting to see if anything progresses.
Jusy a suggestion, but this project should be integrated in the PLEX Labs Project … It’s really a neat approach to transcoding !
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@Altheran said:
Jusy a suggestion, but this project should be integrated in the PLEX Labs Project … It’s really a neat approach to transcoding !
I would agree, but…
with all the transcoder issues and other bugs right now that Plex has…
Wish they would stop adding things and just fix whats broken… get it stable…
Wish there was an easy implementation for this with a Synology DSM as the master and Windows hosts as the slaves. Got a couple of Windows machines that have processing power to spare, and the DSM can only transcode a single stream at best. No good with a family that all want to watch something different. 
3 Likes
@echristman said:
Wish there was an easy implementation for this with a Synology DSM as the master and Windows hosts as the slaves. Got a couple of Windows machines that have processing power to spare, and the DSM can only transcode a single stream at best. No good with a family that all want to watch something different.
The most simple solution is often the best…change the os on the windows systems to Ubuntu 16.04 so you can run PRT on them. The caveat there is that they’re not running something that you couldn’t replicate the function on Linux which is rarely the case these days. Most people don’t realize that Linux is a lot easier to use these days than what they think as a lot of people who have heard of it but don’t use it think of how it was 10 years ago. It’s also a far more secure, practically invulnerable to virus attacks and the most run operating system in the world. So that would be my first suggestion.
Failing that run a virtual machine either in virtualbox (https://www.virtualbox.org - free) or using another product like VMware or the Microsoft one. Then those virtuals can help take the load. Only issue with virtual machines is you have extra overhead as you’re running 2 operating systems on a system instead of 1 but it’s not as bad as it used to be. Might be an idea to do first if you’re new to Linux then you can play around n learn then replace windows entirely once you feel confident enough.
I hate to say this but PRT right now just doesn’t cut it…
toooooo many transcodes it just cant do…
Also I’m running Ubuntu 16.04 of PMS and are having issues with it, to many to enumerate here,
but I see it as not a good option as my Windows 7 system perform so much better. Thats on the same hardware running side by side with the same software just serving PMS.
@nydave69 said:
I hate to say this but PRT right now just doesn’t cut it…
toooooo many transcodes it just cant do…
Also I’m running Ubuntu 16.04 of PMS and are having issues with it, to many to enumerate here,
but I see it as not a good option as my Windows 7 system perform so much better. Thats on the same hardware running side by side with the same software just serving PMS.
I think you’ll find that there’s problably a configuration problem with Ubuntu and/or around how it’s setup with the hardware/PMS. Linux on the whole works well with no setup, sometimes you need to make adjustments for performance tuning but at times it can be very painful and it’s more often than not something to with certain hardware that is new or just has a bug in the drivers which can take some effort to sort out. I wouldn’t go throwing assertions around about PRT being the cause.
Apart from anything else it sound like your comparison is a windows system with just PMS vs an identical system (I’ll take your word for it) running Ubuntu with PMS and PRT on it. Why would you run PRT on a single system, you get no benefit. The whole point of it is to spread the load across other physical systems, running it on top of PMS as a single node made no sense as you’re just adding extra steps into the equation with no possible benefit.
So purely from what you’ve said in your post, my response is don’t run PRT if it’s for a single node system…that’s the opposite of what it’s designed for. If that’s not what you’ve actually setup then feel free to follow the instructions on the wiki n use one of the contact methods to try and get help fixing whatever it is…Linux config, driver bug, PMS problem or PRT issue.
Again, this would be great on Windows…
I’m willing to contribute 50 Euro’s to development of a windows-only version (preferably for server 2016 as master).
Additionally, 100 more Euro’s once there’s a working version available which includes hardware transcoding and offloading of streams which cannot be hardware transcoded, to the second server. Hell, if you get this working I’m sure you could make a living off selling it…
Currently I am running maximum of 15-17 streams (various hardware and software transcodes) before my I7 7700 falls over. Invested in a new I7 8th gen box and hating the fact that I need to create a new server instead of just using the hardware to help the main server transcode…
All media is on a separate box running I5 processor which is used as NAS and download / sort manager incorporating sonarr, radarr, headphones, SABNZB, utorrnet/qbitorrent, soulseek, DC++, etc.
1 Like
Do a service to yourself and try UNRAID + Dockers.
UNRAID is a dumb easy linux distro that is designed as a NAS and Application server.
-
Download Iso to bootable usb key (they have a step by step for everything on their webpage.)
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Download Iso to bootable usb key (they have a step by step for everything on their webpage.)
-
Boot (your Usb key is the bootable “HDD” forever, everything runs in RAM and config chages are saved to the key)
-
Input the very few parameters during install
-
Go your User PC, type IP Adress of your server in Browser and Login
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Setup Array, shares, credentials and preferences
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Install the desired Dockers for your diffrent Web apps following the excellent guides from Spaceinvader One on YT
-
Profit ? (Never again struggle with Windows weight, services, updates, and enjoy the breeze of Dockers)
2 Likes
Does anyone know if this works on Version 1.15.3.858?
Eg, the most recent version of plex in April 2019
I know, this is a REALLY old post, but I was wondering if anyone had heard of any updates or other projects in this direction?
I would really love to have a distributed transcoder, especially in a docker-swarm.
Did you see the Unicorn distributed transcoder?
https://forums.plex.tv/t/release-unicorntranscoder-create-a-plex-transcoding-cluster/281679/89
I did, but I’d really rather the solution come built into Plex, so that every time I upgrade, I don’t have to re-hack my setup. That and I’m running Plex in a Docker, so I’d have to change the entire setup of my server to do so.
I’m totally with you there. Unfortunately I don’t think Plex has any interest in building this kind of feature into the product.
On another note, I help out a little with the development of Olaris and I believe they’re going to implement it (though not sure how long it will take).
hi,
How do you configure the remote transcoder that has multiple slaves.?
when you run sudo -u plex -H prt add_host do you put the slaves like this? 192.168.1.5,192.168.1.6,192.168.1.7 ??
also on the slave computer the transcoder can access the media folder directly. /mnt/media
how to I configure the transcoder to get the path directly instead of using the exports file?\
I have a HPE Blade C7000 with 16 half height servers
I have installed OPENHPC on it so it’s a High Performance Cluster and each drives are setup in parallel with each blades.
In case anyone is interested, I’ve created another alternative solution, by running plex with a cluster of remote plex transcoders.
I still haven’t gotten around to writing proper documentation on how to run it. But it is relatively simple, all using docker and based on Plex’s base images, so Plex updates automatically work just by rebuilding the docker images.
I mostly built it for my own use, but others might be interested.
I’ve posted more details in this other thread:
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I have a dell 7040 sff i5-6500 8gb ddr 4, the os and plex run on its 128gb m.2 ssd and has a 2tb platter drive. Its doing ok but starting to feel sluggish with the plex webpage. My PowerEdge with old x5660 cpu’s runs a server great and virtualizes great but struggles with transcoding. Its whole point in life at the moment is to serve drives and virtualize torrent downloads. It only has a plex server for testing of my newly obtained bounty before it goes to the master library. Its kind of a waste at the moment using the i5 but any transcoding on the PowerEdge is painful. Do you know if it is possible to make the little dell i5 a plex overflow and transcode box if i did turn the up a plex server on the PowerEdge?
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