Has Plex released a target completion date for when their transcoders could utilize Apple’s M1 ARM-based architecture to process videos?
Currently, it is using the translation process Rosetta 2 to make this happen, which may not be benefitting from the GPU cores M1 chips can offer.
We’ve already asked, raised cases etc etc
Plex just give the middle finger.
They’re not interested in your question, or you, or M1 or their M1 user base.
You won’t get a meaningful answer or an Apple Silicon client.
They’ve got your money so…they’re good y’all.
Sorry.
If your videos and transcoding tasks can be accelerated, they already are.
On macOS Plex uses Apple’s VideoToolbox APIs for transcoding when possible. This doesn’t use Rosetta 2. VideoToolbox is accelerated on M1 and is fast as hell.
Housekeeping and thumbnail generation and can’t-be-accelerated transcoding and analysis tasks don’t use VideoToolbox. I assume those will benefit from a native version when it’s available.
Plex hasn’t released a timeline. They don’t usually. There are a few components baked into Plex that might be contributing to the delay.
Are you having any issues today?
When I go into my ‘Activity Monitor’, it shows “Intel” as the ‘Kind’ when the Plex transcoder is running.
Is fast as hell 3-4 hours to transcode (Optimize to “Original Quality”) 2 hours worth of .mkv (~60Gb) to .mp4?
It has been taking longer to transcode .mkv video on my 2021 MacBook Pro with an M1 Max Chip and a 32-core GPU than it did on my 2012 MacBook Pro with an i7 Intel processor.
I have a hard time believing Plex is using my system’s native GPU when it transcodes/converts my .mkv files to .mp4
I’ve tried Handbrake , but I do not know which configurations to choose for a direct comparison.
Thanks for looking into this. It has been tough getting a new computer and not seeing any benefits from a .mkv to .mp4 transcoding/converting process standpoint.
Of course I’m also excited for an M1-native version, and feeling impatient about it too.
Ahhh, well then … no. It’s definitely not working for you. That sounds slow as hell.
Guesses would be HDR → SDR tone mapping, or possibly burning subtitles? That’s STILL slower than I would expect. You could share logs … but I bet you really, really DO want an M1-native version.
In Handbrake try the “Fast 1080p30” or “HQ 1080p30 Surround” presets, and change the Video Encoder to H.264 (VideoToolbox) for accelerated encoding.
Thanks! Looks like that also takes awhile even in Handbrake. An hour and a half for 60GB or 2 hours worth of REMUX video to be converted to 4k HDR HEVC .265 in .mp4 format.
Maybe I am expecting too much out of the M1 Max chip and converting 4k HDR .mkv files to .mp4 for playback on my LG TV is quite a monstrous task that is not going to zip through in a few minutes.
Or maybe there is not program yet that can take full advantage of the M1 Max chips yet.
I appreciate all your help.
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