I actually have the 4770 CPU but I dont think it matters at this point.
I have a 7700. it is more than up to that job. I have run 6 concurrently… zero issues
There are those who are looking at the 8xxx and 9xxx.
I saw an issue this morning. I do not know if the 9xxx is fully supported by the Linux kernel yet.
It took some time for the kernel to support the 8xxx
Good to know. I have an OptiPlex 9020, looks like the highest CPU it will support is the 4790. Sounds like I’ll need to get a mobo/cpu combo.
Any chance offsetting some to an external video card for GPU would help transcode?
That is in the works but not yet fully available. It requires manual setup on your part. As I understand it, the proprietary libraries (drivers) are needed and, in most cases, only encoding is hw accelerated.
What about an i7 920 and or 970 CPU? Those are in some old machines I found.
Sorry, not even close. Release date was November 2008.
If the chip is more than 5 years old, don’t even think of using it.
My i7-3740qm (in my desktop) can barely do 1 stream of 1080p and it’s BAD at doing it.
ark.intel.com is your source for definitive information
What are the min requirements Im looking for for CPU specs on that URL?
Here’s the basic math.
2000 Passmarks / 10 Mbps of H.264 for video software transcoding to H.264
3500 Passmarks / 10 Mbps of HEVC SDR for video software transcoding to H.264
Can you help me understand the “Passmarks”?
When i put in my CPU on cpubenchmarks.net I get the following:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-4770
10096 seems more than the 3500 Passmarks you mentioned above?
What is the bitrate of the media you intend to play?
the equation is:
For H.264:
( Bitrate / 10 Mbps ) * 2000 = total Passmark needed to decode video
For HEVC SDR
( Bitrate / 10 Mbps) * 3500 = Total Passmarks needed to decode video
Example: 50 Mbps HEVC source video
( 50 / 10 ) * 3500 = 17,500 passmarks
Add:
- Encoding to target video format and bitrate
- Audio transcoding if needed
- Subtitle burn-in if subtitles used and burn-in required.
Caveat: Not all codecs will make use of all CPU threads. Hyperthreading does not guarantee performance (just be aware because benchmarks and real world is different)
So for example I have a 40GB movie.
MPEGH/ISO/HEVC (3840x2160) TrueHD.
I’m unsure what Mbps that is?
mediainfo filename or ffmpeg -i filename will show you the video bitrate as well as all the other streams in the file.
title : MPEG-H HEVC Video / 51592 kbps / 2160p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / Main 10 Profile 5.1 High / 4:2:0 / 10 bits / HDR10 / BT.2020
BPS-eng : 51588911
DURATION-eng : 01:37:23.296000000
NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 140099
NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 37681159962That output shows me:
- HEVC (H.265)
- 51.592 Mbps
- standard 2160p (4K)
so doing that math: (51 / 10) * 3500 = 17,850 Passmarks are needed.
The I7-4770 has:
a. 10095 computational passmarks so this video cannot be smoothly transcoded in software
b. the -4xxx family of chips predate HEVC support so hardware transcoding is not available for it.
upgrading your hardware to convert 4k is mostly irrelevant until plex supports converting HDR to SDR.
any 4kHDR content that you have and try to transcode on the fly will have washed out colors.
the only consistently good 4k client is the nvidia shield, which supports 4k/hdr and can pass through HD audio (atmos etc).
so if most of your clients are not 4k, then you might as well just get 1080p content and save both the money and the drive space.
4k will net you nothing if you are going to end up converting it anyway.
So is there any way to watch true 4K content with Plex? My Xbox One X can support 4K/HDR and pass through Atmos audio (I dont care about the audio piece).
All the clients I have are 4K (Amazon FTV, XBOX One X and my Samsung TV. I know the Samsung isnt worth trying to process anything so theres that).
Justin,
If the following condition is met, anything will play your 4K HDR
- File format (MKV, MP4, etc) is directly supported by the player app
- Video encoding is supported, as is, by the player (TV/device)
- Audio encoding is supported, as is, by the player (TV/device)
This is DirectPlay mode. PMS reads the file and sends it without processing in any way.
If anything has to be done to the file, regardless what it is, the machine must be able to handle the entire load.
TL;DR — Prepare it in HandBrake or FFMPEG directly on a different machine before giving to PMS to serve it to the player(s)
I have recently upgraded my HT receiver with one compatible with 4k and HDR pass-through… My receiver does not support Atmos but it does support DTS:X… With my new setup I can finally Direct Play 4K HDR movies… My setup includes a Samsung 4k UHD TV and the Plex Android Client running on my Shield TV. I have the Shield TV connected to my Audio receiver and the receiver output is connected to HDMI port 1 of my Samsung TV ( which is the only one that can handle UHD Color with HDR)… I was able to direct play a 4K HDR Movie with DTS:X audio without any problems … My Plex server is running on my linux server not the shield tv
Direct Play is when you convert it with handbrake or another utility though, right?
Direct play means that the client is able to play the movie file without the server having to do any transcoding. Here is info about the movie I am playing so you have an idea of which type of codec, etc… you can direct play:
-
Codec HEVC
-
Bitrate 62447 kbps
-
Bit Depth 10
-
Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0
-
Color Primaries bt2020
-
Color Range tv
-
Color Space bt2020nc
-
Color Trc smpte2084
-
Frame Rate 23.976 fps
-
Height 2160
-
Level 5.1
-
Profile main 10
-
Ref Frames 1
-
Width 3840
-
Display Title 4K (HEVC Main 10 HDR)
-
Codec DCA
-
Channels 8
-
Bitrate 1536 kbps
-
Language English
-
Audio Channel Layout 7.1
-
Bit Depth 24
-
Profile ma
-
Sampling Rate 48000 Hz
-
Title DTS:X 7.1
-
Display Title English (DTS-HD MA 7.1)
