TVS-471 and 4K

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
1

Hi,

I have a TVS-471 as Plex server and running Plex OpenPHT embedded on an intel NUC.

I bought this NAS as it was advertised as being able to transcode 4K.

At the moment I don’t have a 4K tv yet (still saving up for a good one) but I already I have several 4k movies stored on my NAS. These are very high quality of around 50mb/s

I thought I would give it a go on my 1080p tv to see what happens. The info panel while playing the movie says ‘direct PLAY’ which I already found strange since I was under the impression that direct play of h265 was not (yet) supported by Qnap devices.

The CPU hits 100% at around 25 mb/s and the image keeps stuttering. So my first thought was this cpu is not nearly powerful enough and I will need to upgrade it.

But then I was thinking that this might be because my tv is only 1080p and therefore the NAS needs to transcode it to 1080p.

My questions are:

  1. Is this only an issue because I don’t have a 4k capable tv yet and al would be well if I had an LG OLED65C7V tv?

  2. If not, should I upgrade my CPU or can I just wait until direct play of HEVC is supported? And any idea if and when this support will be?

  3. If I should upgrade my CPU which would you recommend to do the job? I already did some searching online and many suggest the I7 4790t but this one is not sold anymore near where I live (Belgium).

I also thought about the Intel Xeon E3-1231 v3 or the I7 4770s but their wattage seems too high for the cooling of this device (65W and 80W).

Any tips would be much appreciated!

2

Which specific CPU is in the box? Not all I3 CPUs are capable of handling 4K. If you have the I3-4150 you’ll be able to decode H.264 4K but not HEVC 4K 8-bit only (you need the -6xxx series for that)

3

Hi Chuck,

Thanks for the reply. Yes it is the I3-4510 i have.

So what cpu would you suggest I upgrade to considering the watt and temperatures?

And also is it correct that HEVC direct play will be supported by QNAP in the future and therefore turn this entire issue pointless?

4

I am working on the NAS Compatibility document as we speak. How fortuitous ! :slight_smile:

To decode HEVC 8 bit (NON-HDR), the i7-6700 can do it now and is supported. I own the TVS-1282-i7-32GB model. It’s fine. It will not do HEVC 10-bit (HDR) which is also known as ‘4K UHD’. (careful distinction there between ‘4k’ and ‘4k UHD’)

The question you’ll need answered by QNAP is what your upgrade paths are? There will need be some level of firmware support and, most importantly, proper pin-for-pin compatibility

5

That’s a coincidence and nice to have.

After Some more Reading I found out that the 4790s is also a popular
upgrade for the device. It does however have 65 watt and therefore in
theory too much for the cooler.

When you say that your processor does not do HDR. What does it take then?
Thats already top of the line.

So does that mean 4K UHD Will never be possible with the QNAPS?

6

The current ‘Top of the line’ is the i7-7xxx series, a.k.a. KabyLake. It is the first CPU with the 600-series GPU. The 600-series GPU is the first GPU able to decode HEVC HDR. Without the GPU, we would need several big Xeon processors to do it in software.

I do not know what QNAP is developing / will allow.

I have not tested 2K HEVC HDR but I don’t think such content even exists (no reason to produce it)

I can tell you, IF you have 4K UHD content, played on a true 4K UHD TV, it’s amazing. With the right audio system, it’s better than going to the theater. :slight_smile:
That having been said, Good, high bit rate (30+ Mbps) 2K on my big screen looks great. The only thing you notice are the limits of the BT709 color space in scenes like a sunset where you’ll see the different color bands and those aren’t objectionable at all. Sampling up 2K → 4K (TV does it in hardware) takes care of most of that for me. :slight_smile:

7

Hi Chuck I have quite a lot of 4K UHD rips.

So what do you think will it look like if I play these with a TVS 471 upgraded to an I7 4790T playing on a 4K HDR tv?

Will the movie play fine but without HDR activated?

8

If your media is stored correctly (the file extension is directly supported by your TV and the audio contained in it is also directly supported), PMS will DirectPlay it. You will see the full 4k UHD image as intended.

If PMS must get involved in any way, The processor will get buried. It is not up to the task. It’s a 4th generation i7. You need a 7th generation i7 to actually manipulate it.

9

I am thinking of getting a similar setup for my home theater. My question is as a plex pass holder I can turn on hardware transcoding , so what if I had gtx 1050 ti as given in the compatibility list to achieve 4k UHD?

10

If you can wait, I would recommend it.
There is nothing coming out of engineering about such support in any definitive form.
Yes, working on it. but that’s it.

You will face the problems / limitations based on what’s selected. I think the 1050 is limited to 2 with their drivers… No idea beyond that.

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