@nmbrg What he just quoted from my prior reply to you.
My earlier response today had to do with your quote from Luke of Emby. I thought my explanation from back on March 3rd (re: why HW transcoding is failing) was quite clear. I have nothing further to educate you with on the subject matter.
I provided you with an alternative solution which was to use Ubuntu. However you were not motivated to try it–thus there is little I can do for you. As stated before, in my setup I get zero-copy HW transcoding with HEVC HDR10, HEVC SDR and H.264 SDR source content.
Until Plex updates their transcoder for Windows, HW transcoding is not going to work reliably for you. I do not work for Plex thus I have no say in when and how they will resolve this for you. If you ask nicely, I am sure @pl_5309 can point you to the forum threads sharing your common dilemma.
thats just wrong. ive been having problems with hw-transcoding since it was added as a “working” feature. never worked on windows. (so a few years now or something?)
so “dropping back a version or two” is just wrong. wont solve anything.
No it won’t on Windows platform. The name of your game with Plex is called “waiting” and that is the unfortunate truth.
So you basically saying the devs don’t care about the Plex Pass users and they just take our money and provide broken software? The only way to get it going is to use Ubuntu? Really? I thought we moved on from 1900 century to 2000 now. You basically telling me the Dev don’t care and you have to use Linux to achieve the end goal. I have a Supermicro Server with 2 x 10 Core CPU and 128GB ram. I have a P2000 that i want to use for Plex but it doesn’t work because the Dev’s are lazy to update FFMPEG to the latest version on Windows. I can’t use Ubuntu because i have other Hyper-V machines running on that server. This is very embarrassing from the Devs.
Sorry, i know you don’t work for Plex but non of the devs ever reply on this forums. I hope you see where i am coming from. I don’t want to use another hardware and pay more for electricity when i don’t have to. If i didn’t pay for Plex Pass i won’t be with Plex. They have achieved this with Emby and transcoding works great.
I am just frustrated so much that we buy the hardware and can’t use it .Months have passed by and Devs have done nothing or reply to our issue. I can give the Devs full access to the server if they want.
I have nothing further to advise as the status of PMS for Windows is still in the same state as before.
Would you tag the Dev’s so we can discuss this maybe? I know you don’t know further and nothing has changed. We would like to know what changes are in the pipe line and what’s the ETA on them. It’s not hard to let your PAYING users know this.
Sorry no. You will have to ask one of the employee mods here. I don’t keep up with the devs re: PMS much last few months as I don’t have the time for it anymore.
I have no idea what devs are working on it and thats the honest answer. Thus its best to ask a Plex employee to provide an update for that.
Who is the Plex Employee? How are we suppose to know?
I agree with Patan32 - I would really like to see HW work properly. I have a Dell R710 with P2000 and installed it on Bare Metal and HW transcoding wouldn’t work. We had some big discussions on a few popular facebook groups trying to get it to work and it doesn’t. I know the OP was looking at UHD/4K specifically but I honestly think Plex needs to look at HW transcoding as a whole and fix these problems. I’ve spent allot of money on hardware trying to get it working even with just 1080p Bluray.
How do we get a hold of the official people at Plex about our hardware transcoding needs?
If I may add to Achilles’ post and to address concerns here:
- Plex does not publish roadmaps and will rarely publish a “To be available” date.
- Engineering is working on upgrading the transcoder.
- I see references to people purchasing hardware. Purchases without fully understanding the capabilities of the hardware or based on an expectation is always ill advised.
To restate Plex’s transcoding abilities:
- Intel Quick Sync Video (Intel CPU internal ASIC) provides decode and encode capabilities
- The nVidia encoder (nvenc) is included and works for those who can make use of it.
- There is no official nVidia decoder (nvdec) support at this time. We (Customer Support) expect Engineering to make this official with the transcoder update BUT BE AWARE this is not a guarantee.
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To address other statements in this thread:
- Dell R710 : What is the CPU ? Is it Intel QSV capable? If so, the P2000 is likely not needed.
- Why anyone would do something based on a Facebook post over coming here and asking myself or any of us who are always available makes no sense.
- Which OS is this running on? If it’s Linux, I can most likely help and will gladly do so.
Supplemental:
If the Dell 710 is based on the Intel Xeon E5520 then please read
Personally, I would not buy 10 year old CPUs. It’s a first-generation chip. Current processors are 8th generation, far faster, QSV onboard, and less expensive.
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Not impressed with censorship, just stating it not good when moderators are negative. I love Plex but this second class forum member problem must stop, I just pointed to an issue. Then I’m censored. Guys you have to get control of these forums.
I am not surprised they act like this. I have had no help from the Plex team what so ever on the transcoding issue. They have started to blame the hardware when I actually have new hardware (hardware that is not very old). I have a couple of Dell Servers which are models: Dell T620, Dell T420, and Dell T320 (E5-24XX CPU) and disabling the internal video in the BIOS and making the P2000 primary GPU plex still doesn’t transcode (Plex running on the HOST). If I use Emby it works perfect and I can see FFMPEG use the hardware to transcode. I can even set up a Server and give access to the Plex team to work on it if they want. I brought a 24 bay Supermicro Server for this reason and when I installed the P2000 I get the same results. The Supermicro server has 2 x 10 core cpu which are Intel Xeon E5-2650L v2. I have disabled the internal video and made P2000 the primary GPU. It can’t be the hardware here. If I use a Consumer Desktop board where i can disbale the IGPU and set the BIOS to use PCI for graphics plex works fine. On my Dell and Supermicro Server i noticed if i select “Convert Automatically” it would use the P2000 for Transcoding and the logs show the same results. If i choose any other option it just doesn’t work at all and the video just buffers.
Hardware Transcode is always ticked in both the tests.
“Convert Automatically” was selected on the client and logs show that it transcoded the video using P2000 and i was able to monitor that on GPUZ also. This works.
This test, Hardware transcode is ticked and I have selected different option on the client to force the transcode but the video just buffers. As you can see in the logs the flag “hwaccel” is missing and not getting used. What is the issue here? This is the finding I got from all the different hardware I used. It’s not the hardware but the poor coding from Plex team themselves. This is a Transcoder issue, so please stop blaming the hardware people are using.
I would appreciate any help to fix this from the community and Plex team. This will help everyone achieve there goals.
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I do the best I can here. I’m sorry that I’m not empowered to do more.
What I can impact, I do. ( Packaging is my primary engineering function ).
I am also largely the front line (however unfortunate) for all the ills on Linux platforms.
To be clear on one point: This site it Plex, Inc’s property. Under the terms and conditions of use, it states (last I looked) they have they have the right to administer, which includes removing, any content they so desire because once posted on the forums, all content becomes their property. This site technically is “Private Property” which is made available to Plex’s customers, persuant to the Community Guidelines (Terms of Service).
( something along those legalese lines… sorry, i’m an engineer so please forgive it I got anything wrong )
Now, with that out of the way.
The transcoder not falling back is known. That’s on the “To Be Fixed” list.
Is there any date? Nope. They don’t give us a date. Never have, most likely never will.
---- next post is all about this problem.
Encoding using the P2000, with nvenc.
First: Plex only supports Quick Sync Video in the Intel chip. The Xeon E5-2650L v2 doesn’t have it. Per: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/75270/intel-xeon-processor-e5-2650l-v2-25m-cache-1-70-ghz.html
If you want HW transcoding (Encoding only at this point from Plex unless you patch) that’s all you’ll get from the P2000.
I would like to see some logs and some metadata of what is actually failing.
Guys, Show me the data!!! (Debug logs and metadata) There’s nothing I can take to engineering from anything said so far. Look at it. Complaints, yes? Actionable posts? No.
Help me help you?
First: Plex only supports Quick Sync Video in the Intel chip. The Xeon E5-2650L v2 doesn’t have it. Per: Intel Xeon Processor E52650L v2 25M Cache 1.70 GHz Product Specifications
I am sorry, I didn’t mention I was using Windows as OS.
Let’s begin with the first question. I am not using Intel quick sync here as I mentioned. I use P2000 with Nvenc which is supported by Plex. This is posted on your Plex “Using Hardware-Accelerated Streaming”. As it states "
Windows-specific Notes
If your Windows computer also has a dedicated graphics card, such as an NVIDIA or AMD GPU, some functions of Intel Quick Sync Video may become unavailable when the GPU is in use. If your computer has one of these GPUs, please install the latest NVIDIA drivers for Windows or AMD drivers for Windows to make sure that Plex can use your dedicated graphics card when Intel Quick Sync Video becomes unavailable."
You can not use Intel Quick Sync and Dedicated GPU at the same time. Plex has no way of knowing which GPU to use because it just selects GPU 0 as primary. The logs i posted above shows that.
I have a desktop machine and i have disabled the IGPU totally and use P2000 for transcoding. It works with no issues.
I am happy to provide all the logs and metadata you would like. Can you provide some steps on how I can do this? Do I just go to Trouble Shoot in the GUI of Plex and download the logs and attach it here? I am also offering if engineers need to log into my server to do testing. I am currently at work but I will collect the logs and reply tomorrow.
I appreciate all the help i can get from the Plex team.
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Windows is completely out of my expertise in ANY way.
I only know that Plex utilizes the Windows (I think it’s DXVA2 ??) mechanism ?
whatever windows uses, Plex uses. I do not know that magic.
I apologize if I spoke out of context there. I am a linux guy.
This now established, I can still look at what PMS should be doing by inspecting metadata and log files.
No problem. I will get the logs for you tonight.
You are correct it uses DXVA2.
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