Windows Server 2019 and P2000 Transoding Buffering Issue Emby Compare

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

OS: Windows Server 2019
CPU: Dual Xeon E5-2670
GPU: nVidia Quadro P2000
GPU Driver Ver: 461.72

Before I get into the issue, I know there are people out there that say we should not be transoding 4K. Personally, that is a matter of personal opinion, and my point here is not whether or not I SHOULD transcode, but if if I have enough horsepower, it is whether I CAN transcode.

In short, if one has the horsepower to transcode a 4K file, one should be able to. It is their choice regardless of what people’s opinions.

Ever since I loaded plex, I have had issues with transcoding 4K media.

At times, I was wondering if there was something wrong on my end, so I decided to find out one and for all where the problem lies. I downloaded and installed Emby (another media server software like Plex). I subscribed to their “premier” service (their version of “Plex Pass”), so I can get access to hardware acceleration.

I played multiple 4K movies on Plex and experienced buffering. I went and played the same movies on Emby and experienced no transcoding issues at all. In fact, it got far enough ahead on transcoding that it throttled the transcoding.

NOTE: All I did was run the play the movies on Chrome and they transcoded from 4K to 1080p.

Yes, this is unscientific, but I found it informative. While I am not here to rip on Plex, I am frustrated with this one shortcoming.

If anyone has a similar set up to me, and has gotten the Plex transcoding to work. I would be very interested to hear what you did.

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Chrome doesn’t support the HEVC codec (which is what is used in 4K videos). Therefore Plex has no choice than to transcode. Otherwise you wouldn’t see anything.

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Makes sense.

I have no issues with the fact that Plex must transcode (and there is no choice with Chrome as you stated). My issue is it’s ability to transcode without buffering.

Thank you for your response.

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without logs, its impossible to determine.

what does the plex web dashboard show, does it show (hw) for both decode and encode ?

do you have subtitles enabled?
do you have tone mapping enabled?

both of the above are single thread/core speed constrained.

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@TechnoJunky - Thank you for your response.

Yes, the web dashboard shows “HW”
Subtitles are not enabled and the tone mapping is turned off.

Plex Media Server Logs_2021-03-14_16-26-35.zip (7.1 MB)

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I’m having the exact same issue on Server 2019 with a P2200

It’s really starting to get frustrating that I can’t have 4k content

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@Sears - I know how you feel. I have been trying to get this to work for a couple years. As I mentioned above, I set up an Emby Server, and the 4k transcoding works fine.

I have posted about this issue, and honestly, I haven’t gotten much help. And honestly, I don’t think it is people not wanting to…I believe they simply do not know.

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