Xeon Server + GeForce 1050, why does transcoding not work?

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Server Version#: Version 1.19.4.2935
Player Version#: 7.2.1 (IOS)

I’ve got an HP DL380Gen9 with a 2socket x 8core Intel Xeon E5-2667v3 (3.20GHz) 192GB Ram and a GeForce 1050Ti running server 2019 and Plex under a local user (not a service) and I still can’t even transcode 1 4k HEVC stream to my phone without plex complaining about the server not being powerful enough. Has anyone gotten HEVC transcoding to work? Seems like a myth if this hardware doesn’t cut it. I’ve attached my transcode log, maybe someone can point me in the right direction. Plex Transcoder Statistics.1.log (50.2 KB)

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That shows it’s using your video card. Would need to see your server logs.

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Plex Media Server.1.log (10.1 MB) Apologies if i sounded harsh in my post… spent a ton of time and money trying to make this work

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No problem. You’ll need to turn on debug logging in your PMS settings, then recreate the issue. Your current log is full of a single error.

Jul 07, 2020 02:12:15.533 [6732] ERROR - [Transcoder] Error while decoding stream #0:1: Invalid data found when processing input
Jul 07, 2020 02:12:15.533 [6732] ERROR - [Transcoder] [aac @ 0355d5c0] channel element 0.0 is not allocated

That says there’s an issue with the audio stream. But without the rest of the server info, it’s hard to say what is causing that.

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Plex Media Server.1.log (10.1 MB) I’ve enabled debug logging… also increased the buffer from 240 to 300… seems to help but i still see the playback overtaking the decoding

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Did you try playing something after changing the logging option? I don’t see any request to play.

I do see communication from a client, but it is shown as coming from another subnet? We you doing this remotely?

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logs = debug on, verbose off

reproduce problem > Plex Web > settings > troubleshooting > download logs > drag/drop zip file into reply

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Plex Media Server Logs_2020-07-08_23-00-28.zip (2.7 MB) I did try and use my iphone, i then used the web client… both ‘paused’ playback

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this shows that NVDEC and NVENC are being used (hw decode, hw encode)

Jul 08, 2020 22:15:31.877 [15752] DEBUG - TPU: hardware transcoding: using hardware decode accelerator nvdec
Jul 08, 2020 22:15:31.877 [15752] DEBUG - [Universal] Using local file path instead of URL: D:\Backup\Shared\Videos\Charlie & Asher\2020-06-26 - Charlie, Ash, & Eli catch lightning bugs.mkv
Jul 08, 2020 22:15:31.877 [15752] DEBUG - TPU: hardware transcoding: zero-copy support not present
Jul 08, 2020 22:15:31.877 [15752] DEBUG - TPU: hardware transcoding: final decoder: nvdec, final encoder: nvenc

try putting your tmp location on a normal drive letter, not B:\

Jul 08, 2020 22:15:37.924 [17180] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Estimated bandwidth for 23C114BD-9648-4B97-8524-ADA79A120C8E to be 0kbps over 0.00s
Jul 08, 2020 22:15:37.924 [14372] DEBUG - Content-Length of B:\Temp\Plex\Transcode\Sessions\plex-transcode-BB267F9A-9EA7-411C-A318-0D69BF095E9F-d556a447-17f0-4125-a785-88db13ac49c4\media-00000.ts is 502148 (of total: 502148).
Jul 08, 2020 22:15:37.927 [15752] DEBUG - Returning segment 0 from session
Jul 08, 2020 22:15:37.927 [15716] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Estimated bandwidth for 23C114BD-9648-4B97-8524-ADA79A120C8E to be 1715040kbps over 0.00s
Jul 08, 2020 22:15:37.927 [15752] DEBUG - Content-Length of B:\Temp\Plex\Transcode\Sessions\plex-transcode-BB267F9A-9EA7-411C-A318-0D69BF095E9F-d556a447-17f0-4125-a785-88db13ac49c4\media-00000.ts is 502148 (of total: 502148).
Jul 08, 2020 22:15:37.956 [15752] DEBUG - Request: [127.0.0.1:57173 (Loopback)] PUT /video/:/transcode/session/BB267F9A-9EA7-411C-A318-0D69BF095E9F/d556a447-17f0-4125-a785-88db13ac49c4/progress?progress=1.1&size=-22&remaining=477&vdec_packets=205&vdec_hw_ok=188&speed=0.5&vdec_hw_status=1 (31 live) Signed-in Token
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I’m having better luck with my storage space array (D:) than i was with a dedicated usb3 stick for caching (B:) (see attached stats) but it still buffers. I never see more than 25-30% utilization on my geforce card for encoding… I have my transcoder set for 4max streams, prefer higher speed encoding, and background x264 transcoding is set to faster.flashdrive stats Plex Media Server Logs_2020-07-09_11-44-39.zip (5.9 MB)

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You are more likely to run out of video memory than gpu processing.

Also with that much ram, setup a 32 or 64 gig ram drive and point temp to that.

If you ran Linux you could just use a tmpfs mount.

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so i made an 8GB RAM drive using starwind’s app… made no difference, i dont even see that much utilization on it… whats curious though is how much my processor gets pegged by the transcoder and how little my geforce card does.

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LOL. I can’t imagine using a USB stick for caching to be a good idea. Transcode will read and write to it simultaneously. That is not going to work well.

Looks like you are also using B not just for the transcoder but for all the metadata too. Plex uses a lot of small files. Again, that’s not going to work well with a USB stick.

Have you selected subtitles? I couldn’t quite tell from your logs, but looks like yes. HW transcoding slows down when subtitles are involved.

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Considering I’m using a flashcard for the OS, USB3 was much faster.,… but in anycase… I’ve switched it to a ram disk and it made almost no difference, the transcoder still buries my cpu and doesnt do much to my nvidia 1050ti … no utilization on encoding, about 33% on decoding… not really sure whats going on

Plex Media Server Logs_2020-07-09_16-40-12.zip (5.8 MB)

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USB3 is fast, but USB flash drives are not. They are great for simple copying of files. They aren’t really suited to be used as a working drive.

Your logs show your card being used for both decoding and encoding.

Jul 09, 2020 16:34:51.234 [9604] DEBUG - TPU: hardware transcoding: final decoder: nvdec, final encoder: nvenc

Or at least PMS is trying. It’s possible this could fail and it reverts back to software decoding/encoding. I thought I saw in your earlier log that the file was HEVC 60 fps. It’s possible your card can’t handle the 60 fps.

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thats an interesting observation… i was looking at the performance stats in task manager… everything i have is 60fps… do you know off hand if a geforce 1080 can handle 60fps? ive got one i can try throwing in there… bit of a hassle but if it can do the job…

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According to NV support matrix here


the 1080 should be able to support twice as many NVENC sessions and the same number of decode sessions

The increased G RAM will help
PS both cards can’t handle 4:4:4 colourspace if thats what you are trying to dec / enc, you need a turing based card for that.

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PS I have a much less powerful system that you, It has i5-8600K, 64GB, synology (linux) OS. Plex app, transcode folder on R5 SSD, media on R5 HDD, using Intel i-GPU’s quicksync chip to hw enc and dec via plex pass. Client phone is iphone 10xmax w plex app.

Movie#1 is 18GB rip w EAC5.1 audio, SDR HEVC main 10 profile video 22,000 kbps bitrate, SRT based subtitle enabled, mkv container, 24p framerate

Regular Playback transcodes the container+subtitles only (A+V directstream), so hardly a test, server idles at 1%

Force worst case scenario (for this movie) by changing quality to 40 mbps 4K quality, forcing transcode of container/vidio/audio/subtitles, and server is idling at 4-5% no buffering or issues at.

Pick a more difficult movie

Movie#2 is 48GB rip w DDTrueaudio7.1/AC3-5.1/DTS HD Master Surround 5.1 audio tracks , HDR10 HEVC main 10 profile video 59,000 kbps bitrate, PGS based subtitles, mkv container, 24p framerate

Again default playback transcodes the container only (A+V directstream), so hardly a test, server idles at 1%

Force worst case scenario (for this movie) switching to the TrueHD audio stream, enable pgs subtitles, changing quality to 40 mbps 4K quality, forcing transcode of container/vidio/audio, and server is at 15-20% for a while, but drops to idling at 4-5% no buffering or issues at. The quality is bad because of tone-mapping issue w HDR, but no buffering or maxed out CPU’s

just to point out that in some cases it indeed works as advertices

If you can point to a sample media file like you are using, I can try and see what I see…

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2020-05-31 - The garden.7z.001.7z (22 MB) 2020-05-31 - The garden.7z.002.7z (17.6 MB)

Attached is a sample of how i encode my videos, just remove the last .7z and unzip w/ 7zip… its one 40MB file… I’m curious if the nvdecoder cant handle this and its failing back to software

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I haven’t tried your samples yet but do you have any files that are only 30 fps you could try?