CPU for Plex Media Server? (4k transcoding)

[Rainmaker]

Great! Where do I find a compatibility list for nVidia cards? Curious to know whether my spare GTX980 can do VP9 and VP9 10-bit or not.

Edit: Just checked the Wikipedia link and it looks like there is no luck for my spare GTX980... It has to be my GTX1080 instead then..

Nowadays Youtube widely uses VP9 and is rumoured to end H264 soon..

Yeah you need Pascal / Feature Set F onwards afaik. You can download and run Emby as a portable app (check the website) which would give you chance to quickly check what your system supports and how it performs. There's no issues doing that on a live system alongside Plex, for example, so nothing to lose. YouTube does indeed serve VP9 (except to Safari/iOS) by default. If your card/CPU don't support it in hardware you can run the H264ify extension to force H264 instead. That can be useful on low end systems, or portable systems (i.e. hardware acceleration uses much less battery than CPU decoding of VP9 in the browser).

Back on topic, your 1080 should support VP9 without issues. Using Emby would then allow you some breathing space without having to immediately upgrade your CPU just for transcoding. As I said, just run the portable instance and see how you like it. It has more features than Plex and is easy to set up.

 

[DragonQ]

Great! Where do I find a compatibility list for nVidia cards? Curious to know whether my spare GTX980 can do VP9 and VP9 10-bit or not.

Edit: Just checked the Wikipedia link and it looks like there is no luck for my spare GTX980... It has to be my GTX1080 instead then..

Or just buy a new GT 1030 or used 1050/1050 Ti for £60.

 

[muon]

If we are suddenly allowing for APUs and GPUs then older generation AMD APUs would perform well as they actually have powerful IGPs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Coding_Engine

Since @voidshatter will suddenly lead you to believe Intel Quicksync is amazing.

 

[voidshatter]

If we are suddenly allowing for APUs and GPUs then older generation AMD APUs would perform well as they actually have powerful IGPs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Coding_Engine

Since @voidshatter will suddenly lead you to believe Intel Quicksync is amazing.

Yes, it's all of a sudden since I asked the question 3 days ago. Care to share a link about compatibility with VP9 and VP9 10-bit?

 

[muon]

Yes, it's all of a sudden since I asked the question 3 days ago. Care to share a link about compatibility with VP9 and VP9 10-bit?

Haha, pick the one thing it current doesn't support. Nice.

What VP9 videos do you transcode exactly?

 

[voidshatter]

Haha, pick the one thing it current doesn't support. Nice.

What VP9 videos do you transcode exactly?

I don't know, just navigating options for the latest. I suppose VP9 is currently YouTube's standard? Right click on these 8k videos, then click "Stats for nerds". I suppose it's VP9 for most web browsers. Since Kaby Lake's IGP just recently decided to support it, I suppose it's important?

 

[muon]

At no point in this thread have you shown interest in VP9 until you saw on wikipedia that AMD doesn't support it (although that sentence does say as of 2015).

Whilst I know Google uses VP9, you once again probably searched and noticed Youtube uses it.

VP9 is a possible 4K format but doean't appear to be gaining traction commercially or in the encoding community.

 

[voidshatter]

At no point in this thread have you shown interest in VP9 until you saw on wikipedia that AMD doesn't support it (although that sentence does say as of 2015).

Whilst I know Google uses VP9, you once again probably searched and noticed Youtube uses it.

VP9 is a possible 4K format but doean't appear to be gaining traction commercially or in the encoding community.

Nope. VP9 happens to be the latest in the Quick Sync table. That's why I asked whether my spare GTX980 can support it or not. It's just my instinct to question whether old AMD products can support it, since Kaby Lake just recently decided to support it.

 

[Rainmaker]

Since VP9 adoption is relatively new, one can hardly expect old chips to support it - including AMD ones. As you said, Kaby is the first Intel chip to support it in hardware, and Nvidia only implemented it in Feature Set F (Pascal hardware). AMD supported it on their graphics cards from the 4xx series onward iirc. As @muon says, HEVC/x265 is the main attraction for commercial 4k providers (outside of Google, to whom VP9 is affiliated). Netflix, for example, found H265 to offer superior encode times and quality versus VP9, although the commercial Eve encoder went some way to fixing this later on. For the purposes of your thread however, it's meaningless unless you want to play VP9 video over Plex or Emby.

ETA: My £120 Zotac 1050ti mini plays those YouTube clips perfectly in hardware for both VP9 and x264 (up to its 4k limit) without using any CPU at all. Which is lucky, as I only have an FX8350.

 

[voidshatter]

unless you want to play VP9 video over Plex or Emby

Interesting... I'm currently testing Plex's transcoding of the 8k video above (in VP9), and will also try Emby. Obviously the underpowered ARM-based CPU isn't going to do it in real-time.

 

[chroniclard]

Is Emby any use though, considering a TV, phone, tablet all have the plex client "built" in.

 

[Randall8686]

Ok so run some tests, seems I can't quite transcode two 4K streams on the fly with my Xeon E3-1225v3 however I can happily do one 4K and one 1080p getting the server to transcode them both. When doing two 4K films one would pause every couple,of mins for about 5 seconds.

Here are some screen shots with the load. These are true 4K films (60gb files)

This is the server load playing one 4K and one 1080p film.

This is again with one 4K and one 1080p as you can see the cpu is flat out but can stream no issue

My server is a Lenovo ts140 with a Xeon E3-1225v3 and 8gb ECC ram. Running xpenology directly on the machine.

 

[Rainmaker]

Is Emby any use though, considering a TV, phone, tablet all have the plex client "built" in.

Some TVs come pre-loaded with Plex clients, admittedly. How is Plex any more 'built in' to a phone or tablet than the Emby app, though? I've nothing against Plex and used it for ages, but switching to Emby has cost nothing in usability (the apps are all there) and allowed my FX8350 to breathe again thanks to gfx offload.

 

[Randall8686]

Wow! Wait, are you saying that a single E3-1225v3 can simultaneously transcode two 4k streams???

Could you help me run a benchmark test if you have time? Download this video, add it to Plex library, start a stop-watch, optimize it for "Mobile", and record how many seconds or minutes it takes to complete the optimisation. Thanks

Just added to my library and optimized for Mobile as you requested. it took 2 mins and 22 seconds from start to finish.

 

[voidshatter]

Just added to my library and optimized for Mobile as you requested. it took 2 mins and 22 seconds from start to finish.

Thanks! That's impressive! The video itself is 4k 10-bit at 120fps for 1 min 32 secs. If you can transcode within 2 mins 22 secs then it means your rig can really transcode normal 4k videos in real-time!

I have looked into the details of the file, and it appears that the codec is MPEG4/AVC. Perhaps it's really the IGP kicking in, since it's compatible with MPEG4/AVC? If it was an E3-1230 v3 instead, perhaps it would make a difference?

Spoiler: Media Information for the test file

\\DS2015xs\General\Downloads\HDTV\???120fpsOP\[VCB-S]Toaru Kagaku no Railgun II[NCOP1][Hi10p_2160p][120fps][BDRip][x264_flac].mkv
   General
      Unique ID : 170444920328421477628814099671400301311 (0x803A7F623FE7AD458159165DF403C2FF)
      Complete name : \\DS2015xs\General\Downloads\HDTV\???120fpsOP\[VCB-S]Toaru Kagaku no Railgun II[NCOP1][Hi10p_2160p][120fps][BDRip][x264_flac].mkv
      Format : Matroska
      Format version : Version 4 / Version 2
      File size : 294 MiB
      Duration : 1mn 32s
      Overall bit rate mode : Variable
      Overall bit rate : 26.8 Mbps
      Encoded date : UTC 2013-08-17 14:51:57
      Writing application : mkvmerge v6.3.0 ('You can't stop me!') built on Jun 28 2013 20:09:41
      Writing library : libebml v1.3.0 + libmatroska v1.4.0
   Video #1
      ID : 1
      Format : AVC
      Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
      Format profile : High [email protected]
      Format settings, CABAC : Yes
      Format settings, ReFrames : 8 frames
      Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
      Width : 3 840 pixels
      Height : 2 160 pixels
      Display aspect ratio : 16:9
      Frame rate mode : Variable
      Original frame rate : 119.880 fps
      Color space : YUV
      Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
      Bit depth : 10 bits
      Scan type : Progressive
      Writing library : x264 core 136 r2348+704+51 d1baef6 tMod [10-bit@4:2:0 X86_64]
      Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=8 / deblock=1:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=10 / psy=1 / fade_compensate=0.00 / psy_rd=0.60:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=48 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=3 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / fgo=0 / bframes=10 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=infinite / keyint_min=1 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=60 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=20.0000 / qcomp=0.70 / qpmin=0:0:0 / qpmax=81:81:81 / qpstep=5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=3:0.80 / aq-sensitivity=10.00 / aq-factor=1.00:1.00:1.00 / aq2=0 / aq3=0
      Language : English
      Default : Yes
      Forced : No
      Color primaries : BT.709
      Transfer characteristics : BT.709
      Matrix coefficients : BT.709
   Audio #2
      ID : 2
      Format : FLAC
      Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec
      Codec ID : A_FLAC
      Duration : 1mn 32s
      Bit rate mode : Variable
      Channel(s) : 2 channels
      Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
      Bit depth : 16 bits
      Writing library : libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
      Language : Japanese
      Default : Yes
      Forced : No

 

[chroniclard]

Some TVs come pre-loaded with Plex clients, admittedly. How is Plex any more 'built in' to a phone or tablet than the Emby app, though? I've nothing against Plex and used it for ages, but switching to Emby has cost nothing in usability (the apps are all there) and allowed my FX8350 to breathe again thanks to gfx offload.

Well if it has an app for android thats a good start.

To be honest I only use Plex as its quite readily available/has app on the TV which I use the most.

 

[voidshatter]

My server is a Lenovo ts140 with a Xeon E3-1225v3 and 8gb ECC ram. Running xpenology directly on the machine.

I'm getting more confused... This Xpenology thing... You can turn any DIY computer into a Synology-like NAS???

 

[Randall8686]

I'm getting more confused... This Xpenology thing... You can turn any DIY computer into a Synology-like NAS???

Correct you can install synology OS onto any hardware although it runs better on Intel based products. You get massively better bang for your buck and much more performance. Plus no restriction on drive bays as you just add sata cards and keep adding drives. I have a genuine synology too as a backup.
My server was about £200 Or something on some crazy cashback deal and an equivalent synology of same performance would be well over a grand.
When doing this it's called xpenology not synology a quick Google will find you the site you need. Pretty much any pc can be used.

I even have a Windows VM running in the synology "box" using their VM software and chucked a 4 port card in to have separate I.p's for the VM and link aggregation for super fast file transfers to the main pc that also has two gig ports on the network.
To be honest I have tries freenas and some of the other pay ones and this just ticks all the boxes. It's lightening fast on the Xeon too. As In everything is instant.

But going back to the OP yes true 4k on that hardware works fine being transcoded so keep your eye out for a Lenovo ts140 you can pick them up dirt cheap. I have half a dozen 2tb drives In there. The 4 port box too (£20 for a dell server one second hand) and it's an awesome server for most home users. I'm debating buying a tv usb receiver so I can have lime tv on plex too. Although I have sucesfully got a number of channels working over the i.p tv part of plex.

Note for mods incase I get in trouble, xpenology is although synology are not massively happy about it, is not illegal and synology have not stopped it from continuing or attempted to stop it. Something to do with the code they have written it in or somthing. Of course they could change this in the future I guess. I actually asked synology when speaking to them about my genuine box and they just said to me. We will not support you in any way or help with any data recovery from non genuine units.

P.s all the genuine ios/android/windows/mac apps all work fine with it too. It's dead easy to setup but a little bit of a faf to update as you must NOT update it via the auto updater you must update the sun stick manually. Also the synology store works fine too.

 

[Scramz]

I don't know, just navigating options for the latest. I suppose VP9 is currently YouTube's standard? Right click on these 8k videos, then click "Stats for nerds". I suppose it's VP9 for most web browsers. Since Kaby Lake's IGP just recently decided to support it, I suppose it's important?

On a Ryzen 1700, these videos in Edge has 15-20% CPU usage and upwards of 60-70% in chrome. Chrome is rubbish at playing them.

 

[Scramz]

OP, this may help you.

I am running a R7 1700 at 3.6Ghz on all cores. Streams 4k HEVC without any stuttering. Below is plex encoding to its original quality settling at 1.9x and peaking to 2.4x. Just to note this CPU averages about 1.8x encode/transcode on a 4k HEVC file.