Sorry I have had a quick search but this thread is quite large.
Just ordered myself a 1220 V2 (not the L version should this be OK?). I'm using the box for Plex and it's actually based in my parents house as I couldn't be bothered to move my router and server to my own place. Remotely I am having no problems playing stuff from it but they are getting buffering on some movies. I figured it was the Wifi as they live in an old cottage but after laying down CAT6 cable it's still happening. So after a check I can see Plex is transcoding. I assumed the Samsung Smart TV or the Chromecast could handle the file direct but I guess not. So I'm hoping this little upgrade will solve this.
However will it be any benefit chucking a low profile GPU in this machine? Will it make use of the GPU for transcoding?
1220v2 works in a G8, make sure you update the bios to a suitable version before swapping over to avoid unescissary profanity. It’ll be good for 3 1080p AV transcodes, but remember background services eating CPU cycles may reduce that.
The elements involved in transcoding are as follows:
1) Can the client play the media format natively? If not, it’ll transcode.
2) Is the client set to direct play the media format or force transcode? Some decided such as ATC have issues with this, a recent player beta resolves much of this or use a 3rd party client. If not, it’ll transcode.
3) Does the client have adequate bandwidth to direct play the media (actual bandwidth is subject to external factors such as uplink speed, other devices utilising it, routing between remote server and client, connection type eg Wi-Fi/wired etc.). If not... you get the idea.
4) Is the server capable of software transcoding? Remember source media type/format and output will determine the requirements, Plex suggest 2K of CPU mark per 1080P AV transcode, but that ignores you doing something stupid like trying to transcode down 4K content or the decoding overhead of day h265. If you do something stupid like have 4K h265 content, it’ll transcode.
If you have a PlexPass subscription, then it’s possible to use hardware transcoding, but OS choice is also a factor. Failing that it’s an NVEnc compatible GPU (software limit if two streams but can be bypassed in some cases) or a Quadro P4000 (no software limit) etc. My router (R210ii 1270v1/8GB) is easily capable of doing 4 transcodes in anecdotal testing (it wasn’t always a router), more than that and i’d have to go P4000 as I can’t make use of iGPU and 1u isn’t exactly geared for larger GPU’s.
