I’m looking to move from a Synology NAS with Plex to get something dedicated that is more powerful/can do more transcoding streams at once.

What is everyone using and how many streams can you transcode at once?

    • WestyFlyer@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Are you saying that I’d get better results with a 12 or 13th gen processor than with an older dGPU? Interesting I hadn’t even thought of going this route. Always considered a dGPU was the best way to go.

      • Luca@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        You don’t even need a 12th/13th gen chip tbh. I went from a server with a GTX 1660 to one with an i5-8600 (Well, multiple actually - it’s a kubernetes cluster). They can handle multiple 4k transcodes just fine.

    • HumanPerson@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      I agree with the 1050ti recommendation as that is what I got for jellyfin. I think that a decent cpu is enough for a lot cheaper. I got a used desktop with an i7 4790 for about 50 moneys and ended up leaving on a trip before I could set up hw accel or even install the card. The 4790 is able to keep up with what I need through software encoding and it is over a decade old. (to be clear I did get to use the 1050ti before the cpu upgrade and it worked fine apart from minor codec support issues)

  • bigredgiraffe@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    I know someone else said this but I would just get an i5 with a iGPU, I also have an 8000 series i5 and when it was new I did some load testing and it could do 5-10 transcodes at a time no problem.

    ETA: Even a NUC with an iGPU is great, I have several friends doing that.

  • tsac@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    I’ve used as little as a virtual machine running on my gaming computer to a full blown dedicated server. Really for transcoding as long as it has some cpu cores you can have a good dedicated older machine running plex fine. You don’t need a gpu at all for a handful of streams. I think my max concurrent was 5 ever and I only upgraded for maintainability purposes.

    • mr47@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      Depends what you’re transcoding to… show me a CPU (without a built in encoder like recent ones) that can handle a 4K HDR transcode…

      • tsac@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        I might just have lower standards here, but most of my content is 1080p at best for movies. Having 2k 4K HDR releases just isn’t viable for most people, now at 1080p it is a bit more palatable. I incorrectly assumed his content composition, so yes my setup isn’t for all scenarios.

  • TwinTurbo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    There is also an other approach: encode your media a priori into a format that you can play direct, and then you don’t have to worry about transcoding performance. The advantage of this is that you can likely get better quality encodes.

    • WestyFlyer@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      That’s basically what I’ve been doing using Other Transcode. My concern was that if I have a 4K source and using that would I someday regret it and want to re-encode things?

  • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I have it on my Synology NAS as well and I just let it preencode everything so that the stream doesn’t need transcoding when clients request it. It consumes more space but the convenience is more important to me.

  • squi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I have a 1660 from my old machine and it seems to handle transcoding multiple 4K streams easily. Pretty low power draw as well, I doubt there’s much need for anything more powerful unless your files are in av1 or something.

  • BaronVonBourbon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    While I agree with everyone that Quicksync is the best option, a Quadro P400 is also a viable option. You can get one off eBay for around $40. It’s only 2 gigs of RAM, so you’re limited to 2 or 3 transcodes at a time. But it’s cheap and may even work in your Synology depending on what model you have.