I have hardware transcoding. I also have enough friends that more than 2 or 3 may be trying to watch something at the same time. Good job assuming the simplest setup, though.

[–] cm0002 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Then something is wrong with your setup, HW transcoding should be able to handle 3 transcode streams of a HEVC 1080p video file easily. I've had peaks of 8-10 simultaneous transcoding streams without issue (going above 5 does require you to patch the Nvidia driver (if using Nvidia consumer GPUs))

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Mine is hosted on a NAS. So no, not nvidia.

[–] cm0002 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well there's your problem, it ain't got no gas in it!

HW transcoding is more than just flipping the switch in the Plex dashboard.

For one, you need a GPU of some kind, even shitty or old ones like a 1060 will get you far

For two, it needs to be properly configured for PCIe pass through on Docker (if Plex is in a docker container)

For three, a NAS is like...second to last tier as far as Plex servers go (with a few exceptions) with the bottom tier being "repurposed old computer". While there's nothing wrong with that, you can't make generalized statements like you did based on that kinda setup.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I did make a generalized statement there, you're right. My opinions on the matter are largely influenced by the TRaSH Guides, which are a primary source for file quality settings for a significant portion of people managing media libraries. Best practices for 1080p is x264 since it 1) can be direct streamed on the most number of 1080p devices (just because you can transcode a bunch of streams at once doesn't mean you should), and 2) has video quality aspects that are important to consider if you're concerned with anything more than file size.

With all the files in "proper" formats, my NAS has no issues direct streaming, and transcoding the few files here and there that need it.

[–] cm0002 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I read through a bit, and it seems the whole anti-4K/x265 stance and even the anti-Transcoding stance as a whole was based on a Plex forum post "The Rules of 4K", which if you follow back to the source states:

NOTE: for 2022 – Plex has come a long way since this FAQ was originally written, HW transcoding has become more available and more stable, and tone mapping was recently added to address the hdr/sdr color conversion issues.

The first 4 ‘rules’ generally are no longer as important as they once were, but may still be a good thing to bear in mind.

And I agree with that statement, coupled with proper hardware (like I said even an old and cheap 1060 will do the job nicely, or even the cheap but new Intel Arc GPUs have proven excellent for this task) Plex's transcoding is rock solid, there's little reason to not transcode these days.

Plus it's not like device support for native x265 isn't growing

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Excellent points. For my particular use-case scenario, x264 for 1080p works best for the users my library is shared with. I recently overhauled my library to get as much 1080p content into x264 as I could, and my friends have noticed a significant improvement in performance. I still have 4k content, but it's mostly for me since my personal setup supports it. Since my NAS isn't having to transcode literally everything now, it's no issue if it needs to transcode a few 4k streams for my remote users.

I'm running a DS918+, so certainly not the newest model, but it's still trucking. I was thinking about upgrading to a newer chassis model, but I see the newer ones have moved to AMD processors that don't support hardware transcoding. Go figure.

[–] cm0002 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I was thinking about upgrading to a newer chassis model, but I see the newer ones have moved to AMD processors that don't support hardware transcoding.

If you're open to suggestions, I'd suggest having your NAS doing what it's best at, serving as file storage and then build an actual server that'll be leaps and bounds better that's directly hooked into it. As a file server, that NAS has many years of life left.

Looking at the price that NAS cost new, you could build an absolute juggernaut of a Plex server for around the same price.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Yeah, I’m overdue for a PC rebuild. Once I save up for that, I’ll probably migrate the server portion of Plex to the new rig.