Do i need plex pass for hardware transcoding

Some misconceptions in the Plex server requirements. . Ryzen 7 2700X here. Plex Pass includes benefits for TV shows that may interest you. HW transcoding is only available via Plex Pass. I’m having some trouble figuring out how to enable nvidia hw First, do you have a hardware required for HW transcoding? Or to be more precise, what's your Plex server setup? Ok stupid question, it's RPi. Software transcoding is available for everyone and Hardware transcoding is only for Plex Pass users. Hardware transcoding device. 2. My movies is stored on Synology NAS. But with Plex Pass, these apps are free. If you do not have Plex Pass, you are software transcoding. The "Hardware transcoding device" has a choice of Auto or "GeminiLake [UHD Graphics 600]". After this, you should consult the Using Hardware-Accelerated Streaming article to enable hardware acceleration within the Plex app. Since these are hardware designed for a specific task, encoding or decoding video, they can do the job very quickly. Jan 3, 2023 · Plex Pass. TL;DR 1050 Ti or better and a Plex Pass. Reply. The right approach would be to create optimized versions of media in advance, using actual compute hardware and plex supports that. You don't need a Plex pass if you use an Nvidia Shield to serve as your Plex media server - it is built-in. Transcoding is available in unlicensed Version of plex, but you need it to watch media from phones. I recently bought the lifetime Plex pass to use the quick sync feature on my i7 4765t. Personally, I haven't noticed a difference in the resulting transcoded video. I do use Jellyfin and on my LG C1 TV it's working well (with hardware transcoding for some non-supported audio codecs mostly)…. Using hardware transcoding reduces CPU usage and power consumption, and may substantially improve transcoding performance. Apr 18, 2019 · Only with Plex Pass. 3 to recognize You do realise that you can't really differentiate Intel graphics and "graphics cards" right I'm glad to know that the people at ffmpeg (what the plex transcoder is based on) didn't need to create so many different modules to support hardware acceleration then. 264. One thing to note is the fact hardware transcoding support is only included with the Plex Pass. r/PleX. Imo, there is no competition between a software implementation and a hardware implementation when it comes to quality. Select QTS mode. This leads to reduced quality. 8. I get the direct streaming. In order to use this feature Plex pass is required for the duration you use said feature. 264 is supported. io Plex docker (others Plex dockers may be different): P2000, 1660, or 1050. Subscrip Plex Pass to get hardware transcoding. I'd never use offline viewing because I never travel. [ffmpeg] - cannot load libcuda. Software transcoding is done on a general purpose CPU, so it takes longer. Of course, you can save a lot of money turning any old PC or laptop into a Plex server, but Plex on my AS5304T has hardware transcoding options in "Settings > Transcoder". Look for cpus (and gpus) that support plex hardware transcoding. You need to make some changes to a config file specific for the container to pass the GPU through. Dec 16, 2020 · Plex Pass is worth it just for mobile sync. 3. Plex’s hardware acceleration gives you enough headroom to steam your content online using powerful graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD. If it is transcoding, it can use the CPU if it’s powerful enough, or it’ll end up doing a lot of buffering. But I do not see that. It's been supported for transcoding since Sandy Bridge. I would advise you to check for yourself The full list is here: Plex Pass Feature Overview, but there are the best benefits for me: Hardware transcoding. GPU Resource Allocation is set to 1, nvidia-smi shows that the system identifies the card, and I have hardware transcoding enabled within Sep 9, 2020 · Note: Hardware transcoding is a premium feature and requires an active Plex Pass subscription. 32. Aug 24, 2017 · Here are the most important Plex settings you need to know about if you want to stream media in the best way possible. Nvidia GPUs have NVENC and NVDEC . Possible higher power consumtion? Build a NAS like option 2, but istead of using a gpu to handle the transcoding i buy plex pass. Money well spent! Enable hardware transcoding in Plex. . Nov 27, 2022 · On your UNRAID Server, Goto DOCKER and left-click on the PLEX icon and select Edit. Click on Show Advanced in the upper-right corner to expose Feb 16, 2021 · Intel, NVIDIA. 1. If you need GPU transcoding, you pretty much need an Intel CPU with an iGPU that can run Quicksync on it. I do not have a Plex Pass but I understand from other posts I've read that the option should still appear as my CPU does support it. Streaming device is Apple TV on none 4k tv. 99 on I just bought the Lifetime Pass after years of usage : r/PleX. Oct 30, 2022 · IIRC, you will need a decent nVidia GPU to do that. Nov 27, 2023 · To enable GPU transcoding in Plex, you need to have a compatible GPU and a Plex Pass subscription. To use Plex transcoding with Docker we need to passtrough the NVIDIA GPU to the Docker container. If you really need to do a lot of transcoding, I'd look elsewhere, perhaps a custom NAS solution (or a dedicated device just for Plex), it's the only reliable solution. For example, most modern Intel CPUs have Quick Sync and Intel iGPUs would be listed here but there's nothing to be shown for RPi. DiViDE_26 • 4 yr. This is a must if you enjoy watching a lot of TV shows in Plex and hate waiting for the intro for each show to finish. No, you absolutely don't need a powerful CPU to play your content if you have direct play but you will need a powerful CPU or a decent GPU when you transcode 4K content. Hardware-accelerated streaming and transcoding: If your media server device is powerful enough, Plex can tap its hardware to help with transcoding. I do have Plex pass, I can see my graphics card in the Plex settings selected, but obviously with these errors, the transcoding isn’t actually working. Many years ago, probably more than a decade ago, I bought a lifetime Plex Pass subscription for myself for Christmas. With that being said and now to answer your question. If you play the video and audio as is, than you can do direct play. Mar 20, 2023 · As Plex is a third-party tool, it may have different requirements and limitations. ago. The software is a full implementation, while the hardware implementation is a shortcut implementation that's meant to go quicker while sacrificing quality. It’s a very fine version. Happy holidays, forum users! We've got something special in store for you with this release: it enables hardware transcoding for Windows, macOS, and Linux for Plex Pass users. Depending on your graphics gpu and the transcoding requirements, this might be done through hardware transcoding, on the GPU. • 1 yr. I grabbed them when they appeared consistent, so neither best nor worst transcoding speed or CPU usage. The Plex server usually spends the most computational and networking resources, while the client only deals with compatibility and playback. This can make streaming run more smoothly This setup has served me relatively well but I recently got a good deal on a Quadro P600. It works, and it works well. The most important component of your Plex server is the computer that manages your media files and runs the Plex software. No idea if tonemapping would be accelerated. On the flip side I think Quicksync is fully supported in Linux. reboot. As you can see there isn't much in terms of hardware requirements to run Plex Media Server. lzma and extra2. It's worth it for transcoding, but what makes it a good deal is all the extra stuff that you get with it like free use of the standalone apps on iOS/Android which normally have a 1-off cost, and Plexamp is a HELL of a good music player. On Linux and Windows, decoding of both H. With just docker containers, multiple containers can use the iGPU simultaneously. Generally what you’re hearing about when people say this is specifically GPU hardware transcoding. Passmark score around 8000. I didn't test it on other devices if Plex even does copying tracks while transcoding other tracks when chosing manually quality. By default, Plex uses software transcoding which utilizes your CPU. You will need plex pass and to turn on hardware acceleration. Note: this is for the linuxserver. 1050 and p2000 are the same but the p2000 can do unlimited streams where the 1050 you need to unlock to do more than 2 which is simple. 10 votes, 16 comments. Good luck soldier. In the Transcoder settings section you should also see your graphics card present in the Hardware Transcoding Device dropdown. I guess the others who downvoted just are Plex fanboys or doesn't have a clue about what they are reading. If the material is already 4K then there is no need for transcoding. But you were probably just trying to save face about not knowing that Buy Plex pass, even if for one month so you can turn on hardware transcoding. You have to pay for a Plex Pass to use hardware transcoding with Plex anyway. When I go to the transcoder settings I do not see anything about hardware transcoding. Once you have these, you can access the transcoding settings in the Plex server dashboard. I currently have Plex running off my main computer, but I want to buy a dedicated mini pc to host Plex. If you are a standard home user, with 2-3 streams/transcodes maximum at any given time, you should not worry about this as long as you do not have 4k If you're going to use an intel chip, try just enabling hardware acceleration and let it use the onboard graphics and quick sync. And don't forget plex only allows hardware transcoding with the paid plex pass. Then "Add another Path, Port, Variable, Label or Device", name it (whatever you'd like Intel iGPU or -device /dev/dri it doesn't really matter) and give it the value: /dev/dri/ PLEX ENABLE HARDWARE ENCODING: Use PLEX's WebUI and login to the admin account. It can run plex but it cannot transcode, or at least if it does I'm not sure of how to enable it. so. Jun 23, 2022 · Introduction. Similar to the movie feature, Plex Pass allows you to skip both the opening intro and credits for a TV show. shadow7412. On macOS only H. Have googled it but can’t understand it fully. I'm a little unclear about what needs to be transcoded. 4 Ghz, 16 GB ram. The next sections will go into more detail about what you should Yeah, all the way back to a Celeron G4900 works just fine provided you are using hardware acceleration (Plex Pass required for that) and have your OS setup properly. I run it bare metal on a Ubuntu machine but it’s trivial to run on Docker with /dev/dri decide passed through. Reply reply. System Specs: AMD 5600G with Noctua NH-L9x65 SE-AM4 (SEALED CASE) AMD 5700G with Noctua NH-L9a AM4 (OPEN CASE) 64GB RAM. conf. On 3/7/2018 at 10:22 PM, Hoopster said: To enable hardware transcoding in Plex, do the following: This goes in the Extra Parameters in the Plex Docker config (you have to enable Advanced View on the docker edit page to see this). If you pay for Plex Pass, it unlocks the ability to utilize the hardware transcoding engine in your GPU, with See full list on howtogeek. Now go and try transcoding a video on your TV or phone. In this post I will explain the needed steps to get Plex transcoding to work. I would get a plex pass to support the devs! Yes. If you turn on sub titles, it’ll need to transcode. In the playback info, if you see a transcoding option, the video is being transcoded. No. Hw transcoding is only available with Plex Pass. Their client settings are set to play in a lower resolution or lower quality audio than your raw files. Mar 16, 2022 · Followers 2. It is far more performant than software transcoding, meaning you can have more people streaming transcoded content at the same time. Use hardware acceleration when available. Your end user's "transcoding experience" is determined by your transcoding method. The guide will also provide recommendations for adding hardware transcoding to your existing setup. Docker containers can share the same GPU for transcoding purposes. I would consider a model where you can upgrade the CPU. Plex kept giving me 3 different results for my devices. Navigate to Settings > Server > Transcoder to access the server settings. Plex Server. Jan 3, 2023 · After installing an NVIDIA graphics card, follow these steps to allocate the graphics card to the NAS system: Go to Control Panel > Hardware > Hardware Resource. I looked up this guide from Plex Support about minimum specs. Plex transcoding CPU or GPU? Check the pros and cons of Plex hardware transcoding and now you should be able to make your decision. Holy cow! : r/PleX. If transcoding is all you want and you don't need any of the other features, the Nvidia Shield Pro 2019 is amazing. I got a HP, Elitedesk 800 G2 SFF , i7-6700 3. trankillity. The version of quick sync mostly impact quality not necessarily number of transcode. Was this article helpful? Yes. Once a VM takes control any GPU, it is not available for any other use. So far I have been tested running the Plex server on the two hardware configurations: System #1: System #2. 4. I have two questions: Will hardware encoding enable better picture quality? Build a NAS with a cpu that can handle transcoding 4K HDR video. If you do find a way to get Plex operational on DSM7, it will likely be wrecked with the next DSM release. When you would run natively on an operating system, you would enable hardware acceleration and select the hardware you want to run on. My current setup: Plex server in a Linux VM on Intel Nuc NUC10i5FNB. Start Docker Plex Container: Navigate to the directory containing your Docker Compose file and execute the following command to launch your Plex container: 5. The hardware portion of this guide assumes: You have an existing NAS with all of your media on it TrueNAS Scale Plex Hardware Transcoding. Transcoding is the term for converting a file. Holy cow! For those who weren't aware this was a thing, I believe it's a relatively new feature (EDIT: for FreeBSD specifically, hardware transcoding on Linux and Windows has been a thing for awhile of course). RPi does not have hardware required for HW transcoding. Go for an Intel model (of synology nas). Mar 7, 2018 · Posted September 23, 2018. redd17. When accessing media locally, transcoding may not be We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. 264 and HEVC are supported. Thinking about ponying up for the Plex Pass in order to use hardware transcoding (as I believe I need the pass to do this, yes?), but just wanting to know what I'm in for. Transcoding, Encoding, Decoding: Transcoding, encoding, and decoding are various terms used when a media file needs to be transformed to be better suited for a specific device, internet connection, or hardware. I have not tried it myself, as I have no need. Question: Transcoding and Mini PCs. Build a NAS with weaker cpu (maybe used) and buy a used graphics card to handle the transcoding with Plex pass. Hardware Transcoding: Take advantage of your server's hardware to natively transcode video. •. lzma for having DSM 6. If you don't plan on anything intensive, it will work. Aug 3, 2020 · For hardware transcoding support on other processors, try this article from Plex. TL;DR I am trying to decide whether the 980ti will suffice for transcoding of 4K HEVC (±HDR), or whether I need to migrate to an Intel-based system. Edit. Open the Plex Web app. I have had HandBrake and Plex both using the iGPU at the same time for hw transcoding.     Go to PleX. For questions and comments about the Plex Media Server. The two relevant errors from Plex are. The intel’s have quick sync which does a good job of transcoding. Use hardware-accelerated video encoding. This might be the most expensive option. It will work, just not as good as an intel with quicksync. ryzen 5 5500 will work. Hello. But does that also mean that other remote users (ones I invited) can automatically benefit from those features (in this example hardware transcoding specifically). If you are debating getting Plex Pass just for hardware transcoding, I'd recommend you either don't or pay for a month and really try it out. Jellyfin would be a free alternative. NAS system for my home. I configured PCIe passthrough and passed the Quadro to the Plex VM however, hardware transcoding has not been as plug-and-play as I'd hoped. For Plex, the HDR Tone Mapping feature does not go through hardware acceleration on Windows servers. Like 1 stream at 720p, should work without issue. com Not so straightforward. There's a general rule of thumb about transcoding 1080p content that says you need ~2000 passmark score for each 1080p to 1080p transcode. The role of Plex is to transcode any type of media file into a playable format on a server. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. 04 (the LXC OS) and Alder Lake 2) Plex Media Server (PMS) built-in media drivers that support your specific GPU. Your Xeon E5-2690 v3 setup has a passmark of around 19k, so you are well within the ballpark of failure with that rig. The Nvidia Shield can host a Plex server and do this for you out the box and possibly cost 1/4 of a new GPU. I don't think you want that Atom SoC transcoding anything if it could anyways. From the menu on left, click Transcoder under the Settings section. This single feature alone is enough to justify picking up Plex Pass. Skip the intro and credits. This computer should be small and power efficient, as it requires a wired internet connection and will run 24/7. The below Plex Streaming 4K diagram shows the process to stream a 4K file. 2. Ultimately, the recommendation will be to add a dedicated transcoding box that uses Intel QuickSync. Before going into detail about what hardware will be needed, let's first have a look at the minimum Plex server requirements: CPU: Intel i3 or faster. According to a plex article, to find hardware acceleration, I need to go to Settings > Server > Transcoder. Configure Plex for Hardware Hi, Hoping someone can explain when/if I need to use Plex pass with hardware transcoding. When I go to my settings on my Plex Media Server, I don't see a " Server " option on the left hand side at all. Aug 22, 2022 · Plex is the most popular streaming tool. I have 1. 04. Plex can automatically pull in metadata for your content. Truenas Mini X+ owner here still running version 12. Yes, it will do transcode with Plex Pass up to 1080p. This page is community-driven and not run by or affiliated with Plex, Inc. If you're rocking a free account, you'll need to rely on software transcoding Questions about Plex server on the Shield TV Pro - hardware transcoding availability, temp monitoring, sending to chromecast, and sub / audio track switching via remote control / phone I'm interesting in getting a Shield TV Pro to work as a plex server (or Jellyfin or Kodi or something, you get the idea, but I'll be testing Plex for my use-case Dec 15, 2021 · Plex uses a client-server architecture. May 6, 2020 · Ethernet Adapter: 2 x 10GBase-T. And doing online conversion is a waste of resources. On the right, check the Use hardware acceleration when available checkbox. Getting Plex hardware transcoding and HDR tone mapping to work requires two components: 1) The Plex LXC GPU drivers for your Proxmox host GPU. FreeBSD 12. Feb 13, 2019 · No. If your container ID is 101 then the config file is located at /etc/pve/lxc/101. Aug 19, 2023 · The screenshots bounced around +/- 2% on Plex and +/- 8% ish on CPU usage. You are either using software or hardware transcoding. I have a i7-7700k, transcoding 4k video to 1080p (EDIT: just to Dec 5, 2023 · Following the Plex docs on enabling hardware transcoding should make it so that any transcoding that Plex needs to do will use the GPU instead of the CPU. 1660 will do a little more, have better image quality but also needs to be unlocked. Right now, the same type of rule for 4k is 18,000 passmark from what I've read. When you run in docker, you should check the documentation of that image for how the maintainer expects you to pass the GPU through to the Hey Guys, Quick question about Plex Pass and hardware transcoding. The paid tier gives you free access to the Android and iOS apps (they cost $4. The 'Use hardware acceleration when available' setting in Plex. RAID 530-8I (I use Freenas Raid) My propose to build Freenas. What I do see, is a section on the left called "Transcoder", but no option for Hardware Acceleration. In my case, Intel GPU drivers for Ubuntu 22. Click the Settings - the wrench - link in the upper-right corner of the Plex server page. To take advantage of hw decode you need plex pass. apt install pve-kernel-6. You want to use some flavor of Linux and can optionally use Docker. Plex has the ability to fully use the NVIDIA GPU for video transcoding like a bare metal install. Plenty of other features too like PlexAmp. Hardware transcoding requires a 64-bit Intel CPU on Linux, ideally from a recent generation (Haswell or later), and will use the primary graphics adapter on Windows and macOS. My server has a Ryzen 5 3600 cpu and it transcoded fine until I got plex pass and started using my Nvidia GPU. Organize Your Plex Agents. Free Mobile Apps: Plex usually charges money for its mobile apps. From there, you’ll have to check the server to ensure that the GPU is being used properly. Sep 3, 2023 · 4. 4209 running inside a jail but have no way of really knowing if it's is working properly. The specific lines to add can be googled. Plex Pass to enable hardware transcoding Hi, I'm a Synology NAS user, just wanna see if you have already been subscribed to the Plex Pass for this feature? If not, and how do you rate the server if you need to do transcoding a lot to stream to the client's app? Apr 18, 2023 · Hardware Transcoding and HDR Tone Mapping. apt full-upgrade. Windows 10 server (considering trying unRaid), with SSD for OS. The only supported codec for encoding is H. The Plex Media Server is smart software that makes playing Movies, TV Shows and other media on your computer simple. I am considering on buying the lifetime Pass, that means my account gets those HW Transcoding features. More stress you put, more frames it will start dropping. With Plex though, the 4070 probably isn't necessary, since the 13900K's integrated graphics have very Jan 3, 2023 · After installing an NVIDIA graphics card, follow these steps to allocate the graphics card to the NAS system: Go to Control Panel > Hardware > Hardware Resource. 0, Intel "GPU" hardware transcoding. Oct 5, 2022 · Here are all the features included in Plex Pass: Remote Streaming: A Plex Pass subscription is required for remote streaming. Hardware transcoding would be nice, I suppose, but not worth the money. Although you need to format your Plex media files in a very precise way for it to work, it's well worth doing. I just purchased and configured a Beelink S12 Pro with the Intel N100 CPU with Plex version 1. It's a soldered Celeron on that model, just like the 453A. Can't seem to figure out what the problem is, but I can't get Plex to use hardware transcoding. Hardware acceleration is significantly faster and more efficient that software transcoding, so you can save both power and resources by having it enabled (assuming you're actually transcoding content, not direct playing/direct streaming ). As I'm sure you can guess, I'm wanting to setup hardware transcoding (I have a lifetime Plex Pass). 7639 on Windows 11 Pro. However, it lists very low (and affordable) specs if it doesn't need to transcode. But I've heard that in general hardware transcoding with Plex doesn't produce as good of an image. I have some 4K HEVC/x265 content I would like to stream to various devices and browsers which is requiring the content to be transcoded to x264. Nowhere in the OP the model is mentioned. Plex doesn't support AMD Radeon GPUs for hardware transcoding if you have plex pass. Go to solution Solved by GuiltySpark_, March 16, 2022. Update Kernel to 6. Quote. For Plex video transcoding, Nvidia GPUs are more reliable as compared to AMD. I don't know why I didn't look it up before. Or a per-device subscription is needed if no plex pass is available. Oct 5, 2022 · Was wondering if anybody could help me out here, because I’m following all the instructions in this thread, the iGPU is recognized inside the LXC container, I have a Plex Pass but Plex just seems to refuse doing hardware transcoding here… I double checked and enabled « Use Hardware Acceleration Encoding When Available » in the plex If you want to transcode streams (eg watching on mobile) you'll need some horsepower. During streaming, the Plex server is the one transcoding or directly serving the media. It means your plex server will only do software transcoding using CPU. You can't use Plex hardware transcoding without Plex Pass. That depends somewhat on how you have installed the Plex Media Server. Thank you, at least someone who understands me. I have had Plex and HandBrake both using the iGPU simultaneously for transcoding/encoding, but for a VM, you need a dedicated GPU. That’s about it. I have TrueNAS Scale loaded onto a machine with a NVIDIA Quadro M4000. Especially with a free motherboard. In this example we will use Ubuntu 22. 1 [ffmpeg] - could not dynamically load cuda. Then it becomes all subjective on if it is really worth it. If you are a Xpenology user, you may need a modified extra. I use an AMD GPU currently in my desktop that I'm trying to move Plex off of - RX580. Sync with Google drive. For the latter, perhaps Synology's own software (which has hardware-accelerated transcoding) could help you there if you only need transcoding occasionally (as I personally do). 2 (to support 13th gen Intel CPU) apt update. Parental controls would be good, but really aren't essential yet. A GPU would then be needed to make up for that weak CPU, or playing more streams. RAM: 2 GB. Feb 13, 2019 · In some cases, a server reboot may be required in order to use the GPU again once you try to use it with both a docker container and VM. This system is an Alienware laptop with an external amplifier running a full size 5700XT. Don’t remember them off the top of my head. 980 Ti cannot decode HEVC. Help. Log into proxmox, open shell for the host. Click the Save Changes button. The money could be well spent to upgrade clients so that no transcoding is needed. To test if hardware acceleration is working, select the gear in the bottom right (of a video playing), and select Playback Info. Mar 22, 2023 · Would be great to see if someone tries with this guide and system-d, I’m just wiped and not going to try. My Note 20 Ultra it would convert the file, my LG TV it would transcode the file, and my Apple TV would direct stream the file. IMO, the Plex pass is not worth the money for this and hardware trancoding is not that good (especially on Windows due to the limitation on accessing the hardware transcoding in background services). Aug 11, 2019 · Introduction The purpose of this guide is to give an overview of hardware transcoding with Plex. Sep 16, 2020 · So Plex interoperability should be a minor deal until 3rd-party apps are opened up to DSM7. In the meantime, there is Video Station (as well as an active thread on the Plex forum). Login to Proxox, Check/Test your DNS from proxmox, change repositories, update. but now with the transcode running on the gpu (when needed) the gpu handles it so much better and keeps I just finished a FreeNAS build with an i5-4690k and am wondering how the hardware transcoding works with the latest Plex Pass. May 10, 2024 · Testing Hardware Transcoding on Jellyfin. At best, you would get half a transcode, as it can encode to H. do js iq rt kw ot xk we wt qj