Beast Mode Hardware- Help building out a new system

[voodoomurphy 2]

So I am building out a new server with the specific purpose of transcoding IPTV streams. Source streams are 15 -25 mbps MPEG2 streams from internal devices and it looks like I’lll need to transcode to 5mbps H.264 streams. On my current system I can get 12 streams out before my CPU usage hits 100% and it becomes unstable but I need to get to about 20 streams (mostly top outside internet connections, but there will likely be some internal network as well). 

Will a dual Epyc 7302 system with 16 GB ram be ok or should I be looking more at something with GPUs for hardware encoding?

[Borsk 228]

If I may make a suggestion, I would go with either way more RAM or go with a Threadripper system instead like a 32 core Threadripper would prolly do just as well and cost alot less to operate and be easier to cool but still add more RAM like at least 64GB or even 128GB, the transcodes will go a lot smoother.

[rbjtech 4276]

I would suggest investigating GPU transcoding - it's simply a lot more efficient than CPU transcoding.

Scaling may be an issue though.

NVIDIA or Intel QuickSync will be the only real options - AMD has a relatively poor record for GPU transcoding.

What CPU/GPU do you currently have ?

Edited August 17, 2022 by rbjtech

[Borsk 228]

11 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

I would suggest investigating GPU transcoding - it's simply a lot more efficient than CPU transcoding.

Scaling may be an issue though.

NVIDIA or Intel QuickSync will be the only real options - AMD has a relatively poor record for GPU transcoding.

What CPU/GPU do you currently have ?

If you need an inexpensive way of GPU transcoding you can pick up Kepler or Maxwell era Tesla cards for next to nothing on eBay all day long 

Edited August 17, 2022 by Borsk

[voodoomurphy 2]

3 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

I would suggest investigating GPU transcoding - it's simply a lot more efficient than CPU transcoding.

Scaling may be an issue though.

NVIDIA or Intel QuickSync will be the only real options though - AMD has a relatively poor record for GPU transcoding.

What CPU/GPU do you currently have ?

Dual Xeon E5-2687, 128 GB RAM and dual M4000 GPU (non SLI)

[rbjtech 4276]

5 minutes ago, voodoomurphy said:

Dual Xeon E5-2687, 128 GB RAM and dual M4000 GPU (non SLI)

The issue with the M4000 is it only has 8Gb of Video RAM - and emby can only currently use one of them.

Are these 1080p streams (or less) - if yes, then you can probably get away with it on 8Gb Video RAM.

[voodoomurphy 2]

1 minute ago, rbjtech said:

The issue with the M4000 is it only has 8Gb of Video RAM - and emby can only currently use one of them.

Are these 1080p streams (or less) - if yes, then you can probably get away with it on 8Gb Video RAM.

Yeah none of them are over 1080P but like I said, the card just gets slammed at 8 or 9 streams and everything starts stuttering. Would SLI on the cards make a difference?

[rbjtech 4276]

1 minute ago, voodoomurphy said:

Yeah none of them are over 1080P but like I said, the card just gets slammed at 8 or 9 streams and everything starts stuttering. Would SLI on the cards make a difference?

SLI means nothing as it's the ENC/DEC chips on the cards that the transcoding uses.

Have you investigated what the bottleneck is ?  Have you check the Video RAM usage, process/thread usage etc on the OS to see what is struggling ?

Are you transcoding to NVME or fast SSD ?

[voodoomurphy 2]

Just now, rbjtech said:

SLI means nothing as it's the ENC/DEC chips on the cards that the transcoding uses.

Have you investigated what the bottleneck is ?  Have you check the Video RAM usage, process/thread usage etc on the OS to see what is struggling ?

Are you transcoding to NVME or fast SSD ?

Transcoding is to SSDs so we are good there. VRAM was ok, I think the card was just getting swamped by FFMPG demands because it’s having to transcode the nitrate and then transcode from MPEG to H264. Just too many demands. I’ve found that running streams “full res” rather that limiting them helps but I have a Roku user who has really bad performance with direct play. The machine is about 8 years old and was a hand me down so its time to build a rockstar system that can handle the demand. 

[rbjtech 4276]

So as a comparison, I have a 12700K/64Gb (UHD 770GPU)  and with it's integrated GPU, it can handle 8-9 full 4K Remux transcodes - that's hevc 4k @ 70-80mbps each to 1080p h264 @ 10mbps.

Something like this should be able to handle 20 x MPEG2 TS 1080p streams with relative ease.

Do you have a MPEG2 Transport Stream example that I can test ?   The raw fps will give some indication of MPEG to h264 performance.

If you have something available, ping me details via PM if you like. 

[RanmaCanada 345]

I'm going to side with rjbtech and state you should probably think about moving to hardware transcoding, specifically intel quicksync.  My i3-8130u laptop can handle about 20 1080p streams at a mere 15 watts of power (only 3 4k streams though).  I've recently bought a replacement 11th gen dual core laptop, so I will be testing that in September.  Intel Qucksync is also on par with x264 slow in regards to quality as per MSU tests.  You do not need to get an i7 as the quicksync ASICS are the same across a generation, meaning the celerons and the pentiums have the same ASICS as the i3-i9.  All you get is more processing power for audio and "other" stuff.

There is a decade long thread on doom9 where we discuss the evolution of hardware encoding.  Your power bill will thank you.

[rbjtech 4276]

I'm also watching with interest on the 'intel 'deep link' decoding/encoding technology on the new A380+ dGPU's - where you can allegedly get a 40% boost in enc/dec by running the two ASICS (iGPU & dGPU) in parallel.  There is little info on it - but I *think* it's 12th Gen CPU's and above.   I'll probably get an A380 when they are reasonable prices and have a play ..    I don't need the performance at all, but the encode to AV1 in hardware is very appealing !

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by rbjtech

[dragged8202 4]

On 8/20/2022 at 4:11 AM, rbjtech said:

I'm also watching with interest on the 'intel 'deep link' decoding/encoding technology on the new A380+ dGPU's - where you can allegedly get a 40% boost in enc/dec by running the two ASICS (iGPU & dGPU) in parallel.  There is little info on it - but I *think* it's 12th Gen CPU's and above.   I'll probably get an A380 when they are reasonable prices and have a play ..    I don't need the performance at all, but the encode to AV1 in hardware is very appealing !

 

correct me if i'm wrong, i'm not very knowledgeable about these things, but I would need to convert my media files to av1 through the use of handbrake to take advantage of the av1 encoding the a380 would give? or just convert the 4k files that would actually realistically need to be transcoded? or would it do this automatically? I'm looking to build a future proof nas that will host emby on truenas among other things, and 12th gen + a380 is looking really nice.

 

edit: sorry to necropost

Edited March 15, 2023 by dragged8202

[dragged8202 4]

7 minutes ago, dragged8202 said:

correct me if i'm wrong, i'm not very knowledgeable about these things, but I would need to convert my media files to av1 through the use of handbrake to take advantage of the av1 encoding the a380 would give? or just convert the 4k files that would actually realistically need to be transcoded? or would it do this automatically? I'm looking to build a future proof nas that will host emby on truenas among other things, and 12th gen + a380 is looking really nice.

 

edit: sorry to necropost

after reading more into it, truenas scale doesn't even have support for arc gpus at the moment, and who knows when that would land, would it still be worthwhile to go 12th gen and let the igpu handle transcodes until support eventually makes it way everywhere? 

[rbjtech 4276]

5 hours ago, dragged8202 said:

after reading more into it, truenas scale doesn't even have support for arc gpus at the moment, and who knows when that would land, would it still be worthwhile to go 12th gen and let the igpu handle transcodes until support eventually makes it way everywhere? 

Pretty much yes - 12th or 13th Gen iGPU is a fantastic choice for the current common h264 and h265 codecs.

AV1 is a 'wait and see'.  VVC or h266 is also starting to make noise.   AV1 decode in hardware is now pretty common on any client device from 2022 onwards - so if your clients are on new hardware, then it's worth considering as a source codec (for direct play) - but personally it's too early (imo) to make a decision to convert an entire library to it over say hevc/h265 and source material availability on AV1 is few and far between.    

Give it another year before investing in the encoding technology - that's what I'm going to do.   Either 14th Gen iGPU (av1 encode built in) or possibly even h266.

To me AV1 is being marketed to save bitrate at the LOW bandwidth end of streaming / live streaming - I have no interest in this area, I'm really only interested in the high end where quality is paramount - and in these cases, 4K AV1 and HEVC are pretty much the same - or within a few % - certainly not worth changing entire libraries for over HEVC that's for sure.

[dragged8202 4]

12 hours ago, rbjtech said:

Pretty much yes - 12th or 13th Gen iGPU is a fantastic choice for the current common h264 and h265 codecs.

AV1 is a 'wait and see'.  VVC or h266 is also starting to make noise.   AV1 decode in hardware is now pretty common on any client device from 2022 onwards - so if your clients are on new hardware, then it's worth considering as a source codec (for direct play) - but personally it's too early (imo) to make a decision to convert an entire library to it over say hevc/h265 and source material availability on AV1 is few and far between.    

Give it another year before investing in the encoding technology - that's what I'm going to do.   Either 14th Gen iGPU (av1 encode built in) or possibly even h266.

To me AV1 is being marketed to save bitrate at the LOW bandwidth end of streaming / live streaming - I have no interest in this area, I'm really only interested in the high end where quality is paramount - and in these cases, 4K AV1 and HEVC are pretty much the same - or within a few % - certainly not worth changing entire libraries for over HEVC that's for sure.

I honestly wasn't even aware 13th gen had made its way out, if you don't mind, what in your opinion would be the best option with efficiency and power in mind? I was leaning i7-12700, but the i5 13600k looks pretty sweet as well for around the same price.

[rbjtech 4276]

5 minutes ago, dragged8202 said:

I honestly wasn't even aware 13th gen had made its way out, if you don't mind, what in your opinion would be the best option with efficiency and power in mind? I was leaning i7-12700, but the i5 13600k looks pretty sweet as well for around the same price.

Today, I would go for the 13500 or 13600 - both are amazing CPUs and iGPU's - (non F) - no need to spend the extra for the K unless you plan on overclocking it.

[Q-Droid 650]

Don't go in expecting full Emby HW support for gen 12, 13 or Arc on Linux right now. Gen 12 might be getting closer but I don't think it's fully supported yet. Once gen 12 does make it to stable release it might be a  matter of updating the kernel for 13th gen as I think the iGPU is the same.

 

[dragged8202 4]

49 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

Don't go in expecting full Emby HW support for gen 12, 13 or Arc on Linux right now. Gen 12 might be getting closer but I don't think it's fully supported yet. Once gen 12 does make it to stable release it might be a  matter of updating the kernel for 13th gen as I think the iGPU is the same.

 

this is definitely more of a in the future project, next 3-6 months at the most. So hopefully by then we'll see support in stable. 

1 hour ago, rbjtech said:

Today, I would go for the 13500 or 13600 - both are amazing CPUs and iGPU's - (non F) - no need to spend the extra for the K unless you plan on overclocking it.

13500 looks great, thanks for the heads up

[RanmaCanada 345]

Why don't you do what I did?  Build a NAS with older hardware, and have a separate system for the Emby server.  My current system is an i3-1115G4 laptop, and it idles at 3 watts, uses maybe 10 at peak when transcoding stuff (monitor/mouse/keyboard built in and can be anywhere on your network so server can be in the basement/garage wherever).  They can be found very easily on eBay for cheap (mine was just over $100), and your power bill will thank you.  As I mentioned before, all CPU's in the generation have the same ASICS so it would just be a matter of getting a laptop with whatever gen you want.  The 12500u is fairly inexpensive at about $400 USD, and that means you can also have a nice low power NAS with a Celeron or Pentium Gold.

As for OS, I would recommend UNRAID for your NAS as it does allow full expansion, and the current RC2 does have full ZFS support if you want to play with ZFS pools for extremely important data.

[GiGo 103]

On 21/03/2023 at 03:02, RanmaCanada said:

Why don't you do what I did?  Build a NAS with older hardware, and have a separate system for the Emby server.  My current system is an i3-1115G4 laptop, and it idles at 3 watts, uses maybe 10 at peak when transcoding stuff (monitor/mouse/keyboard built in and can be anywhere on your network so server can be in the basement/garage wherever).  They can be found very easily on eBay for cheap (mine was just over $100), and your power bill will thank you.  As I mentioned before, all CPU's in the generation have the same ASICS so it would just be a matter of getting a laptop with whatever gen you want.  The 12500u is fairly inexpensive at about $400 USD, and that means you can also have a nice low power NAS with a Celeron or Pentium Gold.

As for OS, I would recommend UNRAID for your NAS as it does allow full expansion, and the current RC2 does have full ZFS support if you want to play with ZFS pools for extremely important data.

This is interesting with an i3. Can I ask how is it at transcoding/remuxing EAC3 streams to AAC? The reason for asking is I have an 8 year old TV that only does AAC and remuxing on my much older laptop is just so slow at 15 fps, so I'm wanting to swap it out with a cheap solution. TIA

 

 

[RanmaCanada 345]

6 hours ago, GiGo said:

This is interesting with an i3. Can I ask how is it at transcoding/remuxing EAC3 streams to AAC? The reason for asking is I have an 8 year old TV that only does AAC and remuxing on my much older laptop is just so slow at 15 fps, so I'm wanting to swap it out with a cheap solution. TIA

 

 

I have no issues at all as the i3-1115G4 is more than fast enough to handle the audio trancoding if needed.  I do have multpile users who do not have DTS capable units, or that have issues with AAC audio on Android (current Amazon App can't do 7.1 audio again).  When I'm transcoding I see in excess of 200fps when dealing with HD movies  4k Transcoding is about 75fps.

The newer Adler Lake laptops with efficiency cores would be even better, as I mentioned.  The newer ASICS are superior, and the Skylake cores can help offload any other encoding like audio or even tonemapping/sub burning if you don't want to do it in hardware.  Just look for laptop smashed/broken screen and start browsing for what gen you want.  The newer, obviously the better.

FYI my older server was an i3-8130u and it handled everything fine but did struggle with more than 2 4k transcodes.

[GiGo 103]

3 hours ago, RanmaCanada said:

I have no issues at all as the i3-1115G4 is more than fast enough to handle the audio trancoding if needed.  I do have multpile users who do not have DTS capable units, or that have issues with AAC audio on Android (current Amazon App can't do 7.1 audio again).  When I'm transcoding I see in excess of 200fps when dealing with HD movies  4k Transcoding is about 75fps.

The newer Adler Lake laptops with efficiency cores would be even better, as I mentioned.  The newer ASICS are superior, and the Skylake cores can help offload any other encoding like audio or even tonemapping/sub burning if you don't want to do it in hardware.  Just look for laptop smashed/broken screen and start browsing for what gen you want.  The newer, obviously the better.

FYI my older server was an i3-8130u and it handled everything fine but did struggle with more than 2 4k transcodes.

Thanks for the info, I only ever have 1 steam on the go, but most things now come with EAC3 AUDIO, I'm currently using a i3-3120M (which I've just looked up and didn't realise it was 3rd gen and 12 years old ). 

I run all media through a Roku 4k which handles the video is self, it's just audio it's struggling with and I don't fancy replacing the TV, even tho it's probably the better option .

Don't suppose you know what sort of generation processor I would need to handle the EAC3 transcoding without breaking a sweat or the bank? Would ideally like to spend less than £100, TIA. 

[rbjtech 4276]

Your Roku 4K can support EAC3 - so I'm a little confused why it would be transcoding at all.   if the TV itself does not support EAC3 - then the Roku should be set to just audio transcode' it to PCM (in Stereo), so the TV can produce the Audio directly ?

https://support.roku.com/en-gb/article/208754498

[GiGo 103]

11 hours ago, rbjtech said:

Your Roku 4K can support EAC3 - so I'm a little confused why it would be transcoding at all.   if the TV itself does not support EAC3 - then the Roku should be set to just audio transcode' it to PCM (in Stereo), so the TV can produce the Audio directly ?

https://support.roku.com/en-gb/article/208754498

Oooo OK. That's interesting, I'll take a look at the settings on this TV, my 4k TV supports EAC3 and I had to change a setting or two. This TV just supports dolby and with the Roku I believed it just passed through the audio, I swear I read that the Roku 4k did that, I'll check the settings. 

EDIT: looking at that link, it says a Roku doesn't support Surround Sound so it needs to be connected to an AVR etc.. The issues I'm having are with EAC3 5.1  which I didn't make clear above. 

Quote

Although most Roku streaming players do not decode surround sound formats such as Dolby® Digital Plus™ or DTS®, they can pass through the signal to an audio/video receiver (AVR), soundbar, or TV, that is capable of decoding surround sound.

 

Edited June 25, 2023 by GiGo