pir8radio 1292 Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 Hey guys, I'm finally rebuilding my emby server... So these days what's the best setup for transcoding the toughest encoded videos? (4k+ 10bit HDR etc..) Any emby advancements that make a particular CPU or multi cpu setup better/faster than good old GPUs? Can emby handle more than one GPU? (i don't recall), what is the most capable GPU for multi streams? Looking on the nvidia enc/dec list pretty much anything in the 4000 series can encode/decode just about everything with 5 streams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Q-Droid 644 Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 What OS? Intel CPUs/iGPUs are the way to go, the newer the better. It's hard to justify a discrete GPU with what Intel QuickSync can bring to the table. If using Windows then the latest gens should be fine but if using Linux then be aware that kernel support lags a little behind and Emby support is further behind - maybe by a gen or two on stable releases. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
js28194 14 Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 (edited) 3 hours ago, pir8radio said: Looking on the nvidia enc/dec list pretty much anything in the 4000 series can encode/decode just about everything with 5 streams. Why limit yourself to 5 . Do not even need the latest and greatest if you are dedicating it to for transcoding. I myself still use an GTX 1050 ti with some patching magickry. https://github.com/keylase/nvidia-patch/tree/master Edited January 1 by js28194 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pir8radio 1292 Posted January 2 Author Share Posted January 2 (edited) 2 hours ago, js28194 said: Why limit yourself to 5 . Do not even need the latest and greatest if you are dedicating it to for transcoding. I myself still use an GTX 1050 ti with some patching magickry. https://github.com/keylase/nvidia-patch/tree/master Yea, i can do the patch thats true, but the 1050 ti doesnt support some decoding like 8 and 10 bit HEVC. Where as the 4000 series supports encoding and decoding av1 https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-and-decode-gpu-support-matrix-new I have a NVIDIA RTX A4000 today which supports everything Just figured since im starting fresh might as well see if there have been any advancements lately.. Edited January 2 by pir8radio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
js28194 14 Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 Well as I said dedicated... so don't need decoding, only for transcoding. I have 8-10bit videos I play remotely, work totally fine with not much GPU effort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pir8radio 1292 Posted January 2 Author Share Posted January 2 3 hours ago, Q-Droid said: What OS? Intel CPUs/iGPUs are the way to go, the newer the better. It's hard to justify a discrete GPU with what Intel QuickSync can bring to the table. If using Windows then the latest gens should be fine but if using Linux then be aware that kernel support lags a little behind and Emby support is further behind - maybe by a gen or two on stable releases. windows, im a windows guy.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pir8radio 1292 Posted January 2 Author Share Posted January 2 17 minutes ago, js28194 said: Well as I said dedicated... so don't need decoding, only for transcoding. I have 8-10bit videos I play remotely, work totally fine with not much GPU effort. yes almost 100% of my video plays are transcoded one way or another. the emby server is actually located in a data center. so every stream is remote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RanmaCanada 345 Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 Intel quicksync is king. Be it via video card with ARC or iGPU. iCPU is obviously cheaper as a 13100 will do a great job. Some people will harp about lack of AV1 when picking iGPU, but AV1 is such a non starter as encode times are insane, and hardware support for playback is still extremely limited. I run with a i5-1235u (yes a laptop) as my server and I will run out of network bandwidth before I run out of encode capabilities. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbjtech 4270 Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 (edited) If I were rebuilding today - I'd wait for the intel 14 series lower end (non-K) - and get AV1 encode as part of the deal (essentialy an intel ARC GPU on the chip) - yes emby won't currently use it, but nice to have the capability for other tasks. If intel sold the quick sync (ASIC) portion of the ARC on a discreet PCI-e card for a reasonable amount (say half that of the A380 for example), the thing would sell like hot cakes and be a trancoding monster .. I guess they want you to buy into the CPU or ARC architecture instead ... Still not sure why people even contemplate the Nvidia cards for transcoding tbh - you are buying a still very expensive power hungry card with huge 3D capability - and then using a fraction of that capability for media transcoding ... Edited January 2 by rbjtech 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RanmaCanada 345 Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 On 02/01/2024 at 14:59, rbjtech said: If I were rebuilding today - I'd wait for the intel 14 series lower end (non-K) - and get AV1 encode as part of the deal (essentialy an intel ARC GPU on the chip) - yes emby won't currently use it, but nice to have the capability for other tasks. If intel sold the quick sync (ASIC) portion of the ARC on a discreet PCI-e card for a reasonable amount (say half that of the A380 for example), the thing would sell like hot cakes and be a trancoding monster .. I guess they want you to buy into the CPU or ARC architecture instead ... Still not sure why people even contemplate the Nvidia cards for transcoding tbh - you are buying a still very expensive power hungry card with huge 3D capability - and then using a fraction of that capability for media transcoding ... Why not just buy an Arc A310? I've even seen the A380 for sale used for under $100. And yes I agree with you on the Nvidia front. Not worth it for encoding unless you're buying a lower end Quadro. P400 can be had for $40. Only Pascal, and limited to 3? transcodes, but can easily be unlocked. Quality won't be the same as quicksync. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
js28194 14 Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 On 1/2/2024 at 1:59 PM, rbjtech said: Still not sure why people even contemplate the Nvidia cards for transcoding tbh - you are buying a still very expensive power hungry card with huge 3D capability - and then using a fraction of that capability for media transcoding ... It depends if you provision your server appropriately.... I run other applications that lean heavy on CUDA. Example, if you run Proxmox for VM isolation (I know we have docker now) but if you have a seperate VM running NextCloud, pass Nvidia for facial recognition, also, seperate VM running crypto. Emby is actually very low overhead on a decent server so every use case is a fraction different. As in all cases YMMV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
js28194 14 Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 (edited) On 1/3/2024 at 6:34 PM, RanmaCanada said: And yes I agree with you on the Nvidia front. Not worth it for encoding unless you're buying a lower end Quadro. P400 can be had for $40. Only Pascal, and limited to 3? transcodes, but can easily be unlocked. Quality won't be the same as quicksync. Again, agreed, however most people are limited in their UPLOAD speeds anyway unless on FIBER with 1GB, which depending on number of REMOTE users, quality becomes irrelevant. Most people who view remotely, don't really have any beef with quality. My remote users (3 people) are limited to 4MB upload and they never know the difference between a full 4K experience than a 1080p experience. They are not that technical anyway to know nor care, and if they were, would have their own setup to being with. The idiom Beggers Can't be Choosers comes to mind. Be grateful you get to view a library remotely and shut the F up Again YMMV Edited January 5 by js28194 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
all4dom 73 Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 What would be the benefits of adding an Intel arc card to an emby home server with an Intel processor. I always thought for streaming .. not talking about gaming, a graphics card wasn't needed. I would guess all this has to do with 4k hdr media? Thanks for any input as I'm contemplating building a new home server. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Q-Droid 644 Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 (edited) Not so much about resolution or HDR/SDR. The top question is whether the client(s) can play the source media directly, streamed without modification (transcoding). But not all clients can support all video and audio formats and some (hopefully very few left) have no common formats with other clients so that a given media item can be streamed to everything without any transcoding at all. This is why a CPU with integrated graphics (iGPU) or a discrete graphics card (GPU) may be useful to transcode the media when it's not supported by the client. Hardware acceleration in the iGPU/GPU is many times more efficient than software transcoding by the CPU (a heavy load) allowing more simultaneous HW transcoded streams without maxing out the server. Intel CPUs/iGPUs did not come into their own until generation 7 (Kaby Lake) which supports transcoding of most commonly used video codecs and formats. Audio is transcoded by the CPU portion. Intel continues to improve their media capabilities with every generation or so. The last few gens, 12th-14th, are absolute beasts at handling media. Another factor in Emby is when you have remote users and you have to restrict bandwidth for their streams. This also makes use of transcoding to reduce the bitrate. Edited January 31 by Q-Droid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
all4dom 73 Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 My server in an intel skylake i5. I'm contemplating building a new one but from what im reading I can just add an intel arc. If I build a new one then as long as it's a current intel with integrated graphics then I should be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RanmaCanada 345 Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 5 hours ago, all4dom said: My server in an intel skylake i5. I'm contemplating building a new one but from what im reading I can just add an intel arc. If I build a new one then as long as it's a current intel with integrated graphics then I should be fine. Yes you can go through the expense of building a new server with an new Intel processor, or spend $90 USD on an ARC A310 or $140 on and ARC A380 and continue to use your old server as it is. You would just need to update your preferences in Emby to use your new hardware. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matsonjr 4 Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 I rebuilt my server about a year ago when my 9800x board went kaput. I had a 2011-3 board and got an old xeon for it considering that was cheaper than a new 2066 board. I also replaced my 8tb drives with 18tb drives. Then, I went pit on a limb and went with truenas instead of back with windows. It has certainly been a learning curve. But then again properly setting up windows storage spaces with parity wasn't a cakewalk either. Now on truenas, managing through the webgui is nice. And it is probably more secure than windows. I have also upgraded the house to 10gbe cards and done 2tb iSCSI drives for everyone for files. Then for transcoding I used to have a 1050ti but upgraded to my old 1080ti. They should be the same by the book, but the 1080ti is better. I figure the 11gb of vram keeps things pretty smooth. I dunno. I have a 3070 I could use now, but the 1080ti is my (emotionally) favorite. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaycedk 382 Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 On 2/19/2024 at 7:53 AM, matsonjr said: I have a 3070 I could use now, but the 1080ti is my (emotionally) favorite. They where great gfx card's still have 1 in my gaming rig Does to show how much I get to game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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