murky024 3 Posted January 3 Posted January 3 So I have I have a decent system setup as my media server but I am wondering if my design basis is all "wrong" for my need. I have 3, 4k "smart TVs" in the house 1 ROKU, and 2 using Google TV through Samsung. All 3 of these require my stored content to be transcoded because of the audio. (I have full audio in my files where as the TVs cannot handle that natively) My server is an AMD 5600x, w/ 32mb ram, and a GTX 1070 (this also serves as a gaming system for one of my kids) The server has all of storage and RAID setup in a full tower. The problem I am having is I can transcode 2, 4k streams at most, and my kid cannot play a video game while streaming/transcoding any 4k video. Do I just need to put Nvidia Shield TVs on all of the TVs and move away from server transcoding all together? The 1070 is getting "long" in the tooth and I have another kid that will soon want to play PC games with us, so I need to start planning my next "budget build" If I updated this system to a 3070 or something along those lines, would I be able to transcode 1 stream while they are playing? My goal here is to maximize functionality with minimal cost. Getting 2 more Nvidia Shield TVs is about the same price as a used 3080, so in theory if I can just upgrade the GPU to meet my needs I can save a little money and start the next budget gaming build for my household.
Lessaj 240 Posted January 3 Posted January 3 If it's only transcoding because of the audio then it should still be direct playing the video and only transcoding the audio which is a very light CPU operation. Are you sure that's the reason it's transcoding? The 1070 is actually a little bit better than the 3080 when it comes to transcoding, it has 2 NVENC chips on it - I recently went through a bunch of media transcoding to HEVC and my 1080 Ti was faster than my 3090 because it has 2 NVENC chips on it and the 3090 only has 1.
murky024 3 Posted January 3 Author Posted January 3 34 minutes ago, Lessaj said: If it's only transcoding because of the audio then it should still be direct playing the video and only transcoding the audio which is a very light CPU operation. Are you sure that's the reason it's transcoding? The 1070 is actually a little bit better than the 3080 when it comes to transcoding, it has 2 NVENC chips on it - I recently went through a bunch of media transcoding to HEVC and my 1080 Ti was faster than my 3090 because it has 2 NVENC chips on it and the 3090 only has 1. Thanks for the reply and the information. Good to know about the Pascal cards, I didn't realize that. Sorry, I forgot some of the details and had to mess around with the settings to replicate what I was seeing. So it won't video transcode so long as I set it to a bit rate of 110, but that causing pausing issues with the TV (I assume its related to the Roku hardware). When I have it set to auto bit rate, it will transcode video also.
Lessaj 240 Posted January 3 Posted January 3 (edited) That is a very high bitrate even for a 4k Remux, not surprised that either the Roku hardware would struggle to play back the chunks or your wireless may struggle to deliver the TS segments fast enough. Would need to see the ffmpeg-transcode and server logs to ensure it's transcoding fast enough (it should be since the video encode/decode are not pegged, so throttling should be kicking in if it's enabled) and how long segments are taking to deliver. Is your kid also trying to game on this same machine or do you mean that while streaming it affects their gaming due to high network traffic? Nevermind I see that detail now. Encoding/decoding while gaming should not have much impact on their gaming, it's the same hardware that would get used for streaming with OBS for example, but honestly not something I've tried since I have a dedicated machine. Extra GPU usage may be necessary for the tone mapping for example. Edited January 3 by Lessaj 1
murky024 3 Posted January 3 Author Posted January 3 8 minutes ago, Lessaj said: That is a very high bitrate even for a 4k Remux, not surprised that either the Roku hardware would struggle to play back the chunks or your wireless may struggle to deliver the TS segments fast enough. Would need to see the ffmpeg-transcode and server logs to ensure it's transcoding fast enough (it should be since the video encode/decode are not pegged, so throttling should be kicking in if it's enabled) and how long segments are taking to deliver. Is your kid also trying to game on this same machine or do you mean that while streaming it affects their gaming due to high network traffic? Nevermind I see that detail now. Encoding/decoding while gaming should not have much impact on their gaming, it's the same hardware that would get used for streaming with OBS for example, but honestly not something I've tried since I have a dedicated machine. Extra GPU usage may be necessary for the tone mapping for example. The Roku TV is hard wired via Ethernet but I get your point. When I backup my convert my media I like to have the full quality for "future" proofing as I just always figured I would throw more storage at that problem as that is "cheap". Attached is a recent log. I will say I did just rebuild this machine as I originally had a i7 4070 cpu build from a "budget Dell Optiplex" build from ~4 years back but I wanted to get it setup for Windows 11 and ultimately R-Bar. I did forget to enable throttling in some of my first tests of the setup so maybe that was one of the problems. ffmpeg-transcode-b7cf275c-e10d-4fe5-b71f-9954b0f0eab8_1.txt
Lessaj 240 Posted January 3 Posted January 3 I am willing to bet that the ethernet port is only 100 Mbps, this is really common for TVs. That would explain a lot if so. Transcoding performance looks fine, over 3x.
murky024 3 Posted January 3 Author Posted January 3 28 minutes ago, Lessaj said: I am willing to bet that the ethernet port is only 100 Mbps, this is really common for TVs. That would explain a lot if so. Transcoding performance looks fine, over 3x. It is... I was going to mention this that the wireless card is probably better than the hardwired card. I figured that it should be 100 MB, which should give me more than the little b required..
Solution Lessaj 240 Posted January 3 Solution Posted January 3 I would give the wireless a try and see if that works a little better. If you only need to transcode audio for playback that is a very light operation that should not affecting their gaming. I know that wifi can still be hit or miss, for whatever reason the 5 Ghz on my LG C8 basically doesn't work at all and I have to use 2.4 instead, but that's fine for me because I just use a Shield anyway (which does have a 1 gig port on it, but I'm still using wifi). 1
murky024 3 Posted January 3 Author Posted January 3 34 minutes ago, Lessaj said: I would give the wireless a try and see if that works a little better. If you only need to transcode audio for playback that is a very light operation that should not affecting their gaming. I know that wifi can still be hit or miss, for whatever reason the 5 Ghz on my LG C8 basically doesn't work at all and I have to use 2.4 instead, but that's fine for me because I just use a Shield anyway (which does have a 1 gig port on it, but I'm still using wifi). Thanks for the suggestions... Looks like switching to wifi worked 1
Lessaj 240 Posted January 3 Posted January 3 Out of curiosity what movie is that? My highest bitrate media is 83 Mbps but most 4k remuxes are around 60-70 Mbps and typically around 25 Mbps for streaming service content.
murky024 3 Posted January 3 Author Posted January 3 11 minutes ago, Lessaj said: Out of curiosity what movie is that? My highest bitrate media is 83 Mbps but most 4k remuxes are around 60-70 Mbps and typically around 25 Mbps for streaming service content. How to Train Your Dragon 3 (Hidden World) in 4k 1
yocker 113 Posted January 3 Posted January 3 I run videos through a program called Fileflows before it hits Emby. I've set it to remove language audio tracks not needed and then if add compatibility tracks (EAC3), that ensures full compatibility with Samsung TVs. Removing all the language tracks actually saves quite a bit of space. It's all automated, new videos are put in one directory, Fileflows sees it and start working and the resulting file ends up in the final destination. It's also fast as it's only sound it's working with and everything else is just muxing. No more need for trans coding as there's always a compatibility tracks, just remember to have Fileflows set to make the compatibility track the new default or people tend to ignore it. People that need the higher quality track tend to know how to change to it anyway. You can also use Tdarr which is much more popular but also much more complicated or Unmanic which is easier but not as advanced. 1
OwnWebServers 0 Posted January 13 Posted January 13 Upgrading to a GTX 3080 should handle both gaming and 4K transcoding more efficiently. However, using Nvidia Shield TVs reduces server load and offers smooth playback. For cost-efficiency, balance between upgrading the GPU and adding Shields based on your family's simultaneous usage needs.
RanmaCanada 427 Posted January 14 Posted January 14 To solve your transcoding problem with a budget build, just get a 12th gen NUC. Even an N100 NUC would suffice. You can keep the files stored on the current system if you want, or you could up the budget and build a dedicated server built around an Intel 12th gen or higher processor. Quicksync is king when it comes to transcoding, and 12th gen is the sweet spot in regards to price and performance. You could go with the the Core series, if you want AV1, but it's still not needed as adoption by the industry is slow, and by users even more so due to the sheer magnitude of processing power required to encode stuff. I use a laptop with a smashed screen on my network for my server. i5-1235u that I paid $120 USD for. I have an UNRAID server in the basement filled with my drives. Instead of buying Shields, just get a dedicated Emby machine. Here's a newer Intel N150 currently on sale for $130 USD. Even has 2.5gbit NIC.
murky024 3 Posted January 16 Author Posted January 16 On 1/13/2025 at 7:06 PM, RanmaCanada said: To solve your transcoding problem with a budget build, just get a 12th gen NUC. Even an N100 NUC would suffice. You can keep the files stored on the current system if you want, or you could up the budget and build a dedicated server built around an Intel 12th gen or higher processor. Quicksync is king when it comes to transcoding, and 12th gen is the sweet spot in regards to price and performance. You could go with the the Core series, if you want AV1, but it's still not needed as adoption by the industry is slow, and by users even more so due to the sheer magnitude of processing power required to encode stuff. I use a laptop with a smashed screen on my network for my server. i5-1235u that I paid $120 USD for. I have an UNRAID server in the basement filled with my drives. Instead of buying Shields, just get a dedicated Emby machine. Here's a newer Intel N150 currently on sale for $130 USD. Even has 2.5gbit NIC. Thanks for this suggestion. I was thinking about "splitting duties" between devices as I have an older "gaming PC" with a 6700k that my middle child uses that is next on the slate. I was hoping to use that if possible for Quicksync. Given your 12th gen push, is the 6th gen just too old and I really need to push to a newer version?
RanmaCanada 427 Posted January 17 Posted January 17 I would say 6th gen is "fine" but it lacks hardware 10-bit HEVC capabilities (so any 4k transcodes would be done in software). For the price of the N150 (still on sale) you would have a unit that would be able to handle pretty much whatever you throw at it except for I believe 4k transcodes with burned in subtitles (the joys of subtitles being single threaded). In regards to quality, the newer your version of the Quicksync Asics, the better the quality and the better the efficiency. The beauty about going this route is 1) you won't have to worry about any impact on your child's gaming when someone wants to watch a movie 2) It's cheaper than upgrading all your units to Shields, and 3) far cheaper than getting a 3080. 1
matsonjr 6 Posted January 23 Posted January 23 Take the 6700k and put the 1070 in it and place in the basement as a dedicated host. Let it just chug along. Spend your money on stuff for you guys.
murky024 3 Posted January 31 Author Posted January 31 Ok, so I got the NUC and it seems like transcoding isnt working correctly. It is loading up the CPU instead of the GPU with quicksync. Could this be from copying over my old save data? I have tried resetting transcoding settings but it still seems to only use the CPU and not the GPU. Any ideas?
murky024 3 Posted February 1 Author Posted February 1 Attached is a transcode log file. ffmpeg-transcode-946a07dd-02d9-40c6-83a3-59e451c7097c_1.txt
RanmaCanada 427 Posted February 3 Posted February 3 It looks like the tonemapping failed and it was a cascade after that. But I'll be the first to admit I am not an expert in FFMPEG. 20:49:07.809 [supertonemap_opencl@f4 @ 000001c2158a0600] Failed to build program: -11. 20:49:07.809 [supertonemap_opencl@f4 @ 000001c2158a0600] Build log: 1:2:26: error: unknown OpenCL extension 'cl_intel_required_subgroup_size' - ignoring #pragma OPENCL EXTENSION cl_intel_required_subgroup_size : enable ^ 1:4:26: error: unknown OpenCL extension 'cl_khr_d3d11_sharing' - ignoring #pragma OPENCL EXTENSION cl_khr_d3d11_sharing : enable ^ 1:5:26: error: unknown OpenCL extension 'cl_intel_d3d11_nv12_media_sharing' - ignoring #pragma OPENCL EXTENSION cl_intel_d3d11_nv12_media_sharing : enable ^ 20:49:07.809 Error while filtering: I/O error 20:49:07.809 Failed to inject frame into filter network: I/O error 20:49:07.809 Error while processing the decoded data for stream #0:0 20:49:07.826 [aac @ 000001c215850fc0] Qavg: 63323.648 20:49:07.826 [aac @ 000001c215850fc0] 2 frames left in the queue on closing 20:49:07.856 Conversion failed! 20:49:07.856 EXIT Then a bit later Encoder x264 Max Bitrate: 781 Mbit/s Color Formats: YUV420P, YUVJ420P, YUV422P, YUVJ422P, YUV444P, YUVJ444P, NV12, NV16, NV21, YUV420P10, YUV422P10, YUV444P10, NV20, GRAY8, GRAY10 - Bit Depths: 8, 10, 12, 14 Profiles: Baseline Profile (Level 6.2), Main Profile (Level 6.2), High Profile (Level 6.2), High 10 Profile (Level 6.2), High 4:2:2 Profile (Level 6.2), High 4:4:4 Predictive Profile (Level 6.2) Info Previous transcoding attempt failed. Falling back to software transcoding <-- This error is addressed in this post. Apparently it's an issue with the driver Intel released. From the post you can try to roll back, or just disabling tone mapping "should" fix it till a better driver is released or even addressed by Intel. 1
RanmaCanada 427 Posted February 3 Posted February 3 I justed tested on my i5-1235u and enabling hardware tonemapping causing hardware transcoding to fail and forces software mode. If I disable tonemapping, quicksync works perfectly fine.
Clackdor 66 Posted February 3 Posted February 3 4 hours ago, RanmaCanada said: I justed tested on my i5-1235u and enabling hardware tonemapping causing hardware transcoding to fail and forces software mode. If I disable tonemapping, quicksync works perfectly fine. See my comment here. Hardware tone mapping is broken on windows with recent drivers. I have it working on a 12600k with an older driver. https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/135953-emby-wont-use-hw-acceleration-with-hdr-tonemapping/#findComment-1419719 1
sh0rty 514 Posted February 4 Posted February 4 Can confirm that. See here additionally to the other mentioned thread. I downloaded the (for me) latest working driver from here since the desired version is not available anymore one the official Intel site: https://www.driverscloud.com/en/services/GetInformationDriver/76033-0/intel-gfx-win-1015085-1015122exe
murky024 3 Posted February 6 Author Posted February 6 FYI for those with XE graphics, Intel has an update out that fixed the issue for my N150. I just had to install their graphics software tool to get it updated as the GMKtec website sucks and getting drivers through them is nearly impossible with their Google Drive limits.
sh0rty 514 Posted February 7 Posted February 7 On 2/6/2025 at 9:18 PM, murky024 said: FYI for those with XE graphics, Intel has an update out that fixed the issue for my N150. I just had to install their graphics software tool to get it updated as the GMKtec website sucks and getting drivers through them is nearly impossible with their Google Drive limits. You mean that one? gfx_win_101.6557_101.6262.exe
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now