Hardware acceleration for transcoding

[aballim 0]

Hi all

 

I've put emby server onto my new machine for the family. It's got an i7.7700K, 32gb of DDR4-2400, a samsung evo 960 M.2 512gb as the system disk, and a GTX 950 for graphics.

 

Can anyone suggest if I'm better off using QuickSync or NVenc for transcoding? What are the trade offs?

 

Thanks in advance

Edited May 7, 2017 by aballim

[Guest asrequested]

Quick sync. It's the most supported and that CPU/GPU (I have one) is really good. Is this your HTPC, too, or just the server?

[aballim 0]

Just the server. 

I tried Quick Sync but some of my videos didn't work, so I switched to nvenc and they worked. I'll have to look at the logs to see what happened

[Swynol 375]

defo use quicksync. with NVenc your limited to 2 transcodes. For QuickSync to work do you have a custom FFMPEG? i use zeranoe FFMPEG

[Guest asrequested]

Just the server. 

I tried Quick Sync but some of my videos didn't work, so I switched to nvenc and they worked. I'll have to look at the logs to see what happened

 

There may be conflict between the two. The iGPU may not work with the GTX 950, plugged in. You BIOS may be disabling one in favor of the other

Edited May 7, 2017 by Doofus

[CBers 6768]

I've put emby server onto my new machine for the family. It's got an i7.7700K, 32gb of DDR4-2400, a samsung evo 960 M.2 512gb as the system disk, and a GTX 950 for graphics.

 

 

That's a nice cheap rig, not

[aballim 0]

There may be conflict between the two. The iGPU may not work with the GTX 950, plugged in. You BIOS may be disabling one in favor of the other

That's interesting. I'm using the GTX 950 to drive my screen. Maybe I'll see if I can activate multi screen in bios, and see if that allows quick sync to work.

[aballim 0]

OK, activated multi monitor support in bios, and using zeranoe ffmpeg. Still didn't work.

Changed the transcoding temporary path from my ramdisk to the C. drive, and lo and behold, success.

[Guest asrequested]

OK, activated multi monitor support in bios, and using zeranoe ffmpeg. Still didn't work.

Changed the transcoding temporary path from my ramdisk to the C. drive, and lo and behold, success.

 

Now you can enjoy the wonders of your i7 7700k, utilizing the full power of the Death Star... I mean HD 630 GPU

[Happy2Play 8270]

OK, activated multi monitor support in bios, and using zeranoe ffmpeg. Still didn't work.

Changed the transcoding temporary path from my ramdisk to the C. drive, and lo and behold, success.

 

So is there a permissions issue one the Ramdisk?

[aballim 0]

So is there a permissions issue one the Ramdisk?

Can't really tell. Maybe it's too small (1 GB). Here's the log extract:

[AVHWDeviceContext @ 00000000012ba160] Failed to create Direct3D device

[h264_qsv @ 00000000012aeee0] Warning in encoder initialization: incompatible video parameters (5)

Output #0, segment, to 'B:\emby\transcoding-temp\a199fbe4f87df32c8589e82fa090ab82%d.ts':

Metadata:

encoder : Lavf57.72.101

Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (h264_qsv), nv12, 1920x1080 [sAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 3633 kb/s, 25 fps, 90k tbn, 25 tbc (default)

Metadata:

encoder : Lavc57.93.100 h264_qsv

Side data:

cpb: bitrate max/min/avg: 3633182/0/3633182 buffer size: 7266364 vbv_delay: -1

Stream #0:1: Audio: aac (LC), 48000 Hz, 5.1, fltp, 384 kb/s (default)

Metadata:

encoder : Lavc57.93.100 aac

[h264_qsv @ 00000000012aeee0] Error during encoding: device failed (-17)

 

Switched to the Samsung 960 Evo instead, and no issues.

[Happy2Play 8270]

Can't really tell. Maybe it's too small (1 GB). Here's the log extract:

[AVHWDeviceContext @ 00000000012ba160] Failed to create Direct3D device

[h264_qsv @ 00000000012aeee0] Warning in encoder initialization: incompatible video parameters (5)

Output #0, segment, to 'B:\emby\transcoding-temp\a199fbe4f87df32c8589e82fa090ab82%d.ts':

Metadata:

encoder : Lavf57.72.101

Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (h264_qsv), nv12, 1920x1080 [sAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 3633 kb/s, 25 fps, 90k tbn, 25 tbc (default)

Metadata:

encoder : Lavc57.93.100 h264_qsv

Side data:

cpb: bitrate max/min/avg: 3633182/0/3633182 buffer size: 7266364 vbv_delay: -1

Stream #0:1: Audio: aac (LC), 48000 Hz, 5.1, fltp, 384 kb/s (default)

Metadata:

encoder : Lavc57.93.100 aac

[h264_qsv @ 00000000012aeee0] Error during encoding: device failed (-17)

 

Switched to the Samsung 960 Evo instead, and no issues.

 

Well 1GB is barely large enough for a SD tv show.  The transcode path has to be larger than the file you are attempting to play.  Emby maintains the entire transcode until the media is stopped, and sometimes a little longer.

[aballim 0]

Well 1GB is barely large enough for a SD tv show.  The transcode path has to be larger than the file you are attempting to play.  Emby maintains the entire transcode until the media is stopped, and sometimes a little longer.

Thanks

I'll refrain from using the ramdisk then. I'm sure the 960 evo is sufficient for my needs. 

[dthurston 0]

My server is running on linux on a celeron N2930. I installed ffmpeg, but not the zeranoe version mentioned above. I'm not clear on how to know if quicksync is working, but I assume it's not if it doesn't seem to make much difference. It's not crashing either though. How much load should I expect it to take off the processor during on the fly transcoding? Emby no longer has an option after install for ffmpeg location, so I'm not sure how to change it if I were to install the custom version. Is there a ffmpeg version recommended for emby on linux?

[mastrmind11 717]

My server is running on linux on a celeron N2930. I installed ffmpeg, but not the zeranoe version mentioned above. I'm not clear on how to know if quicksync is working, but I assume it's not if it doesn't seem to make much difference. It's not crashing either though. How much load should I expect it to take off the processor during on the fly transcoding? Emby no longer has an option after install for ffmpeg location, so I'm not sure how to change it if I were to install the custom version. Is there a ffmpeg version recommended for emby on linux?

Quicksync isn't really supported on Linux unless you can find a custom kernel.  I think the only flavor that supports it is CentOS.  So chances are, it's not working, even if you point to an ffmpeg version that supports it.