Slow Encoding on New Emby Server

[kingmartell 0]

Hey All,

 

So new to the Emby community so I might be overlooking something. When my server is trying to transcode a 4K movie it keeps buffering, plays a sentence or two, then buffers again. If I sit there and and watch it, it doesn't transcode fast enough. I tried to look over the transcode log but nothing stood out too me. My server setup is: A VM on a server with 2 Xeon E5-2650 v2's. The VM itself has 24 CPU's and 35GB of memory. Emby is running under Docker using the linuxserver.io/emby branch. I have the transcode settings on Emby set to the fastest possible settings I could see and no hardware acceleration. When I transcode a 1080p movie it works flawlessly. I don't know if I am missing something or should buy a video card because the processors cannot handle it. When the VM is transcoding my performance on the CPU is around 60% and the memory is only at 70% so I am not hitting caps. Any help would be appreciated and attached is the transcode log.

 

Many thanks!

ffmpeg-transcode-511e9229-83e9-4401-9ea6-2a1915ce3947_1.txt

[rodainas 191]

Transcoding via software (cpu) is a slow process, transcoding 4k via software is even slower, you need the help of hardware (gpu).

Out of curiosity are you unable to direct play this files on the client devices?

[kingmartell 0]

The reason for transcoding is the Media bit rate is too high. I only have 25MBPS up speed. So it sounds like I'll need to install a GPU in the server for 4K files, right?

[rodainas 191]

4 minutes ago, kingmartell said:

The reason for transcoding is the Media bit rate is too high. I only have 25MBPS up speed. So it sounds like I'll need to install a GPU in the server for 4K files, right?

Yes, you need a GPU for better performance on the transcode.

[GrimReaper 4740]

Or convert to a streaming-friendly, lower-bitrate format, so it'll DirectPlay. Money vs. time. 

[rodainas 191]

Yep that’s a good alternative too.

[maxiu 4]

18 hours ago, rodainas said:

Transcoding via software (cpu) is a slow process, transcoding 4k via software is even slower, you need the help of hardware (gpu).

Out of curiosity are you unable to direct play this files on the client devices?

Hello, sorry for stealing the thread but it's right on top and my question is very related..
I would like to improve my transcoding performance to be able to stream 4K, my hardware is a bit dated (4th gen i3 I think) so no hardware transcoding support.

What is the minimum hardware I should invest in? Do I need a dedicated GPU or will a CPU with onboard GPU suffice? This is a dedicated server running 24/7 with limited space too so I would like to avoid putting a dedicated GPU inside it if possible.

[Q-Droid 989]

It depends on what you want out of it. How many simultaneous 4k streams do you expect to transcode?

Intel 8th gen and newer CPUs with graphics can handle 4k, HEVC 10-bit and HDR tone mapping. At current prices a mobo+CPU+RAM swap could still be cheaper than a discrete GPU with the same media capabilities. IMO the GPUs are overrated but still a necessity for machines also used for gaming or other computing tasks like @home projects. Not so much for dedicated media servers. Though if you have one laying around then use it.

 

[maxiu 4]

19 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

It depends on what you want out of it. How many simultaneous 4k streams do you expect to transcode?

Intel 8th gen and newer CPUs with graphics can handle 4k, HEVC 10-bit and HDR tone mapping. At current prices a mobo+CPU+RAM swap could still be cheaper than a discrete GPU with the same media capabilities. IMO the GPUs are overrated but still a necessity for machines also used for gaming or other computing tasks like @home projects. Not so much for dedicated media servers. Though if you have one laying around then use it.

 

1 maybe 2 streams at times, I was already looking in the meantime and came up with i3 9100 (basically same price as 8100 but more stores sell it new), with new mobo and RAM it comes down to $250. For GPU I only have rtx 3070 but the server PSU is not powerful enough for that anyway.

[Q-Droid 989]

14 minutes ago, maxiu said:

1 maybe 2 streams at times, I was already looking in the meantime and came up with i3 9100 (basically same price as 8100 but more stores sell it new), with new mobo and RAM it comes down to $250. For GPU I only have rtx 3070 but the server PSU is not powerful enough for that anyway.

That should work well. If you're streaming to remote clients transcoding from 4k to lower bitrate 1080p it should be able to handle 2-3 streams without problems. I've pushed my server to 5 streams as a stress test. Make sure you're not shopping for "F" series processors. They're cheaper but don't have graphics.

 

[maxiu 4]

Great thanks! I already noticed the F on some CPUs but they came with a very large warning about no GPU