Transcoding Support for NAS

[WhackOBill 8]

I dropped this into the General category, though I see support sections for various NAS brands below.

My question ... is there a matrix available for SW/HW transcoding support by NAS for Emby like the one for Plex?

Just google "plex nas compatibility list" which will take you to a guide with a link to the spreadsheet to see what I'm referring to. 

I've always run Emby (since MB3) but a friend runs Plex and he's looking to get into a NAS and run it there instead of his HTPC.  That sheet makes it easy for him to find a NAS to run Plex on which will support HW transcoding.  I would assume the support is very similar for Emby but there is no comparison matrix like the one for Plex that I can find.  He only accesses Plex from within his house so there's only a need for a couple of streams of transcoding which I think is reasonable on a NAS with the right HW capabilities.

[Luke 42083]

HI, we don't have a listing by model, but we support Asustor, QNAP, Synology, TerraMaster, NetGear and Western Digital:

https://emby.media/download.html

It might not be a bad idea to start maintaining such a list though.

[WhackOBill 8]

Yeah, with the different CPU's that have been used even within brands, it can be hard to tell what capabilities are in there for HW transcoding ... especially when the Celeron is involved.  I could use the Plex list but I'm not sure that Emby goes about accessing HW transcoding resources in the same way and so my assumptions would not always be valid I suspect.  I run a separate HTPC for Emby but there are a lot of people who would like to bundle everything up on one device but can't really tell which ones will fulfill the role when things need transcoding.  My NAS (a Synology DS1821+) is fairly recent but would probably cower in fear if it had to SW transcode a couple of media streams.

[Luke 42083]

The way we use hardware acceleration is within ffmpeg and so it will be very similar to Plex.

[Eigeplackter 90]

And keep in mind that the actual Synology Series uses Ryzen instead of Intel CPU and those do not support HW transcoding.

[WhackOBill 8]

6 hours ago, Eigeplackter said:

And keep in mind that the actual Synology Series uses Ryzen instead of Intel CPU and those do not support HW transcoding.

Most of the latest, yes.  But there are still units like the DS420+ with a Celeron that has some hardware for transcoding in it.