Emby on UGreen DXP2800 NAS (running TrueNAS) has hardware transcoding enabled but doesn't do it.

[ClemFandango 18]

If I go to "Advanced" on the Transcoding menu, I get the list of available hardware decoders which proves that Emby can see them.  The UGreen has an Intel N100 chip as well.

On TrueNAS, I installed Emby with GPU passthrough enabled and allocated it 3 cores and 5gb of ram as well.  The "Emby" app folder has full read/write permissions.

Emby itself is working without any problems at all.  I can watch anything on it and it'll direct play no problem but I'd like to actually take advantage of this new hardware if possible.  I'm also a lifetime premium pass holder as well.

I'm a bit stumped

I've attached some logs but please let me know if you need anything else.  I tried playing Aliens and then the Abyss, both of which are in 4K and both defaulted to direct play.

embyserver-63882938050.txt hardware_detection-63882938053.txt embyserver.txt

ffmpeg-remux-1d2d1a66-6a53-4db1-ab2d-f241da17c20d_1.txt

Edited May 15, 2025 by ClemFandango

[ClemFandango 18]

Please disregard this thread now, no longer needed.  I haven't fixed the problem but there was a slight 'snafu' and I've gone a different way.

[Luke 42077]

What was the snafu?

[ClemFandango 18]

9 hours ago, Luke said:

What was the snafu?

Nothing major, just accidentally deleting the dataset that Emby was installed on 

I've only had this ugreen nas for a couple of weeks as it is and I've been running Plex and Emby side by side just to see how they performed and if the transcoding was working as it should.   When I realised I'd deleted Emby I just decided to stick with Plex for now as it was transcoding just fine.

[Luke 42077]

9 hours ago, ClemFandango said:

Nothing major, just accidentally deleting the dataset that Emby was installed on 

I've only had this ugreen nas for a couple of weeks as it is and I've been running Plex and Emby side by side just to see how they performed and if the transcoding was working as it should.   When I realised I'd deleted Emby I just decided to stick with Plex for now as it was transcoding just fine.

But don't you want a personal media server and not one that puts all of your information into the cloud and sells it to the highest bidder?

[ClemFandango 18]

4 hours ago, Luke said:

But don't you want a personal media server and not one that puts all of your information into the cloud and sells it to the highest bidder?

Plex is very much a temporary, convenient solution for now.

My main issue at the moment is that I’m coming from 12 years+ of DSM on Synology on to about 10 days of TrueNAS on my new ugreen so I’d ideally like a little more time to be happy with it before I dive in to why Emby won’t transcode.

I genuinely prefer Emby to Plex, I really do.  I prefer the layout, the Fire TV app and the whole aesthetic.  I wouldn’t have bought a lifetime premiere pass if I didn’t

What might help though is if you could maybe advise the best logs that I could give you that could help solve the problem when I jump back on to Emby ?

As an example, I’ve got the original Ghostbusters in 4K that I downloaded.  Plex transcodes it but Emby always direct plays it.

I’m wondering if maybe it’s down to the bitrate of the MKV file maybe ?

Another thing as well that might be related is that I have a 1 gigabit home internet connection.  When I had the Emby and Plex fire TV apps installed and working, I had both set to “maximum” for home streaming and both seemed to default to 80mbps when streaming the film.

[ClemFandango 18]

You know the more I've dug in to this this afternoon (in the UK), the more I think that the actual problem is my lack of understanding of transcoding and when Emby (and even Plex) will actually do it.

I've been looking through my movie files this afternoon and what I understand to be the encoded bitrate.   The highest one I have, considering the post above, is Ghostbusters in 4K at 75mb/s.  Most of the others seem to be between 15mb/s to 35mb/s.

With both apps, I have the home playback speed set to 'maximum' and with Emby, it seems to top out at 80mb/s when it's direct streaming as I have that gigabit connection.

So with Ghostbusters 4K being as it is, with that playback speed as it is, would I be right in assuming that Emby will always direct stream it because the maximum playback speed is higher than the encoded bitrate ?

The reason I ask is that I manually set the playback speed on the Emby Fire TV app earlier on to 70mb/s and started the movie playing and lo and behold, it was transcoding it no problem - obviously because the highest playback speed was less than the encoded bitrate.

Now I discovered the reason that Plex always transcoded it was because the file I have has a default audio stream of TrueHD which apparently it couldn't direct stream.  When I chose the 5.1 or the AC audio stream, it immediately started direct streaming, albeit stopping and starting quite a bit.

So in conclusion (I got there in the end ), I believe Emby was installed and configured correctly.  I think I just had it in my head that the CPU would do all of the heavy lifting when it was only ever going to do that if the playback speed was suffering.

I think

If you get a chance and can make sense of that rambling and let me know if my thought process is at least in the right ballpark then I'd be very grateful.   I'm not off to re-install Emby and get rid of Plex

[Q-Droid 989]

Bitrate/speed/bandwidth is one factor. The main one is whether the client can play the media as is (direct) and if it can then Emby will do just that. For local playback bandwidth is rarely a problem and compatibility is the main reason for transcoding. You can force it as you did by reducing the playback "quality". Remote playback is different and bitrate vs bandwidth becomes the more likely reason to need transcoding. 

[ClemFandango 18]

1 minute ago, Q-Droid said:

Bitrate/speed/bandwidth is one factor. The main one is whether the client can play the media as is (direct) and if it can then Emby will do just that. For local playback bandwidth is rarely a problem and compatibility is the main reason for transcoding. You can force it as you did by reducing the playback "quality". Remote playback is different and bitrate vs bandwidth becomes the more likely reason to need transcoding. 

Thankyou, that does make sense.  I did upgrade the ugreen to 16gb RAM when I first got it a couple of weeks ago so I imagine there's very little it won't be able to direct stream when I'm at home.