HW Tone Mapping Transcoding no longer works after updating to 4.9.1.80 (Synology 220+)

[heffeque 78]

1 hour ago, softworkz said:

Yes

 

No. Only Gemini Lake and Elkhard Lake.

 

Interesting, thanks! 

It would be nice to have a table that explains what combinations of HW work with what configurations, though I'm aware that it would be difficult to maintain, since driver/ffmpeg updates to HW transcoding are numerous.

Maybe the table can be in a wiki format so that people can share their results to make things easier for you. 

[e2zippo 25]

Just to add, I have a Synology DS918+ with a Intel Celeron J3455 (Apollo Lake) and hw tonemapping does not work for me, but it used to, not sure when it stopped working.

 

[sa2000 673]

7 hours ago, e2zippo said:

I have a Synology DS918+ with a Intel Celeron J3455 (Apollo Lake) and hw tonemapping does not work for me, but it used to,

Lets have embyserver and ffmpeg logs to compare - please download and post here the embyserver and ffmpeg logs after running a test with hardware tone mapping enabled

thanks

 

 

Edited October 19, 2025 by sa2000

[softworkz 5065]

On 10/17/2025 at 9:16 PM, heffeque said:

Maybe the table can be in a wiki format so that people can share their results to make things easier for you. 

We do have half of the story for this already: The Transcoding Tests plugin. What's missing is a site where people can submit their results. It's a low priority for us and I always hoped for a community contribution for building such a site.

[heffeque 78]

I was unaware that that existed.

I'll try to get to it when I have time.

As for the community contribution... maybe a shared Google Sheets would be enough (at least to start). People in this forum could request access to the sheet to add their results.

Edited October 19, 2025 by heffeque

[Bims0n 14]

It stopped working for me as well (DS 920 - J4125 Gemini Lake, DSM 7.2.2), however the funny thing is I am still on Emby Server 4.8.11.0. Recently I played with my transcoding settings, but have restored them since to the ones that worked fine previously (transcoder: qs, tone mapping: opencl).

vaapi is an option I'd like to avoid since it does not offer the same performance as qsv for me and it's tone mapping is very dark for whatever reason ....

edit: updated to 4.9.2.5 beta and it seems to work for now!

Edited October 20, 2025 by Bims0n

[Bims0n 14]

looks like that was a fluke, still broken for me with beta 4.9.5.2

Also - is there a way to change tone mapping algorithm for vaapi? I believe the default one is the cause for the very darkened picture I am having

[softworkz 5065]

4 minutes ago, Bims0n said:

looks like that was a fluke, still broken for me with beta 4.9.5.2

Please provide hw detection and transcoding log files.

 

4 minutes ago, Bims0n said:

Also - is there a way to change tone mapping algorithm for vaapi? I believe the default one is the cause for the very darkened picture I am having

VAAPI tone mapping uses a 3D LUT, which means that it's not configurable by design.

[Bims0n 14]

18 hours ago, softworkz said:

Please provide hw detection and transcoding log files.

 

VAAPI tone mapping uses a 3D LUT, which means that it's not configurable by design.

I've done the tests with the recommended Transcoding Tests Plugin, several of them failed. I've also attached a sheet to explain and to get a grasp over the different variables and their interactions. Hardware detection log is included as well. If you need anything else just let me know.

Tone Mapping Test 4.9.2.5 beta.rar

[DonMacaroni 54]

On 10/20/2025 at 2:56 AM, Bims0n said:

It stopped working for me as well (DS 920 - J4125 Gemini Lake, DSM 7.2.2), however the funny thing is I am still on Emby Server 4.8.11.0. Recently I played with my transcoding settings, but have restored them since to the ones that worked fine previously (transcoder: qs, tone mapping: opencl).

vaapi is an option I'd like to avoid since it does not offer the same performance as qsv for me and it's tone mapping is very dark for whatever reason ....

edit: updated to 4.9.2.5 beta and it seems to work for now!

For me it still works, on latest stable via VAAPI, one stream has approx 9-13% CPU load.

Even h265 encoding works, albeit it has 13% CPU load with ToneMapping and 4K HDR to 1080p SDR transcoding on 1520+

[Bims0n 14]

10 hours ago, DonMacaroni said:

For me it still works, on latest stable via VAAPI, one stream has approx 9-13% CPU load.

Even h265 encoding works, albeit it has 13% CPU load with ToneMapping and 4K HDR to 1080p SDR transcoding on 1520+

For me VAAPI tone mapping is technically not broken but also not fully functional. It seems as a dark filter has been put on top of the render, on brighter scenes it's not as bad but in sparely illuminated ones it's really bad.

This is a test screen from 4.9.2.6 beta with VAAPI decoding and without Tone Mapping

This is the same scene with VAAPI decoding and also VAAPI tone mapping:

But honestly one problem after another - would really focus on getting quicksync to work again if possible. If it is not possible then I'll have to live with VAAPI & no tone mapping I guess.

[softworkz 5065]

On 10/20/2025 at 9:17 PM, Bims0n said:

I've done the tests with the recommended Transcoding Tests Plugin, several of them failed. I've also attached a sheet to explain and to get a grasp over the different variables and their interactions. Hardware detection log is included as well. If you need anything else just let me know.

Thanks for the test results. I see that a few things got broken due to server changes and the LG Demo DolbyVision file is not the right one for testing tone mapping (you need to use the "Halftime Walk" file instead.

But none of that matters in your case: OpenCL tone mapping does not work for Gemini and Elkhard Lake. Only VAAPI tone mapping and that cannot be adjusted, I'm afraid.

[Bims0n 14]

@softworkzThanks for helping me on choosing the right movie file, I've done the same tests with the "Halftime Walk" now instead. Run sequence is the same as previously.

You already mentioned this previously, it may not be of any use to me but maybe for some other synology users that are dependent on OpenCL.

Tone Mapping Test 4.9.2.6 beta.rar

[rekit 16]

On 10/17/2025 at 8:41 AM, softworkz said:

Thanks, that's helpful and also answers all the questions:

Elkhard Lake and Gemini Lake have limited HWA support in the iGPUs, both hardware and software-wise.
Among other limitations, they do not support OpenCL data sharing with VAAPI contexts, so it's no surprise that they do not support hw accelerated tone mapping using OpenCL.

What this means is:

• You can update Emby Server without worries
• Those who were claiming that it would have been working before will like have had it working via VAAPI

 

This does NOT apply to Synology packages (but Docker is one example).

 

@rekit (and all others having Gemini or Elkhard Lake) =>

 

FWIW when mine was working, I’ve always had all the vaapi options disabled and only QSV options enabled 

[softworkz 5065]

44 minutes ago, rekit said:

FWIW when mine was working, I’ve always had all the vaapi options disabled and only QSV options enabled 

With Gemini Lake? I mean QSV does work, but not OpenCL tone mapping..

[sa2000 673]

On 01/11/2025 at 22:33, rekit said:

FWIW when mine was working, I’ve always had all the vaapi options disabled and only QSV options enabled

It appears that on 4.8.11.0 we used vaapi even when it was disabled

[rekit 16]

8 hours ago, sa2000 said:

It appears that on 4.8.11.0 we used vaapi even when it was disabled

oh weird. before 4.8.11.0 too? I've had vaapi disabled for years

[rekit 16]

On 11/1/2025 at 6:19 PM, softworkz said:

With Gemini Lake? I mean QSV does work, but not OpenCL tone mapping..

since starting this thread, I've switched my server to an n150 mini pc. so I'm just going by memory here, but on my 220+ (gemini lake/celeron J4025) I had:

all transcoding vaapi options disabled
all transcoding qsv options enabled
software tone mapping disabled
vaapi tone mapping disabled
intel quicksync tone mapping enabled

I (now) know there were issues with gemini lake when using both qsv transcoding and tone mapping. so that's unfortunate. everything working really well on the n150 though.

[sa2000 673]

19 minutes ago, rekit said:

oh weird. before 4.8.11.0 too?

Maybe - I was only able to do a test on 4.8.11.0 on Synology NAS

[sa2000 673]

On 03/11/2025 at 19:31, rekit said:

oh weird. before 4.8.11.0 too? I've had vaapi disabled for years

I was wrong when I said:

Quote

It appears that on 4.8.11.0 we used vaapi even when it was disabled

I still had HEVC VAAPI decoder enabled when I did the test.

I repeated the tests with that disbaled and no VAAPI setting ticked, and I can see that hevc_qsv works fine on 4.8.11.0

This is now being looked into

[Interwebz 0]

Just chipping in here.

Upgrading from 4.8.11.0 to 4.9.1.80 rendered my HW transcoding inoperable on D1520+ (J4125 Gemini Lake). No settings were changed in between the upgrade. My transcoding settings were set to advanced and all QS options checked and all VAAPI options unchecked. As for tone mapping, SW tone mapping disabled, HW tone mapping enabled but had both QS and VAAPI tone mapping configured which maybe explains why that was working prior to the upgrade.

I was mostly disappointed with the HW transcoding no longer working so I rolled back to 4.8.11.0.

[NeverReadyEddie 2]

Hi @sa2000How is this fix progressing?

I am holding off updating from the last 4.8 server version due to this issue but I am keen to as I want that HEVC transcoding.

[sa2000 673]

20 minutes ago, NeverReadyEddie said:

How is this fix progressing?

I am holding off updating from the last 4.8 server version due to this issue but I am keen to as I want that HEVC transcoding.

The cause has been identified. I will try and find out status

[eddyg3 2]

Any update on this @sa2000?

[Luke 42077]

20 minutes ago, eddyg3 said:

Any update on this @sa2000?

Hi, we are actively working on it. Thanks.