Intel Arc Battlemage B-Series (B60) Hardware Transcoding Support

[ShaoMcLulz 2]

Hey folks,

I'm a lifetime Premiere subscriber and recently upgraded my server with an Intel Arc B60 (Battlemage) specifically for transcoding duties. Unfortunately, Emby can't initialize it for hardware transcoding, and I think I've tracked down why.

My setup:

• Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS (kernel 6.14.0-36) in Proxmox VM with GPU passthrough
• Intel Arc B60 with xe driver loaded
• Emby Server 4.8.8.0
• Latest Intel drivers: intel-media-va-driver-non-free 25.2.4-1146
• Resizable BAR enabled in BIOS (mandatory for B-series cards)

What's working:

• VA-API is fully functional - vainfo shows complete codec support (H.264, HEVC, AV1, VP9 encode/decode)
• System ffmpeg 6.1.1 with VA-API encoders works perfectly
• GPU is visible and accessible (/dev/dri/renderD128)
• User permissions are correct (emby user in video+render groups)
• My GTX 1660 Ti still works fine for transcoding

The problem: Emby detects the B60 in hardware detection but fails to initialize it with "Error -1". The transcoding UI only shows my NVIDIA card options, no Intel options appear.

What I've tried:

• Replacing Emby's bundled ffmpeg with system symlinks → broke all transcoding (library incompatibility)
• Creating encoding.xml with custom ffmpeg path → Emby ignored it
• Double-checked all drivers and permissions → everything checks out

Why I think this is happening: Emby's bundled ffmpeg is from June 2023, which predates the Battlemage architecture by over a year (B-series launched December 2024). The B60 uses Intel's newer xe driver instead of i915, and needs ffmpeg 6.0+ to work properly.

For comparison, Jellyfin already supports Battlemage with their jellyfin-ffmpeg 6.0.1+ on kernel 6.12+, which is why I know the hardware side is solid.

The request: Could you please update Emby's bundled ffmpeg to version 6.0 or newer? This would enable support for Intel's entire Battlemage lineup (B50, B60, B570, B580, etc.).

I'd love to retire my 1660 Ti and use the B60 full-time for both transcoding and LLM work, but right now I'm stuck keeping the NVIDIA card in just for Emby.

Happy to provide logs or test beta builds if that helps. Thanks for considering this!

[Luke 42077]

HI, we will have a new ffmpeg build on the server beta channel in the near future, so stay tuned for that.

In case it helps, the beta channel already has an updated intel driver embedded.

Thanks.