Old first gen i7 with Linux as Emby server?

[luckyluca 2]

Hi All,

My trusted ser8 8745hs minipc sitting beside my TV is going to be taken by my kid.

Do you think this 16-year-old shoebox PC will work well as a replacement for an Emby server?

250Gb SSD with Debian 13 and Emby server

h55n i7 890 2.93 - 3.20Ghz

8Gb non-dual channel

GeForce 560 1gb

usb 3.0 with the external 12tb media hdd (same as now)

 

I understand that Emby will rely on software transcode with that graphics card. I do watch 2k and 4k content with transcode for subtitles, only one user connected to the server. Is the computer suitable do you think?

 

I also have a Geforce 1080, but I don't think I'm able to take it from another system on account that the 560 is not compatible with that, so I can't swap them.

Thanks

[Dibbes 516]

My 2 cents:

Direct play (no transcoding) will be fine. If clients can play files natively, this setup is sufficient. 1 to 2 light transcodes (720p / low-bitrate 1080p) is possible, but not consistently reliable and I would not recommend that.

• The GTX 560 is effectively useless for hardware transcoding. NVENC support is present (first gen), but is too old to be usable. The GTX1080 will improve that situation in comparison to the 560, but for NVENC support the practical minimum is a GTX1650/1660.
• The CPU will struggle with software transcoding quickly. It is a roughly 15yr old CPU, it lacks modern instruction sets and efficiency.

It depends a little on your use-case though. If your usage looks like mostly direct play (Nvidia Shield, modern TVs, Apple TV), 1 to 2 users max and no 4K transcoding, then it will work. Anything needing 2k/4k transcoding will fail and not gracefully. Expect buffering, failed streams, and CPU pegged at 100%. Standardise media formats (H.264/H.265, no exotic codecs) is an absolute must if you want to avoid transcoding on this hardware.

Basically this system only works if transcoding is avoided.