Transcoding Question

[JeremyFr79 228]

So I just had a quick question in regards to transcoding...

 

I'm using Chromecast to watch movies streamed from MBS.  I recently did a HUGE upgrade on my main server and so have been monitoring performance etc and noticed while watching a movie today that during playback my server cpu usage was around 30-40% during playback, however about halfway through the movie cpu dropped to 0% and ffmpeg no longer shows in task manager yet the movie continued to play fine.  Am I to assume that MBS transcodes the file completely and caches the transcoded file and streams the cached file to the playback device?  Sorry if this is a stupid question, if this in fact how transcoding works in MBS then all the better.

[techywarrior 689]

Am I to assume that MBS transcodes the file completely and caches the transcoded file and streams the cached file to the playback device?

 

Yes.

[JeremyFr79 228]

Yes.

Awesome thanks, I figured that was the case was just surprised to see this.  I guess then my next question is why it would only use 40% of available processor power, would be nice to see all 8 cores max out and just get the job done, not that I mind or care either way

[techywarrior 689]

I believe that's a limitation of ffmpeg at the moment. I don't think it uses more then 4 threads.

 

Of course if you have multiple simultaneous transcodes going on you may see more threads being used. (so you have plenty of headroom if you have multiple client devices )

[JeremyFr79 228]

I believe that's a limitation of ffmpeg at the moment. I don't think it uses more then 4 threads.

 

Of course if you have multiple simultaneous transcodes going on you may see more threads being used. (so you have plenty of headroom if you have multiple client devices )

Yeah I have noticed that with multiple transcodes.  I wen't from being able to transcode 1 at a time to 3 at a time.