Linux Emby Premier Trial

[evgenymagata 0]

Hi,

 

i installed Emby on my CentOS box as a docker container and so far it seems to work. For me the real showstopper would be if HW Accelerated transcoding would not work, my i3 CPU in theory supports it. Unfortunately i cannot test if this feature works on my box since i dont have the Premier version. If i cannot get HW Acceleration to work, i dont want to buy the Premier Version. So a bit of a Catch 22 here. Is there a trial version that allows for testing HW acceleration? If this feature works i am absolutely willing to buy the "Premier" License...

 

Cheers,

e.

[mastrmind11 722]

buy a month for a couple bucks and try it out.

[ebr 16184]

Hi.  Sorry, but we do not have a trial for this at this time.

 

Thanks.

[evgenymagata 0]

Thank you for the reply. It does not answer my question though. The installation process of VA-API on CentOS 7 for use with Emby is pretty much undocumented. So if i get into this, research and fiddle with my machine, at the end i am supposed to pay a month of Emby License to potentially find out it might not work? I dont think that sounds appealing for me.

 

EDIT: this was in reply to the previous answer..

Edited May 13, 2019 by evgenymagata

[ebr 16184]

@@softworkz, can you provide any guidance here on whether or not this setup should work?

[Luke 42078]

For Docker, our hardware transcoding is only experimental at this stage. It can work, but it will require some extended setup on your part. For example, if you have Nvidia graphics, then this article may help you:

https://www.funkypenguin.co.nz/note/gpu-transcoding-with-emby-plex-using-docker-nvidia/

 

For this reason, I would suggest using the native CentOS package instead.

 

Our hardware acceleration wiki goes over all of the required setup for the native packages:

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/Hardware-Acceleration-Overview

 

You won't find Docker instructions in our wiki yet due to that fact that it is only considered experimental. Even though you can't yet try it without Premiere, you can still see what has been detected by temporarily changing the dropdown on the server transcoding setup page to "Advanced".

 

Please let us know if this helps. Thanks.

[evgenymagata 0]

Thanks for the reply. My entire server is composed of docker containers for portability and backup reasons, so i am not really willing to make an exception for emby.

 

I would not be using NVidia HW Acceleration but Intel Quicksync. I am running on a HP Proliant Server with an i3-2120 CPU, which should be capable for Quicksync Acceleration... I would try to get Quicksync up and running and if it doesnt work, i could buy a Nvidia GT730 for nvenc capabilities.

 

Thanks for the hint with the advanced screen, so that should work for the beginning to see if emby detects HW acceleration in the first place (which it doesnt so far).

[Luke 42078]

You'll likely need to go through a process of adding emby to the video group, installing Intel drivers, etc, and then it should work.

[softworkz 5066]

@@softworkz, can you provide any guidance here on whether or not this setup should work?

 

As Luke mentioned, getting  hw acceleration to work inside containers is experimental and more like a kind of community effort.

We're supporting 8 different type of hardware accelerations on Windows, Mac OS, Android and several Linux variants, which is quite a task.

 

Supporting hw acceleration inside containers would multiply the number of possible different setups once again and I'm not sure if that would be feasible at all.

 

IMO, running a hardware-dependent application inside a container is a bit of a contradictory pattern because it doesn't quite match up with the concept of independent and portable containers.

 

If you are new to Emby, I would definitely recommend doing a native installation first.

 

When you would still want to have it run inside a container, you should (in case of Intel) at least get to a point where you can successfully run 'vainfo' inside(!) the container. You should be able find enough resources about how to get this done.

Once 'vainfo' is working, chances are good (but not 100%) that Emby will be able to use the Intel acceleration. 

As Luke explained, you can see detected hw accelerations by switching to 'Advanced' on the Transcoding settings page or you could also have a look at the hw-detection log.

[evgenymagata 0]

Obviously it would be a more consistent setup to have (shared) graphics and acceleration via Intel GVT-G virtualization but as far as i know this is still pretty experimental territory. Thanks for the pointers, i think i will try my luck with Containers, passed through Quicksync & Emby ...

[softworkz 5066]

There are so many different and new techniques coming up every few weeks - I haven't even heard of GVT-G yet.

But anyway I think that virtualization in general should take care of anything that is required for an OS or application to run without modification or specific support from the developers...

 

Please note that QuickSync and VAAPI are two totally different things - even though the work is finally done by the same hardware.

VAAPI is a lot easier to setup than QuickSync.

 

For QuickSync I'd even more advise to start with a native installation first and record the steps to get it working. Then try to repeat this inside the container...

[evgenymagata 0]

Its my understanding that the VAAPI interfaces with several HW accelerators, among them is Quicksync as implemented in Intel CPU's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Acceleration_API

[softworkz 5066]

Its my understanding that the VAAPI interfaces with several HW accelerators, among them is Quicksync as implemented in Intel CPU's

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Acceleration_API

 

QuickSync originated as a marketing name for Intel's video acceleration capabilities.

 

Intel's proprietary API for accessing those capabilities was originally called MFX - Multi-Format codec engine (X being C or D).

Currently this is named "Intel Media SDK" and (until recently) "Intel Media Server Studio".

It is available on both Windows and Linux in the same way (using the same code), but it is limited to Intel hardware.

 

Nowadays, QuickSync has become a synonym for using the above API and Emby is using it in the same way.

 

VAAPI is an open-source API initiated by Intel as well. It is available on Linux only but open for other manufacturers.

 

The whole process of video decoding and encoding is distributed over several layers:  Client Code >> API Middleware >> Graphics Drivers >> Hardware

Of course the hardware is always the same, no matter whether VAAPI is used or QuickSync/Intel Media SDK, but both ways are not identical.

 

Besides feature differences, it is said that QuickSync/Media SDK would provide somewhat better performance and quality, but I haven't got any proof for this.

Edited May 13, 2019 by softworkz