Current options for 4k transcoding?

[the_jest]

I have a mostly four-year-old FreeNAS box that's functioning fine for the light workout I subject it to--mainly, media storage and backups for the household, and a few lightly loaded VMs/jails. It's driven by an Intel i3-6100 CPU, currently running TrueNAS 12.0-U1.

The only thing it can't do is 4k transcoding for Plex. I see there have been discussions in the past about the difficulty of this, but there doesn't seem to be anything very recent, so I figured I'd ask if there is any way to manage this now. Is it still not possible to offload this to a separate GPU? Is there a CPU that could handle it appropriately?

It's not the end of the world to have two copies of 4k content (i.e. the 4k original and a 1080p version for streaming outside the house), but I'd prefer to avoid this.

 

[shadofall]

Unless there's a freebsd limitation, I'm not aware of. I've got 2600k in an omv box that will transcode 4k to 1080 altho my system starts throwing. System resource alarms for the duration if anyone plays a 4k video on the one remaining 1080p tv in the house. Of course if it need to handle any audio processing at the same time it tanks completely. And it's still in house not streaming out of the network

The underlying issue with 4k transcoding is hdr content (which is why we have ,4k right? ;) ) Doesn't transcode properly. And leaves you with washed out/not so pleasant image.. unless that's changed recently

 

[Samuel Tai]

[INFO] Plex, 4k, transcoding, and you - aka the rules of 4k

NOTE: for 2022 – Plex has come a long way since this FAQ was originally written, HW transcoding has become more available and more stable, and tone mapping was recently added to address the hdr/sdr color conversion issues. The first 4 ‘rules’ generally are no longer as important as they once...

forums.plex.tv

 

[jayecin]

FreeBSD currently does have Plex transcoding for a variety of intel iGPUS. The 9th and 10th gens are currently not supported with TrueNAS as it runs on FeeBSD 13.0, but the igpus are eventually going to be supported for 9th and 10th gen intels. With that being said, I went the overly powerful server route and threw an i7 10700 into my server to brute force 4k transcoding, it works well enough. A single 4k to 1080p x265 transcode will use around 30-40% of my CPU.

 

[ornias]

[INFO] Plex, 4k, transcoding, and you - aka the rules of 4k

NOTE: for 2022 – Plex has come a long way since this FAQ was originally written, HW transcoding has become more available and more stable, and tone mapping was recently added to address the hdr/sdr color conversion issues. The first 4 ‘rules’ generally are no longer as important as they once...

forums.plex.tv

I don't like that post.
The neweest intel CPU's do 4k to 1k transcoding like a beast.

 

[DevilNAS]

FreeBSD currently does have Plex transcoding for a variety of intel iGPUS. The 9th and 10th gens are currently not supported with TrueNAS as it runs on FeeBSD 13.0, but the igpus are eventually going to be supported for 9th and 10th gen intels. With that being said, I went the overly powerful server route and threw an i7 10700 into my server to brute force 4k transcoding, it works well enough. A single 4k to 1080p x265 transcode will use around 30-40% of my CPU.

Hi, sorry for opening this post again.

Have you directly installed the Plex on Jail or did something else like scripts or shell commands?

My Plex have been crashing during the transcode of everything. My CPU is a i3-9100 so I do not see why this is happening.

Thanks!