Hardware Transcoding - Plex Server

[thebesh]

I run a few services from home as Docker containers. They run on a desktop PC that sits behind my TV. It's a Ryzen 7 1700x processor, 32GB RAM. I run Plex as a container on this host and it's pretty good, but I have some issues with transcoding when I put subtitles on 4k UHD movies. CPU goes to max and video doesn't play. Turn off subtitles and it plays fine.

By sheer coincidence, I found this post on Reddit the other day. This is the exact spec of machine I use (Ryzen 1700x).

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/1ae6683

The big desktop PC behind my TV is an eyesore in my living room. I've went and bought an N100 PC, which arrivies today. I'm going to run some tests with Plex transcoding. Looking at the codecs supported on both processors below I'm hoping for some good results. Fingers crossed it improves transcoding + smaller physical footprint + reduced power consumption. Will update when I run some tests

Intel UHD Graphics 24 EUs (Alder Lake)	GPU (N100)	no iGPU (Ryzen 1700x)
Decode / Encode	Codec h265 / HEVC (8 bit)	No
Decode / Encode	Codec h265 / HEVC (10 bit)	No
Decode / Encode	Codec h264	No
Decode / Encode	Codec VP9	No
Decode / Encode	Codec VP8	No
Decode	Codec AV1	No
Decode / Encode	Codec AVC	No
Decode	Codec VC-1	No
Decode / Encode	Codec JPEG	No

 

[thebesh]

Initial testing shows that it's very good box, however I think my problem is the lack of audio support from my Sonos Arc. Plex will play 4K UHD with DTS audio, but when you add subtitles, that tips it over the edge. That's the same on both Ryzen 1700x and N100. If it's a 4K UHD file with Dolby Atmos, it plays fine with subtitles. I kinda hoped there would be some "magic" that the N100 could do with hardware transcoding.

I'm still thinking about keeping the N100 and getting rid of the Ryzen desktop from a physical space and power point of view.