i3 or A6 for Plex

Ballyman

Ballyman

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Anyone have any experience with PlexMedia Server?? I have a NAS at the moment with all my media and I want to build a cheap server for PMS that will transcode Plex when required. The most I should ever require is two streams running at the same time with one of them being transcoded but most of the time it should be one stream either direct or transcoded!!

What do you think? What do you think is the lowest spec or cheapest CPU that will definitely manage what I am looking for?
 
Transcode from what resolution video to what other size?
 
I'm currently using a HP N54L Microserver with Xpenology - it runs all my Time Machine backups from my rMBP, NAS storage options for photo's and such, as well as running media servers for iTunes, Photos, Videos, Plex.. and more.

All for £100? You'd be stupid not to.
 
Transcodes just fine. If you use the native media streamer it has zero issues. Running Plex, it'll do 1 transcode at a time happily (720 or 1080p), but I doubt it'll be so smooth doing two at once. As I said though, the native player can handle it just fine. It's just the annoying way Plex works. :(
 
arad85 said:
Transcode from what resolution video to what other size?
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Most of my stuff is at 720p so it would be transcoding from this to a smaller resolution from time to time. Sometimes when travelling the internet connection is poor so it needs to transcoded the quality down quite a bit!!

I want to either build or buys cheap s/h PC to attach to the nas - something around the £150-180 mark if possible. Any recommendations?
 
ohms12 said:
Transcodes just fine. If you use the native media streamer it has zero issues. Running Plex, it'll do 1 transcode at a time happily (720 or 1080p), but I doubt it'll be so smooth doing two at once. As I said though, the native player can handle it just fine. It's just the annoying way Plex works. :(
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I think you mean remuxing (which is taking one format of video streaming and putting it in another container such as mkv->mp4) rather than a full transcode (which means recoding the video and possibly audio from one resolution to another e.g. 1080p to 720p). This XPEnology forum thread seems to confirm it: http://xpenology.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3908. As does this document: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MfYoJkiwSqCXg8cm5-Ac4oOLPRtCkgUxU0jdj3tmMPc/edit (linked from: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201373803) which suggests it can transcode a single 720p stream and not support 1080p.

The problem with transcoding is to do it well, you either need proper hardware acceleration or a very fast processor. I'm not sure I'd like to transcode on even my overclocked i7....
 
So anyway, as I was saying - can anyone recommend an i3 or A6 chip that will be able to transcode for me???
 
arad85 said:
I think you mean remuxing (which is taking one format of video streaming and putting it in another container such as mkv->mp4) rather than a full transcode (which means recoding the video and possibly audio from one resolution to another e.g. 1080p to 720p). This XPEnology forum thread seems to confirm it: http://xpenology.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3908. As does this document: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MfYoJkiwSqCXg8cm5-Ac4oOLPRtCkgUxU0jdj3tmMPc/edit (linked from: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201373803) which suggests it can transcode a single 720p stream and not support 1080p.

The problem with transcoding is to do it well, you either need proper hardware acceleration or a very fast processor. I'm not sure I'd like to transcode on even my overclocked i7....
Click to expand...

My apologies, you make a fair point. But equally, most sources I (and the OP) use are 720p. I've watched a few 1080p files and it's run fine - but I presume it's not needed to transcode.

So, pound for pound - i'd still recommend the N54L for his needs? Unless someone can come up with something cheaper.
 
ohms12 said:
So, pound for pound - i'd still recommend the N54L for his needs? Unless someone can come up with something cheaper.
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You are unlikely to get anything cheaper TBH. It's whether the OP is happy with the compromises - i.e. wanting something that will work under all circumstances and all streams vs having something that will fail occasionally.

OP: it may help if you say what your maximum resultant size of recode is. Needing to go from 720p->1080p in high quality is a different need to go from 720p->576 (i.e. SD tv) at "whatever quality you can get out of the CPU".
 
My needs are pretty simple to be honest. All my stuff is at 720p with low bitrates (5MBits ish) and when it needs to be encoded it means I am watching on my phone, tablet or laptop in a hotel room somewhere :) I'm not overly fussed about the quality when on the road as my tv at home where it gets most use can play everything natively without transcoding so it would be "whatever quality you can get out of the CPU" without buffering. I'd also like for the kids at home to be able to watch their stuff the same time as it's transcoding for me so it would be two users at most with one streaming direct and the other requiring transcoding.

This is what I have come up with so far based on the Plex recommend requirement of a CPU with a minimum rating of 1500 per 720p and 2000 per 1080p encode required. The CPU below has a rating of 4015 so in theory it "should" transcode 2 x 720p streams at the same time but if I can do one and stream direct on the other I will be very happy!! What do you think?

For the build, I've sourced all the parts below second hand for £90 which is very cheap so I'm wondering if this is actually any good. Any advice?? I will also have to get an OS to run the Plex Server on it. It will also have teamviewer on it as well as uTorrent and thats pretty much it. so there should be no strain on the CPU at any time so it shoudl all be available for transcoding all the time!!

CPU - AMD X4 955 Quad Core 3.2GHz
MOBO - ASUS M4N68T-M Micro ATX
MEMORY - 2GB RAM DDR
HDD - WD Scorpio 160GB 7200 3.5"
CASE - Antec NSK1380 Case
PSU - Antec NSK1380 PSU
 
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