{"id":3927,"date":"2016-11-27T16:34:19","date_gmt":"2016-11-27T14:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adrhc.go.ro\/wordpress\/?p=3927"},"modified":"2017-06-08T16:01:43","modified_gmt":"2017-06-08T14:01:43","slug":"plex-transcoding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrhc.go.ro\/blog\/plex-transcoding\/","title":{"rendered":"Plex Transcoding with low cost slow CPU"},"content":{"rendered":"<pre>\r\nI have Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS on this low power SoC board <a href=\"http:\/\/www.asrock.com\/mb\/Intel\/N3150DC-ITX\/\" target=\"_blank\">Asrock N3150DC-ITX<\/a> with <strong>N3150<\/strong> CPU:\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ark.intel.com\/products\/87258\/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N3150-2M-Cache-up-to-2_08-GHz\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/ark.intel.com\/products\/87258\/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N3150-2M-Cache-up-to-2_08-GHz<\/a>\r\n\r\nAccording to <a href=\"https:\/\/support.plex.tv\/hc\/en-us\/articles\/201774043-What-kind-of-CPU-do-I-need-for-my-Server-\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/support.plex.tv\/hc\/en-us\/articles\/201774043-What-kind-of-CPU-do-I-need-for-my-Server-<\/a> (see <em>The Guideline<\/em>) I quote:\r\n<blockquote>Very roughly speaking, for a single full-transcode of a video, the following PassMark scores are a good guideline for a requirement:\r\n1080p\/10Mbps: 2000 PassMark\r\n720p\/4Mbps: 1500 PassMark<\/blockquote>I found my CPU on one of Plex's pointed charts:\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/cpubenchmark.net\/midlow_range_cpus.html\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/cpubenchmark.net\/midlow_range_cpus.html<\/a>\r\nWhen you click on CPU's link in the chart it will get you to <a href=\"http:\/\/cpubenchmark.net\/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Celeron+N3150+%40+1.60GHz&#038;id=2546\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/cpubenchmark.net\/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Celeron+N3150+%40+1.60GHz&id=2546<\/a> from where I quote:\r\n<blockquote>Description:  Socket: FCBGA1170\r\nClockspeed: 1.6 GHz\r\nTurbo Speed: 2.1 GHz\r\nNo of Cores: 4\r\nMax TDP: 6 W\r\nAverage CPU Mark 1693\r\n<\/blockquote>With only <strong>1693 mark<\/strong> you'll say there's no way this lazy CPU to transcode a <strong>HEVC<\/strong> ... but there is!\r\n\r\nYou'll have to mount a RAM directory in \/etc\/fstab e.g.:\r\ntmpfs \/var\/plex-transcoding-temporary-dir tmpfs defaults,relatime,mode=1777,size=99G\r\nThis line will mount 99 GB of your RAM (surely much less 99 GB) to \/var\/plex-transcoding-temporary-dir directory which then you'll have to configure as the Plex's <em>transcoder temporary directory<\/em>.\r\n\r\nI have 16 GB RAM but while transcoding a 1080p HVEC I only need less <strong>2 GB RAM<\/strong> while also keeping in RAM my Ubuntu 16.04 desktop with mysql, sickrage, couchpotato, transmission, nginx and other.\r\n\r\nPlex uses a maximum transcoding cache of 100 MB so I guess it won't use more than 100 MB of your RAM for transcoding. Plex won't transcode a movie larger than your tmpfs RAM directory size so I declare 99 GB just to be sure to transcode any possible movie.\r\n\r\nMy transcoding options:\r\nTranscoder quality: automatic\r\nTranscoder temporary directory: \/var\/plex-transcoding-temporary-dir\r\nBackground transcoding x264 preset: faster\r\nMaximum simultaneous video transcode: 1\r\n\r\nAmazing, isn't it?\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS on this low power SoC board Asrock N3150DC-ITX with N3150 CPU: http:\/\/ark.intel.com\/products\/87258\/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N3150-2M-Cache-up-to-2_08-GHz According to https:\/\/support.plex.tv\/hc\/en-us\/articles\/201774043-What-kind-of-CPU-do-I-need-for-my-Server- (see The Guideline) I quote: Very roughly speaking, for a single full-transcode of a video, the following PassMark scores are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/adrhc.go.ro\/blog\/plex-transcoding\/#more-3927\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &#10142; <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Plex Transcoding with low cost slow CPU<\/span><\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,11,45],"tags":[155,154,153,84,157,156],"class_list":["post-3927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-howto","category-linux","category-plex","tag-h-264","tag-h-265","tag-hevc","tag-transcoding","tag-x264","tag-x265"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrhc.go.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrhc.go.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrhc.go.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrhc.go.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrhc.go.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrhc.go.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrhc.go.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrhc.go.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrhc.go.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}