Arc for a cheap hardware encoder?

[Jackett17]

Hello I just saw the new arc video and thought about getting one for my homebuilt nas running unraid with a plex docker and maybe running a game server but it's just got intels integrated graphics. Is that dumb?

[jaslion]

So what exactly is it gonna do? Do you have plex premium for acceleration?

 

Also is your plex server struggling? Why not use the igpu for acceleration?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Intel iGPUs have about the same encoder as arc it seems, so Id just use a iGPU here for most home plex uses.

[LIGISTX]

44 minutes ago, Jackett17 said:

Hello I just saw the new arc video and thought about getting one for my homebuilt nas running unraid with a plex docker and maybe running a game server but it's just got intels integrated graphics. Is that dumb?

Do you actually need to encode? Ideally you should be using direct play when viewing inside your home… which requires no encoding and next to no cpu power at all. 

[Takumidesh]

Just now, LIGISTX said:

Do you actually need to encode? Ideally you should be using direct play when viewing inside your home… which requires no encoding and next to no cpu power at all. 

IF and only if your client supports direct play for whatever file you are trying to watch. I most often encounter this issue on my samsung TV that switches to video transcoding when using PGS subtitles. this is a real pain, since every other device works fine.

 

Also, atleast for me, I spend a significant amount of time watching plex remotely, usually on my phone, where things will be transcoded down. I often have to go all the way down to 720p to prevent buffering from the transcode (im on an old cpu though).

 

Point being, it isn't that uncommon to need to on the fly transcode. there are plenty of usecases.

[LIGISTX]

1 hour ago, Takumidesh said:

IF and only if your client supports direct play for whatever file you are trying to watch. I most often encounter this issue on my samsung TV that switches to video transcoding when using PGS subtitles. this is a real pain, since every other device works fine.

 

Also, atleast for me, I spend a significant amount of time watching plex remotely, usually on my phone, where things will be transcoded down. I often have to go all the way down to 720p to prevent buffering from the transcode (im on an old cpu though).

 

Point being, it isn't that uncommon to need to on the fly transcode. there are plenty of usecases.

That’s fair. Just most folks I know, myself included, mostly only use direct play. It does entirely depend on situation tho. 

[Takumidesh]

I think it's pretty common for encodes to happen without realizing also, remuxes (I think plex calls it a direct stream) are common for example and a lot of devices can't handle fancy new codecs (hevc).

 

Especially if you have strong hardware, you (the royal you) may find that you never realized there was any type of on the fly conversions happening at all!

to OP, if you can afford it, get an apple tv or nvidia shield. then you don't have to worry about encoding nearly as much. Instead of buying a gpu for a server that will be mostly wasted (and draw a lot of power)

 

 

 

[LIGISTX]

11 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

I think it's pretty common for encodes to happen without realizing also, remuxes (I think plex calls it a direct stream) are common for example and a lot of devices can't handle fancy new codecs (hevc).

 

Especially if you have strong hardware, you (the royal you) may find that you never realized there was any type of on the fly conversions happening at all!

to OP, if you can afford it, get an apple tv or nvidia shield. then you don't have to worry about encoding nearly as much. Instead of buying a gpu for a server that will be mostly wasted (and draw a lot of power)

 

 

 

+1 on nvidia shield. That’s what I use, specifically to avoid codec issues. 
 

Also… I needed a way to reliably and smoothly playback Dolby vision/atmos content from Plex.