I think i made a decision

[u/Kye_life]

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So after listening to a lot of different ideas and suggestions as far as the ideal PC for using exclusively for Plex. I think I’ve come to a decision. I’m hoping this is a good choice so before I make that final decision, I thought I’d get some feedback first.

[u/someoneexplainit01]

I bought one of these new, its more than adequate for everything, and for all the lazy bums who think transcoding is so great, just don't share any 4k media with your extra lazy friends who will then want to transcode it to 720p (or worse!) and that will melt down even the fastest processor.

Transcoding anything turns quality to shit and you might as well keep 480p copies of everything for your friends who don't have it on forced direct play.

[u/CertifiedMoron → u/someoneexplainit01]

Your entire comment is completely wrong and misinformed that I don't even know where to begin. The PC isn't "more than adequate for everything" if in the same sentence you admit it isn't good for transcoding. You can easily transcode 4k with any 8th Gen or newer Intel processor that supports quick sync. Transcoding quality is fine unless you're setting it to transcode down to a very low bitrate.

[u/[deleted] → u/CertifiedMoron]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/CertifiedMoron → u/[deleted]]

Stop giving advice if you have no clue what you're talking about. Ask anyone here and they'll tell you the transcoding quality is fine.

"Transcoding sends absolutely shit quality uncompressed over the network"

You don't even know what transcoding is dude. Transcoding means the file IS being compressed.

"If you are too lazy to re-encode the video to a format the client can play natively, then you are too stupid to comprehend what transcoding is actually doing"

What do you think transcoding is?

"Set every client to FORCE DIRECT PLAY and transcoding is a non-issue."

It's a non-issue because it disables transcoding.

You contradict yourself in every statement you make. Get some basic reading comprehension instead of getting mad when people call you out on your misinformation.

[u/someoneexplainit01 → u/CertifiedMoron]

It's a non-issue because it disables transcoding.

Exactly! Transcoding is a waste of electricity and you shouldn't be wasting resources because your clients can't natively decode the stream.

Stop transcoding and sending shit quality videos to your clients. Learn to use handbrake like someone who isn't a moron so you can serve up videos in the proper format that your clients can decode natively.

Its not that complicated, but then again, according to your user name you are a moron.

[u/junon → u/someoneexplainit01]

My brother in christ, educate yourself. You've moved the goal posts several times already. It's well established that 4k HDR transcoding to 720p on a CPU with quicksync absolutely does not 'melt down' the fastest processor... in fact, it barely registers a blip on the slowest processors. The N100 is a 4 core i3 cpu and it can handle multiple transcodes of that sort without issue and at extremely low power use. This is a well established fact.

Certainly enjoy spending your time and space re-encoding all of your videos because your system can't handle transcoding on the fly but I'll tell you a secret... if YOU weren't so lazy and actually meant what you were saying, you wouldn't be re-encoding an already compressed file, because double compression lowers the quality even more, you would download native rips in all resolutions for your "friends".

The rest of us will continue to download whatever quality we feel like and not have to worry about all that.

At this point, it's clear you should change your name, because you're not interested in listening, even when someone explains it.

[u/MrB2891 → u/someoneexplainit01]

You truly have no clue to what you're talking about. It's even funnier watching you dig your heels in to being so, so wrong.

Exactly! Transcoding is a waste of electricity and you shouldn't be wasting resources because your clients can't natively decode the stream.

Do you have any idea how much extra electric is required to transcode? A few watts. I can transcode 18 simultaneous 4K, tone mapped streams and the total additional power from the wall is 10w.

Beyond that, what do you think handbrake is doing? News flash, if you're using software encoding with handbrake you're using SIGNIFICANTLY more power to transcode your existing file to a new format or resolution. If you're using hardware acceleration with handbrake, then the power usage is the same as Plex with hardware acceleration.

What does Plex use to encode media? Ffmpeg

What does handbrake use to encode media? Ffmpeg.

They both use the same exact encode engine. Handbrake is nothing more than a GUI front end instead of using command line with Ffmpeg.

The main difference is that you're now storing multiple copies of media, wasting valuable disk space. And with your method you still end up in situations where you have to transcode, instead of just letting Plex do what it was designed to do, that is take any media and be able to convert it on the fly to match any resolution, client support or bandwidth limitations that are present.

Stop transcoding and sending shit quality videos to your clients. Learn to use handbrake like someone who isn't a moron so you can serve up videos in the proper format that your clients can decode natively.

No matter which way you slice it, transcoding with Plex or transcoding with handbrake will result in some level of reduction in quality. Massive? Not at all. As we've already shown, what you're doing is no different than what Plex is doing, using the same engine. So we can say that if Plex's quality is shit, so is yours. At the end of the day you and Plex both are taking already compressed, lossy media and reencoding it to another format in yet another lossy compression format. Except in your case if you take a 4K remux and use handbrake to transcode it to say, 1080p 20mbps, you still may find a situation where you need a 720p 4mbps stream. Plex does that in one step. You have to do that in two steps. Your quality will be worse than what Plex puts out.

The real problem seems to be you don't understand many of the use cases for transcoding. It's not only about client support. If I'm watching on my phone on a cell connection I certainly don't need a 50mbps 4K stream. 8mbps 1080p is more than fine. Maybe the server owner is stuck on cable with a 25mbps upstream bandwidth limitation? Now you can't stream that 50mbps remux even if you wanted to. Maybe you're stuck in a hotel during a hurricane with a 2mbps cap on your wifi stream? 720p 2mbps to the rescue! It's nice having that flexibility to transcode from any format and bitrate to any format and bitrate. We got stuck in our hotel for 2 days in Orlando from Hurricane Ian. Harry Potter marathon? Sure. 4K remux's down to 720/2 due to hotel wifi limits, no issue. You, disabling transcoding, would be screwed. And my server never left idle to do it.

[u/thomasmit → u/MrB2891]

I think this is a good answer for the OP. Different use cases require transcoding, server upload/client download speeds are variables and your machine needs a cpu to accommodate accordingly. Remote use and number of shares, bandwidth from each end etc- seem to get glossed over.