Why are people using their NAS as a transcoding server?

[ullbeking]

Hello,

I've been planning to build an HTPC, where all the multimedia data is stored on a NAS. I was assuming that the NAS is just a file server that specializes in redundancy, and serving up files for stream. It would simply store raw multimedia at high resolution. For video, a lossless rip from DVD (or, say, 4k). For audio, 16/44, 24/96, FLAC (or archive-quality lossy). You know what I mean.

Anyway, part of this assumption was that the data gets streamed over the network and then transcoded to the desired display for by the small, powerful-enough, but inaudible, HTPC machine that site on the bookcase. Then, output by HDMI or DP to the screen (projector, in our case).

My confusion comes from the amount of people who think the transcoding should be done by the NAS, getting obscenely powerful CPU's for the NAS, maxing them out, and then complaining that the NAS isn't powerful enough to transcode 4K video in "real time".

Pardon me, but isn't this missing the whole point of the NAS? It's a file server, not a media system. Isn't that what the HTPC is for? Personally, I would use a Pentium J5005 for the HTPC and put FFmpeg or VLC on it, as that seems natural to me and my research so far indicates it _should_ be powerful enough. No?

On the other hand, maybe people are putting the HTPC and NAS in the same box. This seems kinda wrong to me, because the operating systems should be tuned for specific purposes.

What do other people think?

Kind regards,

ubk

 

[garm]

I wouldn’t use a HTPC, it’s 2019 ;)
I stopped using cable more then 15 years ago and played around with HTPCs for a while, today it’s all Apple TV or Chromecast. Home movies and such gets streamed to TV by phone. I’m assuming that people putting powerful CPUs in their FreeNAS boxes do so for the abilit to stream to any device; smartphone, smartTV, chrome cast/AppleTV. Netflix for instance isn’t transcoding on the fly, but rather storing multiple quality versions of the same content. That is possible too with something like Plex, but I guess most people don’t want to “waste” their already expensive, redundant, diskspace. According to Plex, you need about 2000 passmark score to live transcode 1080p and 17000 passmark score to transcode 4K. That is why you see the beefy CPUs in their carts. Personally I don’t believe in 4K, especially if you then watch the content on a smartphone... but that’s another story

 

[ullbeking]

I'll think about your comment, and reply in detail later... but in the meantime, when you say you wouldn't use an HTPC, are you suggesting it's better just to dump everything in the same box? What configuration do you use, if you don't mind me asking? (Esp. CPU, memory, and disks. I assume FreeNAS is your NAS volume manager and file system.)

This might get interesting, as I've got a Xeon with 16C and HT, and considering getting another... I've been wondering about interesting uses for it and I already have a dual E5 mainboard...

But then, FreeNAS is a file server, essentially. Where do you put all the media streaming and transcoding application layers?

 

[garm]

Everything is of course a system design decision, but having a dedicated PC with an mouse/keyboard interface in a living room is not a good solution in my opinion. My Apple TV is managed by my phone or a very efficient remote. I also subscribe to the Scandinavian design school and having a actively cooled PC in the living room is completely out of the question. I also would get rid of bulky amplifiers, blue ray players and other head units like it. The TV is a design element in a room that need to be understated when not used. A fireplace, table or sitting group should be the main design elements.

 

[adrianwi]

Such wonderful high ceilings, ruined by lights low enough to bang your head on every time you stand up :D

 

[Scareh]

to chime in on this:

I'm using a raspberry for plex (running rasplex) which can be managed by a little remote. I've hidden my raspberry behind my tv, it gets powered by turning the tv on and gets it's content via wifi.
Other then that i've also got a chromecast, but i find the raspberry much user friendly (as in no cellphone needed).

I rarely watch stuff outside my house (weeh for high data prices in Belgium) so the need for transcoding is limited. Then again, if you're going with H265 codec files you'll need some transcoding.
IN short stick to the format you'll generally be using and for that rare use case where you need to transcode, just do it up front with plex.

 

[melloa]

Every case is a case and everyone's need is different.

Only now I got my first SmartTV, so up to two weeks ago I did have a HTPC in my leaving room.

Nowadays, with FireTV stick, Chromecast, SmartTVs, even Raspberry PIs, I don't see a reason for a real PC to play media, but if using a media server, i.e. Plex, wouldn't Plex be using CPU to transcode a movie to be played by them?

Let's not talk about decoration ... I do have a Marantz Receiver and an equalizer, to play my vinyls through my two 15" woofer speakers LOL.

 

[danb35]

It's probably safe to say that most people who are keeping significant amounts of media on their FreeNAS boxes are doing so using a media server (usually either Plex or Emby), not simply putting the media in file shares and exposing them to whatever clients are in use. In that case, the client is often an app on a very low-power device which would not be able to handle the stream natively. Transcoding then has to happen somewhere, and the client won't be able to handle it.

 

[Magius]

I used to be a huge HTPC person, back before that acronym was even created. Back in the days when an HTPC essentially meant running an S-video cable from your PC to your TV so you could watch a DVD from the PC's optical drive.
I've been through many iterations of technology and software on both the HTPC client and server side. My NAS was once a Windows box with HW RAID, then a Linux mdadm, and now FreeNAS. On the client side I've used Windows MCE, Subsonic, Plex, and others. We used to use layers of directshow filters and upscalers and all kinds of processing on the HTPC to try to get the best out of our systems.

I mention all of the above because I believe that in all but the most exotic circumstances, cases like "I have HDR media and a non-HDR TV and want to run MadVR to do real-time tone mapping", the days of HTPC are behind us. There's simply no need to have a PC in your living room anymore, and certainly not one powerful enough to be transcoding or upscaling media like we used to. Some people still want to do that and that's awesome, more power to them, we're all fellow nerds here. It's just that with so many other options, most of us have gone the route of a simpler client like a smart TV, streaming box, or even our cell phones with a Chromecast. As you point out that approach sometimes (not always!) means you need to "beef up" the processor in your NAS to perform transcoding, but even that is both more cost effective and energy efficient than running a second powerful PC in your living room. Not to mention centralizing the heat and noise to one place, preferably far from the living room :)

It's definitely one of those "to each their own" things, but times have changed. It used to be that a PC in the living room was the *only* way to do what we're all doing, and now there are so many other ways that few even consider that "legacy" option.

 

[Constantin]

the days of HTPC are behind us. There's simply no need to have a PC in your living room any more, and certainly not one powerful enough to be transcoding or upscaling media like we used to. Some people still want to do that and that's awesome, more power to them, we're all fellow nerds here. It's just that with so many other options, most of us have gone the route of a simpler client like a smart TV, streaming box, or even our cell phones with a Chromecast. ... It's definitely one of those "to each their own" things, but times have changed. It used to be that a PC in the living room was the *only* way to do what we're all doing, and now there are so many other ways that few even consider that "legacy" option.

Allow me to disagree a little bit. My Mac Mini is by no means a supercomputer, large, loud, etc. Yet it does a great job of presenting the TV with DVD, Blu-Ray, streaming, and Over-The-Air (OTA) content. I doubt I could teach the NAS how to record OTA the way the Mini does (thank you, Elgato), and the mini is easy enough for everyone to navigate. However, I also recognize that some people want the simplicity of only one device doing it all in the living room while the infrastructure whiles away its time in the basement.

Do consider ownership rights, however. When I buy a CD/DVD/blu-ray, I get to own the content for my personal use for life. I can lend it to a friend, I can re-sell it, etc. Streaming content is not the same (can you lend a movie stream to a friend?) and the cost for the physical media and the streaming media is often similar. What you're really paying for is the convenience of being able to watch the content you want to see right now.

Oh, and you also give the streaming service some really nice data to monetize, by indicating what content you like, how often you watch, and so on. That's not entirely bad (see the success that Netflix has had converting user data into incredible franchises) but it is something that we as consumers should consider.

Beyond the privacy issues, there have been instances at Amazon and elsewhere where streaming content was taken back by its owners without warning. Sure, Amazon has made some refunds when people noticed and called to complain, but that's the thing, you have to call to complain, and there is nothing that prevents the content owner from jacking up the price for the next release.

Given how successfully some content owners had been playing the artificial scarcity game with their content before the advent of eBay / Amazon used resale of DVDs and like long-lived media, I expect more such games in the future as streaming becomes the dominant means to receive content. I'd rather have control over my content, so I'll keep buying it used and enjoying it for life without any further content owner restrictions.

 

[Magius]

Constantin I believe we actually agree on far more than we would disagree. Your Mac Mini is somewhere on the spectrum between an Android streaming device and what I would consider a traditional "HTPC". A Mac Mini (at least the older ones I'm familiar with, I have a couple friends that use them) isn't capable of UHD transcoding, supersampling, MadVR processing, etc. etc. like what many people think of when they think HTPC. Technically any device in the living room could be called an "HTPC", even a smart TV could be considered a TV with a built-in HTPC, but if we stretch the analogy that far, it ceases to be useful. So my point is, your Mac Mini is really more of an example of the kind of great options that exist for people today that allow them *not* to use a powerful HTPC. Even with the OTA DVR capability, I used to do that using MythTV on my Linux NAS server, and I had a small Kodi box for playback. It should be easy to set up MythTV as a jail or VM under FreeNAS or just about any other NAS solution, so the options are definitely there to move capability out of the living room.

The rest of your post about streaming vs. physical media I couldn't agree with more. I think anyone on a FreeNAS forum is here because we have a ton of our own media we're storing on our own server, rather than buying digital streaming content that might be lower quality or might disappear in the future. My point in my original comment was that once you have your server full of media, there are dozens of ways to get access to that media in your living room or anywhere else in the world. An ugly and loud HTPC used to be the only way to get to the content, but now people have better options, including your Mac Mini. Something as simple as a Raspberry Pi could replace the HTPC nowadays, if you make the appropriate trade of horsepower on the server side. That's really what the OP was asking about, "why are people deciding to move the horsepower out of the living room and onto the server". To me it just makes sense, and I don't think you really disagree?

 

[danb35]

I think anyone on a FreeNAS forum is here because we have a ton of our own media we're storing on our own server,

Strongly doubt it. That's a large part of home use, yes (though it isn't what got me using FreeNAS--or any NAS--in the first place), but there are lots of other use cases for it.

 

[Magius]

Strongly doubt it. That's a large part of home use, yes (though it isn't what got me using FreeNAS--or any NAS--in the first place), but there are lots of other use cases for it.

Ha! I re read what I wrote and you're right I completely misrepresented what I meant to say. Typing quickly from work I guess. That quote was meant to be in the context of this thread, people using FreeNAS and htpcs at home. I was only providing a counterpoint that people like us tend to like owning media, or we wouldn't be on this forum running FreeNAS and htpcs :)
Obviously this is not the core use of FreeNAS as a product or the forum as a whole. Good catch. I have no problem being called out when I say something dumb, intentional or otherwise :)

 

[Revan]

here's simply no need to have a PC in your living room any more, and certainly not one powerful enough to be transcoding or upscaling media like we used to. Some people still want to do that and that's awesome, more power to them, we're all fellow nerds here. It's just that with so many other options, most of us have gone the route of a simpler client like a smart TV, streaming box, or even our cell phones with a Chromecast. As you point out that approach sometimes (not always!) means you need to "beef up" the processor in your NAS to perform transcoding, but even that is both more cost effective and energy efficient than running a second powerful PC in your living room.

There is still one reason to have a powerful PC in the living room and another reason to have a PC or something similar.

The one reason for a powerful PC are playing games on the big TV. No Raspberry Pi, no console or Smartphone can compete with a PC in that category.

The other reason to have a PC or something similar are security issues.
Today you can buy a smartphone, smart-TV or tablet and be happy for some months but then, you have to go and buy again, because software support ends faster then you like it.
With a PC you can theoretically have a secure and up to date system for many years, and that's at least what we assumed before we heard about Meltdown and Spectre.
A system with no software updates doesn't last long.
I would not connect a smart TV to my local network, instead i would use a PC and connect it to the TV. Because the PC can be updated with security fixes.

EDIT:
Btw, my gaming PC with air fans is quieter than the air fans of my Pansonic Plasma TV.
The loudness of a PC isn't really an issue anymore, if you take care which cpu coolers and fans you're using.
You even do not need water cooling today to have a powerful and quiet system.
Only the power consumption is a little higher.

 

[danb35]

Because the PC can be updated with security fixes.

As can the smart TV/Roku/AppleTV/Chromecase/Fire stick/etc.

Today you can buy a smartphone, smart-TV or tablet and be happy for some months but then, you have to go and buy again, because software support ends faster then you like it.

People complain about Apple's supposed "planned obsolescence", but 4-5-year-old devices are still getting security updates--that's a pretty good service life. You'll usually want something newer, before support expires.

 

[Revan]

As can the smart TV/Roku/AppleTV/Chromecase/Fire stick/etc.

There are no more updates for my Plasma TV.
Support for my tablet ended a couple of years ago.
Support for my smartphone will end in Dec 2019.

But i can still install an up to date version of let's say Debian stable on my 25 year old Pentium.
I am also confident enough, that i will still be able to install an up to date version of FreeNAS on my Core i3 in let's say 15 years.
But i am not so sure about that with my friend's Synology and QNAP NAS. And it gets worse if we're talking about NAS systems from other vendors.

People complain about Apple's supposed "planned obsolescence", but 4-5-year-old devices are still getting security updates--that's a pretty good service life. You'll usually want something newer, before support expires.

I usually tend to use my PC for about 7 years.
For peripheral devices like monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer etc. this gets even longer.
My cherry PS/2 keyboard for example is about 20 years old and still in use at my main PC.

 

[HolyK]

HTPC in 2019? ...

RPi or even better OSMC Vero 4k+ hidden behind/under the TV + (Free)NAS "chillin" somewhere in corner is all you need to be happy. (Considering the fact that you have HDMI-CEC capable TV and suitable A/V receiver)

 

[ullbeking]

That's really what the OP was asking about, "why are people deciding to move the horsepower out of the living room and onto the server". To me it just makes sense, and I don't think you really disagree?

Indeed. This is really the heart of the question. In practical terms it makes sense, especially if the whole server is to be considered a media server. And even better, if it can be stashed away in a basement where noise isn't an issue.

But to me, it is architecturally wrong. The purpose of a general NAS is to serve files and that's it. Not to transcode them.

On the other hand, if I had the following:

• a NAS for files in general; AND
• a file server that I use as the media server, that can encode, decode, transcode files; and provide other interesting server-side multimedia operations; and them serve the decoded signal;
  • directly to the display (projector); or
  • to a very lightweight mini-ITX machine such as a Pentium J5005 which will be the actual HTPC;

then this would make sense. It feels like a cleaner design. Lord knows how I'll get it quiet though.

Right now I am building an 8-bay U-NAS 800 for general purpose data with a Supermicro A1SRi-2758F. The media server can be a different machine, also a NAS, but with a 16-core CPU that I want to use to do CPU-bound experiments with on Xiph.org codecs, archiving, playback, transcoding, etc.

We are not data hoarders. We still buy DVD's. I'm looking to use the media server to archive multimedia we want to keep; store video that is suitable for our daughter; store my music collection; etc.

Important things go the the backup NAS (TBD). Similarly, important things from the 8-bay U-NAS 800 get backed up to the backup NAS.

And then, in turn, that NAS gets periodically archived off-site (TBD).

We live in a small flat in central London. Therefore we don't have a lot of space to store loud servers. These machines must be designed with low noise in mind.

 

[danb35]

The purpose of a general NAS is to serve files and that's it.

In principle, I tend to agree. And way back in the early days of FreeNAS (certainly in the 0.7 days, maybe as late as 8.0), that's all FreeNAS did. But then jails and plugins came along, and we see what happened then. All the consumer NAS systems (QNAP, Synology, etc.) had something similar available, and FreeNAS calls for a bit of power in any event, so it's natural to want to put that power to use.

 

[Revan]

It feels like a cleaner design. Lord knows how I'll get it quiet though.

That's very easy, but it won't work with a mini-ITX case.

You will need a midi tower PC case or similar with a case width of around 210 mm or more.
It should also provide placeholders for big 120 mm or 140 mm fans at front and rear. 80 mm fans or smaller will get always noisy so it's better to don't use them.
And you will need a very big CPU cooler like the Thermalright "HR-02 Macho Rev.A" (EAN: 814256000659)
If you have that you will also need to replace the standard 120 mm or 140 mm fans shipped with the PC case against quiet ones
running at around 900-1000 rpm like the ones from Noctua or Noisblocker.
The power supply should also have a big fan > 120 mm or better running at low rpms.
It's also a very good idea do only use SSDs and no hard drives, but not necessary with <= 5400 rpm drives.


With that setup, your HTPC will be quieter than the fans of a plasma TV.
A hard drive running at 7200 rpm will be very likely the loudest part of such a HTPC, thus it's a good thing to only use SSDs.
And if you have a NAS in your basement you definitely won't need the hard drive in the HTPC.

To make a PC case quiet, rule number one is to use a big CPU cooler and big fans for the case and power supply running at very low rpm numbers.
The low rpm numbers will make sure, that the HTPC is quiet and the large diameter of the fans will make sure, that the PC will get still enough cooling.