Why are people using their NAS as a transcoding server?

Revan

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Strange--I had a plasma TV for many years and never heard any fans.
Well it depends on your age and your hearing capabilities.
My Plasma TV is very quiet, but i can still hear the fans when i want to.
 

Revan

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Also depends on whether the TV actually has fans--mine didn't.
Most none Plamsa-TVs today don't have fans. The Plasma TV i mentioned is only an example for comparrison to express how quiet my PC is.
 

silverback

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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.

View attachment 27667
Way off topic. Where are your speakers?
 

Yorick

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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.

Form (architecture) follows function. I see no architectural issue with moving the media serving capabilities, and the home cloud capabilities, etc., into the NAS unit, as hardware becomes more powerful. In fact I think it’s elegant.

It’s the home equivalent of HCI designs.
With HCI, now I have all this orchestration going on, core to edge to cloud, deploying and moving containers based on what the app needs, and not really worrying about the underlying hardware nuts and bolts any more. Is that architecturally wrong? No, it’s an evolution of design, which actually makes it easier to care for apps and business outcomes first.

For a consumer use case, I might want to store backups, stream digital copies of my own media, and have shared file storage. Maybe have my own cloud service. What you are seeing is outside-in design: Care about the app and the user first, then back into a technology from there. Makes perfect sense to me.

As for playing games: I found that the SteamLink works great for 1080p content. Some TVs have that available onbox for 4K HDR; NVidia Shield can do 4k HDR, and I can see a way to build a 4K HDR steam streamer with that Pi competitor.

I just don’t have a PC with a 4K HDR monitor, so for the time being 1080p is good enough.
My point is there’s no need for a separate gaming PC in the living room. Some Ethernet cable and a streaming unit (in the TV or outside) does the trick.
 

Revan

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As for playing games: I found that the SteamLink works great for 1080p content. Some TVs have that available onbox for 4K HDR; NVidia Shield can do 4k HDR, and I can see a way to build a 4K HDR steam streamer with that Pi competitor.
I tested NVidia's Gamestream with moonlight on a raspberry pi 3. As a gamer i can say, it worked, but was awful and had to much lag for Ego-Shooters. And in the other room where the Gaming PC was running, everything was displayed on the computer monitor with direct access to the machine. If you don't want have other family members to interfere while your are playing via Gamestream in the living room, such solutions are not an option.
https://moonlight-stream.org/

In my opinion a 15 m DisplayPort cable from one room to the TV in the living room + some USB relays or wireless input devices are the much better option if you really don't want have a gaming PC in the living room.
 

Yorick

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Interesting. Maybe the Pi doesn't have enough horsepower? I'm assuming this was wired, with an XBox controller. Looking around the Googles a little, it seems people had good success with the NVidia Shield itself, with XBox controller and a wired setup. That's been my experience with the SteamLink as well, though I didn't try shooters. Did try a fighter, no lag I could detect.

You're right that if your family won't leave your PC be, anything remote isn't a good option.

Whether Displayport cable is better depends on use case. I don't have any issues with lag, my house is already cabled for Ethernet, and I really don't feel like paying someone to run an active Displayport cable through the walls, from one end upstairs to the other end downstairs.

It's good to have choices. PC in the living room for some; Displayport for others; streaming via wired connection for yet others.
 

Evertb1

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Everything is of course a system design decision, but having a dedicated PC with an mouse/keyboard interface in
That's a very old fashioned opinion of how a dedicated PC can be controlled. I control my HTPC with a app on my phone or with my universal remote control from Logitech (also used for the TV and mediabox). No mouse no keyboard. The HTPC blends in with all my other media hardware. And yes the HTPC gets the content from my NAS (mostly FLAC audio files).
 

Revan

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A mouse and keyboard are the best solution if you want to use the Internet on your HTPC efficiently.
Writing on the Internet without a keyboard is no fun.

I have a wireless mouse and keyboard for that and it's great.
 

Evertb1

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I don't consider browsing the Internet as a typically HTPC function. But sure, if you want to do that you can. I have a wireless keyboard (with mousepad) as well but it comes rarely out of its drawer.
 

HoneyBadger

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I kind of understand the people that don't want to have multiple physical machines running for power/space/noise/etc reasons, but I also don't get the arguments about "shifting the transcode to the server" or whatever. Just get some clients that decode HEVC in hardware, rip everything in that format, and enjoy.

I'm a firm believer in letting a NAS be a NAS.
 

Evertb1

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I'm a firm believer in letting a NAS be a NAS.
In principle I am with you on that account. But I can imagine that people are in need for a function that is best executed on a server that is already on 24/7. If you have the need for transcoding for what ever reason, old fashioned or not, then why not? It's all about needs and wants. Personally I have gone the ESXi way and use a VM with suitable software to transcode etc. While my way is not the only way it serves my needs. And let's be honest about one thing: A NAS appliance these days is not so much purely a NAS anymore. Especially in the home environment. And the same goes for FreeNAS. Just look around on the forum how much there is to do about plugins, docker, VM's etc. That speaks for itself.
 
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Angrybeaver

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I think the use cases for a HTPC are few and far between now. With more and more people cutting the cord and using streaming and other means to grow a digital library it just isn't effective.

I say this because for example in my home we have 5 TVs consuming content from the above methods. They can be pi's, amazon devices, Google devices, smart TVs, or roku. These are low powered items that don't really take up any space. So using multiple htpcs for this would be costly and take up premium space in my home.

The solution is to have a single powerful delivery system to serve content to those devices. Now my setup is much more extensive than most, but in general you need a machine capable or doing real time transcoding at the resolution you need or you can just make sure to use a format supported on all your devices. I tend to stream remotely and share with others so I went with a setup that can do real time 4k. I personally have a half rack of servers in the basement and I just repurposed one for a plex server.

Now assuming you are doing 2 or 3 htpcs that is 300-600 per machine. You can easily make a plex machine that can do real time 4k for 800 or so. That is assuming you go the software transcode route..

Now it you just want transcode 4k stuff to 1080p on devices that cannot support it then you can be up an running for less than 200. I know people who pick up a retired enterprise dell sff machine for around 150. It normally comes with a i5 or i7 and 4-8 GB of ram with a basic 500gb HD. From there you can toss in another 3 or 4 tb HD and be set (for most people)

Now there is the hidden cost for each tv device which. Can range from 20 to 50 bucks depending on what you choose. Either way it is still a much nicer solution when compared to an htpc.
 

Constantin

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One benefit of a HTPC is that it only uses power when you need to use it. It can be off at other times. A server powerful enough to handle multiple high-quality transcodes of 4K content requires a lot of power, even at idle. I prefer optimizing my storage for storage purposes, that includes trying to lower its power budget as much as possible (power in my neck of the woods exceeds $0.25/kWh).
 

Angrybeaver

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One benefit of a HTPC is that it only uses power when you need to use it. It can be off at other times. A server powerful enough to handle multiple high-quality transcodes of 4K content requires a lot of power, even at idle. I prefer optimizing my storage for storage purposes, that includes trying to lower its power budget as much as possible (power in my neck of the woods exceeds $0.25/kWh).
A few htpc on every few hours would still likely consume more. I mean if you go with a NAS with transcoding ability they are very energy efficient. If you take advantage of pre-transcoding (optimizing) then you could grab a raspberry pi 4 and use a nice external storage solution or a dedicated NAS to feed it. The pi would use less power than pretty much any other option.

I mean let's assume you go with something that only does software encoding. You grab a 12 core ryzen for 500 (450 at microcenter) a cheap board with plenty of data connections (60-80) 8gb of ram (30-40) a decent psu (45) case (up to you here) then storage (also up to you)

Depending on the amount of storage that will come in under 1000 or even 800. That ryzen cpu can handle a lot and you could probably cust 200 bucks and go with an 8 core. Thag being said if it transcoding it will be pulling probably 150-200 watts if maxed out. When it is idle though it will sip around 30-40 watts.

So even if we assume the server did use more power we are talking a few extra bucks a YEAR. If we look at just the server and average out high and low usage for say 100w average.. that is about 220/yr in electricity at $.25 kwh.

Now if I look at 2 HTPC's running for about 3hrs each per day for a total of 6 hrs at the same energy rate... I am coming up with about $125.

So it is about 100 less a year. In that scenario, but I would also say there are better setups if you only are using 2 devices to consume entertainment. The second solution doesn't scale where the top one does and in a home like mine where you can have 5 or even 15 people consuming at once works out much nicer. Then again I have a smart home with a 5 people in it and also share with my family and friends.

If energy cost for you is limiting then you very well might have an edge case where an HTPC makes more sense
 

Constantin

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The last time I looked into this (transcoding high quality 4K content) even the most powerful Intel CPUs would have difficulty dealing with more than 2 high-quality streams at once. That may have changed since.

Have you actually measured the power of the Ryzen board? The ExtremeTech article for the 12-core 3900x this summer clocked the power needs between 240W at peak load and 70W at idle. Never mind the hard drives and so on. That server will likely consume about 80W at the wall plug, before hard drives. Even a small collection of drives will set you back another 50W at the wall. That's 130W idle up to 290W at full load.

As a point of comparison, my 8-disk array pulls about 90W most of the time. The hard drive array - pulls about 40W (about 5W at idle each) at the power supply and the rest is the server. Short of actually spinning the disks down (which FreeNAS allegedly is not a fan of), I doubt I can do much better unless I switch motherboards.

Over at Plex, here are some transcoding guidelines:
  • 4K HDR(50Mbps, 10-bit HEVC) file: 17000 PassMarkscore (being transcoded to10Mbps 1080p)
  • 4K SDR(40Mbps, 8-bit HEVC) file: 12000 PassMarkscore (being transcoded to10Mbps 1080p)
  • 1080p(10Mbps, H.264) file: 2000 PassMarkscore
  • 720p(4Mbps, H.264) file: 1500 PassMarkscore
The Ryzen 9 3900x you seem to mention being available for $499 clocks in with a passmark at 31,905, which Plex argues is good for maybe 1-2 high quality 4K transcoding streams. With these Plex guidelines, I don't see how you can have 15 simultaneous users unless they're all consuming 1080P or lower-res content. Or am I missing something?

Don't get me wrong, the Ryzen series is simply amazing re: price vs. performance. But I don't see the transcoding server vs. storage server + HTPC discussion as being entirely settled. Much of it seems to depend on end-use and preferences.

My Mac mini (mid 2011 i7) is so ancient it can only run OSX High Sierra yet it is fully functional as a DVR, Netflix streaming device, or DVD / BluRay player. Yes, it only has to deal with 1080P content. :)

I can see how being able to transcode to a large number of devices could be useful but in my household we only have one TV... and it doesn't know how to stream. I'll keep that way too, even if we upgrade to a more recent model. I'd rather treat the TV like a output-only device than to have my viewing habits and other data broadcast to the world.
 
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Angrybeaver

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The last time I looked into this (transcoding high quality 4K content) even the most powerful Intel CPUs would have difficulty dealing with more than 2 high-quality streams at once. That may have changed since.

Have you actually measured the power of the Ryzen board? The ExtremeTech article for the 12-core 3900 this summer clocked the power needs between 240W at peak load and 70W at idle. Never mind the hard drives and so on.

As a point of comparison, my 8-disk array pulls about 90W most of the time. The hard drive array - pulls about 40W (about 5W at idle each) and the rest is server, SLOG, and L2ARC. Short of actually spinning the disks down (which FreeNAS allegedly is not a fan of), I doubt I can do much better unless I switch motherboards.

Over at Plex, here are some transcoding guidelines:
  • 4K HDR(50Mbps, 10-bit HEVC) file: 17000 PassMarkscore (being transcoded to10Mbps 1080p)
  • 4K SDR(40Mbps, 8-bit HEVC) file: 12000 PassMarkscore (being transcoded to10Mbps 1080p)
  • 1080p(10Mbps, H.264) file: 2000 PassMarkscore
  • 720p(4Mbps, H.264) file: 1500 PassMarkscore
The Ryzen 9 3900x you seem to mention being available for $499 clocks in with a passmark at 31,905, which Plex argues is good for maybe 1-2 high quality 4K transcoding streams. With these Plex guidelines, I don't see how you can have 15 simultaneous users unless they're all consuming 1080P or lower-res content. Or am I missing something?

Don't get me wrong, the Ryzen series is simply amazing re: price vs. performance. But I don't see the transcoding server vs. storage server + HTPC discussion as being entirely settled. Much of it seems to depend on end-use and preferences.

Those cpu requirements are only for when transcoding is happening and 4k to 4k is the real killer. Most transcode that happen are converting down a 4k title to 1080p. Now if transcoding did become an issue would just "optimize" the 4k titles to a 1080p version.

As to the NAS question. The major brands like Qnap have NAS solutions with hardware capable of transcoding. I mean if they use something like a p2000 or p2200 and even a lower power cpu then you could probably transcode 20 or more titles without issue even at 4k. The gpu will see you back about 350 new or maybe 200 used.

I mean software encoding is more full proof, but much slower and resource intensive for the cpu. Hardware encoding on the other hand is much faster.

I mean intel quick sync helps a ton if you use it. Just the quality can take a hit, but most people won't really be able to nice vs software anyways.
 

joeschmuck

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While my FreeNAS system can transcode very well, I choose to let the playing device (Roku, SmartTV) perform the transcoding. While I have not used video on my smartphone, if I were to then I'd convert the video to an appropriate format. I myself also use my FreeNAS mainly for data backups, not for a video storage. The cost of spinning rust drives is just too much over a few decades to be worth it to me. I think I have about 300GB of videos. I watch more cable TV than anything else or streaming service, when I'm not working for a living. Retirement would be so welcomed but I have a few years to go before that happens.
 
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