Cheapest add-on GPU for hardware transcoding?

Playground Hardware
#1

Are there any recommendations for the lowest cost add-on GPU that will do hardware transcoding?

For example would this fanless nVidia 1030 (GT1030-2G-CSM) be good?

Is that too underpowered or alternatively is there something even cheaper like a GT 730 or AMD cards whatever that would work just as good?

Also, would there be any DVR transcoding benefits to going with a 1050 or 1060 over the 1030?

#2

I’m not familiar with PC GPUs, but the DVR supports both AMD and NVidia hardware transcoding on Windows. I believe all modern gpus offer these features and there shouldn’t be much difference in transcoding functionality on the higher end models.

Please do let us know what you find during your research.

#3

Any updates on if adding video card helps transcoding?

#4

I thought Channels DVR used Intel Quick Sync built into the CPU for hardware transcoding, so it shouldn’t matter what GPU you have. It would be great if it used NVENC if you have an Nvidia GPU but I don’t think it does. @tmm1 is this correct?

Keep in mind that hardware transcoding is generally lower quality. If you have enough CPU power, I’d recommend sticking with software transcoding.

#5

Both AMD and NVENC are supported on Windows.

1 Like
#6

Ah good to know. And if I had read more carefully, I would have noticed that you had already said that in an earlier post. :slight_smile:

#7

I am having issues with transcoding on my new geforce 1050 gpu. Any thoughts on why @tmm1?

#8

What kind of issues?

#9

freezing up alot. Not reaching 1x at all

#10

Not sure, are your drivers up to date? Does it show h264_nvenc in localhost:8089/system

#11

They appeared to be up to date

{“cpu”:[{“cpu”:0,“vendorId”:“GenuineIntel”,“family”:“198”,“model”:"",“stepping”:0,“physicalId”:“BFEBFBFF000306C3”,“coreId”:"",“cores”:8,“modelName”:“Intel® Core™ i7-4790 CPU @ 3.60GHz”,“mhz”:3601,“cacheSize”:0,“flags”:[],“microcode”:""}],“disk”:[{“device”:“C:”,“mountpoint”:“C:”,“fstype”:“NTFS”,“opts”:“rw.compress”},{“device”:“D:”,“mountpoint”:“D:”,“fstype”:“NTFS”,“opts”:“rw.compress”},{“device”:“G:”,“mountpoint”:“G:”,“fstype”:“NTFS”,“opts”:“rw.compress”},{“device”:“T:”,“mountpoint”:“T:”,“fstype”:“NTFS”,“opts”:“rw.compress”}],“home”:“C:\Users\Bret”,“host”:{“hostname”:“PLEX-DVR”,“uptime”:67554,“bootTime”:1538807359,“procs”:170,“os”:“windows”,“platform”:“Microsoft Windows 10 Pro”,“platformFamily”:“Standalone Workstation”,“platformVersion”:“10.0.17134 Build 17134”,“kernelVersion”:"",“virtualizationSystem”:"",“virtualizationRole”:"",“hostid”:“d246a014-4893-42ef-a7de-02acdf0f0fa8”},“hwdeint”:false,“load”:{“load1”:0,“load5”:0,“load15”:0},“memory”:{“total”:17127309312,“available”:12949991424,“used”:4177317888,“usedPercent”:24,“free”:0,“active”:0,“inactive”:0,“wired”:0,“buffers”:0,“cached”:0,“writeback”:0,“dirty”:0,“writebacktmp”:0,“shared”:0,“slab”:0,“pagetables”:0,“swapcached”:0},“model”:"",“network”:[{“mtu”:1500,“name”:“Ethernet”,“hardwareaddr”:“d0:50:99:84:58:ae”,“flags”:[“up”,“broadcast”,“multicast”],“addrs”:[{“addr”:“fd0d:5b26:83ee:1:b949:7c94:ac84:2e45/64”},{“addr”:“fd0d:5b26:83ee:1:5d76:b3c9:7a12:9213/128”},{“addr”:“fe80::b949:7c94:ac84:2e45/64”},{“addr”:“10.0.1.4/24”}]},{“mtu”:-1,“name”:“Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1”,“hardwareaddr”:"",“flags”:[“up”,“loopback”,“multicast”],“addrs”:[{“addr”:"::1/128"},{“addr”:“127.0.0.1/8”}]}],“pwd”:“C:\ProgramData\ChannelsDVR\data”,“root”:"",“timezone”:“CDT”,“transcoder”:“h264_nvenc”,“vendor”:""}

#12

Any thoughts?

#13

Don’t know sorry. Our nvenc was recently updated and works fine on other GPUs so it has to be a driver problem.

Maybe you can see if Plex works?

#14

Long time plex user and new to channels, but I wanted to point you to some info that might be helpful.

Nvida Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix

A lot of consumer GPUs only support 2 simultaneous streams max.

I settled on the Nvidia Quadro P2000 as the best bang for your buck for unrestricted (Nvidia) hardware encoding. I will report back how it handles the job with ChannelsDVR, but the initial tests look very promising.

2 Likes
How many remote streams possible?
#15

What video card do you have running on your Plex server?

#16

Nvidia Quadro P2000. Works great. Though I would not consider it cheap.

1 Like
#17

I just ordered one for my plex server. Going to move my ti 1060 to my channels dvr server.

#18

P2000 works great in plex & ti 1060 works great on channels dvr

#19

Now the ffmpeg is maxing gpu out at 10% which is keeping the transcoding from working like is was when I first installed the card. Any thoughts @tmm1?

#20

@tmm1?