How many simultaneous transcodes can these handle? Going by plex recommendations and the passmark score it seems to indicate only a single 1080p stream, but that may be old info that does account for hw acceleration. If anyone has real world results please share.
I got tired of my DS918+ only being able to do one stream at 1.5x and recently moved my DVR to my NUC. If you want to do any serious transcoding I would suggest you not go with a Synology.
I ended up going with an Nvidia p2000 to hardware transcode on a W10 PC. Expensive, but you are able to do 3 or 4 at one time if needed very easily. It works great for hardware transcoding.
Thanks, my server handles everything fine, but I had a friend asking for hardware advice and the 718+ is on sale. Good to know its limitations.
What are you guys transcoding ? I can easily do 1080I 2 Streams away from home with with less than 30% CPU using my NAS that I believe that NAS has the same CPU. Maybe upgrade the RAM. I am also running a Windows 10 VM with SageTV on it .. and HDHomeRun DVR.
OS
Synology DS1019+
Linux
(kernel: 4.4.59+)
CPU
4 cores / Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU J3455 @ 1.50GHz
load averages: 1.28 0.92 0.71
RAM
15.48 GB
94.2% free
Disk
41.1% used
8423.60 GB available
Activity
Watching ch723 FS1HD from 192.168.1.218.
Watching ch6.1 from 174.224.24.168 (Running: 7m26s @ 1x (29.96fps)).
Watching ch8.1 from 174.224.10.93 (Running: 8m55s @ 1x (29.97fps)).
Same here.
Watching two mpeg2 recordings in two browser windows.
CPU usage is less than 30%.
OS
Synology DS1019+
linux (kernel: 4.4.59+)
CPU
4 cores / Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU J3455 @ 1.50GHz
load averages: 1.46 1.13 0.57
RAM
7.62 GB 95.0% free
Disk
33.8% used 24562.87 GB available
Activity
Watching recording Frontline S38E07 For Sama 2019-11-19-2200.mpg from 192.168.1.2 (Transcoder Running at 4mbps: 5m30s @ 1.16x (69.43fps)).
Watching recording NOVA S46E22 The Violence Paradox 2019-11-20-2100.mpg from 192.168.1.2 (Transcoder Running at 4mbps: 6m55s @ 1.21x (72.06fps)).
That's all really great to hear. I mistakenly assumed that the single encode speed would be representative of the total throughput of the system. That sounds promising to be able to handle that for two streams.
My example was using hardware transcoding for both transcodes as evidenced by the log entries (encoder=h264_vaapi, resolution=720, deinterlacer=hardware, bitrate=3917 segment_size=1).
These are cable PBS mpeg2 recordings, I will try later with OTA recordings from the same PBS station (which are higher bitrate) after bringing them into Channels DVR from my TiVo Roamio using the new pre-alpha Import Movies capability.
I don't know if the Synology could do more than two at a time.
If I needed more than two I would probably opt for an Nvidia P2000 running on something.
If you get a chance to try 3 at one time I would be interested to know the results. Is there anyway to see the onboard gpu workload while running these with quicksync?
If you're replying to my upcoming experiment on my Synology 1019+, not that I know of.
Its Resource Monitor doesn't expose gpu. Perhaps there's a linux command that does, but not that I know of. I didn't purchase this NAS for Plex or Channels transcoding purposes, but it works fine for me.
Guess it comes down to your personal needs, who views that needs transcoding and how heavy is that transcoding.
One person.
Two people.
Family of five.
Family, relatives and friends, etc.
I'm quite happy with two hardware transcoded streams, but can experiment with more and think I'll run into other issues while testing it.
Yeah, I'm guessing the cpu load isn't giving any indication of the onboard gpu load, and once the gpu hits its limit with hw transcoding it won't matter that the cpu still has overhead. I don't have any experience with hw transcoding since my personal server is overkill and does only sw.
With hw enabled, I assume it tries to use hw no matter what, and can't do 2 hw and 1 sw transcode (assuming the gpu is maxed out and there are sufficient cpu resources available). Even if it can do a hybrid of the two, there may not be enough cpu left to perform a single transcode in sw.
I can try 3 at a time. My guess is two hardware and the third will use CPU, will see.
It's a NAS and I don't try to pretend it's a Ferrari of PC's, just using it as a NAS.
I would never use or encounter that but will test and see what happens.
I recorded 3 OTA shows from CBS, NBC and MyTV on my TiVo, downloaded, decrypted, renamed and imported as Movies.
They were all 1080i mpeg2 transport streams with bitrates from 11-15 Mbps.
At the same time I played each one on a different client, PC using Firefox browser, laptop using Firefox browser and iPad Pro using Channels for iOS set to 1080/8Mbps streaming.
I was surprised to see the Synology DS1019+ could do 3 simultaneous hardware transcodes.
CPU usage stayed under 30% during that time, but it couldn't keep up as the transcode speed dropped below 1X.
If I paused the individual clients to allow it to catch up there was no issue, otherwise the clients kept pausing to allow the stream to catch up.
2019/11/28 10:58:02 [ENC] Starting encoder for Ice Age Collision Course (2016) -NBC_1080i_15490647.ts in /volume1/arkives/ChannelsDVR/Streaming/file1894-ip192.168.1.2/encoder-0-220306774 at 0 (0.000000) (encoder=h264_vaapi, resolution=1080, deinterlacer=hardware, bitrate=9744 segment_size=1)
2019/11/28 10:58:08 [ENC] Starting encoder for Ice Age Continental Drift (2012) -CBS_1080i_14635715.ts in /volume1/arkives/ChannelsDVR/Streaming/file1895-ip192.168.1.108/encoder-0-378697405 at 0 (0.000000) (encoder=h264_vaapi, resolution=1080, deinterlacer=hardware, bitrate=9744 segment_size=1)
2019/11/28 10:58:34 [ENC] Starting encoder for Ice Age The Meltdown (2006) -MyN_1080i_11559688.ts in /volume1/arkives/ChannelsDVR/Streaming/file1896-ip192.168.1.92/encoder-74-630969891 at 74 (116.543893) (encoder=h264_vaapi, resolution=1080, deinterlacer=hardware, bitrate=7744 segment_size=1)
Activity
Watching recording Ice Age Collision Course (2016) -NBC_1080i_15490647.ts from 192.168.1.2 (Transcoder Running at 10mbps: 3m24s @ 0.90x (27.04fps)).
Watching recording Ice Age Continental Drift (2012) -CBS_1080i_14635715.ts from 192.168.1.108 (Transcoder Running at 10mbps: 3m14s @ 0.87x (26.38fps)).
Watching recording Ice Age The Meltdown (2006) -MyN_1080i_11559688.ts from 192.168.1.92 (Transcoder Running at 8mbps: 4m42s @ 0.83x (25.50fps)).
Figure this NAS is good for two high bitrate hardware transcodes, probably more if limited bitrate for remote streaming. Haven't tried or used remote streaming. Also decided to use hardware transcode/deinterlace instead of software to keep the NAS CPU free for other tasks, including Channels EPG updates. two threaded comskip, etc that cannot be hardware assisted yet.
Forgot to add
the number after 1080i in the filename is the bitrate shown in Channels DVR View Details for the recording, Of course these really aren't what I recorded on my OTA TiVo (don't have an OTA HDHomeRun), just renamed the shows to movie names to import into Channels.
example;
Ice Age Continental Drift (2012)/Ice Age Continental Drift (2012) -CBS_1080i_14635715.ts
Duration 60 min
Bit Rate 14,635,715 bits/sec
File Size 6,481,193,404 bytes
File ID 1899
Streaming Index Up-to-date No
Track #0: MPEG-2 video 1920x1080 16:9 yuv420p interlaced 29.97fps
Track #1: ATSC A/52A (AC-3) 5.1(side) eng 384kbps
Thanks for the help... given this information the 218+ may be a great budget solution since it appears the gpu is the bottleneck for additional streams (and it uses the same gpu as the 718+) the 218+ cpu may take longer with the other tasks but as far as transcoding goes they should be pretty even.
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