Synology NAS - no hardware transcoder?

Channels DVR Server Troubleshooting
#1

My Channels DVR server is only showing the software transcoder, despite having a decent NAS, with plenty of memory. Actually, I'm testing Plex and ChannelsDVR at the same time and not having H/W issues with Plex.

I've seen other threads where lower end Synology NAS devices support hardware transcoding.

How do I enable the hardware transcoder if the 'Settings' show only software?

49

01

OS
- Synology DS1618+
- Linux 
  - (kernel: 4.4.59+)
CPU
- 4 cores / Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU C3538 @ 2.10GHz
- load averages:  0.86  0.25  0.10
RAM
- 31.32 GB
  - 96.0% free
#2

Intel Atom CPU's, like the one in your NAS, do not support QuickSync hardware encoding.

It's not an issue of having a NAS that's fast enough or that has enough memory. QuickSync hardware encoding requires a specific co-processor to be present in the CPU, and Intel Atom CPU's do not have that co-processor.

Your Atom CPU is relatively fast compared to most other Atom CPU's though. Having 4 cores definitely helps. I wouldn't be surprised if it could handle at least one 720p software transcoding stream (maybe even a 720p transcode and a 480p transcode simultaneously).

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#3

And regarding Plex:

Actually, I'm testing Plex and ChannelsDVR at the same time and not having H/W issues with Plex.

I'm not sure what's going on with that, but Plex's own NAS compatibility table states that your DS1618 does not support hardware transcoding. But according to Plex, your NAS is able to transcode up to 1080p in software as long as the bitrate isn't too high. I suspect that you'll need to stick to 720p for Channels though, due to the high frame rate of TV feeds.

#4

Curious why you are transcoding at all. What client are you using? I use both PLEX and Channels (even remote) but never use transcoding on either because either my client (Apple TV) or the content is supported on all of my devices without transcoding.

#5

Transcoding is basically a must-have for remote DVR access, unless you have a lot of upload bandwidth or all of your channels are delivered in MPEG-4.

#6

Understand. I have FiOS 200/200 so I guess spoiled.

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#7

Hi all -

Thanks for the responses. I did indeed have an "off-by-one" error when looking up the transcoding support for my DS1618+. I also have a DS1019+, which definitely supports transcoding, that I was using for another purpose.

I'm going to do some data migrations and a physical move and put my ChannelsDVR and Plex servers to the 1019+.

Thanks for the advice!

Bales

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