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+--- Thread: Newbie Transcoding Questions (/t-newbie-transcoding-questions)
Newbie Transcoding Questions - Zanzi Bizzle - 2025-02-21
Hello. I'm pretty new to the world of Jellyfin. I was hoping to set up a media server running off an i5-12600k filled with 4k movies that I could stream to various devices, assuming that it would be able to handle transcoding multiple (6+) streams simultaneously as long as I avoided trying to play HDR on SDR screens.
After selecting QSV in the hardware acceleration field and enabling hardware decoding/encoding I'm finding that most HEVC media streamed to my phone (Motorola G Power 2022 which I don't believe supports HEVC) has awful pausing and dropped frames unless I manually set the bitrate. I have no idea why playback isn't smoother; my network speed is sufficient, I can see the video is transcoding and none of my CPU, iGPU and RAM are maxed out (though Intel software does seem to indicate way more gpu usage that I would expect from a single transcode.) As long as I select the next bitrate down from it's native value the stream is ok, but if I just leave it on auto I have choppy playback on most HEVC media above 1080p/6Mbps.
I tried derping around with ChatGPT and it said that despite the transcoding process the bitrate is too high for the target device, which kinda checks out since I don't have any of these issues streaming the same or higher quality media to my gaming PC. However a 4k HEVC video at ~21Mbps requires manual adjustment down to 20Mbps to be smooth, whereas a 1080p HEVC at 6.5Mbps may or may not require changing to 6Mbps, and a lower bitrate around 1.5 plays fine without adjustment.. . BUT shouldn't part of the transcoding process involve detemining an acceptable bitrate for the client device? Why would a 4k source video play fine at "20Mbps" while a 1080p can't handle 8 on auto?
It's very confusing to me and some of my friends and family are even less tech-savvy than me so I'd love a solution that doesn't require any manual bitrate adjustments etc to be done by them (and honestly it would be great to build a library in HEVC for better quality/space considerations. It's getting tough to find new releases in 264.)
I've attached a pic of my Playback settings in case that helps (or at least provides a chuckle) as well as some system information captures while trying to playback 4K HEVC media to my phone (~350 dropped frames in short order)
Thank you so much for your time and consideration.
RE: Newbie Transcoding Questions - bitmap - 2025-02-21
Can you upload your logs to privatebin.net? Both Jellyfin and ffmpeg logs can be found in Dashboard > Logs. Also, info on how you installed would be useful.
EDIT: Your CPU is Alder Lake, which doesn't support VC-1 or VP8. Doesn't matter for this issue I'd guess, but I would uncheck those. Knowing what OS you're running is also a must.