jellyfin 4k cpu transcoding

[bingspamn]

I'm looking at building a server to handle jellyfin along with a multitude of other virtualized/containerized services. I'd prefer to reserve the expansion slots for other hardware and the motherboard I'm looking at would require me to use server CPUs so I'm out of luck with quicksync CPUs. For reference it's https://www.supermicro.com/products/syst...ACR12L.cfm

I'm looking at the Xeon Gold 6154 or the 6136 which is the same clock wise but fewer cores at 3.0GHz base and 3.7GHz turbo. Would these speeds be sufficient for smooth low latency 4k transcoding for whatever odd handful clients I might have that don't support direct play? I assume it'd be 1 thread per 4k transcode stream at best?

[tmsrxzar]

.....

[mikesulsenti]

Actually I think with that new of a Xeon CPU your cores are fast enough and plentiful enough to transcode 4K to 1080p H264 when needed for a couple of clients at the same time.

But I recommend your users use modern media devices on their TV (Fire TV 4K, Roku 4K, Apple TV 4K, Nvidia Shield Pro, etc) and the Jellyfin Media Player for Windows/Mac/Linux when possible to avoid transcoding when possible.

If your content is AV1 video based, it will only direct play on very modern devices (past 2 years). HEVC/H265 content, which is all 4K content, will work on most anything in the past 5 years

[bingspamn]

Actually I think with that new of a Xeon CPU your cores are fast enough and plentiful enough to transcode 4K to 1080p H264 when needed for a couple of clients at the same time.

But I recommend your users use modern media devices on their TV (Fire TV 4K, Roku 4K, Apple TV 4K, Nvidia Shield Pro, etc) and the Jellyfin Media Player for Windows/Mac/Linux when possible to avoid transcoding when possible.

If your content is AV1 video based, it will only direct play on very modern devices (past 2 years). HEVC/H265 content, which is all 4K content, will work on most anything in the past 5 years

Thanks for the reply! More helpful than cpu bad gpu good which I already acknowledged in my post. Hope someone can chime in with confirmation those speeds are sufficient to handle it.

[tmsrxzar]

More helpful than cpu bad gpu good which I already acknowledged in my post.

aww did someone not tell you what you wanted to hear, TS

[bingspamn]

More helpful than cpu bad gpu good which I already acknowledged in my post.

aww did someone not tell you what you wanted to hear, TS

Someone wasted my time telling me something I already know and acknowledged the existence of; in a long winded post using their feelings instead of facts and numbers.

CPU transcoding 4k is a thing. I need info that can delineate where it will and won't work with jellyfin so I can plan out a build and adjust it where necessary to fit my needs, budget and upgrade path.

[toytown]

So here are some of my relatively small benchmarks from a year ago when i was trying 4K transcoding HDR, using ffmpeg 5 build transcoding to H264 and a fast preset with CRF 22 (same command line jellyfin has by default) using my 5900x (12core/24 thread), which has higher performance than both Xeon's you listed.

Perhaps the tone mapping performance has got better with ffmpeg, but as you can see i couldn't transcode 2 4K-1080p streams.

4K HDR -> 4K SDR = 17fps
4K HDR -> 1080p SDR = 47fps
4K HDR -> 720p SDR = 65fps

[tmsrxzar]

great toytown

let's add some specs
https://technical.city/en/cpu/Xeon-Gold-...en-9-5900X the 5900x is 37% better on passmark, 24% better multi-core on geekbench
https://technical.city/en/cpu/Xeon-Gold-...en-9-5900X and against this one the 5900x is 83% better and 32% better