The only other currently viable option is Intel’s integrated GPU (iGPU) accelerator known as QuickSync. From here on out, we’ll just refer to it as “NVENC.” Simply put, it’s a very common and easy solution to enable hardware transcoding. This is what Nvidia calls its decoding and encoding engines.

Most often, Nvidia GPUs are often recommended for hardware transcoding via NVDEC/NVENC. More importantly, however - hardware transcoding has more limitations, considerations, and compatibility issues than software transcoding. Generally, hardware transcoding is faster and more efficient than software transcoding. This reduces load on the CPU, allowing you to allocate its resources to other things such as Dockers, VMs, or other applications. However, when someone talks about hardware transcoding, they mean using a dedicated piece of hardware (typically a GPU) to accelerate the process. Technically, all transcoding is software in the end.

Note: certain file formats like VC1 are limited to single threaded transcoding only. (think of dual CPU systems like the Lego build and the Anniversary build) It’s a multi-threaded process which can take advantage of not only multiple threads, but also multiple phyiscal CPUs. Typically this is accomplished via software run on the CPU of the Plex server. Think of decoding as taking the file apart, and encoding as putting it back together. Simply put, it’s the combination of two processes: decoding and encoding.

You’re looking for more transcoding power (this does not affect direct play or direct stream).You have an existing NAS with all of your media on it (this guide will use Unraid as an example).The hardware portion of this guide assumes: Ultimately, the recommendation will be to add a dedicated transcoding box that uses Intel QuickSync. The guide will also provide recommendations for adding hardware transcoding to your existing setup. The purpose of this guide is to give an overview of hardware transcoding with Plex.

Nvidia plex