If only there were a more efficient alternative… Why a GPU is better at Plex transcodingīy using a graphics card to transcode videos, or as Plex calls it, hardware-accelerated streaming, the dedicated onboard video encoder will be used, freeing your CPU up for other, more important tasks. In other words, the six-core AMD Ryzen 5 3500X could only transcode on such video at a time. Transcoding a single 4K, 40Mbps, 8-bit HEVC video down to 1080p, 10Mbps would require a CPU with a PassMark score of over 12,000. Even a powerful CPU will struggle to transcode multiple videos simultaneously. The problem with that is that CPUs aren’t really built to transcode videos. The best example for this is Google’s Chromecast streaming adapter, which uses cheap hardware to simply play cloud-based media.īut Plex’s success has shown that the cloud isn’t always the best solution for personal media - and increasingly powerful chipsets in TVs and streaming devices could make it possible to give consumers cloud-like features without the need to turn on a computer at all.By default, the Plex Media Server uses software-based transcoding, which uses the CPU.

Tech companies have long pushed to outsource much of this computing into the cloud. Plex’s usage of the NVIDIA Shield as a home media server also goes to show that there is still some demand for processor-intensive computing in the living room.

“We’ll continue to evaluate other platforms,” the Plex team said in a blog post Thursday.

That’s a significant step forward for Plex, even if the number of Nvidia Shield owners who can take advantage of this are likely limited.īut the fact that Plex could turn the Shield into a streaming server that can send audio and video on demand to your phone or tablet suggests that the startup may be able to extend this kind of technology to additional devices in the future. The NVIDIA Shield is so powerful that it can run both the server software and a playback engine for 4K videos at the same time.

Nvidia plex