I recently built my second Unraid server to host Plex Media Server – this build Intel-based. I am expecting this server will serve mostly video media that doesn't require transcoding. For media that does requires transcoding I'm expecting to favour using software transcoding instead of hardware transcoding. I am however curious to evaluate Intel Quick Sync Video for hardware transcoding. For now, hardware transcoding is not a priority for me.
Reading through this forum thread I understand Plex Media Server (Plex Pass) running on Unraid 6.7.2 to leverage Intel Quick Sync Video hardware transcoding is currently not working. This seems to be the case for me – when transcoding the "(hw)" identifier is not appearing in Plex Dashboard.
I can contribute one small bit of troubleshooting information that may (or may not) assist developers and/or users (below).
PLATFORM
Unraid OS Plus 6.7.2, ASRock Z270 Gaming-ITX/ac (Bios Version P2.50), Intel Core i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz, 8 GIB DDR4, binhex-plexpass (Plex Media Server, Version 1.16.2.1297), tautulli.
Array: Parity 1x 2TB (Hitachi_HDS722020ALA330), Storage 5x 2TB (Hitachi_HDS722020ALA330).
Cache: Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 500GB (nvme)
The iGPU is identified by Unraid.
System Devices:
IOMMU group 2: [8086:5912] 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 630 (rev 04)
The presence or absence of a fit-Headless (1080p) connected to the motherboard's HDMI port (iGPU) does NOT seem to support enabling hardware transcoding.
The presence or absence of a fit-Headless (1080p) connected to the motherboard's HDMI port (iGPU) produces the same result when entering the following terminal commands
Linux 4.19.56-Unraid.
Last login: Sun Jul 14 15:55:51 +1000 2019 on /dev/pts/0.
root@SilverStone:~# cd /dev/dri
-bash: cd: /dev/dri: No such file or directory
root@SilverStone:~# ls -la /dev/dri
/bin/ls: cannot access '/dev/dri': No such file or directory
root@SilverStone:~#
I look forward to evaluating Intel Quick Sync Video for hardware transcoding at some point (but it is not a high priority for me).