Plex transcode in Ram

[Lien1454]

Hi,

 

I'm trying to set up Plex to transcode to RAM.

I have set the Docker container to..

container path: /transcode

Host path /tmp

 

And in Plex under transcoder area I have set   /transcode

 

I did not add a drive on the array as I was under the impression the docker path add is virtual or something like that.

 

I'm not seeing an increase of Ram usage when I play a movie to indicate it's been loaded into Ram.

 

Can anyone advise if I have this set up correctly please?

 

Thanks

 

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, Lien1454 said:

I'm not seeing an increase of Ram usage when I play a movie to indicate it's been loaded into Ram.

Your configuration is correct.

 

It doesn't actually load the entire movie into RAM.  Transcoding sessions are created a chunk at a time and streamed to the client.

 

You can verify that transcoding is happening in RAM by going to /tmp/Transcode/Sessions on your server.  You will see transcoding sessions being created on the fly for each stream that is being transcoded.

[Lien1454]

12 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

Your configuration is correct.

 

It doesn't actually load the entire movie into RAM.  Transcoding sessions are created a chunk at a time and streamed to the client.

 

You can verify that transcoding is happening in RAM by going to /tmp/Transcode/Sessions on your server.  You will see transcoding sessions being created on the fly for each stream that is being transcoded.

Sorry if this is a stupid Q. But where do I find the /tmp path ?

 

Thanks

 

[Hoopster]

2 hours ago, Lien1454 said:

Sorry if this is a stupid Q. But where do I find the /tmp path ?

 

Thanks

 

Open a terminal session in the GUI, SSH or Telnet into your server or go to your console command line If you have a monitor an keyboard attached to your server and type:

 

cd /tmp/Transcode/Sessions

 

If you list files in that folder you will see the session files for any transcodes in progress.

 

You'll see something like this:

 

Edited November 15, 2018 by Hoopster

[scubieman]

where does /config/transcode go to?

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, scubieman said:

where does /config/transcode go to?

That depends on how you map /config in the Plex docker.

 

If your /config mapping is something like the screenshot below (or /mnt/cache/appdata/plex/) and you map /transcode to /config/transcode your transcodes end up in the /mnt/cache/appdata/plex/transcode folder.

 

Edited November 16, 2018 by Hoopster

[scubieman]

hows this look?

[Hoopster]

14 minutes ago, scubieman said:

hows this look?

Sure that will work as long as you specify in Plex Transcoder settings that your transcoder temporary directory is TRANS_DIR.  It will map to a transcode subdirectory of wherever you have /config mapped on the host (unRAID server)

[scubieman]

I'll see if I'm smart enough to do that. Thank you

Sure that will work as long as you specify in Plex Transcoder settings that your transcoder temporary directory is TRANS_DIR.  It will map to a transcode subdirectory of wherever you have /config mapped on the host (unRAID server)

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[scubieman]

10 hours ago, Hoopster said:

Oh, I.m sure you are, but, you would be surprised how many people put the wrong thing in the Plex config.

 

BTW, if you don't want to always have to remember where you mapped /config you could just enter /mnt/cache/appdata/plex/transcode (or wherever you want your transcodes to be stored) as the host path in the docker config.  Of course, the advantage to the way you have done is that if you remap /config, your transcode directory will automatically follow it and remain of subdirectory of /config wherever it is located.

How do I know where this is located? Like what drive or in ram? Config doesnt tell me much .

 

[JonathanM]

21 minutes ago, scubieman said:

How do I know where this is located?

"this" is a very broad statement. If you mean where /config/transcode is located, then look at the path mappings in the docker screen. It's not showing in the screenshot you posted, you will have to show more settings to see. A docker only has access to the host through path mappings, if it's not mapped to the host, it's in the docker image. Normally the /config folder is mapped to /mnt/user/appdata/<appname>, so /config would be located on the array wherever /mnt/user/appdata/<appname> happened to exist.

[bonienl]

In your container settings "/config/transcode" is specified as a variable, this is incorrect, it has to be a path.

[JonathanM]

Just now, bonienl said:

In your container settings "/config/transcode" is specified as a variable, this is incorrect, it has to be a path.

Since I use emby instead of plex, I assumed plex parsed the variable to populate the transcode location.

[scubieman]

8 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

"this" is a very broad statement. If you mean where /config/transcode is located, then look at the path mappings in the docker screen. It's not showing in the screenshot you posted, you will have to show more settings to see. A docker only has access to the host through path mappings, if it's not mapped to the host, it's in the docker image. Normally the /config folder is mapped to /mnt/user/appdata/<appname>, so /config would be located on the array wherever /mnt/user/appdata/<appname> happened to exist.

I see where you are going with this. My transcode is on my cache drive.

 

[JonathanM]

Just now, scubieman said:

I see where you are going with this. My transcode is on my cache drive.

 

So if you want it to transcode elsewhere, you need to assign a path mapping to your desired destination in the docker config.

[scubieman]

3 minutes ago, bonienl said:

In your container settings "/config/transcode" is specified as a variable, this is incorrect, it has to be a path.

So this needs to be changed to /mnt/cache/appdata/binhex-plexpass?

[Hoopster]

6 hours ago, scubieman said:

How do I know where this is located? Like what drive or in ram? Config doesnt tell me much .

It all depends on the host path you specify in the mapping configuration.  If you specify a host path such as /mnt/user/.../transcode (or /mnt/cache/.../transcode), you are designating a physical path on the array as the location for transcodes.

 

If you specify /tmp or some other path outside of the array, it will be created in RAM as unRAID loads in RAM on boot.

 

And, by the way, you did not specify the proper container path in the Plex transcoder setup.  You entered /config/transcode and that is an incorrect host path not a container path.  The container path is TRANS_DIR according to your screen shot.

 

You should map TRANS_DIR to /tmp (or some other temporary directory) if you want transoding in RAM or to /mnt/cache/appdata/plex/transcode (or something similar depending on your setup) if you want transcoding to take place on the cache drive.

Edited November 16, 2018 by Hoopster

[scubieman]

This makes way more sense now. Thank you! This mapping can confuse a guy sometimes!!!

[Hoopster]

 

5 hours ago, bonienl said:

In your container settings "/config/transcode" is specified as a variable, this is incorrect, it has to be a path.

 

5 hours ago, scubieman said:

So this needs to be changed to /mnt/cache/appdata/binhex-plexpass?

 

Just to clear up this point, bonienl is referring to the way you defined TRANS_DIR as a variable and not as a path.

 

You make that selection as the bottom of the docker edit screen when you chose Add another Path, Port, Variable, Label or Device.  You defined the mapping as a variable when it should have been a path.

 

For reference, below are some of my Plex host path mappings (note that /transcode is defined as a Container Path whereas in your screen shot TRANS_DIR is defined as a Variable:

 

[scubieman]

Awesome thank you. I need to switch it.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[Lien1454]

My understanding is that parts of the movie is placed into RAM as the movie plays...

 

Is there anyway to dump the whole movie into ram and stream from that so hard drives can spin down?

 

Thanks

 

Edited November 21, 2018 by Lien1454

[scubieman]

Just now, jonathanm said:

This makes no sense to me. Can you explain how that puts the currently playing movie into RAM?

I was thinking cache.. Wrong answer. I will delete my post.