Hello, forum users! It’s time again for an update to Plex’s transcoding and analysis backend. This is a special forums-only preview release; the changes in this build will be included in an upcoming regular release once any new issues are handled.

Please test this version with a variety of different media file formats and clients. If you notice any new issues (specifically ones that don’t also happen on the current beta release), please respond to this discussion instead of starting a new one, and include your Plex Media Server logs and a sample file that reproduces the issue.

Note that regular releases’ version numbers may share the same first 3 components as this release. The fourth component (the build number) will differ.

If you’re running Windows, you should always uninstall preview releases before installing another preview release or an official release. This won’t affect your library or personal data at all, and it will work around some Windows installer-related issues.

To test in a Docker container, open a shell in the container (using docker exec ), download and dpkg -i the Ubuntu package, update the version number in /version to reflect the build number you’re testing, and restart the container.

NEW:

Update to current upstream ffmpeg

Support for hardware decoding on Linux with Nvidia GPUs

Support for zero-copy hardware transcoding on Windows with Intel GPUs

Support for zero-copy hardware transcoding on Linux with Nvidia GPUs

Support for zero-copy hardware transcoding of interlaced media

Additionally, this update moves us towards being able to support tone-mapping HDR media to SDR for playback. This isn’t available in this preview, and I can’t make any promises on the timeline on it, but know that it’s something we’re working on .

Updated (1.16.7.1573 -> 1.16.7.1597)

Fixed issues with hardware acceleration on Windows with Intel GPUs

Fixed settings issue on Synology NASes

Known issues: (actively being worked on)

(Windows - Intel GPU) HW decode of some MPEG2 DVR recordings can fail.

(Linux - Nvidia GPU) GPU can remain in P0 power state after a transcode.

(Windows - Intel GPU) Green bar at bottom of video when transcoding HEVC content on Windows.

Issues that will be fixed in Next Release:

(Windows - NVIDIA GPU) Some HW transcodes can fail with a format conversion error.

( Impossible to convert between the formats supported by the filter 'graph 0 input from stream 0:0' and the filter 'auto_scaler_0' )

( ) (Linux - Intel GPU) macro-blocking and picture quality with some VAAPI transcodes.

(Linux) TrueHD audio can fail to transcode in some cases.

Download Links (Updated):