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VPS to run plex server / 2 transcoding @ 1080p 10mbps
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VPS to run plex server / 2 transcoding @ 1080p 10mbps

sanvitsanvit Member
edited February 2017 in Requests

I'm looking for a VPS to run plex media server.

HDD 200G

Ram 768M (1G prefered)

CPU 2 cores

transfer 500G @ 300mbps (or 1gbps perfered)

location : KR or JP (US ok)

budget : $3/mo

I'm gonna stream from korea, and will not use transcoding most of the times because most of the video files are encoded already.

Comments

  • @sanvit said:
    HDD 200G
    CPU 2 cores
    transcoding [even some of the time]
    location : KR or JP (US ok)
    budget : $3/mo

    I don't think so but good luck.

  • stefemanstefeman Member
    edited February 2017

    the budget is way too small for this.. The closest you can get is Vultr or Linode 5 USD plan in Japan, but even then, the HDD space is only 15 GB.

    Even in the Europe, the cheapest I can imagine would be https://bill.abelohost.com/cart.php?a=confproduct&i=1

    or Scaleway with Atom cores:

    €9.99/Month
    6 x86 64bit Cores
    8GB Memory
    200GB SSD Disk
    1 Flexible public IPv4
    200Mbit/s Unmetered bandwidth

    https://www.scaleway.com/pricing/

    Not only you require a lot of HDD space, but the Asia location also adds to the costs.

  • Servers doesnt have to be in JP. US location is fine since my ISP seems to have relatively high bandwith line to the US.

  • It's still unrealistic, especially the part about 2 cores. Buyvm's 250GB KVM might be a good choice at $7/mo if you can live with 1 core. You can get a 1GB ram upgrade by asking via ticket, and last I heard there was plenty of compute performance available. You can get 200GB of raw storage for $3 if you try, but don't expect much cpu.

  • @stefeman I'm looking for HDDs, not SSDs. thanks for the comment though!

    @willie Thanks for the comment! will adding another dollar to my budget make a difference?

  • sanvit said:

    @willie Thanks for the comment! will adding another dollar to my budget make a difference?

    You mean $4? Not that I know of. Maybe you could talk to Serverhub about trading away some disk space on their $5 plan:

    http://serverhub.com/vps/ssd-cached

  • @willie said:

    sanvit said:

    @willie Thanks for the comment! will adding another dollar to my budget make a difference?

    You mean $4? Not that I know of. Maybe you could talk to Serverhub about trading away some disk space on their $5 plan:

    http://serverhub.com/vps/ssd-cached

    Thanks! I'll check them out!

  • I have never said this in a request thread before but this is unrealistic. 2 1080p Plex transcodes requires 4,000+ PassMark. That means you would need an entire i3 and it would probably be at 80-100% constantly while streaming.

    And transcoding or streaming from outside your network will require even more CPU since the VPS is so far away.

    You might find a provider - but they will suspend you in minutes/hours.

  • Wicked said: And transcoding or streaming from outside your network will require even more CPU since the VPS is so far away.

    Why would that make the amount of cpu different? I didn't notice the OP asking about transcoding 2 streams at once, but don't understand Plex, so maybe that was implied.

  • Cheapest you can get is probably a Kimsufi-1 (only if they are in stock)

  • Wicked said: I have never said this in a request thread before but this is unrealistic. 2 1080p Plex transcodes requires 4,000+ PassMark. That means you would need an entire i3 and it would probably be at 80-100% constantly while streaming.

    And transcoding or streaming from outside your network will require even more CPU since the VPS is so far away.

    You might find a provider - but they will suspend you in minutes/hours.

    Thanks for the reply! Never thought Plex transcoding will eat up that much system resources. But what does VPS being far away have to do with eating up more CPU?

    willie said: Why would that make the amount of cpu different? I didn't notice the OP asking about transcoding 2 streams at once, but don't understand Plex, so maybe that was implied.

    It was in the title :D thanks for the reply!

    Laxenade said: Cheapest you can get is probably a Kimsufi-1 (only if they are in stock)

    thanks for the comment! so are dedis the only choice i have?

  • If it really needs 4k passmark, a KS1 will be way too slow.

  • I can't even transcode one 1080p movie on KS-3C, I doubt if 4k passmark is enough for two. That said, running direct play should be fine.

  • Why is it required to transcode in real time? If I had a bunch of stuff I wanted to stream, I'd transcode it all as a large batch job and then just play direct. 200GB isn't that much video. It might be a few days of transcoding on a Scaleway dedi that's around 4 cents an hour.

  • willie said: Why is it required to transcode in real time? If I had a bunch of stuff I wanted to stream, I'd transcode it all as a large batch job and then just play direct. 200GB isn't that much video. It might be a few days of transcoding on a Scaleway dedi that's around 4 cents an hour.

    Most of the files are encoded already. Transcoding is needed for occasional slow internet connections or using subtitles :)

    Laxenade said: I can't even transcode one 1080p movie on KS-3C, I doubt if 4k passmark is enough for two. That said, running direct play should be fine.

    May i ask you your server specs please?

  • @sanvit said:

    willie said: Why is it required to transcode in real time? If I had a bunch of stuff I wanted to stream, I'd transcode it all as a large batch job and then just play direct. 200GB isn't that much video. It might be a few days of transcoding on a Scaleway dedi that's around 4 cents an hour.

    Most of the files are encoded already. Transcoding is needed for occasional slow internet connections or using subtitles :)

    Laxenade said: I can't even transcode one 1080p movie on KS-3C, I doubt if 4k passmark is enough for two. That said, running direct play should be fine.

    May i ask you your server specs please?

    Specs:

    If I recall correctly, using external subtitles does not require a transcode. Just to remember not to stream HEVC content otherwise you would probably need to get a server from hetzner to do the job.

  • sanvit said: Most of the files are encoded already. Transcoding is needed for occasional slow internet connections or using subtitles :)

    You could transcode everything to low bit rate in a big batch offline?

  • Plex has an 'Optimize' feature now that allows it to pre-transcode your content into a format that plays natively on your client, so when you sit down to watch all the hard work is done and you get a direct stream.

    You've just got to know what you fancy watching ahead of time.

    Also interested by the comments of people having trouble transcoding a 1080p stream on a KS-3C; not sure what you folks are doing, but I used to get away with doing them on a KS-1, and it was largely fine, just the odd film would have an occasional stutter.

    Thanked by 1vimalware
  • @Nekki said:
    Plex has an 'Optimize' feature now that allows it to pre-transcode your content into a format that plays natively on your client, so when you sit down to watch all the hard work is done and you get a direct stream.

    You've just got to know what you fancy watching ahead of time.

    Also interested by the comments of people having trouble transcoding a 1080p stream on a KS-3C; not sure what you folks are doing, but I used to get away with doing them on a KS-1, and it was largely fine, just the odd film would have an occasional stutter.

    I wasn't talking about direct play. I was referring transcode as you take your source video transcode them to a lower bitrate video, I don't think that's something you could accomplish with a KS-1(at least not in real-time).

  • @Laxenade said:
    I wasn't talking about direct play. I was referring transcode as you take your source video transcode them to a lower bitrate video, I don't think that's something you could accomplish with a KS-1(at least not in real-time).

    Sorry chap, but where did you get direct play from? I just said I managed 1080p trancodes for some films on a KS-1, so I'm surprised a server with a 4K pass mark can't manage it.

  • jvnadrjvnadr Member
    edited February 2017

    Nekki said: Sorry chap, but where did you get direct play from? I just said I managed 1080p transcodes for some films on a KS-1, so I'm surprised a server with a 4K pass mark can't manage it.

    @Nekki is right. I could transform via plex a 1080p video to 480p in real time with an atom N2800 server with very few and minor glitches, (but no other tasks simultaneously). A 4K passmark server could do even 3 simultaneously transcodings.

    @sanvit If you are willing to transcode on the fly the video, then, you need much more resources than a cheap 3$ vps. Either a really powerful dedicated server, or a cheap dedicated server for that. But, all that solutions will need at least 10$ or, better, even more.
    You can try scaleway's arm dedicated servers (there are plenty solutions to run Plex on armhf architecture, google it!) and add 2-3 HDD slices of 50GB to fulfill your space demand. An arm server with 200GB HDD will cost you 4,5€ (~4,8$) and I think you will be able to get a real time transcoding of 1080p. The best part is that they have an hourly billing, so, you can set it up and try it for a day, to see if it can do the job.

    Thanked by 1Nekki
  • @sanvit And this is the url to get some guideline to use armhf scaleway for building a plex server https://community.online.net/t/plex-media-server-for-armhf/588/5

  • jvnadr said: I could transform via plex a 1080p video to 480p in real time with an atom N2800 server with very few and minor glitches, (but no other tasks simultaneously).

    Same CPU, and basically the same for me, except I was going down to 720p. Some films had hitches, but the vast majority played flawlessly. Never tried it with HEVC though.

    Thanked by 1jvnadr
  • Nekki said: Never tried it with HEVC though

    Me neither.

  • HEVC would require some serious amount of CPU to transcode on the fly.

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