XPEnology - Plex Media Transcoding (DSM5.0-4493-update3)
First time playing with Plex, using 1 of my old PC HP DC7800 (E4500 Core2Duo, 2G RAM) as proof of concept, installed with XPEnology current latest DSM5.0-4493-update3, to act as media transcoding center
Was trying to organise & setup my home media center, I select Plexed for it's easy setup, also can install on Synology ~XPEnology box
Since my current NASes can't really transcode media effectively (unless buy those very expensive high-end NAS), I was thinking to setup a transcoding box using old PC
So I pulled out 1 of my old PC HP DC7800 (CPU Core2Duo @2.2GHz, 2G RAM), installed it with XPEnology & Plex, CIFS mount my N54L media drives
Basically the XPEnology installation is similar to THIS, except for some unknown reason, the HP DC7800 just refuse to bootup from USB created using the Win32DiskImager
So I use the Universal-USB-Installer to create the USB bootup, successfully bootup & installed the current latest DSM5.0-4493-update3 on the HP DC7800
HP DC7800 on DSM5.0-4493-update3, noticed the actual CPU information via SSH
I only want to use the PC's raw power for transcoding only, all my media files are stored in N54L
So I mounted (CIFS protocol) some drives from my N54L to the HP DC7800 PC
Then installed Plex
Setup Plex is straight forward & easy, just followed the screen to complete basic setup in minutes
Create new media Library and select the relevant CIFS drive, it will take some times to process my hundreds of movie media files
Process media Library done
Time to test drive
See the YoutTube test video above, or see below (480p only) if unable to access YoutTube
Transcoding seem CPU hunger, especially on those 1080p & non-direct streamable media
Chrome & FireFox browsers seem to run well, my IE11 seem to have some lag especially fast/back ward
Been running & roughly tested for 1~2 days, so far so good, no hang/crash, the library setup & auto-tag is nice
Next is to figure out how to make it accessible from outside, also multiple devices transcoding con-currently ...
So now, my current home ~nology boxes, 2 x Synology (DS110j & DS213), 3 XPEnology (2xN54L, 1xDC7800)
All run on the current latest DSM5.0-4493-update3, serving different purpose/usage, should be able to last me for quite some time now
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