The server that runs the bulk of my homelab does not have a graphics card. My TrueNas Scale server does as well as my desktop. The video’s are stored on the NAS and the remote shares are available on any system. So no graphics card in the server(s) is not ideal but They are beefy servers and still plenty capable of running ffmpeg but the conversion does not have to happen there.
Comment on Asking for suggestions on managing media
illusionist@lemmy.zip 3 days agoNo graphics card? Why do you even think about transcoding? Serious question
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 2 days ago
My server currently doesn’t have a video card (just the crappy on-board), it transcodes fine for one user (which is all I ever have). I don’t even notice an uptick in cpu when it’s transcoding (I’m sure it does, it just doesn’t seem to impact performance).
This is a 5 year old Dell SFF, running Windows, with 3 Windows VMs in VMware. It has no trouble transcoding, while converting videos using Handbrake. It’s maxed, but it does it.
I do plan to get a video card, it’s just not urgent.