Will It Transcode?
Pick your CPU / GPU and see exactly what it can hardware-transcode for Plex or Jellyfin — H.264, HEVC, 4K HDR tone-mapping, AV1 — and roughly how many streams at once.
Need a better transcoding box?
For Plex/Jellyfin, an Intel Quick Sync chip is the sweet spot — an N100 mini PC transcodes multiple 4K HDR streams for ~$180. See our mini PC and NAS for Plex/Jellyfin picks.
Best NAS for Plex/Jellyfin →How to read this
- HEVC 10-bit + HDR tone-mapping is what you need for 4K HDR libraries — without tone-mapping, HDR looks washed-out when transcoded to non-HDR clients.
- Quick Sync (Intel) is the most reliable, lowest-power transcoder for Plex/Jellyfin. AMD iGPUs work but support is patchier; Raspberry Pi / ARM can't HW-transcode HEVC well.
- AV1 encode needs Intel Arc / Meteor Lake+ or NVIDIA RTX 40 — nice to have, not required (HEVC/H.264 output is standard).
- Stream counts are rough — real limits depend on bitrate, tone-mapping, subtitle burn-in, and your disk/mount speed. Plex requires Plex Pass for hardware transcoding; Jellyfin is free.