Zoom in x200
Left: 720p x264 --> 0.25 GB
Right: 1080p x265 --> 1.11 GB
I tested watching both on my phone:
- Without zoom, I didn’t notice much difference in visuals.
- The audio is stronger at the same level on the x265 version.
- I need +15 volume level (Android) to make the x264 sound equal.
What do you think, guys? Is it worth 4 times the file size?
hardware doesn't even need to be that recent! i'm using an i7 8700K for my plex server and it can transcode h.264 into h.265 on the fly.
It's nice if it is for some things, but there's a generation, it may be 8th (what you have) where hardware transcoding got a lot better, and that generation or later is considered ideal (at least, among Intel processors) for Plex for hardware transcoding.
My last server was on a 4th gen Xeon. It was good for 1080p, but tended to choke on 4K transcoding. I was always getting "server not powerful enough" errors. (Current server is a Mac mini, M2 Pro. I think it's roughly equivalent to a 12th or 13th gen i5? Apple M-series tend to beat Intel on power per watt (being ARM64 rather than x86-64) but I'm not sure how they play out in a benchmark. Both are more than enough for Plex though. And of course, don't bet against Apple for multimedia stuff (not gaming). Professionals in media/animation tend to prefer Apple machines for a reason. So it follows that they would at least be capable for Plex.
Yup, coffee lake is when intel quick sync gained HEVC 10-bit. I had a 6th gen in my server for a while and that one needed h.264 content.