Transcoding and hardware

The variables behind capacity, the graphics card, quality limits and the transcoding cache. Most installations set none of them: the server measures the machine and picks the hardware itself, as explained in Transcoding and server capacity. Where a setting exists in Admin → Transcoding, the value saved there wins.

Hardware acceleration

Exposing the GPU to the container: Hardware acceleration.

Variable	Default	What it does	Panel
EVEY_TRANSCODING_HW_MODE	empty	auto, off, nvenc, vaapi, qsv or rkmpp. Empty: derived from the two variables below.	Transcoding → Hardware acceleration, live (re-measures)
EVEY_TRANSCODING_HW_ACCEL_ENABLED	false	The older on/off switch.	Transcoding → Hardware acceleration, live
EVEY_TRANSCODING_HW_BACKEND	empty (detect)	Pins one backend (nvenc, vaapi, qsv): only that one is measured. Lets several Evey containers on one host each use a different GPU path.	none
EVEY_TRANSCODING_HW_DEVICE	empty (all)	Pins one device: a render node (/dev/dri/renderD129) or a CUDA index (1). With EVEY_TRANSCODING_HW_BACKEND, binds a container to one GPU on a multi-GPU host.	none
EVEY_TRANSCODING_HW_FIRST_SEGMENT_TIMEOUT	10s	A hardware session that has not produced its first segment in this delay is treated as a stuck GPU and moved to the processor.	none
EVEY_TRANSCODING_HW_TONEMAP	on	0 disables HDR tone mapping on the GPU and uses the processor for it, for a driver known to misbehave.	none
EVEY_TRANSCODING_HW_PER_VARIANT	false	One ffmpeg per quality on the GPU path instead of one process for all: isolates failures, and avoids the multi-output graph that crashes fragile VA drivers.	Transcoding → Advanced limits → One hardware encoder process per rung, restart

The low-power Intel encoder and AV1 output (switch and ceiling) have no variable: they are set in Admin → Transcoding only.

Capacity and limits

Variable	Default	What it does	Panel
EVEY_TRANSCODING_MAX_SESSIONS	0 (number of CPUs)	Total concurrent transcoding sessions. On a machine that can barely sustain one 4K HDR software transcode, set 1 or 2.	Transcoding → Advanced limits → Max concurrent HLS sessions, restart
EVEY_TRANSCODING_MAX_CONCURRENT	2	Transcode jobs outside live playback.	Transcode Cache → Max Concurrent, live
EVEY_TRANSCODING_SINGLE_VARIANT	true	Encodes only the quality a viewer is watching. false shares one decode between all qualities but encodes those nobody watches; only for a host with no hardware decoding and heavy sources.	Transcoding → Advanced limits → Encode one ladder rung at a time, restart
EVEY_TRANSCODING_SOFTWARE_MAX_HEIGHT	0 (measured)	Forces the processor's resolution ceiling instead of the measured one.	Transcoding → Advanced limits → Software transcode height ceiling, restart
EVEY_TRANSCODING_SOFTWARE_HDR_MAX_HEIGHT	0 (measured)	Same, for HDR sources tone-mapped on the processor.	Transcoding → Advanced limits → Software HDR height ceiling, restart
EVEY_TRANSCODING_SOFTWARE_THREADS	no cap	Threads per software encoder (1 to 64; anything else means no cap). Hardware encoders ignore it.	none
EVEY_TRANSCODING_MAX_VIDEO_BITRATE_KBPS	0 (follows the source)	A ceiling on the bitrate of transcoded video.	Transcoding → Video bitrate ceiling, live
EVEY_TRANSCODING_MAX_VIDEO_BITRATE_REMOTE_KBPS	0 (none)	The same ceiling for clients outside the home network.	Transcoding → Video bitrate ceiling, remote viewers, live

Cache

Variable	Default	What it does	Panel
EVEY_TRANSCODING_CACHE_MAX_GB	10	The size of the whole transcoding cache (segments, remuxes, prepared downloads), least recently used removed first.	Transcoding → Transcode cache budget, restart
EVEY_TRANSCODE_CACHE_MIN_FREE_MB	2048	Free space kept on the disk of the cache. Below it, idle segments are evicted, then new segments are refused rather than written; extracted subtitles stop being stored and administrators are notified. 0 turns the margin off. See The transcoding cache.	none
EVEY_TRANSCODING_CACHE_DIR	/cache/transcode	Where it lives. Set by the image.	none
EVEY_TRICKPLAY_CACHE_DIR	/data/trickplay	Where the seek bar thumbnails live. Set by the image: they are expensive to regenerate, so they stay in /data.	none

Calibration clip

The measurement encodes a 4K clip. In order of preference: your file, a clip downloaded once and checked by its hash, or a synthetic clip. A real clip measures more honestly than the synthetic one. None of these has a panel equivalent.

Variable	Default	What it does	Panel
EVEY_BENCH_HDR_SAMPLE, EVEY_BENCH_SDR_SAMPLE	empty	A clip of yours, HDR and SDR.	none
EVEY_BENCH_HDR_SAMPLE_URL, EVEY_BENCH_SDR_SAMPLE_URL	empty	A clip to download once, over https.	none
EVEY_BENCH_HDR_SAMPLE_SHA256, EVEY_BENCH_SDR_SAMPLE_SHA256	empty	The SHA256 of that download; required with a URL.	none