How to encode videos on Synology NAS

If you’re trying to get FFmpeg onto your NAS - try no more. There is a more user-friendly alternative - an open-source video transcoder called HandBreak. Amazingly you can run it as a docker container.

Here is how I run it:

docker run \
  -d \
  --cpuset-cpus=2,3 \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 5800:5800 \
  -e USER_ID=1024 \
  -e GROUP_ID=100 \
  -v /volume1/docker/handbrake:/config:rw \
  -v /volume2/video:/storage:ro \
  -v /volume1/output:/output:rw \
  --name=handbrake \
  jlesage/handbrake:v1.25.1

Some explanation:

• cpuset-cpus specifies usage cores 2 & 3 - I’m using NAS that have 4 CPU cores, and I don’t want to overload the system
• USER_ID and GROUP_ID and the uids from my Synology system user (you can check it using id command)
• volume mounts are rather self-explanatory
• web UI will be exposed on the default 5800 port

If you’re getting directory permissions errors in the web UI - check chmod/chown settings on mounted directories.

It works pretty great. Encoding might take days - depending on your settings and file size - but if you’re not in a hurry, you can utilize your NAS, which is probably powered on 24/7 anyhow.