Intel QSV hardware transcoding in a Proxmox LXC

March 7, 2026

proxmoxlxcjellyfinintel

Getting hardware transcoding working for Jellyfin (or Plex) in a Debian LXC requires a few specific steps.

LXC config

Add device passthrough in /etc/pve/lxc/<id>.conf:

dev0: /dev/dri/card0,gid=44
dev1: /dev/dri/renderD128,gid=44

gid=44 is the render group. The service user inside the container must also be in this group:

usermod -aG render jellyfin

Driver

For 12th gen Intel (Alder Lake) and newer, the required driver is intel-media-va-driver-non-free (iHD), not the older i965 driver:

apt install intel-media-va-driver-non-free

Verify with vainfo

LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=iHD vainfo

If this returns a list of supported profiles, QSV is working. If it returns libva error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/iHD_drv_video.so init failed, the driver isn’t installed or the device isn’t accessible.

SQLite WAL cleanup

After a Jellyfin crash, the database may be left in WAL (write-ahead log) mode with .wal and .shm files. If Jellyfin refuses to start after a crash, delete jellyfin.db-wal and jellyfin.db-shm alongside jellyfin.db. The data loss is minimal — usually just playback position for in-progress items.