I'm building a small render server inside a Windows 11 VM running on Unraid. The VM has Adobe Media Encoder for Premiere projects and HandBrake running through Docker Desktop with NVIDIA NVENC support. I'd like to drop projects or recordings into watch folders and have the VM use the server's NVIDIA 5060 Ti for automated transcoding.
Because Media Encoder requires Windows, I need to keep this setup inside the Windows VM. I also specifically want to use HandBrake rather than another transcoding platform. The problem is that I can't tell where HandBrake's watch and output folders are located, and the container's web interface cannot access my Unraid shares or normal Windows locations.
What is the correct way to configure Docker Desktop on Windows so the container's input/watch folder and output folder map to directories on the VM or to mounted Unraid shares? I'm also open to using a Docker Compose file or PowerShell script instead of Portainer. I understand this setup is somewhat unconventional, but it would let me keep Media Encoder and HandBrake watch folders in my workflow while offloading some encoding work from my main PC.
2 Answers
The repository indicates that encoded files are written to `/output`. You can map that directory with a volume mount such as `-v "$HOME/output:/output"` on Linux, or with an absolute Windows path in Docker Desktop. On Windows, a PowerShell script or Compose file is probably the cleanest approach: define an incoming folder mapped to the container’s watch/input directory and an output folder mapped to `/output`.
If the Unraid share is available as a Windows network drive, use that drive or its local mounted path in the bind mount. Otherwise, map the share into the VM first; Docker Desktop generally cannot use an arbitrary Unraid path that Windows itself cannot access.
Use a bind mount when starting the container. The image stores its output inside the container at `/output`, so map a Windows folder to that path with Docker’s `-v` option. For example, in PowerShell:
`docker run ... -v "C:TranscodeOutput:/output" -v "C:TranscodeIncoming:/input" ...`
Replace the Windows paths with folders that point to your mounted Unraid shares. Docker Desktop must be allowed to access the relevant drive, and the shares need to be mounted in Windows first. The container path is the path HandBrake sees; the Windows path is where the files are actually stored.
So the important part is configuring the volume mounts when the container is created, rather than trying to redirect the folders from inside the HandBrake web interface. A Compose file can make those mappings easier to maintain.