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Hi there, I'm exploring switching to Emby from my old, custom built setup which consists of: an MS Access database for holding all my data, scraping IMDB, etc.; a SnapStream Firefly RF PC Remote; VLC (running in one-instance mode, headless, using the dummy interface, and the http interface ); and a custom web interface (that I can control via hotkeys via my remote) which sends commands to VLC. My multi-terabyte library of files consists primarily of fully ripped DVD VIDEO_TS folders, with full DVD menu support via VLC. And then I also have a some amount of mpeg files. VIDEO_TS rips consist of movies (single and multi-disc sets) and tv shows (mostly multi-disc, with some as many as 60 disc folders). My video files are stored primarily on a NAS, but are also spread across several other network shares (on Windows computers). I am considering switching to something like Emby because my current metadata system is a bit tedious (eg, I manually enter the title, copy/paste the IMDB ID, and at times manually enter other details), and I'd like to benefit from that and other things that Emby can (I believe) do better than my custom system (which I haven't updated in years, other than adding movies, etc. to it). I am primarily interested in watching movie/tv DVD folders on Windows 10 computers, in a home LAN environment (everything is on the same subnet). Watching on Roku or portable devices is fairly secondary (especially portable devices). I might explore using Roku just for browsing my library (in instances where I'm already in Roku from viewing/considering other video sources), and then can switch to my PC for full DVD menu support (which I understand probably doesn't work in Roku). So, with all that background/context, I have some questions: I'm unclear on what I need to install, and in which locations/computers, in order to have full DVD menu support when playing VIDEO_TS folders. My impression is that installing the Emby server on one machine would allow that Windows machine to play files locally (no transcoding) and thus support full DVD menus. But I'm unclear then on what I would install on another Windows computer for the same functionality. I am considering upgrading to a Synology NAS (which I believe it is possible to install Emby on), so any thoughts, recommendations, caveats, etc. regarding going that route (vs installing on one of the Windows computers) are appreciated. I particularly wonder if there would be any issues with Emby being on the NAS while some of the additional network shares would be on other computers (you can assume that I know how to create user permissions on Windows shares to grant access to whatever the Emby Server on Synology user would be). It does occur to me that my Roku is on a different subnet than the CAT cable LAN, but one of my computers is a laptop which can be connected to both subnets (one via cable, one via WiFi), so I wonder if I'd need to install the server on that if I want the Roku to be able to access my Emby server data? If I wanted to, could I configure Emby such that VLC could handle playing the VIDEO_TS folders on either computer (let's just assume two Windows computers for the moment)? My goal here would be no transcoding, but playing the folders locally over the network such that I'd have the benefit of full DVD menu support via VLC. Have you all ever considered bundling VLC with Emby Theater (in contexts that VLC will work) and using the http interface (like I mention above) to provide full DVD menu support for VIDEO_TS folders? Or alternatively, providing the option of an additional config file where a user could set their parameters related to their VLC config (ie, in this case, the user would have to take care of starting VLC [headless, if they wised] and configuring it however they wished)? I'd love to have the benefits of Emby Theater, but still be able to play everything (or at least designated types, such as VIDEO_TS folders) via VLC, similar to how I currently do via my custom browser interface. Since most of my library is using VIDEO_TS folder rips, and many of these contain extras, I'm wondering if there is any kind of online database that Emby can pull data from regarding Extras that are contained on a given DVD (or Blu-ray, though I'll be using the Media Stubs feature for Blu-ray discs, as I don't typically rip those because of size/space)? I have access (within my custom database) to the UPC for all of my DVD folders, if there is a way to do lookups based on that. I have seen in forum posts and the Wiki that most people rip extras to individual video files and stick them in an Extras folder, but that's not a workable route for me (ie, I'm not going to convert my whole library). I'm not concerned with being able to click "play" and go straight to a specific DVD title/section (though, technically that is possible, as I do that for some items in my custom setup and just pass the proper title/chapter string to VLC), but it would be super-handy to have a list of the extras which are contained on a given DVD be retrievable online and then stored in metadata and displayed when viewing that item in Emby. I suspect this is a long shot, but figured it doesn't hurt to inquire. I'll undoubtedly have more questions, but I think those are all for now. Many thanks to any who offer thoughts, suggestions, etc.!
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Idea: VLC Plugin (for easier Resume when using VLC as External Player in Emby Theater)
funwithmedia posted a topic in Plugins
This post (https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/35769-resume-is-not-working-with-mpc-hc-in-mbt/) got me thinking about VLC (my preferred player). I've already posted a Feature Request for a manual entry option (https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/43209-fr-option-for-external-players-to-prompt-for-stop-time/), which the good Emby folks hope to add in the future. But I have an idea for how we could partially automate this via a plugin, for users using VLC in particular. VLC has a HTTP Interface which can enable us to find out Duration (ie, total time of the currently playing item) and Elapsed time (ie, how much has been already played). I will paste an example of the XML output at the bottom of this post. We should be able to easily parse the <time> node to get the Elapsed time, and the <length> node to get the duration (both appear to be in Seconds). And then if that data has been stored in Emby for a given item, we can use the VLC Command Line --start-time=seconds to launch VLC, telling VLC to go to that point in the video. A significant caveat though is that if the user is using VLC to play a full DVD rip VIDEO_TS folder (which I am a big fan of, for the DVD menu support), then --start-time is likely to not produce the desired results (because DVD's vary in how they're authored, and so the time won't get applied to correct portion of the DVD. I think that in most cases it won't actually hurt anything, and perhaps in some cases the desired result will be achieved. But my thinking is that when clicking Play, ET can display some sort of message along the lines of "You stopped your video at ~34 minutes (out of 1 hour and 55 minutes total run time). Emby will attempt to resume at your stopping point, but you may have to manually go to the 34 minute mark (depending on the media format)." And then the user would click "Proceed" and VLC would launch. This way, they know where to fast forward (or jump ahead via chapters) if they're using a format (eg, VIDEO_TS folder rips) that doesn't lend itself to easy resuming. I am also exploring if there is any way to get the DVD "title" currently being played (note, this is not the movie title, but "title" as referring to the section within the DVD structure), but I'm not optimistic about being able to access that. If that is accessible, however, then it would actually be possible to construct a command line to resume the ripped DVD at the correct position, which would be rather nifty. I am a alright programmer (I work mostly with HTML, JavaScript, PHP, CSS/SCSS, and a little VBA and other assorted Windows-centric languages), but am brand new to Emby. If the above proposed plugin interests folks, is anyone interested in collaborating on bringing this about? I could likely handle any JavaScript-related elements of pulling the data from VLC (via the VLC HTTP Interface) and parsing the XML data, but I don't know anything (yet) about how to get that into the appropriate places within Emby so that Emby is storing the data. As a side note, I figure we'll poll the XML page periodically (eg, every 60 seconds, perhaps?), and I have some additional thoughts on underlying logic for how to do things (eg, we'll want to handle the fact that a VIDEO_TS DVD folder can have multiple "titles"/videos and so be careful we don't overwrite our Elapsed Time when the user is just in the DVD menu or something -- perhaps we'd prompt the user after they exit VLC as to whether they want to update their Resume Position with the new data or keep the old data [which we could display for comparison]?). Thoughts? <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes" ?> <root> <fullscreen>false</fullscreen> <aspectratio>default</aspectratio> <audiodelay>0</audiodelay> <apiversion>3</apiversion> <currentplid>4</currentplid> <time>54</time> <volume>256</volume> <length>6943</length> <random>false</random> <audiofilters> <filter_0></filter_0></audiofilters> <rate>1</rate> <videoeffects> <hue>0</hue> <saturation>1</saturation> <contrast>1</contrast> <brightness>1</brightness> <gamma>1</gamma></videoeffects> <state>paused</state> <loop>false</loop> <version>2.2.4 Weatherwax</version> <position>0.0079024126753211</position> <repeat>false</repeat> <subtitledelay>0</subtitledelay> <equalizer></equalizer> <information> <category name="meta"><info name='filename'>\\PATH\TO\MY\DVD\VIDEO_TS</info></category> <category name='Stream 0'><info name='Display resolution'>720x480</info><info name='Type'>Video</info><info name='Frame rate'>29.970029</info><info name='Decoded format'>Planar 4:2:0 YUV</info><info name='Codec'>MPEG-1/2 Video (mpgv)</info><info name='Resolution'>720x480</info></category> <category name='Stream 1'><info name='Bitrate'>192 kb/s</info><info name='Type'>Audio</info><info name='Channels'>Stereo</info><info name='Sample rate'>48000 Hz</info><info name='Language'>English</info><info name='Codec'>A52 Audio (aka AC3) (a52 )</info></category> <category name='Stream 3'><info name='Display resolution'>720x480</info><info name='Type'>Video</info><info name='Frame rate'>29.970029</info><info name='Decoded format'>Planar 4:2:0 YUV</info><info name='Codec'>MPEG-1/2 Video (mpgv)</info><info name='Resolution'>720x480</info></category> <category name='Stream 15'><info name='Type'>Subtitle</info><info name='Description'>Closed captions 2</info><info name='Codec'>cc2 </info></category> <category name='Stream 13'><info name='Type'>Audio</info><info name='Language'>Spanish</info><info name='Codec'>A52 Audio (aka AC3) (a52 )</info></category> <category name='Stream 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)</info><info name='Type'>Subtitle</info></category> <category name='Stream 7'><info name='Bitrate'>192 kb/s</info><info name='Type'>Audio</info><info name='Channels'>Stereo</info><info name='Sample rate'>48000 Hz</info><info name='Codec'>A52 Audio (aka AC3) (a52 )</info></category> <category name='Stream 10'><info name='Type'>Subtitle</info><info name='Language'>Spanish</info><info name='Codec'>DVD Subtitles (spu )</info></category> </information> <stats> <lostabuffers>5890</lostabuffers> <readpackets>0</readpackets> <lostpictures>518</lostpictures> <demuxreadbytes>226224489</demuxreadbytes> <demuxbitrate>1.485878944397</demuxbitrate> <playedabuffers>4736</playedabuffers> <demuxcorrupted>0</demuxcorrupted> <sendbitrate>0</sendbitrate> <sentbytes>0</sentbytes> <displayedpictures>25574</displayedpictures> <demuxreadpackets>0</demuxreadpackets> <sentpackets>0</sentpackets> <inputbitrate>0</inputbitrate> <demuxdiscontinuity>0</demuxdiscontinuity> <averagedemuxbitrate>0</averagedemuxbitrate> <decodedvideo>4624</decodedvideo> <averageinputbitrate>0</averageinputbitrate> <readbytes>0</readbytes> <decodedaudio>9955</decodedaudio> </stats> </root>