Movie runtime completely wrong - how to edit/update?

[MyronAub 13]

I'm running Emby Server 4.6.4.0 and cannot work out how or where a movie runtime can be edited.

Emby is reporting my "Churchill (2017)" movie as having a runtime of 18h 40m when in reality it is 1h 45m. I've tried Refresh Metadata and Edit Metadata with no joy and MediaArea's MediaInfo tool confirms the .ts file itself has a runtime of 1h 39m.

Any ideas anyone?

[Carlo 4331]

Hi, that's not something you can edit as it's read by ffprobe directly.

You can try and play and skip toward the end.  This may trigger Emby to update the time if it learns it's different.
Changes are however the file has bad header info a tool like mkvtoolnix should be able to fix this.

[Luke 37259]

Hi, yes the file likely has bad data embedded, but remuxing it into a new one will generally resolve it.

Please note, this is not just about the displayed runtime. Doing this will help the file play more reliably as well. Please let us know if this helps. Thanks.

[Carlo 4331]

Once you're done fixing this one problem file you can use the reports plugin to look for other files with extremely long runtimes to fix them as well!

[MyronAub 13]

Thanks all. Playing to the end and remuxing didn't work in my case; the file was obviously messed up. I've now re-recorded the movie and replaced the file and all is good again.

Also thanks for the heads up on the Reports plugin, neat little app.

 

[Luke 37259]

Thanks for the feedback.

[rms8 12]

Was going to create a new topic, but this sounds pretty spot on to what I am seeing.

 

Just re-installed Emby Server on my Server PC after I wiped it and re-installed Win10. I've noticed A LOT (hundreds) of movies are now displaying the wrong runtime.  When I try to play that movie the run time bar at the bottom also reflects the same incorrect run time, meaning if the runtime shows 12m then the movie ONLY plays for 12 minutes so fast forwarding to the end doesn't work since I can't get to the end.

 

I have already tried rescanning.  No dice.  I also re-ripped (and more than once) a few movies to test if it helps.  No dice.  Some examples below.  ALSO note that in addition to the runtime issue I ALSO noticed that some of these affected files show the wrong video format too.  Like Event Horizon below.  I screen shot the actual folder and you can clearly see it is a ripped bluray.  BTW I rip ALL my movies to their native folder structure.  I prefer to keep it that way if at all possible.  And before anyone asks....yes I converted one of the affected movies (Alita) to MKV and the correct runtime is now displayed.  But I have nearly 2000 movies on my server and do not want to convert them all to MKV.

 

Any ideas ?????

 

[Cheesegeezer 3089]

32 minutes ago, rms8 said:

Was going to create a new topic, but this sounds pretty spot on to what I am seeing.

 

Just re-installed Emby Server on my Server PC after I wiped it and re-installed Win10. I've noticed A LOT (hundreds) of movies are now displaying the wrong runtime.  When I try to play that movie the run time bar at the bottom also reflects the same incorrect run time, meaning if the runtime shows 12m then the movie ONLY plays for 12 minutes so fast forwarding to the end doesn't work since I can't get to the end.

 

I have already tried rescanning.  No dice.  I also re-ripped (and more than once) a few movies to test if it helps.  No dice.  Some examples below.  ALSO note that in addition to the runtime issue I ALSO noticed that some of these affected files show the wrong video format too.  Like Event Horizon below.  I screen shot the actual folder and you can clearly see it is a ripped bluray.  BTW I rip ALL my movies to their native folder structure.  I prefer to keep it that way if at all possible.  And before anyone asks....yes I converted one of the affected movies (Alita) to MKV and the correct runtime is now displayed.  But I have nearly 2000 movies on my server and do not want to convert them all to MKV.

 

Any ideas ?????

 

ok so my ideas are

1. Alita trailer has been picked up as the main source
2. the other movies are in multi-part format.... bone collector-part1.mov, bone collector-part2.mov, etc

I would first off delete nfo files --> identify the movie from IMDB ID or TMDB Id -->  refresh metadata --> full Library scan.

See if any of that works.

[rms8 12]

1 minute ago, Cheesegeezer said:

ok so my ideas are

1. Alita trailer has been picked up as the main source
2. the other movies are in multi-part format.... bone collector-part1.mov, bone collector-part2.mov, etc

I would first off delete nfo files --> identify the movie from IMDB ID or TMDB Id -->  refresh metadata --> full Library scan.

See if any of that works.

Will Do !  Thanks for the suggestion annnnd....looking forward to Iridium !!!!

[rms8 12]

26 minutes ago, rms8 said:

Will Do !  Thanks for the suggestion annnnd....looking forward to Iridium !!!!

I did a search for *.nfo on all drives and deleted.  Then ran a full library scan and metadata refresh.  But it did not help.

 

Here you can see when trying to play Alita, it only shows the movie being 3 minutes long :

 

[rms8 12]

W A I T .....

I skipped to the end and THIS TIME the movie kept playing ....I stopped and went back to the library but it still shows 3 minute runtime.  Going to check other movies now.

[rms8 12]

Sooo, as can be seen, the movie still shows runtime as 7min, but now it will continue to play beyond that 7 minutes.  Weird.....

 

 

 

[rms8 12]

In this example the server says the movie is 1 day 1 hour and 30 minutes long.  It plays and when the movie actually ends (about 1.5hrs) it goes back to the menu as it should.  After deleting the NFO's per Cheese's suggestion, perhaps I should delete the whole Movies library (spread across 3 drives) and rebuild it from scratch.  I'll let you know how that goes.

 

 

 

 

 

U P D A T E :

After deleting the libraries, then re-adding them from scratch the movies still show the very incorrect runtimes, but at least they appear to be playing through to the end.  I've only checked two of the hundreds, but assuming they will all behave the same at this point.

I suppose I can live with this very odd discrepancy, but it disables one of the very cool features which is the one which displays what time the movie would end if you started it right now.

 

Any other ideas on how to get Emby server to display the correct runtimes on these movies?

 

To recap, I deleted ALL the NFO files, un-selected that from the library menus, deleted the library and rebuilt from scratch.

 

Thanks all,

Rob

Edited June 1, 2022 by rms8

[Luke 37259]

I would just refresh the metadata on that one title.

[rms8 12]

30 minutes ago, Luke said:

I would just refresh the metadata on that one title.

I did.

 

More than a few times.

[Luke 37259]

That must be what ffprobe is reporting as the runtime. You could try remuxing the video into a new file.

[pwhodges 1540]

It's not just a file, though, it's a BD rip in BD format.

Paul

[ebr 14959]

Hi.  Yeah, I'm sure this is because it is a BD folder rip.  That is not always going to detect properly.

[rms8 12]

4 hours ago, ebr said:

Hi.  Yeah, I'm sure this is because it is a BD folder rip.  That is not always going to detect properly.

Yeah, most BD rips show the runtime fine.  Not sure why some do and some do not.

[visproduction 125]

Try this:
 

ffmpeg -i input_filename -c:v copy -c:a copy output_filename

Hope that helps.

[rms8 12]

8 hours ago, visproduction said:

Try this:
 

ffmpeg -i input_filename -c:v copy -c:a copy output_filename

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the suggestion!  I'm not sure where I run it though or how. Can you provide some details?

 

THANKS!

[pwhodges 1540]

That is another response assuming you have a single file, not a folder structure from the BD.

I don't know how Emby tries to find the time from the BD structure - but your problem looks to me as if it's finding a small video file (maybe one of the extras) and using the length of that.

But only one of the developers can explain - and I expect the fact that they do not give any priority to supporting DVD or BD folder structures to be mentioned in due course.

Paul

[Luke 37259]

Yes I would suggest converting to mkv using makemkv.

[visproduction 125]

Aha, you are dealing with a BD Rip.  I believe the metadata about the file timeline is kept in another file, as part of the blu-ray format.  This, I believe, offers additional functionality in blu-ray playback and was also considered another security bonus that makes ripping content to files more difficult.  My ffmpeg command line suggestion works if you have already files that have playback problems.  You run it from a command line with access to ffmpeg exe. Just look up how to run a command line.  Technically, you could create a script with 2000 commands and do fix all the files with one Enter click and wait for the results.  

So Luke's answer is a good way, I agree to solve this to get quality files that play back correctly  to start with.  Convert them using makemkv.  But I think you only end up with h.265 .mkv type files only and I see from your screenshots you are using h.264 for playback, which plays in browsers without an added app.  Otherwise, users arriving with a normal browser would need to have the mkv file converted by your server, before playback in a browser. Direct playback to a TV would possibly work fine straight .mkv without conversion. Is that correct???  I am only guessing here.  I have not tried this.  Does someone here know the answer???   Some souped up servers & video card can do h.265 mkv to h.264 - mp4 conversion easily.  My server is not fast enough, at all.  So, I just keep all videos as h.264 in .mp4.

You might want to try to pull from the blu-ray index files and go directly to h.264 - mp4, if you really prefer the to have the older codec that can play easily to all users coming in with a browser.  Can makemkv do this?  I don't think so.  I think MKVToolnix or AVIdemux might be able to handle blu-ray direct to h.264.  Yes, I know h.265 .mkv is a better codec and looks great.

You experts out there.  What have I got wrong?  

Hope that helps.

Edited June 2, 2022 by visproduction

[roaku 797]

9 minutes ago, visproduction said:

Aha, you are dealing with a BD Rip.  I believe the metadata about the file timeline is kept in another file, as part of the blu-ray format.  This, I believe, offers additional functionality in blu-ray playback and was also considered another security bonus that makes ripping content to files more difficult.  My ffmpeg command line suggestion works if you have already files that have playback problems.  You run it from a command line with access to ffmpeg exe. Just look up how to run a command line.  Technically, you could create a script with 2000 commands and do fix all the files with one Enter click and wait for the results.  

So Luke's answer is a good way, I agree to solve this to get quality files that play back correctly  to start with.  Convert them using makemkv.  But I think you only end up with h.265 .mkv type files only and I see from your screenshots you are using h.264 for playback, which plays in browsers without an added app.  Otherwise, users arriving with a normal browser would need to have the mkv file converted by your server, before playback in a browser. Direct playback to a TV would possibly work fine straight .mkv without conversion. Is that correct???  I am only guessing here.  I have not tried this.  Does someone here know the answer???   Some souped up servers & video card can do h.265 mkv to h.264 - mp4 conversion easily.  My server is not fast enough, at all.  So, I just keep all videos as h.264 in .mp4.

You might want to try to pull from the blu-ray index files and go directly to h.264 - mp4, if you really prefer the to have the older codec that can play easily to all users coming in with a browser.  Can makemkv do this?  I don't think so.  I think MKVToolnix or AVIdemux might be able to handle blu-ray direct to h.264.  Yes, I know h.265 .mkv is a better codec and looks great.

You experts out there.  What have I got wrong?  

Hope that helps.

MakeMKV doesn't convert or compress from the source videos. It only copies the contents and repackages them into an mkv container(s).

Handbrake is an easy to use option that can easily create a quality compressed version and/or convert between codecs from the makemkv output if they want to do that.

Edited June 2, 2022 by roaku