Multiple requests in one (sorry)

[MSI2017 40]

Dear Emby developers.

I love emby, ever since getting premiere I use it daily and it works great. There are some things that I think would make it even better if it can be implemented. Might be a lot of things in one post but I hope you like the feedback and that if someone disgreees we can have a normal discussion why. I'm open to learn new things!

• Seamless support for different version of a movie (same movie)

Often when I rip a BluRay I make multiple files. One Dolby Vision for my LG tv (and in the future hopefully macbook if Emby can trigger DV in browser), an HDR version for my Samsung TV, and a normal 1080p general purpose file. At the moment these live in seperate folders since stuff liek Dolby Vision will not work or transcode to 1080p for example. I think it would be great if I can put them all in the same library and Emby would automagically choose the correct version for the device it is playing on. I am aware that you can choose a version manually but that it not user-friendly for evryoneone (not to mention HDR and DV would both just say 4k HEVC telling me nothing)

 

• SSD or even RAM (even better for SSD longevity) caching when watching a movie or TV show

In the interest of saving power, and probably speed up performance when scrubbing or skipping forward) it would be cool if Emby dynamically puts content in RAM when playing a movie or put multiple episodes in an SSD cached folder when watching a TV show. I always watch the tv show House MD in the evening. This means my HDD has to wake from sleep every day. If the server would automatically realize I often watch this show it could pre-cache a certain amount of episodes on the SSD so that the HDD does not have to spin up for a few days

 

• Wake server from sleep when accesing web-app

In the interest of saving power now that electricity costs a fortune, it would be cool to have seamless WOL support. I know that in the internal network you can choose wake server from the login screen if it fails to connect. Emby could also just send the magic package every time the app or webapp get accessed. If the server is already awake it will ignore the package, if not perfect!

 

 

[crusher11 851]

Your first one is how it already works.

[rbjtech 4260]

5 minutes ago, crusher11 said:

Your first one is how it already works.

Due to the way the OP has setup their folders - it will see them as separate items.

You need to name them in a specific way and/or group them to then be shown as a single item - with multiple resolution options in a drop down.

See here - https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159102-movie-naming

In summary - keep the folder name the same as the first part of the filename and then anything after the '-' will be the 'version'.

ie

\movie1\movie1-hdr.mkv

\movie1\movie1-dv.mkv

\movie1\movie1-1080p.mkv

 

Will have a single entry for 'movie1' - but 3 versions will be listed in the dropdown as hdr, dv and 1080p.

 

[MSI2017 40]

1 minute ago, rbjtech said:

Due to the way the OP has setup their folders - it will see them as separate items.

You need to name them in a specific way and/or group them to then be shown as a single item - with multiple resolution options in a drop down.

See here - https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159102-movie-naming

In summary - keep the folder name the same as the first part of the filename and then anything after the '-' will be the 'version'.

ie

\movie1\movie1-hdr.mkv

\movie1\movie1-dv.mkv

\movie1\movie1-1080p.mkv

 

Will have a single entry for 'movie1' - but 3 versions will be listed in the dropdown as hdr, dv and 1080p.

 

But I still have to chose this manually, I want it to so this seamlessly based on the hardware it is running on

[ebr 14912]

10 minutes ago, MSI2017 said:

But I still have to chose this manually, I want it to so this seamlessly based on the hardware it is running on

We select this automatically too but we just choose the first one that will direct play.  Beyond that becomes somewhat subjective (and also requires some details about both the media and the playback hardware that may or may not be available). 

In your example, the choice between hdr and dv is entirely subjective given hardware that supports both (but we also don't have the ability to discover DV in the media yet).

[Luke 37063]

Quote

• Wake server from sleep when accesing web-app

Hi, there's no way for web apps to send WOL packets.

[MSI2017 40]

Just now, Luke said:

Hi, there's no way for web apps to send WOL packets.

Why not? There are websites you can use tyo send a WOL package, why wouldn't emby be able to do so?

[sydlexius 241]

1 hour ago, MSI2017 said:

Why not? There are websites you can use tyo send a WOL package, why wouldn't emby be able to do so?

Can you provide a link to any web apps that can do this while the server that hosts it remains offline?  The only web apps I've ever encountered like this are hosted on systems that are online (ex: having a dedicated RPi or a home router that has a WOL app/form).

[MSI2017 40]

On 12/6/2022 at 5:59 PM, Luke said:

Hi, there's no way for web apps to send WOL packets.

I've checked and yes, when it is not awake it cannot do it obviously, my mistake. 

 

Do you think the first two would be an option tho? SSD cache is something I could do myself but it automagically choosing between a Dolby Vision, HDR10 or just regular 1080pSDR file would be amazing. I think devices should report their capabilities right?

[Luke 37063]

Quote

I think it would be great if I can put them all in the same library and Emby would automagically choose the correct version for the device it is playing on.

Hi, we already do this. The manual selection is pre-populated with the one that was automatically chosen, so all you need to do is press play. Does that help?

[MSI2017 40]

58 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi, we already do this. The manual selection is pre-populated with the one that was automatically chosen, so all you need to do is press play. Does that help?

But isn't it the case that at this point Emby doesn't read the data to check if its Dolby Vision? That would make it not work with a big part of my rips

[Luke 37063]

It's not supported by the ffmpeg build in the 4.7 server, which is what we use to probe files for media info, but hopefully soon it will.

[softworkz 3335]

On 12/6/2022 at 7:53 PM, sydlexius said:

On 12/6/2022 at 6:00 PM, MSI2017 said:

Why not? There are websites you can use tyo send a WOL package, why wouldn't emby be able to do so?

Can you provide a link to any web apps that can do this while the server that hosts it remains offline?  The only web apps I've ever encountered like this are hosted on systems that are online (ex: having a dedicated RPi or a home router that has a WOL app/form).

There are some routers around which provide such functionality, i.e. when a request arrives that is set up to be redirected to an internal endpoint, they can can be configured to send a WOL packet to the internal server. 

But it's only some (routers) that can do this.

[MSI2017 40]

10 hours ago, softworkz said:

There are some routers around which provide such functionality, i.e. when a request arrives that is set up to be redirected to an internal endpoint, they can can be configured to send a WOL packet to the internal server. 

But it's only some (routers) that can do this.

I believe my Asus can do that. But I have sortof let go of the thought since I want to spare the drives (settings an automatic standby would mean all the drives having to spin up when the server is getting a magic packet.

[MSI2017 40]

11 hours ago, Luke said:

It's not supported by the ffmpeg build in the 4.7 server, which is what we use to probe files for media info, but hopefully soon it will.

That explains! Would it not be more convenient to implement https://github.com/MediaArea/MediaInfo in emby? It would even allow for more stats for us AV nerds (like peak and avg nits in HDR files)

[adminExitium 173]

13 minutes ago, MSI2017 said:

Would it not be more convenient to implement https://github.com/MediaArea/MediaInfo in emby?

MediaInfo is not without its own issues. Sonarr & Radarr (2 very popular media-management tools) have recently switched from MediaInfo to FFProbe to deal with those issues.

See these issues if you want more details of those:
https://github.com/Sonarr/Sonarr/issues/4816

https://github.com/Radarr/Radarr/issues/6057

[rbjtech 4260]

16 minutes ago, MSI2017 said:

That explains! Would it not be more convenient to implement https://github.com/MediaArea/MediaInfo in emby? It would even allow for more stats for us AV nerds (like peak and avg nits in HDR files)

Take a look here - we developed a Plugin to use MediaInfo ..

 

 

 

[MSI2017 40]

Just now, rbjtech said:

Take a look here - we developed a Plugin to use MediaInfo ..

 

 

 

I have actually used this in the past (and I liked it) but it does not help Emby automatically choose the correct file based on the device's capabilities

[rbjtech 4260]

Just now, MSI2017 said:

I have actually used this in the past (and I liked it) but it does not help Emby automatically choose the correct file based on the device's capabilities

Correct - but I think Emby actually has some way to even get the basics correctly chosen.

The logic has been 'try and play without transcoding' but I have never seen a breakdown of the logic  beyond this.

I think many people would LOVE to see some sort of user configurable selection based on preferences - or my personal view is the playback should be defined by the DEVICE.

ie - if the playback device is capable of playing back DV5 with True-HD - and those are available in your language in the media file - then why would you NOT use those to playback ?

 

[softworkz 3335]

43 minutes ago, MSI2017 said:

I believe my Asus can do that. But I have sortof let go of the thought since I want to spare the drives (settings an automatic standby would mean all the drives having to spin up when the server is getting a magic packet.

I'm not sure whether this is really the case. But even if it would - you can still configure them to go sleeping again after a minute, so I don't see any problem here.

[MSI2017 40]

7 minutes ago, softworkz said:

I'm not sure whether this is really the case. But even if it would - you can still configure them to go sleeping again after a minute, so I don't see any problem here.

It's more the fact that it must spin up that is causing additional wear on the motors. Especially if they go to sleep multiple times a day. That's why SSD caching would also be cool, would lower power consumption, increase responsiveness and also reduce wear

[softworkz 3335]

1 hour ago, MSI2017 said:

It's more the fact that it must spin up that is causing additional wear on the motors. Especially if they go to sleep multiple times a day. That's why SSD caching would also be cool, would lower power consumption, increase responsiveness and also reduce wear

Now it's getting a bit nonsense. If you are concerned about wear, then you must keep your disks spinning 24/7. I had HDs running for > 15 years without error and without ever letting them cool down. If you are concerned about power consumption, then you need to switch them on and off on every occasion and accept the fact that they won't last as long as that, but they'll still make their years.

But eventually you can't have both, and a strategy like "a little bit of this and a little bit of that" won't get you very far IMO.

[rbjtech 4260]

In the emby world - this would actually make for an interesting plugin, which I have had thoughts about before myself - Storage Tiering - where you could actually copy/move the entire 'show' to SSD - it wouldn't work for films (unless you could predict what the user will watch next lol, but new releases should probably go on the faster Tier) but for in flight TV shows - you can reliably predict what the next episode will be.   So if you moved all the 'in progress' shows (in their entirety) to an SSD then you could in theory, power down the mechanical drives containing all the other shows ..   As a show finishes, it stays for x days and then gets moved back to slow storage to make way for new shows that are being watched..

[sydlexius 241]

2 hours ago, MSI2017 said:

It's more the fact that it must spin up that is causing additional wear on the motors. Especially if they go to sleep multiple times a day. That's why SSD caching would also be cool, would lower power consumption, increase responsiveness and also reduce wear

I would suggest that if you want a tiered storage solution, you need to be looking at the OS/Distro you're using, as well as the choice of file systems/partition management.  Sure this could be handled at the application or even file level, but this really should be done at the block level IMO.

[rbjtech 4260]

6 minutes ago, sydlexius said:

I would suggest that if you want a tiered storage solution, you need to be looking at the OS/Distro you're using, as well as the choice of file systems/partition management.  Sure this could be handled at the application or even file level, but this really should be done at the block level IMO.

For this use case - I don't believe 'usage' based predictions will get the desired outcome.  For mass usage - then yes, of course this would work - but for low users - then it's simply too little data to base a decision on.   An App/Plugin needs to intervene and move related items - no file system/os is going to know that detail ?