clarification needed on movie formats

[rliepins 9]

Hello

 

I'm looking for some clarification on movie formats used by Emby.  I've been doing some benchmark testing on playing different movie types via the web interface and have found varying degrees of performance used by ffmpeg.  It seems wtv formats perform much better than mp4.  Is there a guide on what formats work the best?  Is there a native format that won't require transcoding?  Are there differences between processing movies through the web interface vs WMC Classic vs extender?  are there recommended codec packs to use (Shark007 or others)?

 

Any help would be most appreciated.  While I don't relish reformatting all my movies, I'd like to know which ones work best moving forward.

 

Thanks and great job on the project!

[ebr 14955]

The answer is "it depends" in all cases.  The best format will depend on the device playing it and, yes, it is very different for the web vs. MBC vs. an extender (in all three cases).

 

The most universal format you could choose right now is probably an mp4 container with h.264 video and aac audio.

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

For the least amount of transcoding to mobile devices or the web client, you would want to use MP4 containers with H.264 video and AAC Stereo (2-channel) audio. You would use SRT subtitles but they would have to be external from the MP4 container. You would want your overall bitrate to be about 6 Mbps maximum.

 

You can store multiple copies of a movie in a directory so the most appropriate one would be used for the device.

Edited April 9, 2015 by Koleckai Silvestri

[Deathsquirrel 741]

Koleckai's guidelines are right on but I can't suggest you follow them.  Rip your media, encode to the format that lets you do what you want to do, and allow the server to transcode as needed for your clients.  I definitely would not want to cut my DTS-HD audio down to AAC stereo just because that's the best some client devices can handle.  I'll let the server do the transcoding when needed and listen to better audio the rest of the time.

 

Of course if the only devices you use sport those extreme limitations, go right ahead and rip to them.

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

Koleckai's guidelines are right on but I can't suggest you follow them.  Rip your media, encode to the format that lets you do what you want to do, and allow the server to transcode as needed for your clients.  I definitely would not want to cut my DTS-HD audio down to AAC stereo just because that's the best some client devices can handle.  I'll let the server do the transcoding when needed and listen to better audio the rest of the time.

 

Of course if the only devices you use sport those extreme limitations, go right ahead and rip to them.

 

I do the same but there is the impression of fear about transcoding in these forums. Though I guess if you're running your server on a Raspberry Pi or a $50 Android box, you wouldn't want to transcode.