When transcoding, Emby considers higher resolution = higher quality ignoring bitrate

[darkNiGHTS 1]

This is treating it like it's a 3rd party streaming service and I feel this should be changed. On Netflix where you don't have to worry about CPU usage - it makes sense to have bitrates and resolutions be connected. With Emby and finite server resources, it doesn't. With Emby in its current state, it is impossible to have any overlap in bitrates with different resolutions. Having lower resolutions at high bitrates is incredible advantagous to those of us with limited CPU power as bitrate has almost no affect on CPU usage whereas resolution has a huge affect.

 

I've edited the mediaplayer.js to support some different bitrates than what was there by default and found some strange behavior.

 

In an effort to optimize streaming video quality, at first I experimented with different 720p bitrates. I tried different bitrates and found that my computer couldn't even handle 1.1 mbps - 1 mbps was the limit at 720p. Then I decided to add some higher bitrate options to 480p. To my confusion, adding 1.5 mbps 480p to the choices wasn't possible as long as there was a 720p option with a lower bitrate. Whenever I choose 1.5 mbps 480p, it automatically goes to 1 mbps 720p! The only way to make higher bitrate 480p options possible was to delete all 720p video options.

 

This is very odd behavior and I feel bitrate and resolution should be chosen completely independently. By making the two options independent and allowing higher bitrates at lower resolutions, you will allow users with lower end servers to enjoy higher quality video.

 

My preferred setup would be that instead of one selection box for quality, there are two selection boxes - one to choose resolution and one to choose bitrate.

 

But at very least I would like to be able to have 2 mbps 480p and 1 mbps 720p on the list of choices simultaneously.

 

I feel a lot of people are in the same boat as me - their server struggles transcoding 720p, or maybe their server struggles transcoding 1080p so they'd like higher bitrate 720p. Or maybe their server can only do one 720p transcode at a time, but can handle two 480p transcodes for two different users at the same time - once again they should be able to select higher bitrate.

 

Thanks for everyone's hard work on the server - it truly is an impressive piece of software. In the scheme of things, this is a minor issue but I feel fixing it would allow Emby to be even more powerful.

[JeremyFr79 228]

I'm not trying to bash here or anything but, what hardware are you running your "server" on?  Just about any hardware out there for the last say 4 or 5 years should have no issue transcoding at a minimum a single 1080P stream no matter the bit rate.  I mean hell I've got a dual processor server that's running on 8 year old hardware that can easily transcode 3-4 simultaneous streams of 1080P content without issue.  Mind you this would easily be beat by more modern i5 or i7 processors out there.  Content is moving to higher resolutions every day, heck 1080P isn't even the best nowadays with 2k and 4k coming into use and 6k and 8k right around the corner.  Honestly I'd think you'd find that most people who are using Emby are running on hardware that is at least capable of transcoding single stream 1080P.  It may be more beneficial to you to say jump on Ebay, buy yourself some older Xeon chips and an older server board (say x5000 series CPUS) which will cost ya less than 200 bux for everything and do an upgrade of your hardware.  Maybe I'm wrong though and maybe there's a huge demand for Emby to run on "low power" hardware but I just don't see it personally.

Edited April 11, 2015 by JeremyFr79

[darkNiGHTS 1]

I'm not trying to bash here or anything but, what hardware are you running your "server" on?  Just about any hardware out there for the last say 4 or 5 years should have no issue transcoding at a minimum a single 1080P stream no matter the bit rate.  I mean hell I've got a dual processor server that's running on 8 year old hardware that can easily transcode 3-4 simultaneous streams of 1080P content without issue.  Mind you this would easily be beat by more modern i5 or i7 processors out there.  Content is moving to higher resolutions every day, heck 1080P isn't even the best nowadays with 2k and 4k coming into use and 6k and 8k right around the corner.  Honestly I'd think you'd find that most people who are using Emby are running on hardware that is at least capable of transcoding single stream 1080P.  It may be more beneficial to you to say jump on Ebay, buy yourself some older Xeon chips and an older server board (say x5000 series CPUS) which will cost ya less than 200 bux for everything and do an upgrade of your hardware.  Maybe I'm wrong though and maybe there's a huge demand for Emby to run on "low power" hardware but I just don't see it personally.

Do you pay your power bill? In a year of 24/7 running, your power costs will be so high it would have been cheaper to buy a low voltage i3/i5. If you are paying your power bill, your 8 year old dual core is costing you a ton of money and you should upgrade or you're paying more to run a slower computer.

 

I have an Athlon 5150, a processor just released in 2014 - not the lowest end low voltage software, but a cheap one. Runs like 10 watts of power. Yes, about one fricking light bulb. It runs everything I need it to fine and costs me pennies to run a week.

 

But anyway, you're missing the whole point of this. I'm not asking for huge optimizations just for the sake of slow hardware. Allowing the user to choose the bitrate and resolution independently would benefit many users that want to fine tune their transcoding experience to get the best quality rather than just ask people to spend a bunch of money on a new server. Anyway, like I said in my original post, I have it working the way I'd like it to and don't give a crap about 2k (2k is the same as 1080p) or 4k.

Edited April 11, 2015 by darkNiGHTS

[JeremyFr79 228]

Yes I pay my own power bill, my entire rack (4 servers 1 HTPC, receiver, security camera gear, switches etc) runs me about 30-40bux a month, which in the grand scheme of things isn't that bad.  I pick up my gear 2nd hand some of it for free as I work in a Data Center and don't mind having older gear as long as it still performs.  I stated in my own thread that a newer i5/i7 would in the long run give me better performance.  But I run full servers for one so I'd have to look at Xeon stuff anyways, and I'm not gonna run out and drop a couple grand on a CPU alone just to save a few bucks on my power bill.  I have no issue being generations behind in hardware as long as it does what I need it to and does it well, which my main servers do just fine at.  At some point here I'll be adding an older gen Xeon E5 based system to take over server duties for Emby and be a dedicated transcoder for the system.  But for now my dual Xeon X5460's (8 cores total) work just fine for me.

 

Like I said wasn't trying to bash on your stuff, but from what I'm seeing the 5150 is very similar to an Atom processor and as such isn't really cut out for the intensive computations required for things like media transcoding.  As to your initial concern on my setup I see a fairly good choice of resolution/bit rate options available I'm not sure how you could want more.

[Deathsquirrel 741]

You can alo try to match your media formats to your clients to minimize transcoding.  If your media formats are supported by your client devices there is no transcoding to begin with.  If you are going to transcode an atom-equivant server isn't your best choice.

[darkNiGHTS 1]

I'm transcoding live TV - as I said I'm happy with the results I have now. 2 mbps 480p is good enough quality for my purposes. Please, no more discussion about my server, it's completely irrelevant to this discussion.

Edited April 11, 2015 by darkNiGHTS

[darkNiGHTS 1]

Like I said wasn't trying to bash on your stuff, but from what I'm seeing the 5150 is very similar to an Atom processor and as such isn't really cut out for the intensive computations required for things like media transcoding.  As to your initial concern on my setup I see a fairly good choice of resolution/bit rate options available I'm not sure how you could want more.

Sigh. That's not my initial concern at all. I said very clearly in my intial post that there are issues with how Emby handles bitrates and resolutions. It is impossible to have 2 mbps 480p on the bitrate choosing list while 1 mbps 720p is on the list. There is no reason not to give the user a choice like that and force people like me to hack text files that get overwritten every update.

Edited April 11, 2015 by darkNiGHTS

[SilentAssassin 96]

I like the idea of being able to choose the resolution and bitrate independently. 

[Beardyname 195]

Maybe this should be a feature request? and not really a support thread