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Feature to Force DirectPlay Only Without Any Detection and Disable All Transcoding


gordan
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mobamoba

To me, Emby is the worst of all worlds at this point in that not only is an advanced user unable to force Direct Play but the DLNA and device settings are so obtuse that they border on useless for this purpose.

 

How is the device identification section of the DLNA profiles, for example, simple? While on this thread, there's an assertion that 90% of people would be confused by disabling transcoding; are you saying those same 90% are somehow not confused by phrases like "A case-insensitive substring or regex expression" or "Path Substitution" or which of those 9 DLNA identification settings need to be filled in or what they need to be filled in with and where to find that information (combing through logs btw is the answer on this board - do you think 90% of users know where the logs are)? How is a DLNA profile somehow perfectly simple enough for the "average" user yet disabling transcoding across the board is too advanced?

 

I think it's the inconsistency that's bothersome here. The reality is this: media serving isn't simple and, in order for Emby to be set up in a home to begin with - or even know it exists - someone in that home needed to have the technical know-how just to get it going and install it, and that same person will be able to handle disabling transcoding and its consequences I'm pretty sure.

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To me, Emby is the worst of all worlds at this point in that not only is an advanced user unable to force Direct Play but the DLNA and device settings are so obtuse that they border on useless for this purpose.

 

How is the device identification section of the DLNA profiles, for example, simple? While on this thread, there's an assertion that 90% of people would be confused by disabling transcoding; are you saying those same 90% are somehow not confused by phrases like "A case-insensitive substring or regex expression" or "Path Substitution" or which of those 9 DLNA identification settings need to be filled in or what they need to be filled in with and where to find that information (combing through logs btw is the answer on this board - do you think 90% of users know where the logs are)? How is a DLNA profile somehow perfectly simple enough for the "average" user yet disabling transcoding across the board is too advanced?

 

I think it's the inconsistency that's bothersome here. The reality is this: media serving isn't simple and, in order for Emby to be set up in a home to begin with - or even know it exists - someone in that home needed to have the technical know-how just to get it going and install it, and that same person will be able to handle disabling transcoding and its consequences I'm pretty sure.

 

Hi there, mobamoba, several pages ago I did say that we always listen to you guys and we do adjust based on feedback. No decision is ever final, and in fact, this isn't really even a decision at this point. Like any feature request, we watch and wait and see what the community feedback is compared to other requests. So stay tuned.

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Dizzy49

Right now I think Emby is stuck between things.  It can't take over the living room because it doesn't allow for straight pass-through playback (ie No Transcoding), and it isn't truly mobile since it doesn't allow offline playback on mobile devices.

 

From a marketing, customer, and usability standpoint, this is about the worst possible place to be, to put it bluntly, at this point you're just pissing everyone off.  

 

My suggestion on the previous page would be to have a setting per device.  This would resolve the living room issue, AND enhance the mobile experience as well.  Killing two birds with that one.

PERSONALLY, I'd rather have offline playback on mobile devices first, but that's mostly because my kids drive me crazy on road trips.

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Right now I think Emby is stuck between things.  It can't take over the living room because it doesn't allow for straight pass-through playback (ie No Transcoding), and it isn't truly mobile since it doesn't allow offline playback on mobile devices.

 

From a marketing, customer, and usability standpoint, this is about the worst possible place to be, to put it bluntly, at this point you're just pissing everyone off.  

 

My suggestion on the previous page would be to have a setting per device.  This would resolve the living room issue, AND enhance the mobile experience as well.  Killing two birds with that one.

PERSONALLY, I'd rather have offline playback on mobile devices first, but that's mostly because my kids drive me crazy on road trips.

 

I am just the opposite. I already have offline viewing, I just load the .mp4 files directly on the mobile device. I would rather have the transcode setting. However I completely agree that Emby is just making everyone mad. I refuse to use Emby until they allow me to turn off transcoding. I will stick with Kodi for now.

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Deathsquirrel

Right now I think Emby is stuck between things.  It can't take over the living room because it doesn't allow for straight pass-through playback (ie No Transcoding), and it isn't truly mobile since it doesn't allow offline playback on mobile devices.

 

This is not correct.  The application absolutely  does direct play with no transcoding when the client application supports direct playback of the material in question.  Users encountering errors in the automatic sensing of what can direct play have been repeatedly encouraged in this thread to report those issues as bugs.  This feature request would allow the disabling of transcoding.  That doesn't mean all media is transcoded all the time.

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This is not correct.  The application absolutely  does direct play with no transcoding when the client application supports direct playback of the material in question.  Users encountering errors in the automatic sensing of what can direct play have been repeatedly encouraged in this thread to report those issues as bugs.  This feature request would allow the disabling of transcoding.  That doesn't mean all media is transcoded all the time.

What is the turn around time on these bug requests? Because any movie that does not work would be completely useless until the bug is fixed. Which means I could be waiting weeks or months until I can watch a movie. That is unacceptable to me. I am an advanced user and I encode all my movies to a format that is compatible with all my devices. I should be trusted enough to turn off transcoding.

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What is the turn around time on these bug requests? Because any movie that does not work would be completely useless until the bug is fixed. Which means I could be waiting weeks or months until I can watch a movie. That is unacceptable to me. I am an advanced user and I encode all my movies to a format that is compatible with all my devices. I should be trusted enough to turn off transcoding.

 

In the meantime can you give us an example of what doesn't play? If something is failing we'd like to get that fixed for all users. Please see here:

 

http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/739-how-to-report-a-problem/

 

Thanks.

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Deathsquirrel

Unfortunately no, I stopped using Emby until this feature gets added.

 

Well the turnaround on unreported bugs is a bit longer than never ;)

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breezytm

Talking about blowing things out of proportion  :D 

My Emby server works just fine. It would be great to add the feature but its not a show stopper like most of ya'll trying to paint it to be. 

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Vidman

It could be quite literally a show stopper if their server is not up to the task of transcoding

Edited by Vidman
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Talking about blowing things out of proportion  :D 

 

My Emby server works just fine. It would be great to add the feature but its not a show stopper like most of ya'll trying to paint it to be. 

 

My server is low power because it is on 24/7. It does not have the ability to transcode. I bought nexus players for my tvs and they should do the transcoding if needed, but I know they support the formats I have, so I should be able to turn off transcoding.

 

It could be quite literally a show stopper if their server is not up to the task of transcoding

 

Yes, glad that some people understand.

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Deathsquirrel

My server is low power because it is on 24/7. It does not have the ability to transcode. I bought nexus players for my tvs and they should do the transcoding if needed, but I know they support the formats I have, so I should be able to turn off transcoding.

 

If you're looking for transcoding clients this is definitely not the app for you.  The server is designed to do that.  All this setting would get you if it were implemented is an error message if the device doesn't natively support the format.

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If you're looking for transcoding clients this is definitely not the app for you.  The server is designed to do that.  All this setting would get you if it were implemented is an error message if the device doesn't natively support the format.

 

Yes I know. The last part of my post that you quoted says "I know they support the formats I have, so I should be able to turn off transcoding."

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The server wouldn't really need the feature per se. The client apps are fully capable of deciding on their own to transcode/directplay/directstream. The capabilties the client sends to the server is merely a convenience that allows the server to better suggest a play method. The client, can choose to take this advice or go on its own. So if this were implemented the best way to do it isnt adding configuration options and bloat to the server to allow this behavior. That would force it onto every client in your household, and may not be acceptable.

 

Emby client developers should copy what I have done in the emby blue neon night roku app. You have the best of both worlds this way. This is the most logical way to give people their cake, and let them eat it too. Such a simple request and people are over thinking this. The most simple answer is probably the best. Let people become the boss of their media and emby merely an advisor. Win win situation. The last metroid is in captivity. The galaxy is at peace.

 

end.png

Edited by speechles
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Makes much more sense to me to have the option at the server level.

 

I don't want to have to maintain it and be sure it is consistent across all of the app universe (including some we don't control).

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Maintain it? Consistent across all apps? I dont understand the argument of how those things are relevant. Force directplay/Force directstream/Force transcode/Use auto-detection. Its four options to choose from on the apps pre-play screen. This is very difficult to do? Cmon...

 

You do realize how easy it is for clients to do this, right? Its what they were doing before the server worked off of capabilities. The apps you dont have control of, there are so few and to worry about them.. You dont.. What they do or do not do you have no control over, so they dont really matter. Those unofficial apps can get better and do the same or suffer complaints. I just think the server should not be making decisions for the clients. At best it should be a suggestion the user of the app chooses, or does not. This makes it clear to the user where the power is. They have it. The server will bow to their whims. Its all about where it is best to control this function. The most obvious being within each client. I know this works because it is already working so smoothly for me. 'Nuff said. :)

 

Before you knock this, try the emby blue neon app on your roku. There are dialog pop-ups to explain why each play method isnt working and what play method to try next. It will even spot bad videos that will not play using auto-detection and advise users to please post about it on emby forums. Try the app and see for yourself that this is a viable means to give users back control. At least see how this works, before you say its the wrong way to go about it. I am sure you also have a roku @@ebr. Try the app and how I've done this. You cant appreciate it until you experience it. Please try it out for yourself.

Edited by speechles
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I didn't say it was the wrong way.  I simply said it would be better to be able to control it centrally.

 

However, that point is moot because, as Luke just pointed out to me, it can't be done at the server level anyway (well, except in a hacked way like the OP has done for his purposes).

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Why, exactly, can it not be done at server level? The way to do it is to disable auto-detection completely, and just pass a raw file down the byte stream. By now people on this thread have spent an order of magnitude more man-hours debating the issue than it takes to fix it. The wrapper script I hacked together is probably twice as long, all 7 lines of it, as a code patch that would disable auto-detection if a configuration option is set.

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for dlna devices it could. for emby apps, we don't keep the streaming profiles on the server. the apps self-manage them, and those profiles are used to determine which streaming endpoint is used.

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mobamoba

for dlna devices it could. for emby apps, we don't keep the streaming profiles on the server. the apps self-manage them, and those profiles are used to determine which streaming endpoint is used.

What about when the Emby app passes off the stream to an external player (like VLC on Android for example) - what profile is used then?

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breezytm

Now that i want to do something i see how important this is. I want to play live tv using emby but it refuses to play the stream. However, the same client play it directly from the HDHomerun without any issues. 

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