Kodi on OpenELEC running on Chromebox and transcoding question

[gene0915 37]

I've played with Emby from time to time and will be giving it another shot this weekend as I try and get away from Plex.

 

Question regarding Kodi with an Emby back-end setup.

 

On my Chrombox (OpenELEC+Kodi)....I can access the file shares on my HTPC and play any file on there and of course, no transcoding since Kodi is capable of playing all my files natively.

 

I came across this post: http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/21630-how-do-i-know-if-im-using-direct-play-streaming-or-transcoding/ ........ in particular this response:

 

Direct play: Kodi plays the file, bypassing your Emby server. This can only happen if Kodi has access to the file via local/network.

Direct stream: Emby server feeds the file as is to Kodi. There is no modification done to the file.

Transcoding: Emby server feeds the file in a readable format to Kodi. This happens in the event Kodi doesn't support the file format you are trying to play.

 

 

 

,,,,,, my question is, how intelligent is Emby. If I'm accessing the Emby server using the Emby video add-on in Kodi from my Chromebox, will Emby pass the files I'm watching without transcoding? I'm guessing the answer is yes but wanted to make sure.

 

Reason I ask is because in my existing Plex setup, if I launch the Plex app on my Shield TV (a VERY capable box)..... Plex wants to transcode the audio (or SOMETHING) when I watch back home movies (AVCHD .mts files combined into an MKV) and also random Blu-ray ripped movies. If I play these some movies back directly with Kodi, no problem and there is no hit on my HTPC CPU since Kodi can play the files natively. (Maybe the Plex implementation on Android just sucks?!) I just want a capable box on the front end (Chromebox+OpenELEC+Kodi) and a back-end server to handle metadata edits and monitoring of new episodes/movies. Sure, Kodi can do the back-end stuff with MySQL but eh....... metadata edits appear easier with Emby plus, the library auto-update add-on that you can download for Kodi sorta/kinda sucks.

 

I want to have Emby do the back-end database stuff (monitoring for new episodes, metadata edits) and have Kodi (with Emby video add-on) on the front.

 

[Angelblue05 4130]

You have the logic reversed. The add-on decides what Kodi can direct play (there is no filter as on now). Of course, this is if Kodi is able to access the file directly. This means settings up your paths as network shares and making sure you enter your network credentials in the add-on (they are then added to passwords.xml).

 

In addition, if you have hevc or h265 formats, there's the add-on setting to automatically force transcode those formats, if Kodi has trouble playing them. Hope this helps.