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Migration to EMBY from MB 2.6 plus new HTPC build


One2Go

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One2Go

Have enjoyed for the longest time the Throgsoft themes busing MB 2.6 with WMC and have finally reached the point of building a new HTPC for my home theater and now ask to be so kind and please steer me into the correct direction by answering a few of my concerns and unknowns.

 

1. I have a QNAP 253Pro that handles a Plex server just fine but would like to switch to EMBY. I know how to get the EMBY server installed on the QNAP NAS.

  • Can the Plex server and EMBY server coexist on the same NAS but only one be used at any given time?

2. All my content is on two UnRaid servers with all the needed and often custom meta data that displays just fine in MB 2.6. (1036 movies, 146 TV Shows with 3707 episodes)

  • How can I ensure that the folder.jpg, Backdrop.jpg, movie.xml, series.xml and episodes.xml files will be left intact and used in the EMBY configuration?

3. My migration is primarily driven by the most excellent Throgsoft themes that I have come to love and since they work now with EMBY I am willing to make the switch and build an i-5 Skylake NUC as a new client / HTPC. Here are a few unknows and concerns. (No playback of 3D and 4K content needed)

 

I was going to wait for Kaby Lake NUCs and was going to use them. However with Kaby Lake Microsoft will ONLY allow Windows 10 as the sole OS. Since Throgsofts themes depend on WMC is the combination of an Intel NUC6i5SYK kit with Windows 7 a sound combination for this? Are there any possible pitfalls to consider for the next few years?

This is the article discussing the Microsoft Update issue with none Win 10 OSs. http://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/matthew-wilson/microsoft-locks-ryzen-and-kaby-lake-users-out-of-updates-on-windows-7-and-8-1/

 

4. I have bought PWDVD 16 Ultra recently since it was on sale plus will purchase RedFox AnyDVD for the HTPC in addition I also have used as an external player for MB 2.6 TMT 5.

  • Does anyone foresee a problem with this approach of using PWRDVD 16 Ultra as external player since I do want Blu-ray menus for my TV Shows?

We probably would not have had this conversation if Throgsoft would adopt his themes to the EMBY Theater but since it took him this long to get his themes to work with WMC in EMBY I am realistic and think it will not be arriving any time soon.

 

I am at the crossroads of making the jump to EMBY but want to make sure that Throgsoft's themes work, have an OS that does not require a User Hack to install WMC, try to use my present meta data with a minimum amount of modifications.

 

Since nothing has been bough everything is just in the planning stages I am very much willing to listen to suggestions achieving this setup for my Home Theater.

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PenkethBoy

For the NUC - i would check that Win7 drivers exist as that would be the limiting factor - if you can get them then apart from less updates and security fixes in time - should work fine

 

i use a nuc as my main client pc (i7, win 10) and its fine on the back of my TV

 

I ran Plex on my 853A for a while and it was fine - having emby on the same NAS would only cause issues if they were looking at the same media and if you had them trying to do any transcoding while the other was streaming or vice versa - Your NAS will actually struggle to transcode anyway - streaming will be fine as long as not too many clients at the same time. There are differences in the way some of the media folder structure is setup between Plex and Emby - extras/specials etc

 

I read somebody else wanting to use an external player to bring up iso's etc a couple of months ago and IIRC they got it working - so i would give the search ago

 

Sorry can help on the xml files as deleted all that when i chose emby - it was easier for me to just get emby to recreate it 

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One2Go

For the NUC - i would check that Win7 drivers exist as that would be the limiting factor - if you can get them then apart from less updates and security fixes in time - should work fine

 

I ran Plex on my 853A for a while and it was fine - having emby on the same NAS would only cause issues if they were looking at the same media and if you had them trying to do any transcoding while the other was streaming or vice versa - Your NAS will actually struggle to transcode anyway - streaming will be fine as long as not too many clients at the same time.

Thanks for your reply. I did research and fund an outfit that would do a finished installation with Windows 7 Pro, which avoids me having to create a custom ISO with USB 3.0 drivers for the Windows 7 installation.

 

My NAS did do transcoding and only when it tried to convert DTS audio to a Roku 3 did the CPU hit 92% but it worked. For AC3 it was very much lower and since I only stream to a max of two clients I believe this should work.

 

Thanks for the tip on the media location, the Plex server has an exclusive share on the NAS to stream requested movies and requested TV shows are in the Plex cloud, which is another way to stream in case the NAS struggles with transcoding.

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One2Go

Welcome aboard @@One2Go !

Luke, of all the people that have supported this product over the years, you seem to have a finger on the pulse. Here is something that I hope you can assist / assure me of.

 

Many of my media is documentaries which have a massive amount of custom meta data in movie.xml files as well as custom Logos and ClearArt images. As I understand that EMBY has its own excellent scrapper, however since many of my images are custom produced, will EMBY look at the Movie & TV Show structure and recognize the MB 2.6 meta data and use it, like folder, backdrop images and descriptions in XML files?

 

There could be the potential for some lengthy corrections that I have to make. Please point me into to direction on how to use any preexisting meta data in EMBY.

 

Thanks

O2G

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It will read the old xml for the purposes of importing it, but we no longer save to xml. we save to nfo.

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One2Go

That is helpful to know. Is there a list of Tags that are being used by the import process? For example I have a lifetime license to use Media Center Master and it has served me well it creates XML files and uses "Overview" or "Description" for associated text with media. I have stuck with "Description" since that is what MB used, will EMBY be able to import this? Finally I do have a few nested / grouped movies with folder.xml files and I presume that EMBY will handle this now much more efficient and professional.

 

Again thanks for your help and I can see that this will be a new project for me hopefully it will not be too time consuming because any possible difficulties will make sure that I will spend time fixing problems on my end :(

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One2Go

This may prove to be a busy weekend for installing the server on the QNAP NAS.

 

Ordered a Skylake NUC to be here middle of next week including all the needed software for playback, anti virus and RedFox AnyDVD.

 

One installing the EMBY client on the NUC anything to be aware of regarding the new licenses for Throg's themes?

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yardameus

Plus side of all of this is that Emby server and MB can coexist.  So you can get your server all up to speed and make sure everything works before completely committing.  I don't recall any issues with Emby reading old metadata.  I did this a while ago, so a lot of things have changed, but I would assume you could still have your old MB 2 setup again if Emby server does something weird.

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One2Go

When I started to check into the migration I decided that EMBY would be installed on a machine that had a virgin OS installation and no other prior program installation as I want to cut down any possible influence from previous installations, So once the NUC arrives and functions as a plain vanilla PC, I will install the server on the QNAP NAS and gather all the meta data that is in my media collection folders. Then do the client install and setup Throg's themes, hopefully it will be totally uneventful, if not I remember the excellent support that this community offered in the past and I am sure that is still the case.

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yardameus

I realize it's a new installation.  I might almost suggest installing emby server prior to doing the new setup, giving it a little bit of a test with your current system and backing up your configuration prior to setting up the new system.  That way you have tested your current setup with the new server.  

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  • 2 weeks later...
One2Go

Here we go having a whole day to install and cut my teeth with EMBY server on my QNAP 253Pro.

 

Finished yesterday the i-5 NUC with Win 7 installed, PWDVD 16 Ultra, AnyDVD Redfox, MPC_HC and all the needed settings for my network and connectivity work just fine plus updated to all the latest drivers and updates.

 

Now to the server I am running QNAP FW 4.2.0 because of problems with the rTorrent client and their latest FW, which has been fixed since but I am hesitant to update at this time.

 

Installed Qmono_4.4.2.11_x86 and downloaded both the EMBY server versions 3.2.8.0 and 3.2.9.0 but someone posted that his 3.2.9.0 installation failed but no further postings.

 

Any suggestions at this point? Took screenshots of the old MB settings and I am ready to go, any chance on how to get an on-line chat going just in case?

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yardameus

I have had no issues with any of the recent Emby server updates.  There probably isn't any reason that the most recent stable release wouldn't work fine for you, unless you were wanting to test the beta.

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One2Go

Well I do have an issue. Installed the 3.2.10.0 version had to update the FW to version 4.2.2 because the FFMpeg Q-Package would not install otherwise. Also I do have a difficulty with adding a Media library using version 3.2.9.0 so will try again and once I am at the library part again I hope I can solve it. I have two UnRaid servers \\Tower\ plus \\HPTower that have shares that are set to public and are accessible by all my Windows PC on the Network and all PC belong to a Workgroup that I have named. Do I have to set something on the NAS to access the UnRaid servers which have SMB or specify in the QNAP the workgroup?

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The mono runtime does not support unc shares. What you need to do is mount those shares as a local path in QNAP, then you can add that local path to Emby.

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One2Go

Sorry could you help out there how to do that one of the shares is \\Tower\Animation how would I set that as a local path?

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One2Go

After some searching I found this regarding creating a local path:

 

library: /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/Multimedia/movies
path substitution: //server/Multimedia/movies

 

This is one of my shares:
library: /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/1st Time Run
path substitution: //Tower/1st Time Run

How does it treat spaces do I have to put quotes around it? This is a real pain with QMono, is there nothing else on the horizon because if you run several servers which I do I have to create all these paths.

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One2Go

Well I am stuck and this is not very easy. After I installed the EMBY server then when I try to open it from the MyApps page in QNAP I get this error message in the browser:

 

Could not find file "/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/Emby/Emby/dashboard-ui/dashboard.html".

 

No matter what part in the right hand side I hit I get the error of could not find.

 

The actual file location is:

 

"/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/Emby/Emby/dashboard-ui/dashboard-ui/dashboard.html"

 

In the actual execution there is a dashboard-ui part in the path missing.

Edited by One2Go
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Yes this looks like something newly introduced in 3.2.10. I have reached out to the QNAP rep who handles building the QNAP package. In the meantime, if you can get a hold of 3.2.9 that version appears to be fine.

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One2Go

I used version 3.2.8.0 and it worked, version 3.2.9.0 had the same behavior as 3.2.10.0 IIRC. 3.2.8.0 also detected my HDHomerun tuner while the later versions did not. Hope to get this sorted, only bad part I spent a lot of time getting to this point and I hoped to have this finished by today, well you got more on your plate then me :D

Edited by One2Go
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Ok sorry, then yea 3.2.8 is probably what you will want for now. Right now a QNAP rep handles packaging for us and it's possible that something just went wrong. Very soon our plan is to completely take it over and handle it ourselves though and then I expect things will be much smoother. 

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One2Go

So far I am impressed, How does the Scan Library handle like a Documentary share that has both Films, and Collection of Films under one folder as well as TV Shows. Documentaries are a mixture of Movies and TV shows and then I collected documentaries that are grouped under World War 1 as well as World War 2?

 

Thanks for your help and as I said you do have your plate full.

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