Some transcoding suggestions

[Lighthammer 80]

I ran into a hiccup doing my transcodes (I try to keep consistent formats across my videos as best as possible) and it got me wondering how sophisticated is the transcode engine in Emby ATM?

 

The hiccup I ran into is that moving movies from 4:3 to 16:9 ratio on a particular set of videos caused them to desync the sound/video. I was wondering if the transcode engine is sophisticated enough to add in features that would allow audio/video offsetting (to resync) and save back to the file is something that could be done with some sort of ease or something logical to add to the roadmap in the future.

Additionally, since the engine DOES do some transcoding to devices requiring it, I think it would also be a good idea to allow for the option to save those transcoded files to the harddrive incase needed in the future.

A great usecase can be see in my viewing habits:  I tend to run emby A LOT for background white noise. When using it for white noise, I always watch something that I've seen so many times that the odds of me turning to watch it while working / doing other things is less obvious. If I am streaming to a device that doesn't support H265, each time the system needs to transcode it. Therefor, it seems to me that systems that have less resources are going to get baked having to retranscode tasks it already did.

I also do notice SIGNIFICANT viewing problems when you try to jump around on a video that is being transcoded, even with a monster like my server.

Down the road, I would love to see some features that allow for some clipping/trimming such as chopping out intros/outros so that they can be reused to trim down the library or features that allow sectional repeats. I image these sorts of features can/probably should be wrapped up as a plugin and sold.

[Luke 37100]

Hi, transcoding output is based on all applicable user and server settings at the time, which could include selected audio, subtitles, video settings, quality settings, etc. Having all of those variables as part of the output makes it difficult to save and re-use again with another transcoding session.

[Lighthammer 80]

Related, I very much like to control what formats the server uses.

For instance, as stated, I've been working on updating everything to H265 to get a good headstart on the new standard, but the server still insists on retranscoding to H264 for output on devices clearly capable of H265.

I would like to have the option to tell the server "Only use X, Y and Z formats; period" and then let the server set those formats up from the original videos. 

I really dont need/want the server always autodeciding what my server streams and unnecessarily transcoding said videos.

If I had more power on what the server was allowed to spit out, I could consider using a small array of SSDs (1-2 depending on the situations) to push those transcodes out; however, with the "unpredictability" of what the server does, I'm forced to keep the transcoding contained to spinning HDDs.