Is there a way to disable creation of the nfo file for DVR'd content?

[MBSki 1025]

3 minutes ago, Luke said:

There are a lot of programs in the guide that won't exist on metadata providers and that will lead to false matches and wrong data.

I don't think this is true at all. Practically every tv series in the guide will appear on the sites that provide metadata. Maybe I'm not understanding you, but I don't believe I've ever had a show not match at all. Sometimes it's an incorrect match, but there's always a match.

And I agree with @lukeoslavia, that other DVRs don't need the nfo. I don't quite understand the logic as to why you think Emby needs it. The nfo gets added during the recording. How could it be useful to match the show when it's generated when matching the show? Seems like some really odd reasoning to me. 

[Guest]

Also, if the guide data is wrong when recording the show, wouldn't the metadata be wrong in the nfo file anyway? Just asking out of pure curiosity, no matter the reply, I would still greatly prefer all the additional files gone. Just the recording is what would be best.

[Luke 37170]

1 minute ago, lukeoslavia said:

Also, if the guide data is wrong when recording the show, wouldn't the metadata be wrong in the nfo file anyway? Just asking out of pure curiosity, no matter the reply, I would still greatly prefer all the additional files gone. Just the recording is what would be best.

The guide data isn't going to be wrong. It's that it might get replaced by internet metadata later during the library scan if it is enabled on the library.

[Guest]

Just now, Luke said:

The guide data isn't going to be wrong. It's that it might get replaced by internet metadata later during the library scan if it is enabled on the library.

Still, I would much prefer the files gone and letting the internet metadata handle it the way it does the rest of our media. 

[Luke 37170]

Sure, it's just a question of who will be the one to help users climb out of the mess that it may create due to false matches.

[MBSki 1025]

Agreed. I really don't know what you're trying to say Luke. Why would the Internet Metadata be wrong? And if it is, don't you then have to handle the conflict between the nfo and metadata? 

Plus, the guide data CAN be wrong. I've got another thread going right now about The Goldbergs tv show having incorrect guide data and it needs a fix. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

Sure, it's just a question of who will be the one to help users climb out of the mess that it may create due to false matches.

That is the part I don't get, what mess would there be? It cannot be messier than having 5 recordings each with 3 add on files all in one folder. I mean with rival DVR services there are no additional files, and there are no messes. If there isn't a match, we still have a filename to go on. I don't see what I am missing here. 

Also, I delete the nfo, system info, and jpg files on every recording I make with emby right now. I don't see how I could be creating a bigger mess by being rid of that manual process.

[Luke 37170]

The search engines of the metadata providers are built to almost always return something. 

So imagine recording Atlanta news and then having it become the show Atlanta after the first library scan.

Depending on how rich the guide data is, there are other fields that can be used to compare and prevent that from happening, but many times that isn't true. Another idea is a per library flag requiring exact name matches for internet metadata but of course then we have to constantly answer questions about why metadata isn't getting downloaded.

I think the ideal scenario is that it respect the library settings regarding nfo saving but that's not a safe change that can be made by itself. Not until these concerns are thought through and worked out.

[MBSki 1025]

Agreed @lukeoslavia. I have no idea what Luke is trying to say. I always delete the nfos. I'm not using them to match with the correct show. The match happens because it's named correctly, simple as that. It doesn't need the nfo at all.

[MBSki 1025]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

I think the ideal scenario is that it respect the library settings regarding nfo saving but that's not a safe change that can be made by itself. Not until these concerns are thought through and worked out.

Ok, that's reasonable. News and sports are certainly problematic. I always manually manipulate those libraries, so yes, respecting the settings for each library would be ideal.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

The search engines of the metadata providers are built to almost always return something. 

So imagine recording Atlanta news and then having it become the show Atlanta after the first library scan.

Depending on how rich the guide data is, there are other fields that can be used to compare and prevent that from happening, but many times that isn't true. Another idea is a per library flag requiring exact name matches for internet metadata but of course then we have to constantly answer questions about why metadata isn't getting downloaded.

I think the ideal scenario is that it respect the library settings regarding nfo saving but that's not a safe change that can be made by itself. Not until these concerns are thought through and worked out.

I understand that things need to be done properly and thought through, but the solution post from more than a year ago seemed to imply this was a problem that would be worked on. But as of having this conversation it seems it definitely has not been thought about and there seems to be no desire to work the problem.

2 minutes ago, mbarylski said:

Ok, that's reasonable. News and sports are certainly problematic. I always manually manipulate those libraries, so yes, respecting the settings for each library would be ideal.

Also, I agree there too, but at least give us the option to turn it off. 

[Guest]

Additionally, sports are annoying pretty much no matter what we do. I record Formula One, and after every race, I delete the extra files, rename the race, and move it to a folder that I have manually set the images for. Whether or not I have the extra files tacked on, that's something I know I am going to have to do. So again, its not worth the additional mess.

[Carlo 4330]

Emby DVR can separate movies out from other things but this requires the guide data to be accurate and include this information.  If you are using an Internet based provider's guide data I can almost guarantee the data is poor compared to using Emby Guide Data (USA, CA, UK). This is why some people throw that guide data away and get it from a different company.

If you look at the XML setup in Emby it has key words used to determine it's type. Not only is this useful for the topic here but helps give you nice sections in the Live TV Programs view.
 

 

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, cayars said:

Emby DVR can separate movies out from other things but this requires the guide data to be accurate and include this information.  If you are using an Internet based provider's guide data I can almost guarantee the data is poor compared to using Emby Guide Data (USA, CA, UK). This is why some people throw that guide data away and get it from a different company.

If you look at the XML setup in Emby it has key words used to determine it's type. Not only is this useful for the topic here but helps give you nice sections in the Live TV Programs view.
 

 

I record from a Channels DVR m3u stream. It comes with xml guide data. Even in that case, there are a bunch of extra files and I still have to do my shuffle with F1 races. If I record directly in channels DVR, there are no additional files.

Edited September 24, 2021 by lukeoslavia

[pünktchen 1259]

Why do the extra files bother you? Do watch your recordings through Emby or a file explorer?

[Guest]

8 hours ago, pünktchen said:

Why do the extra files bother you? Do watch your recordings through Emby or a file explorer?

This question has been pretty thoroughly answered throughout this thread. Glad to see someone labeled as a "Support Specialist" would upvote such a reply though...

Moving past that, I am still curious as to why Emby requires this when other DVRs do not. Can we at least get the option to actually disable the extra files? Even put in a warning if you like.

[Carlo 4330]

Part of the reason is that first a typical DVR or STB doing recording doesn't let you look around inside to see how it works so most people have no idea, they just use the UI and call it a day.

Emby isn't just doing this as a DVR but also supports other types of Libraries like Movies and TV Shows.  That's two very different sources of information for a show/movie. One being the guide provider and the other public meta-data servers.  These can differ a lot in what they return.  The NFO file is a solution to allow you to move the files around keeping the original information.

I have not done this for this specific purpose but Emby has "Recording Post Processing" support.  It should be easy to use that to remove the NFO file after recording if you wanted.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, cayars said:

Part of the reason is that first a typical DVR or STB doing recording doesn't let you look around inside to see how it works so most people have no idea, they just use the UI and call it a day.

Emby isn't just doing this as a DVR but also supports other types of Libraries like Movies and TV Shows.  That's two very different sources of information for a show/movie. One being the guide provider and the other public meta-data servers.  These can differ a lot in what they return.  The NFO file is a solution to allow you to move the files around keeping the original information.

I have not done this for this specific purpose but Emby has "Recording Post Processing" support.  It should be easy to use that to remove the NFO file after recording if you wanted.

Its an unnecessary solution. If you just name the file using the information from the guide data, then you can just allow the internet metadata search to happen.

Also, all of those other DVRs also manage multiple libraries like TV shows and Movies. They also don't tack on extra files to their recordings. And as previously stated, those files are being deleted manually, so they serve no benefit anyway.

Also, its not really a solution to the problem to say, we allow you to write a script or install 3rd party plugins for everything. That's basically just saying, we would like to avoid the issue, if you want it fixed, fix it yourself. That may not be the attitude you have towards the issue, but it is starting to seem that way.

[Carlo 4330]

28 minutes ago, lukeoslavia said:

Its an unnecessary solution. If you just name the file using the information from the guide data, then you can just allow the internet metadata search to happen.

That's the point you won't always get this information from the internet for many reasons.  Try and find the Eagles vs Dallas football game, your local news broadcast or the show where the station uses different Season/Episode number then the meta-data providers!  Good luck.

[ebr 14947]

1 hour ago, lukeoslavia said:

Its an unnecessary solution. If you just name the file using the information from the guide data, then you can just allow the internet metadata search to happen.

Unfortunately, we have found a too-high rate of misidentifications or non-identification trying to do that.

[MBSki 1025]

11 minutes ago, ebr said:

Unfortunately, we have found a too-high rate of misidentifications or non-identification trying to do that.

We're just asking that you give us an option to disable it. We understand the issue with sports and news programs.

[Guest]

44 minutes ago, cayars said:

That's the point you won't always get this information from the internet for many reasons.  Try and find the Eagles vs Dallas football game, your local news broadcast or the show where the station uses different Season/Episode number then the meta-data providers!  Good luck.

As we discussed earlier, we are aware of the difficulties with sports, but you rigidly adhering to improper information doesn't make that situation any better. I know if I want proper metadata on my sports recordings, I have to do it myself, which I do, I understand why I do, and don't appreciate your contemptuous "Good Luck". 

3 minutes ago, mbarylski said:

We're just asking that you give us an option to disable it. We understand the issue with sports and news programs.

Also, exactly that, instead of deciding what is better for us, when we are saying it isn't, just give us the option to not create the extras and the debate can be over. If people want the files they can have them, we would like to be rid of them.

[Carlo 4330]

As already discussed there are a lot of reasons for the need to have the NFO file but no valid reason for it not to be there from a functional standpoint.  Once a recording is done, the NFO is the sole source of this meta-data known to be correct to Emby. It may never be available again!

There is no guarantee there will be another source of meta-data that can replace this.  Sure often times most (not all) TV Shows and Movies will match with an online meta-data providers but other things recorded will not have an online meta-data counterpoint for this data.  Many shows broadcast use different season/episode numbers so that makes those twice as bad because they will pull the meta-data and it will be wrong for that episode.

Sometimes the online sources won't have the information until well after the media is added to Emby.  Olympic recordings I think are a good example of this, So if you added just the media file to another library and don't have meta-data refresh turned on you will never get this information populated.  If meta-data refresh is set to 30 days you might get it then, but that depends if anyone ever adds this info.  If you rename the recordings as part of your process of moving them it may not ever match, etc...now 

You can manually remove the NFO files and Emby might seem happy but what if you have to reload the database or move to another OS platform or just want to rebuild things as the database is constantly being optimized?  You will loose the meta-data for some of these recordings or get the wrong results without the NFO.

Now there is an unhappy person who lost all this information and maybe time spent on support for something easily avoided in the first place.

So there is no valid reason to remove the NFO files based on everything said.  However for those who simply don't want the NFO for their own reasons and willing to accept the loss of meta-data they can easily remove the NFO themselves multiple ways.  You can use a simple script in the post processing of the recording which will remove the NFO right after it's recorded so you'll likely never see it.  You can run a script on schedule to remove any NFO files in the recording folders, etc.

That approach keeps the mass majority of customers safe as the operator has to knowingly remove the NFOs on purpose. So you can do this now if you really want to, but IMHO it doesn't make sense for Emby to provide an option in the GUI that we know can cause you to loose data in the future if the NFO is not present.

[GrimReaper 3324]

8 hours ago, lukeoslavia said:

Also, its not really a solution to the problem to say, we allow you to write a script or install 3rd party plugins for everything. That's basically just saying, we would like to avoid the issue, if you want it fixed, fix it yourself.

That is completely erroneous way to look at things. If every feature anyone ever requested was made an option, software would become so convoluted that it would practically be unusable, and troubleshooting would move into the realm of literally impossible. From the developers side there are myriad of things to consider, from priority list to how will it affect majority of the users. Especially for something as trivial as the issue discussed here. In the time you spent debating it, you could've made a script ten times over. Post-processing feature is there for anyone to fine tune it for own-usage scenario. Make use of it. 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

That is completely erroneous way to look at things. If every feature anyone ever requested was made an option, software would become so convoluted that it would practically be unusable, and troubleshooting would move into the realm of literally impossible. From the developers side there are myriad of things to consider, from priority list to how will it affect majority of the users. Especially for something as trivial as the issue discussed here. In the time you spent debating it, you could've made a script ten times over. Post-processing feature is there for anyone to fine tune it for own-usage scenario. Make use of it. 

Correct, you obviously wont want every single request to just be patched in. But this isn't trivial, its bloat files that embys competitors don't need or use. Why not improve emby?

Also in the time we spent debating this, the devs that work on the software we pay to use, could have made this change and had it in beta. Put a warning on it, when you click the checkbox make an alert. But its bloat that shouldn't exist.

Also, @cayars I recorded the ALOT of the Olympics just to have ATSC 3.0 files to mess with, that's a bad example if you want to prove the worthiness of nfo files. The data for those recordings were so mangled it was crazy and took soo much time to correct. If there is a problem with providing support to people when they opt into not having the files, tell them they were warned and you cant help them.

Honestly at this point, I cant see sticking it out with emby much longer. Asking for a slight change, even an optional one, is like pulling teeth. Live tv has needed overhauled for a long time. When people ask about that its a brick wall. Sticking to the status quo is getting you behind even with JellyFin. I've liked emby for a long time, but its getting worse lately. Just my $0.02.