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Manage multiple encodes (h.264 and h.265 versions)


Chiefmas

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Chiefmas

Hello,

I have something of a versions question, although I think mine differs a bit from typical. What's the recommended method, or advice, to manage multiple encodings of the same video, and, as a side question, how does Emby handle that? 

I want to keep an h.265 and h.264 encode of the same thing. Ideally, they'd look like a single video, and the engine would choose, preferentially, h.265 for remote clients, where supported and not explicitly over-ridden by by the client. i.e. take the 3Mbps h.265 preferentially to the 12Mbps h.264, if not manually selected from the client side. There's enough h.265 direct streaming support now amongst my friends/fam hardware that I'm finding it beneficial  to keep both an h.265 version around.

I've seen for multiple versions, a collection is usually recommended, but I don't really find that to be that great of a solution for this, and I'm hoping there might be some other approach. In particular, expecting/training my users to select the correct version may be a bit much.

Thanks!

 

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Hi, IMHO Multi-Versions is the proper method to use for this.

Have look at https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159102-movie-naming for multi-version naming of Movies.

So as an example you could have:

/Movies/Top Gun (1986)
/Movies/Top Gun (1986)/Top Gun (1986) - h.265.mkv
/Movies/Top Gun (1986)/Top Gun (1986) - h.264.mkv

Or could name them:
/Movies/Top Gun (1986)
/Movies/Top Gun (1986)/Top Gun (1986) - HEVC.mkv
/Movies/Top Gun (1986)/Top Gun (1986) - AVC.mkv

Then for any movie that has both copies there will be a drop down box to choose the version.  You can suggest to your users to use the h.265/HEVC versions and only use the h.264/AVC version if they have a playback problem.

 

 

 

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Chiefmas

Ah, excellent. I take full responsibility for not finding that in the support docs. Sorry...

I can put this in another topic, but I've taken to hash tagging my file names as an way to put metadata type things in like this (i.e. my files are tagged with #h265). I haven't searched yet, so apologies for asking before doing so, but would Emby ever support something like tagging in that? I've found it to be a convenient (and understood by people these days) way to add some basic metadata to the file name, and visually it easy to parse then pure dependency on structural based naming. In fact, to comply with this naming, I'll probably just do a search and replace for my meta data tags (which is kinda a bummer, but I suspect leaving the metadata tag in will probably mess with the multi-versioning).

Thanks!

 

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Things is the file name really doesn't show in the UI.  With multi-versions what you put after the hyphen is shown for the "version".

Emby can pull the codec info directly from the file itself.  As an example you can go into filters and use the different video and audio codecs as filters.
So I'd wonder what you can add doing this that Emby doesn't already have?

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Chiefmas
7 minutes ago, cayars said:


So I'd wonder what you can add doing this that Emby doesn't already have?

It's not for Emby, it's for me managing the content on the file system

I can't look at:

"Top Gun.mkv"

"Top Gun.mp4"

and be certain which one has what codecs (video and audio) without pulling properties in some way. It's not really any different than the file naming convention you mentioned before, except, as I said, it's tagging based identifiers instead of structural within the file name i.e. doesn't have to have as strict layout in the name and is visually easier to parse. It also helps with things like actual variations because #Unrated or #Theatrical doesn't mess with the name in the same way:

"Top Gun - DirectorsCut.mkv" looks like a movie called "Top Gun - DirectorsCut"  but "Top Gun #DirectorsCut.mkv" doesn't. Has tagging has just kinda become a thing that is pretty ubiquitous in our society these days, so there are numerous benefits IMO, but it's not a big deal either.

 

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For best matching always keep the year in the name so "Top Gun (1986) - HEVC [stuff in brackets is ignored].mp4

Make use of brackets to add your own "tags" without having them affect name matching.

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Chiefmas
48 minutes ago, cayars said:

Make use of brackets to add your own "tags" without having them affect name matching.

Ok, thanks!

Hopefully last questions about this...the versioning, the docs mention making the base file name the same as the folder. How critical is this, i.e. are the file names and folders matched/diff'd to find the versioning? I'd actually started naming my folders with metadata but then making the file names setup to maximize matching success. i.e. something like:

Top Gun (1986) #remaster\Top Gun (1986).mkv

If I start doing versioning, can I combine it with square bracket exclusions? If so, does the square bracket tagging apply only to the file name, or does it apply to the folder, and if it does, does the bracket have to match for versioning?

So brackets + versions this way (square brackets in folders ignored as base name):

Top Gun (1986) [remaster]\Top Gun (1986) - h264.mkv

Or this way (square brackets ignored, but still needed for match):

Top Gun (1986) [remaster]\Top Gun (1986) [remaster] - h264.mkv

Or should I change it up handle it all in versioning:

Top Gun (1986)\Top Gun (1986) - remaster,h264.mkv
or maybe
Top Gun (1986)\Top Gun (1986) - h264 [remaster].mkv

Looking at the docs, it looks like I could conceivably just put a " - " between the file name and my hash tags and have it work, it didn't look like the versioning is a fixed set of tags, just that the hyphen is a split character and index 1 the versioning info?

 

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Chiefmas

Whoops, one other thing...which...subtitles. If it's the same film, same pacing, with an external sub file, should I just do multipel copies of the same file, matched to each base file name or will one file that matches the base work? That kinda seems like it'd be bad, since actual variations wouldn't be able to get designated with their own, corresponding file...

 

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I personally would not do this 

Top Gun (1986) [remaster]

This is just me but there is only "Top Gun (1986)" movies but I could have 3D, 4K, 720, 4K, remaster or other types of versions of it.

So I only do the movie (year) then the "-" then the different version.  That should always work with Emby or other media software.

Remember that for multi-versions to work out of the box with Emby they need to be in the same directory, thus the base (year) folder.

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Chiefmas
19 minutes ago, cayars said:

I personally would not do this 

Right, well it was meant to be a question as to which way wouldn't throw Emby for a loop. BTW, it's not clear if you are referring to the folder level, the file name level, or both. 

I suppose I'll just have to do some testing and see what things do and don't cause issues.

Thanks!

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Chiefmas

Right, thanks everyone!

Any thoughts on the subs as sidecar files? The more I think about it, the more exact file name matches between subs and versions is probably important, just checking I guess if it works that way?

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