Downloading One of Multiple Versions

[JeremyR 11]

So we have been playing with handbrake settings and we put multiple versions of specific movies up with settings in the name. They show up properly. If you select the version you want to download and it is showing in the selection box, the first one on the list always downloads. We know it's the first in the list which is h264 vs. x265 or h265  (we are trying HB encoding vs. QSV encoding.)

Edited August 29, 2021 by JeremyR
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[Carlo 4561]

I don't think you can download other versions when you have movies combined.  This is something that has been requested.

[JeremyR 11]

So to do comparisons of versions we need to maybe make a new library and then have a unique name on each.

This also brings up the issue on whether you are showing the different versions when we play... Though I can test this with video with an extended and theatrical version... BTW, the resume pointer is not unique to the version you are playing.  In other words if I go to 47m 3s in version one, when I pick version 2 the resume is at 47m 3s also. Theoretically, if I was playing the extended and went say 5 minutes beyond the end of the theatrical version and you switched to the theatrical version later Emby could get a bit confused. Depending on how you have the movies set up and them appearing on the list, I don't see this as an improbable use case... infrequent, but not improbable.

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by JeremyR
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[Luke 42083]

The selection of which version gets downloaded is the same process as which version gets played.

The only difference is that it uses the download quality settings rather than the playback quality settings.

[JeremyR 11]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

The selection of which version gets downloaded is the same process as which version gets played.

The only difference is that it uses the download quality settings rather than the playback quality settings.

I have seen the bps settings on the dropdown, but how does that select which version?  Example, I have a version that is QSV h265 10bit CQ 23 vs. HB x265 12bit CQ 23. So how would a bps type drop down select between these versions?

[Luke 42083]

It's just one factor in the equation just like the quality setting is during playback. There is also supported formats of the device, audio, subtitle tracks, etc. And then any possible server transcoding settings that might have an impact. The server takes all of those, looks at how the download would happen for each of them, and then chooses the one that will be most efficient, just like when you play them. 

[crusher11 1102]

So if you have two different cuts, both of similar/identical quality, there's no way to pick which cut gets downloaded.

This seems like a problem.

[ebr 16187]

7 hours ago, crusher11 said:

So if you have two different cuts, both of similar/identical quality, there's no way to pick which cut gets downloaded.

This seems like a problem.

As we've said many times, the multi-version feature is designed for multiple qualities not cuts.  It can be used for cuts but with some of these limitations.

[crusher11 1102]

You've been saying that for years, and it's pretty obvious it needs an overhaul.

[roaku 842]

18 minutes ago, ebr said:

As we've said many times, the multi-version feature is designed for multiple qualities not cuts.  It can be used for cuts but with some of these limitations.

Please update the knowledge base for multi-versioning to warn about the limitations.
 

Quote

Multiple versions of the same content can be stored in a single movie folder.

/Movies
  /300 (2006)
  /300 (2006)/300 (2006) - 1080p.mkv
  /300 (2006)/300 (2006) - 1080p-trailer.mp4
  /300 (2006)/300 (2006) - 4K.mkv
  /300 (2006)/300 (2006) - 720p.mp4
  /300 (2006)/300 (2006) - extended edition.mp4
  /300 (2006)/300 (2006) - directors cut.mp4
  /300 (2006)/300 (2006) - 3D.hsbs.mp4

Each version must begin with the folder name, followed by " - ".

If using the dash method anything following the dash will be what you see in the Emby client app.

https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159102-movie-naming

[ebr 16187]

11 minutes ago, crusher11 said:

You've been saying that for years, and it's pretty obvious it needs an overhaul.

We apologize that everything isn't completely finished right now.  We still have work to do.

[JeremyR 11]

Nothing's perfect, and overall my reaction to Emby is giddy delight. Now I see that the multiple versions on the same page are not what I need. I will go to displaying multiple versions as separate movies. At least they will be in the same folder for easier upkeep. Thanks for info.

 

[ebr 16187]

22 minutes ago, JeremyR said:

Nothing's perfect, and overall my reaction to Emby is giddy delight. Now I see that the multiple versions on the same page are not what I need. I will go to displaying multiple versions as separate movies. At least they will be in the same folder for easier upkeep. Thanks for info.

 

Hi.  You could use a collection to combine them for display as well.  Thanks.

[JeremyR 11]

On 8/31/2021 at 10:43 AM, roaku said:

Please update the knowledge base for multi-versioning to warn about the limitations.
 

https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159102-movie-naming

Your point is a good one. I read the doc and didn't get this take-away.  If I understand this now, Versions on the same movie page are to allow multiple sized streams to chosen and to avoid translation by the server on viewing. Download is considered to be a special use case because the source is downloaded in the background so they get the media in it's original form dictated by the first position on the list. Otherwise if you want to expose a choice for different versions, e.g. theatrical, extended, director's cut, abridges, etc., you would use the file structure in the docs and Roaku's post showing multiple movie page choices. I had thought the systems for handling multiple versions was more content oriented and less housekeeping oriented, but that was more a feel for how it appeared to me. Hopefully this will change in the future, but the workaround is not onerous for users looking for a movie.

I should note I was bastardizing both cases here in that I wanted to explicitly expose quality cases in testing with others for what looks best over Emby. I find I get a better image frankly over Emby in many cases that I do with other apps and since I am looking to optimize my encoding presets on HB for Emby because Emby is how I watch all my media now, and my sister, and my wife, and sons... I wanted to explicitly have them look and pick their most pleasant experience and have only one final HB preset on video/audio quality.  So I will make a separate library and break the choices out there. 

[JeremyR 11]

ebr, thought about collections, but while emby builds collections nicely for related media, which I love, special case collections require a lot of clicking. I was trying to put the clicking on the user!  and I have about 10 movies with 6 presets balancing file size and clarity of stream, processing time to encode, and processing time to stream. Most of my family and friends use Roku and Firestick and I have a pretty good upload speed for the WAN users. I have a NUC8i7HVK that handles all of this and it's not breaking a sweat handling translated and straight streams. So I am looking at primarily at use case of Roku HD on a 4k screen.

Using Emby to stream an HB x.265 12-bit CQ 23 BR source media to a Roku HD on a 4K screen, I can see the edges of the rouge on an actor's face when I stop a close-up... but that takes 2.5 hours to compress to a TINY file, well, relatively. When I use QSV h.265 10bit CQ23, I can almost seen that rouge edge, and I get a 20 minute compression time and 50% to 100% file size increase over HB x.265. BUT both streams look pretty freaking good from Emby to Roku to screen. So this is a short term project to me and I will set my standard presets.

Using a separate library in this case will be the easiest to back out of.

I can see the issues here for you, one of my roles in the past was as a DBA and DB designer. You would be supporting differing files to support differing qualities (I guess to support less CPU time on streaming) for multiples versions of a movie on the same page. That's just a quick thumbnail from my pov.

I want to thank everyone for their input. I think I have my best route for accomplishing my short term goal here. Let me make this clear, too, I LOVE EMBY.