Best practice multi-version

[neik 873]

Hi guys, 

my media currently is completely in 1080p or below (e.g. old DVD's) and will be expanded with 4K input as I just bough an LG G1 and want to make use of it.
My server is being shared with a few family members who don't have 4K TV's (yet).
Now, I am wondering which is the best way to restrict them from accessing 4K content without me ending up with the issue shown over here: https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/92178-seperate-4k-uhd-movie-library-content-type/&do=findComment&comment=951583

One setup I came up with was using multi-versioning with tag restriction but that doesn't seem to be possible as the user can't control which version the tag is attached to -> I could end up with an 1080p version tagged as 4K.

Any suggestion is appreciated.

[Happy2Play 9780]

For the tagging route you would have to split media apart, tag the correct media, then manually group them back together.

You could use the auto grouping plugin and just add a 4K folder to your existing movie library and remove access to that folder.

[neik 873]

7 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

You could use the auto grouping plugin and just add a 4K folder to your existing movie library and remove access to that folder.

Sounds good and I will probably ending up using it but how would it work with TV Shows?

Afaik the plugin is for movies only, right?

[Happy2Play 9780]

  

4 minutes ago, neik said:

14 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

You could use the auto grouping plugin and just add a 4K folder to your existing movie library and remove access to that folder.

Sounds good and I will probably ending up using it but how would it work with TV Shows?

Afaik the plugin is for movies only, right?

It does not work for TV, but technically the server should automatically do it with the library option as you are adding a additional folder to the existing library.

Automatically merge series that are spread across multiple folders
If enabled, series that are spread across multiple folders within this library will be automatically merged into a single series.

 

Edited October 4, 2021 by Happy2Play

[Spaceboy 2573]

17 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

For the tagging route you would have to split media apart, tag the correct media, then manually group them back together.

You could use the auto grouping plugin and just add a 4K folder to your existing movie library and remove access to that folder.

i have separate folders for 4k movies and tv shows grouped together as libraries in emby and using the function H2P refers to to present it as one item with different versions. only i have access to the 4k folders, everyone remote only sees 1080p max

[Q-Droid 989]

Doesn't the server already use bandwidth and device response to automatically present the best version of the media for playback? So for remote users it would rarely if ever be the 4k version. Unless you want to remove their ability to manually pick or even see the 4k versions.

 

[neik 873]

Up to now I haven't noticed that I am able to add to paths within one library.

Ok, then I think I am good to go:
For movies I will use the auto grouping plugin to group them and for tv shows I will add a second path within my library and let Emby do its magic.

Question: Is there anything I need to consider in particular regarding the naming of the files?

[Spaceboy 2573]

10 hours ago, Q-Droid said:

Doesn't the server already use bandwidth and device response to automatically present the best version of the media for playback? So for remote users it would rarely if ever be the 4k version. Unless you want to remove their ability to manually pick or even see the 4k versions.

 

no it doesnt and yes i do

[Carlo 4561]

Actually it does as it is supposed to pick the first version that can be direct played based on the the current settings.

I have remote users who can play back the 4K version and others who will default to the 1080 version.
You just have to get the the quality/bitrate setting correct for the client as well as use the bitrate settings properly on the server.

[Spaceboy 2573]

3 minutes ago, cayars said:

Actually it does as it is supposed to pick the first version that can be direct played based on the the current settings.

I have remote users who can play back the 4K version and others who will default to the 1080 version.
You just have to get the the quality/bitrate setting correct for the client as well as use the bitrate settings properly on the server.

well that wasnt the test that Q Droid set but thanks for your input cayars. 

"automatically present the best version of the media for playback" is not the same as "the first version that can be direct played based on the the current settings"

[Q-Droid 989]

I should have been more specific. Not best in terms of media quality but best for the criteria... The version that can play at the allowed bitrate with the least amount of work for the client device capabilities.  So as @cayars posted direct play would be first in line.

 

[Carlo 4561]

Yes, I agree this isn't the same exact thing and we've been complaining about this for a long, long, long time.

However, if you add your 4K media, then 1080, then 720 in that order allowing it to scan in that order you should achieve this.
The system should do this automatically however since it knows the resolution of the files (except for strm file until played).

If grouped version were to also show this way (resolution based) in the dropdown vs alphabetical I think that would help as well but there could be pushback on that.
IMHO anytime a new version is added using the current mechanism in place it should ungroup them and add them back based on the resolution.

Of course this could also be done via SQL to just return the the media in that order regardless of date of scanning.

[Carlo 4561]

2 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

I should have been more specific. Not best in terms of media quality but best for the criteria... The version that can play at the allowed bitrate with the least amount of work for the client device capabilities.  So as @cayars posted direct play would be first in line.

 

Ideally this is what should happen. It checks the criteria for the first movie to see if it can be direct played.  If so done, if not try the next until you find one that can direct play.
If you can't direct play it then it should look probably to the highest SDR version to use for transcoding and not use HDR version unless it's the only thing available as it will require tone mapping for SDR displays.

The key to this IMHO is returning the order based on resolution to start with.

I've always thought this would be an easy change done on the server.

[Spaceboy 2573]

38 minutes ago, cayars said:

Yes, I agree this isn't the same exact thing and we've been complaining about this for a long, long, long time.

However, if you add your 4K media, then 1080, then 720 in that order allowing it to scan in that order you should achieve this.
The system should do this automatically however since it knows the resolution of the files (except for strm file until played).

If grouped version were to also show this way (resolution based) in the dropdown vs alphabetical I think that would help as well but there could be pushback on that.
IMHO anytime a new version is added using the current mechanism in place it should ungroup them and add them back based on the resolution.

Of course this could also be done via SQL to just return the the media in that order regardless of date of scanning.

well this is a lovely ideal but in practice we know that media tends to come from, ahem, "sources" lower quality first with 4K arriving last

[Carlo 4561]

22 minutes ago, Spaceboy said:

well this is a lovely ideal but in practice we know that media tends to come from, ahem, "sources" lower quality first with 4K arriving last

Correct but that's why I suggest the server do a sort by resolution when delivering this information back to the client.
That way it makes no difference what order the media was added in.

[rbjtech 5284]

We also all know that the logic to even get a 4K to 'direct play' is flawed on it's own, yet alone to select from other various resolutions - it doesn't for example opt to direct play by using a  perfectly valid AC3 or DTS track, it will force a transcode because the first Audio track it saw was True-HD .. a pretty common occurrence with a 4K source.

Frankly, the 'selection' criteria, as far as I can tell, doesn't have much logic at all ...

[ebr 16184]

1 hour ago, rbjtech said:

it doesn't for example opt to direct play by using a  perfectly valid AC3 or DTS track,

We have no idea what those tracks contain.  Could be commentary or hearing impaired.

1 hour ago, rbjtech said:

it will force a transcode because the first Audio track it saw was True-HD

One - converting audio doesn't force a transcode and Two - we don't just pick random tracks.  Selections are made based on language and default flags of the tracks.

We can certainly try to make the selection criteria more flexible but there isn't a simple solution here where we can just select the first track that will direct play.

[Carlo 4561]

Not sure I'd agree with that @ebr  If you're content is HEVC and you need to transcode the audio channel it's going to transcode the video as well to deliver it via HLS. If the content was already AVC then only a audio transcode is needed to deliver via HLS. Then of course subtitle types can do the same thing if they need to be burned in.

If the audio tracks were properly marked as commentary, directors tracks, etc then this could be a decision tree that could pre-determine the correct media to use before even trying playback.

Part of the problem is the way we've sort of been forced to compromise in setting up media.  To guarantee direct playback with the most success we've had to add 2 channel AAC audio tracks marked as the default tracks.  That's great for forcing direct play but not always the best home experience when you would prefer the 5.1 or 7 track sound as the default but there is no way to do that presently but it should be.  So every new playback you have to change the audio track from the 2 channel default.  If watching TV episodes letting them auto play you have to keep changing this or live with the 2 channel.

So part of a proper solution also entails smartening up each client to allow it to choose the best audio track and not just use the default. But again this falls back to being able to flag certain audio tracks as never used by default for the "bonus" tracks like commentary while being able to default to hearing impaired if present and flagged as such.  Once these things can be flagged the rest can fall into place.

Once you know what tracks are available to use, know what audio and video codecs are supported as well as sub support needed and HDR/SDR, you can pre-select the media based on bitrate limits choosing the higher resolution/audio that fits the criteria. Then if a transcode is needed you can also choose the best choice to use for this as well (ie 1080 SDR 5.1 over 4K HDR) which would require tone mapping and probably not look as good as the SDR version while using far more system resources.

[ebr 16184]

52 minutes ago, cayars said:

If you're content is HEVC and you need to transcode the audio channel it's going to transcode the video as well to deliver it via HLS

No, we don't do that in most situations. 

But that really isn't the main point.  The main point is that this:

53 minutes ago, cayars said:

If the audio tracks were properly marked as commentary, directors tracks, etc

Just doesn't exist at this point and I'm not sure we could ever expect media to be properly tagged in this way such that we can make playback decisions on it.

[Carlo 4561]

Yes agreed, and that's one of the hurdles of doing this to make it seamless and automatic.

It sounds easy until you start breaking things down into all the little pieces that also need to fall into place.
Then you see how big a challenge something like this can be as there are a lot of things that need to be taken into consideration.

It's surely not as simple as it may seem.

[neik 873]

For those who might read this in future:
If you want to use the multi-version feature of Emby instead of having two seperate libraries make sure to name your files according to the multi-version name convention.
I used to use "show name - S01E01 - Episode Name.ext" and all the drop down is showing me now is the episode name which means manual effort now on my side.

[rbjtech 5284]

15 hours ago, ebr said:

We have no idea what those tracks contain.  Could be commentary or hearing impaired.

One - converting audio doesn't force a transcode and Two - we don't just pick random tracks.  Selections are made based on language and default flags of the tracks.

We can certainly try to make the selection criteria more flexible but there isn't a simple solution here where we can just select the first track that will direct play.

I just think some more logic needs to be added here to give you the 'best' solution possible without transcoding.

We are talking 4K here - so HEVC - transcoding is the only option for converting the Audio as @cayars has pointed out.

Commentary tracks are not going to be Multi-channel for example - so some 'reasonable' logic can be applied to eliminate those.

Hearing impaired / descriptive tracks are generally after the standard tracks.  It would be rare for example to find an MKV with Track 1 as THD and Track 2 as Hearing Impaired AC3.  It is much more likely to find something like - Track1 THD, Track 2 AC3 5.1, Track 3 AC3 5.1 (HI), Track 4 AC3 Stereo (Commentary).

So rather than transcode because of the THD, why not use the 2nd track.  There is a GOOD chance it would be perfectly ok.

Yes having uniform track names etc is the answer, but we are never going to get that with free text fields. 

It's complex - I get that - but as the majority of 4K TV's CANNOT play HD Audio (and 99% of people do not have AVR's), then this is a real problem for the majority of people...

The alternative - Is to simply have preferences per DEVICE.

ie for my son's Samsung 4K TV with no way to play HD Audio - he defaults to the AC3 sound track only.  Currently it defaults to the THD (why I have no idea..), transcodes the 4K Remux, killing the not only the HDR but my server in the process ..

Edited October 6, 2021 by rbjtech

[rbjtech 5284]

16 hours ago, ebr said:

 Selections are made based on language and default flags of the tracks.

This is interesting - So if I set the Default flag to 'Yes' on the AC3 track - this would get picked by Emby as the track played on all clients ?

Edited October 6, 2021 by rbjtech

[rbjtech 5284]

53 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

This is interesting - So if I set the Default flag to 'Yes' on the AC3 track - this would get picked by Emby as the track played on all clients ?

So that's a bit embarrassing - not sure why I have not thought about doing this before.

If I set the 'Default' to an AC3 track on my 4K Remux's (using mkvpropedit - no need to remux them) then my normal 4K TV's don't have to transcode as they play this as the Default Audio track ... thus they DirectPlay with HDR.

Just need to write a quick script to change them all ..

On the system with the AVR, I just need to select the THD or DTS-HD:X track manually.

Per DEVICE preferences seems the obvious way to solve this easily (overriding the Default) - but for the moment, the above solution will save my server from a lot of unnecessary transcoding and subsequently poorer quality Video, Colour & Audio output vs what it is capable of.

I'll share the script when I've done it .. 

Edited October 6, 2021 by rbjtech

[ebr 16184]

2 hours ago, rbjtech said:

This is interesting - So if I set the Default flag to 'Yes' on the AC3 track - this would get picked by Emby as the track played on all clients ?

Exactly.  Well done.