What can I do with Blu-ray folder structure

[PlutoScarab 1]

I have some 4k bluray backups in original bluray folder structure. Emby server is recognizing these, but what should I expect to be able to do with them? If I try to play in local web client, I get the error "No compatible streams are currently available." 

I'm able to play individual .m2ts files by creating a library folder containing NTFS hard links to them so that I don't duplicate the hard drive contents, but it would be nice if I didn't have to do that.

Server 4.6.4.0

[arrbee99 1815]

I think most people use MakeMKV or similar and turn them into (rather large) mkv's.

[PlutoScarab 1]

That's what I've been seeing. I created these originally with MakeMKV's backup function, and the .m2ts files play fine as-is without conversion to MKV, so I skipped that step.

I'm just wondering what Emby does with this folder structure since it went to effort of recognizing it. 

[arrbee99 1815]

Not sure TBH. I think I've read here that its more of a legacy thing but that converting to mkv is definitely recommended.

Most of my comments tend to come under the 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing' category though...

[Deathsquirrel 745]

I strongly recommend converting those to MKV.  It won't cost you anything but the DVD menus, which tend to suck IMO.  You'll gain the ability to play the content on far more devices without transcoding.

[PlutoScarab 1]

Why is that? Isn’t transcoding about the codec of the streams inside the container and not about the container type?

The M2TS are direct-playing on all the devices I care about (TV and phone). Not the web client on PC, but I only use that to spot check that things are set up right. If that changes, I can repackage.

[Luke 42079]

Can we please look at an example?

 

[PlutoScarab 1]

Not sure what you need. Screen shot attached. Logs next.

But it’s more of a question than a problem. Should I expect any current clients to be able to do anything with these folders shared through Emby?

 

[PlutoScarab 1]

Logs attached. They show that ffprobe doesn't like file type HDMV0300.

To clarify, I'm not super concerned that they don't play this way--they play fine if I just use the M2TS files which is what I'm doing. I just want to understand what it's supposed to do, because it seems like it should be doing something more than that error message since Emby recognized the folder structure.
 

embyserver.txt

Edited November 9, 2021 by PlutoScarab

[Luke 42079]

Have you considering using something like MakeMKV to convert to mkv?

[rbjtech 5284]

During the MKV conversion process, you can also remove all the extra tracks that you don't need - such as the menu's, extras, maybe HD Audio or foreign language/commentary tracks from the main feature etc.   This will reduce the overall storage requirement of the MKV and on a 4K Remux, this could be 10Gb + per conversion.

As a bonus, it also makes emby much nicer to look at and use when you select from multiple Audio and Subs - as it will then only list what you decided to keep

[PlutoScarab 1]

I could do that with m2ts, too, probably. It’s just a container. But I’m fine with m2ts as they are. It’s all working great.

I get it…everyone thinks MKV is a superior container format. I’m not disagreeing. It’s just irrelevant to my question. If the answer to my question is "Emby doesn't really support the folder structure" that's totally fine. It would count as an answer. I'm just trying to understand what the expected behavior is since it looks like Emby is at least attempting to make it work.

Edited November 9, 2021 by PlutoScarab

[ebr 16184]

2 hours ago, PlutoScarab said:

Isn’t transcoding about the codec of the streams inside the container and not about the container type?

The containers need to be understood as well but a BDMV folder structure is not a "container" in that sense.  It is a layout specification specific to physical (optical) media.

1 hour ago, PlutoScarab said:

I'm just trying to understand what the expected behavior is since it looks like Emby is at least attempting to make it work.

Way back in 2013 many people still had media in these types of formats and we did our best to support them as well as we could.  As time has gone on, less and less people have this format and support for it has also become less and less.  The server can still recognize them because we've seen no reason to remove that but support for actually playing them will be very limited.  Basically I think maybe Theater desktop and Kodi and the old EMC only.

[PlutoScarab 1]

Ok, thank you.