WTV and embedded metadata

[sward 28]

Hello - any chance of making wtv an available recording format container? After editing my .ts file recordings, I always save the output as wtv because you can embed all the metadata, to include:

- title
- episode name
- TV channel#
- channel call letters
- broadcast date
- description/synopsis
- actors etc... 

This is currently a manual process for me, so would be great if all that metadata could be written to the file during the recording. This would allow me to get rid of all those nfo files as well.

Thanks,
...Scott

[Sammy 790]

Emby does a pretty good job of grabbing this data from the internet. It may not have the channel number but usually the network name. I doubt the developers can honor this request for obvious reasons of dealing with M$.

[sward 28]

Well WTV is just a file format, and nobody can copyright a file format. I'm furthermore able to convert to that file format with VideoRedo when I edit my recordings. The issue isn't whether Emby "does a pretty good job of grabbing this data from the internet," as it would need to continue doing that; rather the issue is what to do with that data once you have it? Place it in an nfo file (thereby cluttering up your directories), or embed the metadata in the recordings themselves?

[emveepee 132]

wtv is a proprietary format ie not open source so expect compatibility issues.   Emby is closed source so they might have to develop a COM interface without using any open libraries available.  Is it worth that development for a file format that like DVR-MS before it was really just used for the dead WMC?

Martin

Edited February 4, 2022 by emveepee

[sward 28]

WTV is just a container for MPEG2 and H.264 video files, but I understand there could potentially be some compatibility issues, although FFMPEG is able to create WTV files, and there's a fair amount of information in Wikipedia on the WTV format. Nevertheless, I'm certainly open to other file or container formats. My main concern is that relevant metadata be embedded in video files during their creation. This isn't possible with TS files.

[Luke 42077]

We can definitely look at possibilities for embedded metadata. I'm just not sure that wtv is the right choice.

[sward 28]

Just to follow up on this, another reason to embed metadata is to resolve discrepancies in metadata between what's in the Emby guide and what's in the various online metadata DBs. For example, with Frontline documentaries they always show up in the Emby guide as Season# Episode#, but this doesn't match what's in the TV DB metadata which uses Year and Episode#. So for example the latest Frontline documentary 'American Reckoning' shows up in the Emby guide as Season 40 Episode 6, whereas in TV DB it would be Season 2020 Episode 13 (note that this particular episode isn't listed yet in TV DB but you can see the format they use nevertheless). I therefore have to change the filename to match what's used in TV DB so that the correct metadata is downloaded. Embedding the metadata would (1) remove the need for nfo files, and (2) remove these kinds of discrepancies since the recording process would embed the correct metadata directly into the recorded file.

[Bill LeDuc 5]

I'm thinking about converting my DVR from Windows Media Center to Emby and in so many ways I'm taking a step backwards including metadata. You can't specify HD preferred or specify the specific channel. I had to disable my SD channels to force Emby to record HD.  A lot of basic stuff like that. Metadata - WMC saves so much metadata and most of it is valuable - title and detailed description of shows for example. 

Using .ts files was a cop out. The recording format should be .mkv format which supports all the the metadata you want. MKV has become the universal standard. There was some mention of the difficulties using .mkv files. How in the world could you have problems using .mkv files when you have ffmpeg?

[emveepee 132]

Really simple, mkv cannot be streamed live and for in-progress recording, or transcoded on the fly so a streamable format is a must. 

I have never seen metadata in a wtv file that isn't available from Gracenote.  In fact EPG123 which you probably are using now is just Schedules Direct data so you you need to be clearer about what is missing.

Martin

[ebr 16169]

12 hours ago, Bill LeDuc said:

Using .ts files was a cop out

Hi.  We record the raw stream - which is in mpeg-ts format.

[Bill LeDuc 5]

ebr, I get that, but when the recording is complete ffmpeg could be used to switch containers and stuff metadata into the file.

[Carlo 4560]

On 2/17/2022 at 1:22 PM, Bill LeDuc said:

ebr, I get that, but when the recording is complete ffmpeg could be used to switch containers and stuff metadata into the file.

You can do this with Emby Server already using the Convert Feature or using the post processing  feature of the DVR.
Have you tried either method?

[Bill LeDuc 5]

i'm currently converting recordings to mkv using post processing on the MacOS server.

[sward 28]

Shouldn't have to convert files. WMC would record wtv files natively with all the requisite metadata embedded in the recordings. Conversions are unnecessary wear & tear on hard drives.

[ebr 16169]

17 hours ago, sward said:

WMC would record wtv files natively with all the requisite metadata embedded in the recordings

Yes, because WMC was a Windows only system and they created their own format.  In today's world, with us running on a multitude of platforms other than Windows, we would need to take a different approach.

On 2/3/2022 at 11:26 PM, Luke said:

We can definitely look at possibilities for embedded metadata. I'm just not sure that wtv is the right choice.

 

[sward 28]

I personally don't care which file format you end up using or making available as a recording format, so long as it allows for embedding metadata, but best I can tell WTV is just a file format, and nobody can copyright a file format. Assuming I'm not missing anything, all that remains is that most players can playback WTV files (or whatever format you choose), and in my experience most players already can play WTV files.

I also came up with another reason for embedding metadata: no need for specific file naming conventions. Why? Because all relevant information is embedded of course.