Moving Video Preview Thumbnails for better performance

[cwills75 14]

I'm running 4.6.7.0 Emby server in an Unraid docker.  My HDD array stores the video files, artwork images and currently the Video Preview Thumbnails.  The appdata/emby folder containing user settings, cache, plugins, etc. is on an NVME drive.  Looking at my video files, the total space taken up by the .bif files us under 100GB, and I have enough space on the NVME drive to accommodate them, and would like to move them there if there is a performance boost.  Currently, when watching a movie, then hitting the remote to show the video timeline/thumbnails, they show up blank, and take a few seconds to populate, then scrubbing through them, you have to wait for the later ones to populate also.  If I didn't know there was such a huge lag, I wouldn't even think there are thumbnails bringing up that overlay.

My first question is would moving the .bif files to the NVME drive cause them to load faster?  Secondly, is there a good way to move them?  Currently, I have the "Save video preview thumbnails into media folders" box checked.  I could uncheck that, but I don't know what that will do.  Will it move the .bif files, or only start creating .bif files on the NVME for new media?  What is my best course of action here?

[ebr 16185]

Hi.  How are your movies organized within the file system?  Does each one reside in its own folder or are they all lumped into one huge folder?

[cwills75 14]

4 minutes ago, ebr said:

Hi.  How are your movies organized within the file system?  Does each one reside in its own folder or are they all lumped into one huge folder?

They are all in one huge folder.

[ebr 16185]

Okay so, honestly, the biggest impact on performance you can probably generate here would be to organize them into their own folders.  This makes file access SO much more efficient in many ways.  There are tools that can do this for you.

If you don't wish to do that, then it may help to move the BIF files as they, themselves, will be in a smaller folder.  But it won't be as big of an impact as re-structuring the media.

[cwills75 14]

Just now, ebr said:

Okay so, honestly, the biggest impact on performance you can probably generate here would be to organize them into their own folders.  This makes file access SO much more efficient in many ways.  There are tools that can do this for you.

If you don't wish to do that, then it may help to move the BIF files as they, themselves, will be in a smaller folder.  But it won't be as big of an impact as re-structuring the media.

I wasn't aware of a performance increase of the folders.  Can you point me to a tool that can do this?

[ebr 16185]

Hi.  I believe filebot is a popular one.

[cwills75 14]

5 minutes ago, ebr said:

Hi.  I believe filebot is a popular one.

Thanks, I have that app, I'll work on it.  I did do some trials moving a few movies into folders and that does dramatically fix the thumbnail speed.  Cheers.

[ebr 16185]

Great.  I think you'll see improvements across the board.

Please let us know how you get on.

[cwills75 14]

If anyone else wants an easy way to create folders based on movie names and move all corresponding files into them, put this into a .bat file, save it in movie folder and run it.  If you have video files other than mkv/mp4, edit it accordingly.

FOR %%m in (*.mkv *.mp4) do (
mkdir "%%~nm"
move "%%~nm"*.* "%%~nm"
)

 

[DarKni8 41]

Unfortunately,  I don't want to sound negative but it may not increase video preview thumbna8l performance that much, because I have it in folder  It could be better 

[cwills75 14]

11 hours ago, DarKni8 said:

Unfortunately,  I don't want to sound negative but it may not increase video preview thumbna8l performance that much, because I have it in folder  It could be better 

My re-org has completed.  In total it was 6,681 movies, and with the local artwork, metadata and video preview files a total of 37,660 files.  Prior to running the re-org into folders, when watching a movie and bringing up the timeline overlay, it would take on average over six seconds to bring up the initial thumbnail images.  Running the .bat file to move them into folders was also moving extremely slow at first, but as it got farther along, it was speeding up considerably.  I was checking throughout the day as it progressed with movies that haven't yet been moved into their own folders, and as the re-org got closer to completion, the time it took to bring up the thumbnail images was decreasing.

Once the re-org had completed, there is zero delay now.  As soon as the timeline overlay is brought up, the video preview thumbnails are already there.  This is still with the .bif files being on mechanical HDDs and not the NVME, which at this point I'm not even going to bother trying to move them, as they are instant.  I'm not sure how many movie files you have on your server, or what your setup is, but I can say on my end, @ebr's suggestion of moving the movies into their own folders was a 100% fix, and I would recommend anyone else to do the same to their library if their movies are in one giant folder.

[DarKni8 41]

On local network it causes no delay, but when you try to access remotely it will still be an issue. Around 6 seconds or more delay but on local it works

[ebr 16185]

2 hours ago, DarKni8 said:

On local network it causes no delay, but when you try to access remotely it will still be an issue. Around 6 seconds or more delay but on local it works

That sounds like some more severe latency issues accessing the media locations.  You should create a new post with details to investigate.

[DarKni8 41]

1 hour ago, ebr said:

That sounds like some more severe latency issues accessing the media locations.  You should create a new post with details to investigate.

No @ebr i would not pain you with this, thats the battle we fight some other day. . Just hoping we could get auto rotate on android app. But thanks for enthusiasm ,much appreciated.

Edited April 14, 2022 by DarKni8