I don't understand Multi-Version naming obviously

[Ronstang 294]

I read the article and I tried to put a couple movies in the same folder and it did not work.  I included the following 2 movies:

From a Whisper to a Scream (1987) - Fullscreen.mkv

From a Whisper to a Scream (1987) - Widescreen.mkv

And upon a file scan I end up with this:

And then they show up in sub folders of the main folder even though I don't have them in separate folders.

I can bork things us good....LOL

[roaku 842]

Is your parent folder exactly: 'From a Whisper to a Scream (1987)'?

[Ronstang 294]

@roakuThat was it, it had a remnant from a different naming scheme. 

Now another question.  Is there any way to change the display order in the drop down box and the default one played?  Because it is not likely I will watch the full screen version and I would prefer to have it default to widescreen.  In other cases I may have a preference of the default and not just based on alphabetical order.

[roaku 842]

No, currently, Emby decides the order based on internal logic we have no influence over.

Requests have been made though.

[Ronstang 294]

2 minutes ago, roaku said:

No, currently, Emby decides the order based on internal logic we have no influence over.

Well that is stupid.

[Ronstang 294]

Fine....I just numbered them:

From a Whisper to a Scream (1987) - 1.Widescreen.mkv

From a Whisper to a Scream (1987) - 2. Fullscreen.mkv

And then they display in the order I choose.  This is how it should be done from the file naming level BUT emby should not display the numbers unless you choose.  How hard would that be to implement?

Edited September 29, 2023 by Ronstang

[Ronstang 294]

Actually it worked ONCE....then upon another library scan it now defaults to the fullscreen numbered 2.   That is dumber than dumb.....I guess I will not be using multi-version after all.  Time to try that plug in.

[Ronstang 294]

OK, screw the internal logic....I had to label them A. B. and then the description and that forced the order I want.  Looks kind of wonky but it's better than people asking me why I only have the fullscreen version of something.  

This issue definitely needs an overhaul.

[pwhodges 2012]

The internal logic is because the feature was intended to provide multiple versions (size, bitrate, and encoding) of which Emby would automatically choose the best quality that could hopefully be direct-played given the client type and available bandwidth.  The common use for Director's Cuts and the like is not yet properly provided for...

Paul

[Ronstang 294]

5 minutes ago, pwhodges said:

Emby would automatically choose the best quality

Then why is it choosing fullscreen LOL?  That is never the best quality even though some people like it at times.  I know I don't, ever...unless it is all that is available or the format of the original filming. From a compatibility standpoint and ease of play then the two versions here are about the same.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Ronstang

[Luke 42078]

6 minutes ago, Ronstang said:

Then why is it choosing fullscreen LOL?  That is never the best quality even though some people like it at times.  I know I don't, ever...unless it is all that is available or the format of the original filming. From a compatibility standpoint and ease of play then the two versions here are about the same.

If we look at the media info of both we'll find the answer, along with the client playback settings.

[Ronstang 294]

Client settings?  I am not trying to play these on anything.  Just using the web app.  And as far as client settings I have Sony TVs and Firesticks and the default settings because I don't even know how to change them.

Plus why is emby reporting these as 29.97 FPS when they are 23.976?  

Edited September 29, 2023 by Ronstang

[Luke 42078]

Quote

Just using the web app. 

Then that is the client.

[Luke 42078]

The media info for those two is basically identical, so this all looks like expected behavior to me. 

[Neminem 1519]

Hmm sorted alphabetical

[Ronstang 294]

5 minutes ago, Luke said:

expected

Explain expected please Luke...LOL.  Like I said, I got around it by simply using A and B instead of 1 and 2 and I get the desired  file as default.  I don't care if my chosen default is more resource intensive to play I want what I want as default.  I have spent countless thousands of hours fine tuning all things in emby to make everything play with very low resources that I should be able to choose the default version.  My files have high quality but take only file serving resources so I can have several people using emby and I don't notice anything on the resource monitor because a 1.5GB file playing over 1.5 hours with no transcoding needed is even slow for file transfers.  I designed it this way on purpose yet retained quality.  It makes no sense to me to store an unencoded Blu-Ray and then serve it to the emby client when most people watching can't tell the difference.  I realize others like non encoded files....that's fine for them....then they should be able to choose their default.

But we should always be able to choose the default.....I'm old, most "smart" things are anything but because they use someone else's logic.  In the case of emby with all the work it takes to make and keep it going you have very few people that want or need click and go solutions when choices vary depending upon each one's preference.  I would wager that the lion's share of people here are much more competent than most.

[Ronstang 294]

9 minutes ago, jaycedk said:

Hmm sorted alphabetical

It appeared that it was sorting alphabetical so I appeased it and it has worked on several different film similar to this situation.  These are all DVDs that have both WS and FS on the same disc.  I keep both for posterity's sake and I am kind of a completist.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Ronstang

[Luke 42078]

11 minutes ago, Ronstang said:

Explain expected please Luke...LOL.  Like I said, I got around it by simply using A and B instead of 1 and 2 and I get the desired  file as default.  I don't care if my chosen default is more resource intensive to play I want what I want as default.  I have spent countless thousands of hours fine tuning all things in emby to make everything play with very low resources that I should be able to choose the default version.  My files have high quality but take only file serving resources so I can have several people using emby and I don't notice anything on the resource monitor because a 1.5GB file playing over 1.5 hours with no transcoding needed is even slow for file transfers.  I designed it this way on purpose yet retained quality.  It makes no sense to me to store an unencoded Blu-Ray and then serve it to the emby client when most people watching can't tell the difference.  I realize others like non encoded files....that's fine for them....then they should be able to choose their default.

But we should always be able to choose the default.....I'm old, most "smart" things are anything but because they use someone else's logic.  In the case of emby with all the work it takes to make and keep it going you have very few people that want or need click and go solutions when choices vary depending upon each one's preference.  I would wager that the lion's share of people here are much more competent than most.

We already know that the multi-version feature selects the version that is the most efficient to play, by prioritizing direct play, supported codecs, etc.

When those factors are equal between two files, then the next ordering criteria is picking the higher quality, and the fullscreen version has the higher video bitrate.

[Ronstang 294]

8 minutes ago, Luke said:

the fullscreen version has the higher video bitrate

OK, I understand your logic but that still results in lower quality file in some if not many cases depending upon one's collection.  In many cases fullscreen will have a higher bitrate because a 2.40:1 widescreen is going to have so much black screen that it will actually have a lower bitrate for the same movie than the pan and scan fullscreen version.  I have seen this.  Same movie in ultra widescreen having a smaller file size than the fullscreen version so hence, lower bitrate....but it is a 1000 times the quality.

[Ronstang 294]

Bitrate is an inadequate measure of quality anyway.  I am in the process of re-encoding all my DVDs and Blu-Rays because they were encoded with different codecs or parameters.  The resulting files now are half to a quarter of the size of the originals but upon viewing the visual quality is noticeable....hence doing all this work, higher quality and smaller footprint.  But according to your criteria my new files are of lower quality based on bitrate alone.

My original encoding was h.264 default medium quality and my tweaked HEVC files are half that size or more yet they look better and because they are smaller they play better on everything that supports 10bit color which everything I use does.

[blgentry 51]

You probably should not be using the movie "Versions feature".  I say this because it does not allow you the level of control that you want.  Instead, you should split the versions apart so that they appear as two different movies.  Then the magic:  Make a collection with the name of the movie and put both movies in the collection.

 

Now you will have a single poster on the main screen for this movie.  Click it and you will see both movies with their titles, etc.  Because they are independent movies in that view, you can edit them to change their sorting.  You don't have to change the title.  Just change the sort title to make the one you like sort first.  

 

This is how I have set up all of my movies that are different versions of the same thing.  It feels much more correct to me and it makes it quite obvious that I have two (or more) versions because there are two covers.  The built in versions feature makes it a lot less obvious because it's all "hidden" behind the dropdown box.

 

I've attached an example screen shot of how I did this for Green Lantern.

 

Brian.

Edited September 29, 2023 by blgentry

[blgentry 51]

1 hour ago, Ronstang said:

Plus why is emby reporting these as 29.97 FPS when they are 23.976?  

Are these direct DVD rips?  You have obviously recompressed them, but they came from DVD right?  If so, there is zero DVD video content at 23.976 Hz.  All 24 fps content on DVD is presented at 29.97 Hz and uses "3:2 pulldown" to put 24 frames into a 30 frame container.  It does this by duplicating some of the frames.  This process is also known as "telecine".  

 

As a result, most DVD content, which comes from 24 fps sources (all films essentially) doesn't look right.  The timing is off.  Motion looks weird.  Most TVs have a function that detects the 3:2 sequence and tries to fix it in real time.  It works fairly well on my TV, but not great.

 

You might check your files using MediaInfo or VLC or some other player that shows the frame rate.  I think you'll find that they all agree with Emby and these files really are 29.97 Hz.

 

Take care,

Brian.

[Ronstang 294]

6 minutes ago, blgentry said:

Are these direct DVD rips?  You have obviously recompressed them, but they came from DVD right?  If so, there is zero DVD video content at 23.976 Hz.  All 24 fps content on DVD is presented at 29.97 Hz and uses "3:2 pulldown" to put 24 frames into a 30 frame container.  It does this by duplicating some of the frames.  This process is also known as "telecine".  

 

As a result, most DVD content, which comes from 24 fps sources (all films essentially) doesn't look right.  The timing is off.  Motion looks weird.  Most TVs have a function that detects the 3:2 sequence and tries to fix it in real time.  It works fairly well on my TV, but not great.

 

You might check your files using MediaInfo or VLC or some other player that shows the frame rate.  I think you'll find that they all agree with Emby and these files really are 29.97 Hz.

Not all DVD content is Telecined, some is but not all.  I always look at it and go frame by frame to make sure.  This DVD is 23.976 fps (frames per second) and progressive.  I have some that are Telecined (2:3 pulldown).  They are all encoded properly.   Most of my content comes from TCM and that is all Telecined so my default encoding parameters are set to de-telecine.  If you de-telecine progressive content it gets messed up.  This source is progressive for sure.

Most DVDs are 23.976 fps and progressive unless it was originally TV content then it can be 2:3 pulldown yet many older TV series on DVD are still progressive content at 23.976 fps.  Then there is another version for DVDs that some refer to as soft telecined but I have not taken the time to understand that.  I use Mediainfo to identify original FPS and if greater than  ~24 fps I look to see what kind of interlacing is implemented.

The reason progressive content looks bad on SOME TVs is because they are the cheaper models with a 60hz refresh rate and 24 does not go into 60.  This is why I only buy TVs that have 120hz refresh rate because 24 does go into 120 and thus you don't get the judder you are speaking about.  

Thanks 

[blgentry 51]

I can't find any reference to DVD Video discs being able to contain 24 fps video.  Everything I've read says they are 29.97 fps.  I just did some testing by reading 6 different DVD discs with Makemkv.  The video information in MakeMKV shows 29.97 fps for all of them.

 

Here is a forum thread discussing this.  It lists all of the DVD formats and does not show any 24 fps support:

 

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=325888

 

Do you have a reference that says DVD video can be 24 fps?  Maybe some examples of DVDs that have 24 fps content?

 

Far more importantly, what do you think about my suggestion to split your versions and put them into collections instead?  That's the real point of this thread.    This frame rate discussion is just a technical curiosity for me.

 

Brian.

[roaku 842]

The catch with separate movies combined with a collection is that continue watching shows every version when you watch any version.