Newbie to Emby

[Chauncey1076 0]

Hello I am messaging as I am new to Emby and would like to really understand Emby before diving in....I have been scouring the forums and would like some more information if possible on setup and equipment.  I currently have a vast collection of blurays that I would like to use with emby and I was wondering what blu ray burner would you recommend, also a budget friendly NAS to get me started, and also more regarding Emby Premiere . Any information would be greatly appreciated and Thank You In advance. Looking forward to becoming apart of this community.

[Abobader 3464]

Hello Chauncey1076,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[dredd1963 17]

Welcome

As I don't know what software your using might  suggest makemkv which tends to be the most popular around and ask in their forum regarding a blu ray burner.

As I don't use blu ray don't I have any experience with these but from what I have read it's certain models  and also what firmware that the that the burner uses that allow you to copy the blu rays that you want to do.

[Chauncey1076 0]

@dredd1963Thank you for the information, I will definitely look into everything that you posted.

[visproduction 315]

Chaunce,

Emby has a wonderful transcoding feature that can help you store your media in h.265 HEVC codec (usually in .mkv container files). As I understand it, Emby will check if this codec can play directly for any user and, if not, then transcode the original media into a codec that the user can view.  I don't use the transcoding part of Emby, so perhaps someone who really knows this feature can correct me, if I am missing something.

Many people like this storage to the newer h.265 because it keeps the files in a reasonable size for blu-ray or even 4K copies.  The older video codec h.264 (usually in .mp4 container files) takes more file size to get a similar quality video, but it doesn't need conversion to play back for all hardware, TV's, mobile, computers.  There are similar considerations with audio codec.  h.264 AAC plays everywhere.  Many other audio codecs need conversion to play in all users hardware.  Sometimes, with audio AC3 and some compressed making new edits after a file has been made, like editing out blank starting frames can confuse playback and cause errors on the video or audio side.  This is frustrating because the errors only show up for some playback on some hardware.  Typically, software players on a workstation auto adjust and playback fine.  Anyway, so making edits in a media file is best to do only on the original master copy of the video and only with high quality large video original files.

As I mentioned, I don't use transcoding at all, because I would ideally need a much faster server with additional RAM and at a cost of around $1200 or more.  A lot of people already have a decent new server.  I have a dual AMD CPU 3.0 GHz and Windows 10 32 bit which only can have 3.5 GB RAM.  It's like a joke.  I need to upgrade.  Since I store everything as h.264 .mp4 with AAC or MP3 audio, then I never have to use the Emby Transcoding feature at all.  Every user can just view all media directly.  I don't need the high RAM or faster CPU or extra cooling.  I convert all media files using AVIdemux (3rd party converter) to get high quality settings into h.264 .mp4.  I get excellent quality for 1080P at video 2400 kbps and audio 640 kbps.  For 720, usually video at 1400 kbps is fine and 480P something around 1000 to 1200 kbps is fine.  My Intel Core i7 workstation takes sometimes 6 hours or more to convert 2 hours of media. No transcoding can work in real time at that slow rate.  But I get the quality I want. 

You don't get decent quality with real time software encoding at these bitrates unless you have a very fast new workstation.  So most transcoding settings are much higher using bitrates of perhaps 4000 kbps for 1080P or more.  At those rates, you can get good looking conversions that can happen in real time.  But you use up CPU and need a dedicated graphics card to make a real time conversion possible, especially if 2 or 3 users want some media conversion to happen at the same moment.

I think you have a choice to get decent fast hardware and graphic card and good cooler support for transcoding workstation that can support whatever maximum users at the same time, you might expect.  This is what most people do, becuase transcoded media for different sources or from your own disc library are most often made into the newer codec h.265 (.mkv).  Everyone seems to want to put 5000 media files on a hard drive.  Just like stamp collecters, they all want to have everything available in the collections.  When realistically users are quite happy to have less content that changes.

Converting to quality .mp4 at 6 hours per media is just not something anyone is really interested in doing.  I do it that way and I can use a older server and everything plays direct with no transcoding, no extra RAM, no high priced CPU and motherboard and no extreme cooling.  Converting ahead of time is also not that straight forward.  There are a lot of settings to fix things.  I actually like the old codec better for even looking grain and realistic edges.  The new h.265 video codec uses a lot of advance features to find and keep edges sharp, contrast higher.  To me h.265 looks treated and not like the original.

Hope that helps a little and doesn't just make everything more confusing.