Is Emby what i need?

[Symus35 0]

Hi to all,

i aquired a  Dune HD Pro 8K Plus as my whole collection is made of ISOS full backup. ( yeah i like menus, the ability to swap from differents cuts and all the nice things the full backup offers)

the dune internal app works great. i like the quality overall. but their My collection s*cks butt. i dont really like Kodi neither. too much options for just a " front end"

My setup is as is : 

all my HDDs  connected to a mini PC ( N100 type) and all my movies folders shared on SMB. 

i'm looking at Emby to use a front end.

Emby server on the mini pc with HDDs connected to it -> Emby client on the dune.

the goal is to use Emby as a bridge between the SMBs HDD and the dune, and use internal Dune player to play isos. I just want the collections, and the posters and meta data to look nice on the dune. 

I tried Jellyfin, but when i hit " play" using external player, the dune wouldkeep on loading, displaying nothing.


i dont need transcoding ( au contraire!)  i dont need to access the movies outside of my home. i dont need ITVs 

i'll only play movies  tv shows and music stored on my drives.  No streaming apps.

Can it be Done? do i need subscription for this use?

Thanks for reading me.

Kind Regards.

[Abobader 3469]

Hello Symus35,

** 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

[Luke 42083]

Hi, it sounds like Emby will work great for you. Please let us know how things go. Thanks !

[Symus35 0]

Hi,

thanks for the reply.

i must be doing something wrong.

when i hit play, i see the internal player loading but nothing happen. black screen. i can call the OSD, but its displays nothing.

[Luke 42083]

 

Hi there, let's look at an example. Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. Thanks!

 

[ebr 16187]

On 1/10/2026 at 11:45 AM, Symus35 said:

as my whole collection is made of ISOS full backup

Well, that is going to present a bit of a challenge...

[Symus35 0]

Hi

I figured it would be as simple as " Emby sending the dune the info : here's and ISo. play it like you are used to" 

I  guess not. is there something i can do?

[visproduction 315]

Convert the iso video content to mp4 or mkv video files.  Menus will not be converted and cannot be used anyway, with Emby. 

• https://duckduckgo.com/?q=convert+ISO+to+video+file&ia=web

===

I like using AVIDemux as a 3rd party encoder.

For DVD content, it is possible to directly merge the media content VOB files to a new VOB video, simply by concatinating the VOB files.  I've written these steps up on my blu-ray info page:

blu-ray content does not have this issue. 

• https://www.producerelease.com/blu-ray/brsales.htm#VOBDVDcopy
• https://www.producerelease.com/blu-ray/brsales.htm#combineVOBfiles

Any orginal DVD content will also need to have media height conversion from 0.9 pixel to square pixels.  You may need to adjust differently for a wide screen DVD.  I use AVIDemux software to handle the video resizing to the correct height, to match the original aspect ratio. You can find the aspect ratio for each commerical media, by joining imdb.com, logging in and scrolling to the bottom of the content media page. 

• https://www.producerelease.com/blu-ray/parcalc.htm

If you leave the VOB file without pixel height correction, Emby will playback the content and look squeezed. For DVD's, the best fix for media playback with Emby is to actually convert from the DVD 0.9 pixel ratio to square pixel and save a new media copy in the correct square pixel size.  You can choose the h.264 codec and AAC audio in a .mp4 wrapped video file at a high quality encoding setting, but moderate compression size.  These codecs in a media would not require transcoding for Emby users, if you kept the bit rate under 2400 kbps.  Option 3 on the info page, gives info and settings for AVIDemux 3rd party video encoder. 

• https://www.producerelease.com/blu-ray/parcalc.htm#opt3

===

Creating a media copy

Typically, Emby transcoding creates larger media copies, because it needs to convert, per user, to match the user's playback software or TV app and be able to convert in real time.  If you have a fast server, with a supported media encoder hardware card, then a quality conversion in real time is easier. 

With a slower server, real time conversions need to be made quickly and this can mean a much larger file.  It takes longer to convert, with quality, to a smaller file.  Converting a 2 hour media file with a slow server that needs 4 hours to make a quality coversion does not help the user who wants to watch the content right away.

OK, the larger file can look good, but it also has to be sent to the remote user and that may not be possible, based on bandwidth connection speeds.  When this combination happens, the transcoding steps down to lower quality.  You can get a situation where a remote user, on a slower Internet connection, views 4K media in a lower quality, or the transcoding automatically steps down in size, or the playback just doesn't work.  If you pre-convert to a high quality, lower bitrate and copy out to h.264 and AAC audio in a .mp4 file, then Emby transcoding probably only kicks in for users with slow connections.  No transcoding, means the content can playback directly for most everyone.  Since you may need to convert each DVD video content anyway, I suggest you convert to that combination h.264, AAC audio in .mp4 and set the convertor to the highest quality.  This approach is not popular, because it takes extra time and quality .mp4 content is larger than h.265  .mkv video files, but you have to make a copy, anyway, for DVD content to get the correct aspect ratio.

Hope that makes sense and helps.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by visproduction