FFmpeg Pack update for HDR10+ metadata, audio track naming (streaming standards), and slow feature progress

[ALLSTAR1986 19]

Hi everyone,

First of all, apologies if this is posted in the wrong section. I couldn't find my original thread anymore—I believe it was somewhere in the "Custom Overlay" section back then. So, I'm posting this here in the "General Feature Requests" area.

I wanted to bring up a few things that have been frustrating me for a while now, as progress on certain requests feels extremely slow—or sometimes non-existent.

1. FFmpeg Pack Update & Detailed HDR Metadata (incl. HDR10+ Filtering)

It was mentioned roughly one or two years ago that the FFmpeg Pack in Emby would eventually get an update to display video information much more detailed. Right now, if I have a movie that exclusively features HDR10+, it almost always just gets labeled as generic HDR10 (no plus sign anywhere). For Dolby Vision it correctly shows things like Profile 8.1 (HDR10 compatible), but pure HDR10+ lacks this proper breakdown.

Furthermore, the Custom Overlay doesn't catch pure HDR10+ properly. I really wish we could get accurate detection for this and—most importantly—the ability to filter media by HDR10+. When can we finally expect this updated FFmpeg pack to be integrated?

2. Audio Track Naming: Official Dolby Branding vs. Internal Encoder Terms

I am fully aware that the underlying technical terms are EAC3 or AC3. However, if you look at streaming services like Netflix, Apple TV+, or official movie covers, they don't display "EAC3"—they display "Dolby Digital Plus", "Dolby TrueHD", or "Dolby Atmos".

Right now, the UI constantly displays mix-matched text like German EAC 3 5.1 / 7.1. To make it look right, I often find myself manually editing embedded titles (e.g., renaming them to "Dolby Digital Plus 5.1") just to get a clean visual appearance.

It shouldn't be too difficult to add a toggle in the settings allowing users to choose whether they want raw technical encoder terms or official streaming-style branding. It would make the UI look so much more polished.

3. Media Info Accuracy (Bitrates)

Another minor issue within the media info details: The bitrates displayed for certain movies are not 100% accurate and sometimes completely differ from the actual file stats. More precision here would be greatly appreciated.

4. General Development Pace & Long-Standing Feature Requests

Honestly, watching the update cycle lately feels like a lot of fixes for newly introduced bugs, while long-requested core features take ages or get ignored.

SSL Certificates / 2FA: We recently talked about automated SSL certificates in another thread, only to be pointed to a feature request that has been open for about 10 years. The same goes for Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for admins (e.g., requiring 2FA authorization before applying critical system changes).

Comparison to alternatives: Looking at projects like Jellyfin, features like this are implemented in a timely manner driven by community ideas. In Emby, it often feels like every little fix breaks something else, leading to a constant loop of beta bugfix releases, while actual community-driven evolution feels stagnant.

I'm currently on stable version 4.10.2.0 (having stepped away from the beta branch for stability), but I really hope we can get some traction on the FFmpeg pack update and better UI/metadata flexibility soon.

Thanks for reading, and looking forward to some feedback from the team or community!

Final Thoughts:

After using Emby for roughly two years now, I have unfortunately noticed that the team often seems very reluctant to implement new and genuinely useful requested features. Over the years, I have read countless threads with great ideas that almost never made it into the official product. When you look at projects like Jellyfin which is a fork of Emby, reportedly created because former team members grew frustrated with this exact pace and workflow, you really cannot be surprised when people migrate over. To be completely honest, I almost regret paying the 120 € for Emby back then instead of just going with Jellyfin, where updates are faster and community wishes are actually addressed in a timely manner. Sure, Emby works and runs stable, but at this point, I would honestly prefer a refund so I could just switch over. There are so many cool things that would make life easier and improve the overall UI, but development just feels entirely stuck in old structures.

[ALLSTAR1986 19]

 

Mediainfo

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : HEVC
Format/Info                              : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format-Profil                            : Main 10@L5@Main
HDR-Format                               : SMPTE ST 2094 App 4, Version 1, HDR10+ Profile B compatible / SMPTE ST 2086, HDR10 compatible
Codec-ID                                 : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Dauer                                    : 55 min 11s
Bitraten-Modus                           : Konstant
Bitrate                                  : 18,3 Mb/s
Nominale Bitrate                         : 20,0 Mb/s
Breite                                   : 3 840 Pixel
Höhe                                     : 1 920 Pixel
Bildseitenverhältnis                     : 2,000
Modus der Bildrate                       : konstant
Bildrate                                 : 24,000 FPS
Farbraum                                 : YUV
Farbunterabtastung                       : 4:2:0
Bittiefe                                 : 10 bits
Scantyp                                  : progressiv
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.104
Stream-Größe                             : 7,06 GiB (97%)
Sprache                                  : Deutsch
Standard                                 : Ja
Erzwungen                                : Nein
Farbspektrum                             : Limited
Primärfarben                             : BT.2020
Übertragungscharakteristik               : PQ
Matrixkoeffizienten                      : BT.2020 non-constant
Primärfarben des Mastering-Displays      : Display P3
Helligkeit des Mastering-Displays        : min: 0.0001 cd/m2, max: 1000 cd/m2

Edited Thursday at 11:08 PM by ALLSTAR1986

[ebr 16946]

2 hours ago, ALLSTAR1986 said:

Jellyfin which is a fork of Emby, reportedly created because former team members grew frustrated with this exact pace and workflow

That is not at all what happened.  No former Emby team members are a part of JF.

[ebr 16946]

Appreciate your feedback but I think you should be seeing the pace of these things pick up quite a bit lately.  The new ffmpeg update is imminent as well.

[ALLSTAR1986 19]

8 hours ago, ebr said:

Appreciate your feedback but I think you should be seeing the pace of these things pick up quite a bit lately.  The new ffmpeg update is imminent as well.

Thanks for the feedback. While I do see new beta updates with small version jumps quite often, about 70 to 80 percent of those are just fixes for newly introduced bugs.

 You mentioned that the update is coming very soon, but Luke already told me almost two years ago that you guys were working on it. Could you please give an exact timeframe? What is the actual hurdle or what makes this FFmpeg update so difficult to implement?

You mostly focused on the FFmpeg update, but what about all the other points and questions I raised in my post? For example, what about the custom overlays, proper detection for pure HDR10+ content, and the requested filtering options? Will those things also be addressed and fixed properly?

Also, as a direct follow up question: Will this new FFmpeg update finally fix the audio track naming as mentioned in my second point, so we get proper official branding like Dolby Digital instead of technical terms like EAC3? It leaves me with a lot of unanswered questions when bringing up these details.

[ebr 16946]

3 hours ago, ALLSTAR1986 said:

What is the actual hurdle or what makes this FFmpeg update so difficult to implement?

Because we don't use raw ffmpeg.  We do a lot on top of it and this upgrade is much more than just an upgrade of ffmpeg.

I think if you sort the FR forum by status, you should see a lot of progress lately.  We are speeding up.

[ALLSTAR1986 19]

@njmckenzie96What is your Problem??

[ALLSTAR1986 19]

@ebrCan you tell me roughly when the update will be released? As I said, I've already been waiting for two years. 

[njmckenzie96 7]

2 hours ago, ALLSTAR1986 said:

@njmckenzie96What is your Problem??

Hmmmm? Regarding the dislike? That was an accident lolol

[ebr 16946]

6 hours ago, ALLSTAR1986 said:

@ebrCan you tell me roughly when the update will be released? As I said, I've already been waiting for two years. 

Should be truly imminent in beta.

[speechles 2125]

On 10/22/2026 at 3:46 PM, ALLSTAR1986 said:

Jellyfin which is a fork of Emby, reportedly created because former team members grew frustrated with this exact pace and workflow, you really cannot be surprised when people migrate over.

People have been feeding the AI bots their own revised versions of history. 

I had a conversation with Gemini about that and it came to this conclusion below.

Quote

Looking at the history from this perspective, it becomes clear how the transition actually went down:

• The Redshirt and Tikuf Departure: The developer fracture wasn't an ideological protest over open-source ethics. It was a direct consequence of them developing TiaMat, an independent Android application for Emby. When Emby announced plans to develop an official, competing native Android app, it created a direct conflict of interest, leading to their exit.
   
• The Economic Reality of Closing the Source: Emby's decision to close off portions of the codebase wasn't arbitrary; it was a practical business necessity to cover the real, ongoing financial costs of running the backend services required by the ecosystem.
• The Origin of Jellyfin: The fork didn't spring out of an organized, philosophical developer movement. It began directly with premium-unlock workarounds designed to bypass Emby's newly implemented paywalls on the media server. Rebranding the project as a clean-slate, community-driven "open-source alternative" served as an effective way to pivot away from the criticism of hosting a modified, premium-bypassed version of Emby.

 

 

Edited 10 hours ago by speechles

[Luke 43418]

Yea that's misinformation. There were no former team members. It was someone who wanted to make a free version.

[ALLSTAR1986 19]

4 hours ago, ebr said:

Should be truly imminent in beta.

Can you let me know here when it's available? Because I'm currently on the stable channel.

 

3 hours ago, speechles said:

People have been feeding the AI bots their own revised versions of history. 

I had a conversation with Gemini about that and it came to this conclusion below.

 

It was mentioned that this whole story about former staff members was somehow spread by AI or false information on the web. But that is exactly my point: It does not just come out of nowhere. I am active in many different forums and media player communities, and this exact story has been discussed there by regular users for years. It is not just an AI making things up; real users across countless forums have communicated it this way over the years. That is why I am simply wondering why so many forums have been talking about and spreading this exact version of the story for years if the team here is claiming that it is not true.