Disable video encoding for web interface?

[ivoidwarranties 15]

Hi, is it possible to disable video encoding when using the web interface?  

 

All of my videos are currently in h264 mp4 format.

Edited January 2, 2014 by ivoidwarranties

[techywarrior 689]

Different web browsers have different codecs that they support for HTML5 video and they tend not to support container formats much. Since it's not very practical I doubt it would be something high on Luke's list.

 

It would be possible if you ripped your movies as h264 mp4 files to play them natively in IE and Safari but Chrome and FireFox don't natively handle those formats and it would have to be in Ogg Vorbis or VP8 (and I doubt anyone is encoding their collections into those formats)

 

Then there is the matter of bandwidth constraints and the different quality settings which wouldn't be able to be presented... along with subtitles that are in separate files (since I don't think any browser supports that)

[BC101 31]

FireFox supports h.264 natively in nightly builds now.

Look at 

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16940520/how-to-play-mkv-files-using-html5-video-tag

and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9622726/html5-video-can-play-mkv-files

 

I really would like to see the browser figure out how to support the mkv container fully, so MB3 could stream it natively.

[techywarrior 689]

The biggest issue is that there is no defined codecs that must be supported in the browser so every browser is free to do whatever it wants.

[ivoidwarranties 15]

I see... does the Roku, Android, and iOS app encode videos as well?  Or do those apps stream the video files as is?

 

My concern is that when my server encodes the video, it uses a lot more processing power, which consumes more electricity.  Based on what I can see from my UPS, playing a video that is being encoded consumes about 25W to 35W per video.  I went one month with streaming to various tablets and mobile devices around the house and my wife got sticker shock when she saw the electricity bill.

Edited January 2, 2014 by ivoidwarranties

[Luke 42077]

those apps do everything they can to avoid encoding. it's generally decided based on whether or not the device can play them in their original formats. generally the closer your library is to mp4/h264/aac, baseline profiles, the more likely you'll be able to avoid encoding.

[BC101 31]

ivoidwarranties: so is it cheaper for you to use up more Hard drive storage to have multiple copies of a movie/show or is it cheaper to have MB3 transcode to a format that a device will support?

 

If the former, you'd have to reencode to supported formats and store them (@Luke: does MB3 have an interface to pick a specific version of a movie/show like Plex apparently does?)

[ivoidwarranties 15]

those apps do everything they can to avoid encoding. it's generally decided based on whether or not the device can play them in their original formats. generally the closer your library is to mp4/h264/aac, baseline profiles, the more likely you'll be able to avoid encoding.

 

I just tried my sister's Roku 2 xs and the Android Media Browser app... the video is still being encoded on the server =\

 

Playing from an xbox extender does not encode the videos.

 

All my video files are bluray ripped in the following format: 

• mp4
• h264 (main profile / level 4.1)
• aac (5.1 / 320 bitrate)
• 8192 kbps

What do I need to change so that Media Browser doesn't encode the video during playback on the Roku and/or Android app?

[Luke 42077]

you have to ask the individual developers of those apps. by default they do everything they can to try and get the video without encoding. but it depends on the video characteristics and what the devices can handle natively.

[Redshirt 1487]

The Android client prefers mp4/h264/aac, but even if the video is in the desired format, if the max bitrate setting in the client is lower for the currently connected state (cell,wifi) the client will still request a transcoded stream that's lower than that max bitrate value.

[w84no1 27]

For the android app I set it to use an external app (MX Player) to avoid transcoding.