DVD support to improve or go away?

[Finallygreen 1]

Hello!

 

So long story short...I installed Emby server on my Synology with the intent to use Kodi for all my client needs... Tried the Emby client for the first time and was pleasantly surprised enough that I bought a 1 month license to play with it some more. So far, I've run the Emby client on my Roku TV, Nvidia Shield, Xbox One and Windows 10... Pleasantly surprised that I could play Bluray folders without transcoding on 2 of the 4, but then surprised that DVD folder playback was so troubled. While every DVD I tested played transcoded to both Shield and Xbox clients, attempts to play back ANY DVD folder on Windows 10 (high end system) locked the client.

 

Is this experience abnormal, indicating I may have set something up wrong? And if it is normal, is DVD folder support an area we can expect to see improvements on soon, or is support likely to be dropped, forcing people who started their collection a long time ago to convert what they have (and accept the quality loss that comes with that) or find an alternative piece of software?

[Spaceboy 2573]

You should convert them to mkv with makemkv. More reliable and functional

 

Also there’s no quality loss in this conversion. It’s 1:1

Edited November 5, 2017 by Spaceboy

[Deathsquirrel 745]

disc-based media formats is something that has limited, and dwindling, popularity.  I would not expect to see use, and therefor support, increase.

 

I strongly recommend running these through MakeMKV to convert the tracks you want to keep to MKV.  The list of benefits is pretty long.

• You won't lose any audio or video quality
• You'll gain some storage space by eliminating tracks you don't use
• You'll gain a common, consistent UI for all media
• You'll get rid of unskippable trailers and FBI warnings
• Your content will work natively on most devices. 

[Luke 42078]

We are looking at the possibility of bringing the same video player from Emby Theater to other apps, at which point folder rip playback might improve by coincidence, but not by design. In other words, we won't be promising it. Consider converting to mkv for the best possible experience.

[Finallygreen 1]

Ok... So it appears maybe the issue I'm having on the PC is different... It appears if I wait literally 2-3 minutes upon selecting a DVD folder, it will indeed play. Still transcoded but... What would cause this long delay?

[Luke 42078]

What Emby app are you playing with?

[Finallygreen 1]

Emby theater on an i7 pc

Edited November 5, 2017 by Finallygreen

[Luke 42078]

Did you install the app from the store or download it from the website?

[Guest asrequested]

From the app store or the Emby site?

 

You should use this one

 

https://emby.media/emby-theater.html

[Finallygreen 1]

Website

[Luke 42078]

make sure the machine running theater has direct access to the folder. that is the requirement for direct play of folder rips. if it can't reach the folder directly, then it will transcode through the server.

[Finallygreen 1]

I bet that's what's happening... So even an NFS would transcode in the event of folder rips?

[Luke 42078]

if the app can't reach it directly, yes.

[Finallygreen 1]

I apologize for asking since I know this part isn't an Emby issue, but...

 

I have my Synology sharing folders that require me to log in with username and password throughout the network. I never "mapped" drives on the PC's in the house. Will I have to start from scratch by mapping network drives to these shares or should I be able to just tell Windows 10 to save the credentials next time provide user and pass for the folders on Synology? Or am I overthinking things now lol?

[Guest asrequested]

Mapped drives aren't a good idea. Direct network path is recommended.

[Finallygreen 1]

Alright then, either I'm just not understanding this or it's still not working as it should....

 

Synology NAS is both managing my network shares and running Emby...so when I go into Emby server admin, my share folders all look like "/volume1/MOVIES/etc" with alt paths of "nfs://192.168.xxx.xxx/volume1/MOVIES/etc". A windows 10 computer on the same network sees a network location of SYNOLOGY...if I click on that, it will ask me for a login and password. If I provide the correct credentials, I then see all of the shares on the Synology, such as the MOVIES folder. Obviously, I don't from this computer see "volume1" or anything of the sort. 

 

So...are we really still thinking that the Emby Theater on this Windows 10 PC isn't able to directly access the folders in question? I mean...it can directstream bluray folders, just not DVD folders. And, if you really DO still think this PC isn't able to directly see said folders, how do I resolve this?

 

I apologize for asking so many questions....I just thought I'd have made much more progress with this by the end of my weekend. There's some things I'm really liking about Emby so far, and I'd really like to iron out the kinks in my setup. And unless someone's going to kindly donate enough money to me to take the next several months off of work to spend 8 hours a day ripping thousands of DVD's to MKV files, that's just not the answer for my situation.

 

Any and all help would be appreciated!

[Guest asrequested]

What is the exact folder structure? Are you nesting them?

[Luke 42078]

take the path  you configured, go to the machine running emby theater. put that path into windows explorer. that's what you need to get working.

[ebr 16182]

 A windows 10 computer on the same network sees a network location of SYNOLOGY...if I click on that, it will ask me for a login and password.

 

 

There is no way for Theater to provide those credentials so you have to get it working without that requirement.

[Finallygreen 1]

take the path  you configured, go to the machine running emby theater. put that path into windows explorer. that's what you need to get working.

 

I sure do appreciate all the help.....here's the good news / bad news:

 

Good News: based on the helpful feedback I received here, I figured out what I needed to change on my Synology in order to be able to see the network shares without username/password (I had a password rules setting that was forcing even the "guest" account to require a password). As of now, I can get to the shares that contain all of the files from the Windows 10 machine running Emby Theater without having to use any credentials.

 

Bad News: that didn't resolve the issue. Still when I select a DVD in Emby Theater from this machine, it hangs for a solid 2-3 minutes before playing the DVD in transcoded form.

 

Any other ideas?  

[Guest asrequested]

What happened when you tried Luke's suggestion?

[Finallygreen 1]

Yeah, that helped me to go research Synology forums and find out why I couldn't access the shares without login and password. But now that that's fixed, and I can reach these folders on the PC running emby theater by simply clicking the folders in explorer, it's still not working.

 

Here's an observation from testing.... If I open powerdvd and try to play a DVD directly from the network shared folder, it plays perfectly. If, on the other hand, I tell powerdvd to play a DVD from the library that emby server is sharing throughout my network, it seems to find the file (the correct runtime appears at the bottom of powerdvd), but it won't play.

[ebr 16182]

... by simply clicking the folders in explorer, it's still not working.

 

Okay, what Luke meant specifically to do was put the path you have defined in the "Network Path" field into the explorer address bar and see if it can access it that way.  That is the key.  That is what Theater will be trying to access.

[dcook 299]

Synology NAS like almost all the NAS is very low powered to be doing transcoding.

[Finallygreen 1]

See this is where I'm probably not getting it... Remember that emby server is running on the Synology, so when I add a library folder in server, it looks like "/volume1/anything/movies" because that's what emby server sees being on the Synology. It won't ever look quite like that from the windows PC... It will look like "nameofmysynologybox/anything/movies".