Convert feature

[csadoian 36]

Some time ago Emby used to convert recordings on the fly to .mkv, incurring lots of server overhead in the process.  A change was made (last year, I think) where recordings are stored in .ts format.  This generated larger files, but I understand why it was done and have no problems with it.  Prior to moving to Emby I used NextPVR, and it stored recordings using the .ts format as well, so I was used to it.

 

Around that same time the "convert" feature was added to Emby that would allow the user to convert individual recordings or whole groups of recordings from .ts to something more compact, much the same way that Emby used to do "on the fly" as the recording was being done.  While I was aware of this feature I never really got around to trying it.

 

So I have been experimenting with this feature for a couple of days now, and have had positive results so far, except for something that happened in my last batch.

 

I attempted to convert a "season" of a particular series that was recorded in 2017-2018.  In setting up the conversion I chose "Convert to Original Media Folder, replacing original files", a profile of "TV", and a Quality of 4Mbps.  No item limit and no other options were checked.

 

When I checked on the progress of the conversion this morning by looking directly into the series folder on my NAS drive, I was shocked to see that almost all of my recordings had vanished!  Hmm....

 

So I started poking around the Emby logs and I think I realized what happened.  Since this particular season was recorded in 2017-2018 there was a mixture of media files that were in the .mkv format (old Emby standard) and the .ts format (new Emby standard).  Since I had chosen "TV" as my profile, Emby was converting these recordings to a .mkv file.  Since the conversion is done in a temporary folder on the Emby server, there were no conflicts during the actual conversion process.  However, at the end of the conversion of each file apparently Emby's last step is to delete the original file (since that's the option I chose when setting up the conversion).  However, since the newly converted file had the same name as the original file (with the .mkv extension) Emby deleted the new file and I was left without the original or the converted file (I confirmed this by examining the Emby log)!

 

This particular folder has (had) 23 episodes in it.  Episodes 1-17 were recorded in .mkv format, so they are gone now.  Episodes 18-23 were in .ts format, so they converted without any problems.

 

I'm pretty sure I understand what happened, but my question would be, is this a bug or operator error?  I suppose if I had chosen "Mobile" as the profile Emby would have output an mp4 file and there would not have been a problem, but I chose the "TV" profile because it appeared it was more suited for viewing on TVs and such, which is what I wanted.

 

By they way, I didn't loose any recordings ... because I had never used the convert feature before I felt it was best to make a backup of the folder prior to conversion, in case something went wrong.  So I can restore the recordings and do the conversion again, but this time use the "Mobile" profile, if that's what it takes.

 

Perhaps code needs to be added to Emby to check to see if the input and output file formats (or at least the extension) are the same before it does a conversion, to prevent files from being deleted.

 

I can provide you with server logs if needed, although I don't think you will need them.

 

 

[Luke 42085]

Hi, is this with emby server 4.1.1?

[csadoian 36]

Hi, is this with emby server 4.1.1?

 

Yes, 4.1.1.  If you need to look at the server log I believe I still have it.

[Luke 42085]

Ok, I found the issue, thanks.