Stats for nerds for audio

[rechigo 369]

After I was trying to get some information on an audio track today, it reminded me of something that's been missing from Emby: a "stats for nerds" for audio tracks (or just some way to view the data that I could get by running ffprobe on an audio track). As of now, I don't see any way to get information regarding an audio track (bitrate, channels, etc). Is there a way to do this that I just completely skipped over?

[Luke 42787]

Hi, there's currently no way, but it's not a bad idea.

[mostynL 9]

I kind of assume if you enable direct play on Emby for audio, then you are a nerd. In the web audio play, would love to see "FLAC" replaced with a one liner wtih more of that 'nerd stat'. Aren't we all nerds? Alright, wishful thinking. THanks.

 

[Luke 42787]

Hi, yes we could probably fit a little more there. Thanks for the feedback.

[FrostByte 5547]

I'm sure this has been asked before, but my ninja search skills aren't working right now.

I would add bit depth 16/24 next to Hz in SFN for those with HD audio and replace the mbps which is there 3 times for some reason.

Edited September 3, 2022 by FrostByte

[Daniel_Yee 8]

Adding the audio basic info on the front of player will be perfect like file format, bitrate, bit depth and sample rate (eg. FLAC - 1592kbps 24bit/44.1khz). 

[user24 395]

On 9/4/2022 at 2:25 AM, mostynL said:

In the web audio play, would love to see "FLAC" replaced with a one liner wtih more of that 'nerd stat'.

Yes, I’ve been wanting something like this for a while too. I suppose seeing just (e.g.) MP3 or FLAC is a good minimal approach for many, but all my music is FLAC. I therefore also want to see (e.g.) 16/44 or 24/96, at a glance, without having to open “Stats for Nerds” or leave that visible the whole time. Even then, this doesn’t show bit-depth in the available info.

On 10/12/2025 at 11:06 PM, Daniel_Yee said:

Adding the audio basic info on the front of player will be perfect like file format, bitrate, bit depth and sample rate (eg. FLAC - 1592kbps 24bit/44.1khz). 

I also similarly want to see more relevant info like this, but don’t need to see “everything” to be able to easily determine if the track is “standard” or “hi-res”. So, rather than just waiting for Emby to implement something, I had a friendly AI conversation and ended up with this (full screen):

Here’s the JavaScript code for anyone interested in experimenting with it, for the web player (at your own risk):

(function() {

    async function updateAudioInfo() {
        try {
            const sessions = await window.ApiClient.getSessions();
            const session = sessions?.find(s => s.NowPlayingItem);
            if (!session) return;

            const item = session.NowPlayingItem;
            const audio = item.MediaStreams?.find(s => s.Type === "Audio");
            if (!audio) return;

            const codec = (audio.Codec || "").toUpperCase();
            const bitDepth = audio.BitDepth || "";
            const sampleRate = audio.SampleRate ? (audio.SampleRate / 1000).toFixed(1) : "";

            const el = document.querySelector('.videoOsd-audioInfo .mediaInfoItem');
            if (el) el.textContent = `${codec} • ${bitDepth}-bit • ${sampleRate} kHz`;

        } catch (e) {
            console.error("Error:", e);
        }
    }

    const obs = new MutationObserver(updateAudioInfo);
    obs.observe(document.body, { childList: true, subtree: true });

})();

I have no idea if this is optimum code, but it seems to work ok for me. Alter this line to change the format of the displayed data:

if (el) el.textContent = `${codec} • ${bitDepth}-bit • ${sampleRate} kHz`;

To show other data will require more extensive changes, of course.

Depending upon screen size, aspect ratio, screen view, font-size, etc., some CSS finessing may also be required to adjust any misalignment due to the extra space that the additional info takes up. I found that the text-centering may not align well and the time-remaining may wrap to the next line, but it seems fine, with no tweaking, for a landscape view., on my set-up.

While this won't help for all the client apps, perhaps it's still useful to some, as an interim approach, for the web player? 

Edited 35 minutes ago by user24