Video playback and thumbnails

[MikeB111 60]

Hello all,

 

I'm a new user as of this week, looking to make the switch from Plex.  Seems to be working well so far, but I have a few questions about video playback.

 

When I play back a file (movie or TV episode, same behavior in both cases), I get the skip forward and skip back icons but don't see any chapters or any fast-forward or rewind functionality.  Yesterday I turned on Thumbnail Creation and saw in the log last night that it completed, but still no fast forward or chapters or any other navigation besides skip forward and skip back.

 

I guess I thought that thumbnail creation would add this ability.  It's awfully painful to try and get to the middle of a movie when using a remote control on my HTPC when I can only skip in 30 second increments.  I'm sure there must be something I'm missing, any help would be much appreciated!

 

Just for additional background, my movies are all ripped with MakeMKV and re-encoded with Handbrake and all include chapters so I'd think I would at least be able to see these, but If they're there I don't know how to access them.  I'm watching using Emby Theater on my Windows 10 HTPC, same computer as the server.

 

Also, one last question.  Today I installed Emby Theater on a second computer on my home network, and when I play a movie I don't get any controls at all.  Moving the mouse doesn't show any progress slider or skip/play buttons or anything.  Actually took me a second to figure out how to even get back out of the playback.  Seems very strange, any thoughts?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Luke 42079]

Hi there @@MikeB111, if you run the thumbnail scheduled task manually in Emby Server, does it finish immediately, or does it start creating more thumbnails? You can run it manually in the server scheduled tasks section.

 

My guess is they're not actually done for the video you tested.

[MikeB111 60]

Luke,

 

Thanks for the quick reply!  I manually ran the thumbnail task this morning and it finished instantly.  I had run this yesterday afternoon also while I was troubleshooting this problem.  It has not made a difference, I still do not see any fast forward feature, only the skip forward/back.

 

In reviewing the log files from yesterday (when I manually ran the thumbnail creation task), there are lots of lines that look like this:

 

 

2020-01-05 14:01:50.582 Info App: ProcessRun 'quick-extract-imageseries' Execute: C:\Emby-Server\system\ffmpeg.exe -f mp4 -threads 1 -skip_interval 10 -copyts -i file:"E:\Movies\The Dark Knight Rises (2012).m4v" -an -sn -vf "select='eq(pict_type,PICT_TYPE_I)'" -s 320x160 -vsync cfr -r 0.1 -f image2 "C:\Emby-Server\programdata\cache\temp\d2233d4f97d04bc19a67e9f4f9b90fa1\img_%05d.jpg"

 

 

I assume these are the executions of ffmpeg that create the thumbnails.  One interesting question, I think I should see some output in the "c:\emby-server\programdata\cache\temp directory, with a numbered directories for each movie.  If I browse to this directory I see many single jpeg files but do not see any subdirectories.  I have confirmed that the windows user has write access to this folder.  Not sure if this is relevant, but thought I'd mention it.  I dont' see any error messages in the log related to this.

 

Thanks,

Mike

[MikeB111 60]

Anyone have any ideas on this one?  If there is no fast-forward or rewind capability then I don't understand what thumbnails are for.  The Emby server seems to think it has created thumbnails but I cannot find them in the directory that it indicated, but no errors are presented.

 

In Emby Theater (latest version, 3.0.10, on Windows 10), here's what I see when I am watching a movie and move the mouse to show the video controls:

 

 

So I have skip forward and skip back buttons but no other controls.  I've seen YouTube video reviews of Emby that show additional controls so I'm confused as to why the interface is so sparse (maybe the videos I've seen are old and this is the new interface, but figured I'd ask)?  Is this what I should be seeing or is something not set up correctly?

 

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Happy2Play 9781]

Have you hovered along on the playback slider?

[MikeB111 60]

Thanks Happy2Play, now I feel kinda dumb.  Yes, if I hover my mouse over the playback slider I see the thumbnails.  Awesome!

 

So one last question I guess.  On my TV I control Emby Theater with a remote control, not a mouse.  Is there any way to get a fast-forward and re-wind function with a remote control (or keyboard as I can map the remote to keys)?  Honestly, it'd be useful even with a mouse for control, but especially with just a remote.  According to this:

 

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/Keyboard-and-Remote-Support

 

left and right arrow or shift-left shift-right should fast forward or rewind but these keys only do a skip forward and skip back function for me (same for the fast-forward and re-wind buttons on my MCE remote).

 

Thanks,

Mike

[Happy2Play 9781]

Don't really use ET.

 

@ may have a answer for that.

[Guest asrequested]

No, that hasn't been implemented, yet.

[MikeB111 60]

Ok, thanks!  I appreciate the quick replies, and patience with my questions.  If it hasn't been implemented yet then at least I know I haven't messed anything up.  Hopefully this is on their list of desired improvements as I think the ability to fast-forward and re-wind is a pretty important function of a high-end media player.

 

Thanks!

[Guest asrequested]

You know what? I misspoke. If you hold down the direction buttons, that should give you what you want, I think.

[MikeB111 60]

Thanks for the tip.  That actually does give me mostly what I need.  It looks like holding down the direction button just repeats the skip forward function (set to 30 seconds in my case).  But it sorta works like a fast-forward, close enough to get me what I need.

 

It'd be nice to have functionality where one press of FF takes you to 2X speed, then a second press to 3X then a third press to 4X etc.  But I guess I wouldn't put this at the top of my wish list given that I can skip to chapters and can essentially "fast forward" with repeated forward skips.

 

Thanks for the help!

[Guest asrequested]

Search for a feature request for it and add your support. Others have asked for it. Not sure if anyone has formally requested, though.

Edited January 8, 2020 by Doofus

[Luke 42079]

We will be improving this. Thanks for the feedback.