BIF ?

[Sammy 790]

It used to be that Emby would create a -320-5.bif file for each show or movie in the library. Lately I am not seeing this in the folders but still am seeing chapter marker images.

 

Now I see that it is chapters or every 10 seconds in the Library Settings?

 

Did something change without being documented when the last server updated rolled out?

 

How to get back the BIF images for the files added to my library in the last several weeks?

[CBers 7451]

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/83096-what-happened-to-video-preview-thumbnails

[Sammy 790]

Guess I missed that but it would have been nice if the default was 10 seconds and not just chapters. I guess I have a LOT of files to create BIF's for; will this happen on the next scan or do I need to intervene to make it happen?

[neik 873]

You might need to run the "Thumbnail Image Extraction" task.

I am also struggling with this change... :-/

[Sammy 790]

You might need to run the "Thumbnail Image Extraction" task.

I am also struggling with this change... :-/

 

Yeah, I did that. I guess I'll need to be happy with 10 seconds instead of 5. It does seem to be "smoother".

[neik 873]

Yeah, the 5 seconds thumbs are gone for the time being, unfortunately... :-(

[kingy444 117]

@@Luke - any chance for this getting brought back or should we blow away our burrent bif files and regenerate? (sadly initial generation took a week lol)

 

Personally i had no issues with 5 seconds but i can see from the linked topic above that bif files of 5 seconds may not be working as expected either.

 

I have raised a seperate topic about missing chapters https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/86404-chapters-not-extracted/ and i believe this change has broken that too.

 

If i delete the 320-5.bif file chapters will appear, but as soon as i restore the file the chapters dissappear.

 

At the end of the day, i like my 5 second intervals, but my question is, should i delete all my 5 second bifs and generate the 10 second ones, or will 5 second come back in the future (in which case, if the 'precise' option is included i may regerate anyway)

 

Just dont want to regenerate my bif files twice.

[Luke 42079]

It can be, yes, as soon as we can be sure it will consistently work well.

[neik 873]

It can be, yes, as soon as we can be sure it will consistently work well.

 

How confident are you that the 10s thumbs won't be changed anytime soon?

I am willing to sacrifice the 5s thumbs if the 10s thumbs are here to stay because as @@kingy444 said, it takes a while to create all the thumbs, so changing interveralls shouldn't happen over and over.

 

Maybe @@softworkz can give us some insights as well...

Edited May 22, 2020 by neik

[rbjtech 5284]

I have found that if you refresh the metadata, the old .bif file works along with the chapters.  This is a lot quicker than regenerating the .bif files but is not ideal if you have custom metadata etc.

[neik 873]

The issue I am having with the drop of the 5s thumbs is that if I set "Create thumbnails during library scan" - which I usually do - it starts recreating the thumbs with 10s interval for all files and not only for the new ones - which would be okay.

 

Anyway, let's see what Luke says...

[maegibbons 1287]

I still do not see why this change had to be imposed on all of us.

 

5s were always working just fine for me. And its a PITA that they are now 10.

 

Why can we not have an override flag in config.xml or something?

 

Krs

 

Mark

 

A 'like' is always appreciated!

[softworkz 5068]

Hi guys,

 

I had promised earlier that we can revisit this subject after the release and I haven't forgotten that.

 

The reason why 5s intervals had been removed (as a quick solution), was that in case of videos having large keyframe intervals, our quick-extraction algorithm doesn't work correctly.

Fixing this at the core will require time and focus and will probably be done when we will take another step regarding thumbs preview support, which will probably take a while until we get to it.

 

Though, there's another idea which would allow to bring back the 5s interval extraction earlier than the above. It's not an utterly elegant way, but it would be rather easy for us to do: After 5s extraction, we count the number of generated images and compare that to the length of the video. When the image count is lower than it should be (which means that it's one of the problem cases), we simply repeat the extraction with 10s interval.

 

The downside is, that extraction will be run twice for some videos, but when a user accepts that trade-off, he will get 5s intervals where possible, and 10s intervals where needed, which means no longer seeing thumbnails mismatching the video contents.

 

That's the idea at least, but there hasn't be a decision so far, I think.

Edited May 24, 2020 by softworkz

[Spaceboy 2573]

Hi guys,

 

I had promised earlier that we can revisit this subject after the release and I haven't forgotten that.

 

The reason why 5s intervals had been removed (as a quick solution), was that in case of videos having large keyframe intervals, our quick-extraction algorithm doesn't work correctly.

Fixing this at the core will require time and focus and will probably be done when we will take another step regarding thumbs preview support, which will probably take a while until we get to it.

 

Though, there's another idea which would allow to bring back the 5s interval extraction earlier than the above. It's not an utterly elegant way, but it would be rather easy for us to do: After 5s extraction, we count the number of generated images and compare that to the length of the video. When the image count is lower than it should be (which means that it's one of the problem cases), we simply repeat the extraction with 10s interval.

 

The downside is, that extraction will be run twice for some videos, but when a user accepts that trade-off, he will get 5s intervals where possible, and 10s intervals where needed, which means no longer seeing thumbnails mismatching the video contents.

 

That's the idea at least, but there hasn't be a decision so far, I think.

sounds good, would work for me

[maegibbons 1287]

Well it is certainly a step in the right direction. Please implement this. Not sure why it needs a big discussion!!

 

Krs

 

Mark

 

A 'like' is always appreciated!

[rbjtech 5284]

Thanks for the explanation @softworkz  ,

 

The solution offered sounds logical and as the extraction happens behind the scenes/out of hours anyway (ie I don't believe people sit and wait for it to complete !..) then the possible additional delay is unimportant.  

 

To avoid extra support questions, then my view is just extend the footnote 'More frequent thumbnails will result in a better experience, but will require more disk space and time to create the images.'  to include a sentence covering the rationale for the possible 5s/10s differences.

Edited May 24, 2020 by rbjtech

[ebr 16184]

Well it is certainly a step in the right direction. Please implement this. Not sure why it needs a big discussion!!

 

Krs

 

Mark

 

A 'like' is always appreciated!

 

Well, there are a couple of reasons - it could significantly impact library scan time - something people are always complaining about and always ignore the warnings we put on options that say they will impact the scan time (there was a perfect example of this just today where someone was reporting how slow their library scan was and they had enabled a few options that said they would do this).

 

Also, it will create a situation where the result is different from what someone selected which, again undoubtedly, will cause us more trouble-shooting and question answering time when people report that the image extraction is "broken".

 

Therefore, in these instances, we usually would rather truly fix the issue as opposed to put in a temporary stop-gap that will just create more issues.

[Spaceboy 2573]

Well, there are a couple of reasons - it could significantly impact library scan time - something people are always complaining about and always ignore the warnings we put on options that say they will impact the scan time (there was a perfect example of this just today where someone was reporting how slow their library scan was and they had enabled a few options that said they would do this).

 

Also, it will create a situation where the result is different from what someone selected which, again undoubtedly, will cause us more trouble-shooting and question answering time when people report that the image extraction is "broken".

 

Therefore, in these instances, we usually would rather truly fix the issue as opposed to put in a temporary stop-gap that will just create more issues.

well yes but the other side of that is you have already increased cpu usage for those of us that want to go back to 5s bifs in future. All these 10s bif will need replacing!

[rbjtech 5284]

Well, there are a couple of reasons - it could significantly impact library scan time - something people are always complaining about and always ignore the warnings we put on options that say they will impact the scan time (there was a perfect example of this just today where someone was reporting how slow their library scan was and they had enabled a few options that said they would do this).

 

Also, it will create a situation where the result is different from what someone selected which, again undoubtedly, will cause us more trouble-shooting and question answering time when people report that the image extraction is "broken".

 

Therefore, in these instances, we usually would rather truly fix the issue as opposed to put in a temporary stop-gap that will just create more issues.

 

So my view on tick options that will extend library scan times, rather than expect people to just read the 'footnote/small print', prompt them and get acknowledgement of the change.  ie 'the option you have selected will increase library scan times - are you sure you wish to do this ?'

[neik 873]

Well it is certainly a step in the right direction. Please implement this. Not sure why it needs a big discussion!!

 

Krs

 

Mark

 

A 'like' is always appreciated!

 

Nothing to add, we have been dealing with this for the last months.

 

And I still do not understand why you removed it in the first place.

Sure, you guys had a few users having issues with it, now you have a lot more users complaining about the removal of the options...

 

I'm getting tired of this and will probably just move to 10s thumbs to kinda deal with it myself. :-/

[kingy444 117]

Hey guys - a year on and i dont even appear to be able to select 10s as an option now (there is no drop down it is just forced)

Is this an indication that 5s is not coming back ? all my media is generating 320-10.bif files by default now so if 5 second intervals are not returning i guess a year is long enough to have waited in hope and i should reindex my library ?

[Happy2Play 9781]

11 minutes ago, kingy444 said:

Hey guys - a year on and i dont even appear to be able to select 10s as an option now (there is no drop down it is just forced)

Is this an indication that 5s is not coming back ? all my media is generating 320-10.bif files by default now so if 5 second intervals are not returning i guess a year is long enough to have waited in hope and i should reindex my library ?

I believe there were client issues with different interval so a 10 second interval was chosen.  There is no need to reindex/replace your existing bif files unless you are having issues or just want to.

[kingy444 117]

9 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

I believe there were client issues with different interval so a 10 second interval was chosen.  There is no need to reindex/replace your existing bif files unless you are having issues or just want to.

all my old 320-5 bif files exist but last i checked they weren't being used. Blowing away not really an issue (simple Powershell one-liner) more liked having them closer together so that the thumbs were 'nicer' so hoped 5s support would return.

thanks @Happy2Play