Transcoding notification

[Pog22 52]

I'd like to give a notification or pop up on playback to notify users their Emby client is transcoding, especially if they are transcoding 4k as it cripples the server. Whenever I find issues the user is usually completely unaware they are transcoding or causing issues for others as their steam is buffered.

[ebr 16169]

Hi.  I don't think that notification will mean much of anything to many users.  What do you expect them to do upon receiving it?

[Pog22 52]

1 hour ago, ebr said:

Hi.  I don't think that notification will mean much of anything to many users.  What do you expect them to do upon receiving it?

To remind them they are transcoding and could be affecting other users if it's during peak hours. It's always down to incorrect settings. My users (family and friends) use static devices, firesticks, mi boxes, smart TVs, no mobiles, very rarely browser but never an issue. Leaving client devices on auto always transcodes on wi-fi, but is fine if you manually set a high max bitrate.

[kikinjo 281]

I think this would be really good to have icon on playing osd status if video is transcoding so user knows it, rarely users go to nerds statistics to see that information. Popup is not needed if u ask me, at least some icon on OSD that shows that video is transcoded.

- users sometimes have bad connection and quality is than much lower due to transcoding and they are confused why is lower quality

- 4k as Pog22 mentioned

- bad configuration of client

- old configuration of client (client limited bandwidth to some value and forgot to change it), this happens all the time

- a lot messages to admin of server with questions about lower quality and user don't knows that video is transcoded (didnt check nerds section or don't know to read it)

- etc...

 

[rbjtech 5284]

I'll add my support to this as I think it would be useful for the system admins. 

My users don't need to know this (or care frankly) but as my goal is to have a system that direct plays everything as much as possible, having a notification (and subsequently an email) of the transcoding playback, just sent to me (or whoever else is interested) would be useful for me to investigate why and try to correct it.

  

Edited May 2, 2021 by rbjtech

[ebr 16169]

4 hours ago, rbjtech said:

having a notification (and subsequently an email) of the transcoding playback, just sent to me

That sounds like something that could be added to the notifications plug-in.

[neik 873]

19 hours ago, Pog22 said:

Leaving client devices on auto always transcodes on wi-fi, but is fine if you manually set a high max bitrate.

In my opinion that's the main issue actually here.

Auto doesn't always measure "correctly" and therefore leads to transcoding as the clients thinks the available bandwith isn't enough although it acutally is.
Due to this behavior I just set all my clients to the max network speed and work around the issue but in a perfect world it would just work without me needing to adjust anything manually.

[rbjtech 5284]

 

6 minutes ago, ebr said:

That sounds like something that could be added to the notifications plug-in.

Absolutely - getting the notification to an email, pushed etc is not the problem.  I believe we just need a new notification type - some like 'Transcoding playback started'  - maybe a subtype of 'Video playback stated' if there is such as thing ?

 

[K1ng_Lear 237]

+1

 

would be nice as automatic server message with an info how to avoid transcoding.