Plex vs Emby & Metadata storage

General Discussions
1

Hi… first post, reasonably new user to Plex but I’ve been a long time user of Emby (almost 10yrs in fact since the days when it was called video browser and nothing more than a windows Vista media server plugin).

My problem lies with the storage of metadata… I have a very, very large collection of media. Close to 2000 movies, 15000+ tv episodes and 30,000+ audio files. The metadata for all of this is a huge strain on resources.

now I’ve always stored my metadata locally in the source folder for each item… this means data is spread around across multiple drives and easily accessed and can be manually altered if needed (neither emby nor plex seems to get it all right, even though file structure/naming is perfect for everything I own).

But the biggest issue is that whilst emby allows this, even though it seems to then store some in it’s own DB… plex does not. So it’s creating a whole new set of data in it’s own DB.

I’ve just checked and emby plus it’s W7 media centre plugin uses some 33GB of storage, Plex is using some 16GB additional storage… and NONE of this includes the local metadata/image storage for each individual item. I can only take a wild guess at how much extra storage space is wasted across 6 more drives in my media server.

So why can’t Plex (or emby) use that locally stored data instead of ignoring it and using yet more storage space on my SSD… Which isn’t a large one.

I can see why I’ve seen so many people with problems using the server software on smaller devices like the nvidia shield… in my opinion they’re not fit for the task… but fine for accessing a proper server and streaming/direct playing of media… Does that make me a server snob… lol… possibly. I put a lot of time, effort and money into my setup… it gets a total rebuild every 3-4yrs along with at least a couple of new/larger drives every year… But with the 18TB of media I currently have… it needs to be capable.

I like Plex… I like Emby… I’m currently running both side by side and evaluating the pros/cons of both as I’ve seen some serious loss of focus with Emby that have made it a far less enjoyable experience… Areas where plex shines much brighter… and then I find areas where Plex falls over and Emby shines. Seems neither one is the complete package.

Emby seems to be far more hungry in terms of space requirements for metadata than Plex… Why emby needs to store an extra 10GB of data just for the media centre plugin baffles the crap out of me… but then a lot of the bad design choices being made by the devs is making it an unpleasant experience on some devices. plex on android for TV’s is far superior, but the number of services running for Plex and the amount of CPU cycles being used is vastly higher than Emby… transcoding high bitrate HEVC video files is a real struggle for plex even on a quad core 4.2ghz CPU with 8GB ram and Plex seems incapable of stopping itself from running over services whilst it’s transcoding… leading to stuttering and loss of connection. Something that Emby never does.

I’ve gone through settings and if there’s anything that can be suggested to reduce the amount of storage needed for metadata… I’d appreciate it… But I’d love it even more if it was able to use what’s already there and not even NEED to store it within it’s own DB at all. As it stands I’ve got multiple copies of the same data and with Plex have no idea what’s stored where and cannot manually edit the metadata files when it fails to get it right and when trying to correct it within the browser UI fails to work (I can at least do that with Emby).

I have a lifetime sub to Emby, been a supporter for many years… used to help out with testing until a few years ago… I’ve paid for the android app for Plex… but at the moment I see nothing that makes me want to buy a subscription to the Full plex package. It’s good… but it’s not great enough yet… Emby is also good… but is fast becoming a badly designed mess with bad design choices after bad design choices… Like trying to force the browser UI to work in the same way as it does on a touch screen… which makes the process of finding and accessing media 10 times more time consuming. Sadly those in charge have a completely blinkered view of things and cannot see the damage they’re doing… It’s damage that’s seen me start to test alternatives to it after 9+yrs.

So good job so far… as I find issues I’ll mention them and I’m always willing to offer suggestions… If emby took a few design tips from you lot (your browser UI is so much better than the mess theirs has become)… it’d be game over for me. But I use the browser UI a lot from my office, so yours appeals greatly to me over emby… But at home I use W7 media server a lot too, and the plugin for that is very nice indeed… Shame you haven’t got something to compete with that… Because using emby with my MC remote makes everything so smooth and easy to use… and it’s why 2 of my machines hooked up to TV will NEVER be upgraded from W7… simply because losing the use of those remotes isn’t an option and there’s nothing out there that allows me to use them with anything else on any other OS that I know of… But if you know of anything that allows me to start it from the green button and control everything from it please let me know… I may be a bit behind the latest tech as my last rebuild was 2yrs ago… waiting on the new AM4 stuff from AMD in 2nd quarter before I evaluate if it’s good enough for a rebuild of my gaming rig.

3

I’m still on a learning curve with Plex… some things work really well compared to emby and some don’t. In some areas it’s much better and others it’s worse. neither is perfect.

For example… I really like the browser UI in Plex, easy to navigate, easy to find things… everything is decently designed and laid out. The browser UI for emby has been on a downward spiral that has seen it become a perfect example of bad design. They’re trying to make the browser UI look and work the exact same way as the android app (don’t use IOS, so can’t compare)… I can actually understand a desire to create a uniform look… But sadly they are completely oblivious to the simple fact that what works on a touch screen simply fails to work within a browser window. Geners for example used be a minium half page mouse scroll. 22 genres, 22 images to load/display and enter… Now it’s a 12 page scroll and 220 images to load/display. It’s taken a simple way to navigate and made it ten times more time consuming, not to mention the much longer load times for each page because it now loads 10 times as many images… and they actually had the nerve to say the newest build is ‘quicker and easier’.

For some one who use the browser UI a lot… it’s a nightmare… and they have a completely blinkered approach to suggestions or criticism. It’s one of the reasons I’ve gone from helping out and reporting bugs to simply pointing out design flaws that are making it a horrible user experience.

Some of the same issue with the android UI… forcing it to load 10 times as many images as previous versions… wasting more bandwidth for silly visuals.

But the media centre plugin is a thing of beauty… and with the subdued theme I prefer… well I wouldn’t use anything else.

I’m currently testing out emby for kodi and will be testing plex for kodi too… Currently running the emby and plex android apps along side each and the Plex one is winning so far. Shame there’s no media centre plugin… because the browser and WMC is where I do 90% of my viewing… If you had that… I’d be signing up for sure.

4

@trumpy81 said:
Server Snob eh … :))

To begin with, Plex stores all downloaded metadata etc. in the Plex Media Server data folder. That location varies on different OS’s. Any metadata that you store in your media folders is on you, Plex has no control over that, but you do, so if you want to reduce the storage space needed for that, it is up to you. Plex only adds location links to the database for any metadata that you supply, which does not use a great deal of storage space, a few megabytes maybe, not counting the file space needed for the files of course.

If the Plex Media Server data folder is stored on an SSD, you can use a symlink to move the actual data to another location in order to free up some space on your SSD. It is not advised to use an external drive for that purpose though. The drive should be internal to your PC/Mac/Linux machine.

Note, that the Plex Media Server data folder can be quite large, for my 6000 Movies, 10000 TV Show episodes and 30000 Music files, my Plex Media Server data folder is 115GB, give or take a GB.

As to how Emby stores it’s metadata, I have no idea, I have not investigated that at all. I have tried Emby, but I am not overly comfortable with it, Plex is my first choice.

If you have any specific issues with Plex, not displaying metadata etc. then post all of the details about the issue and someone may be able to help you with that.

HTH

Dang, I use 140gigs for a quarter of the media you have. All my metadata is supplied by plex. I would like to figure out what takes up so much space. I have a feeling there is leftover images and “junk” that gets lost and starts accumulating

7

Both my current PC are still running Win7 and because of the insidious ways MS tried to trick/con/force people onto W10… I had to go to great lengths to put a stop to it’s nasty little behaviour, not to mention great lengths weeding out all the tracking and telemetry stuff they tried to sneak into W7/8 to spy on users. Support for W7 continues until 2020… and by that time I expect to have migrated to Linux for most things… most TV’s will be hooked up via set top streaming device (1 installed at present (cheap POS but proves it’s worth pursuing with better quality units) more to come over the next year or two). I do more and more with my phone/tablet too… So the need for a windows machine at the moment is media centre and gaming… If I can map my MCE remote to another theatre program then that’d be great… and another potential nail in the coffin of windows.

MS and their nasty push for Windows 10 has actually turned me away from being a paying windows customer… not to mention a lot of other people I know… it’s ironic that after years of downloading or using enteprise versions of their OS thast I got through work… they converted me into a paying customer with Vista 64 (don’t laugh, it was a good system and very stable with a few tweaks… it was crappy hardware that caused the problems and a lack of driver support from crappy peripheral makers)… Win7 convinced me to purchase multiple licenses (I have 4… 2 for me and 2 for family I support and build systems for) Windows 8 was a clusterfrack, 8.1 did little to improve it… and then came the nasty little W10 as a service… You no longer own the OS you… you’re simply ‘allowed to use it’… All those free copies… wait until they star monetising everyone who got conned into installing it. :slight_smile:

MS… used to be Evilcorp… then Apple came along and took the crown… then Google rose through the ranks to compete with Apple… and now it’s full circle back to MS once more.

Rant over… MS is evil… W10 is little more than spyware regardless of how well it performs and by the time I need a new OS… something else will be along and if I need a dual boot for windows gaming… I’ll suffer it I guess.