Am I doing something wrong?

[B C]

So I have two media folders, standard media (everything 1080p and under, called standard tv and standard movie) and 4K media (all 4K quality files, 4K tv and 4K movies).   

In every other media server I have tested, it groups all same thing (TV shows and movies) and either plays the highest quality of what I am watching it on (so my 4K TV plays 4K stuff, or tablet it plays 1080p).  Jellyfin can't seem to group them together though, even using the plugin.   Any ideas?

Thank you.

[gaming09]

whats your file structure/ naming convention

[B C]

Ah sorry forgot to include that, I use trash guides through the arrs for my naming. Structures are Standard Media> Stanard TV, standard movies. 4K Media>4k tv, 4k movies.

[jellykrabbypatty]

I don't understand the question. What do you want to group together? The 1080p and 4K files into one library? Or movies and shows into one library?

[Jarrod Jaiz]

What do you mean? I don't understand why you have to group folders like this. So you can easily share media to platforms by quality group?

[Necromind]

I understood the question, I think. I have such files also grouped in different folders.
But I don't get it why JF should switch between different versions of the same movie, depending on the client watching it.

Since Jellyfin does a very efficient transcoding just keep the "best quality" of a file and JF manage the client capabilities automaticlly by transcoding the file in the required format.
I think the wrong way here is, putting lots of different encodings of the same file in this common library. There is no need to do so. It's simply wasted storage space.

So I think the issue is trying to adapt an old concept to JF, without the need to do so.

[jellykrabbypatty]

I understood the question, I think. I have such files also grouped in different folders.
But I don't get it why JF should switch between different versions of the same movie, depending on the client watching it.

Since Jellyfin does a very efficient transcoding just keep the "best quality" of a file and JF manage the client capabilities automaticlly by transcoding the file in the required format.
I think the wrong way here is, putting lots of different encodings of the same file in this common library. There is no need to do so. It's simply wasted storage space.

So I think the issue is trying to adapt an old concept to JF, without the need to do so.

Ok, I think I get it. He wants JF to detect the client's specifications and choose between two different encodes (1080 or 4K) rather than transcoding one of them.

That's actually a good question. I'm not sure if that's something it can do or not. I would be inclined to say no based on what the person above said. I'm not sure what goes into transcoding a 4K movie down to 1080p and if there is a loss of quality. I know some 4K encodes look worse than a 1080p one if it's not on a 4K HDR TV. But again, my transcoding knowledge is limited.

If this is a thing you can do, you probably have to put them in the same folder and follow very specific naming conventions. Or just put them both in the same library and edit the metadata name with a custom 4K tag or something.

[B C]

I don't understand the question. What do you want to group together? The 1080p and 4K files into one library? Or movies and shows into one library?

I have two Arrs stacks, one for SD to 1080p and one for 4K.  In emby and Plex if I have a show in 1080p and 4K downloaded into their folders, Emby shows it as a single episode and I can pick the 1080p or 4K from a dropdown, or it just plays the correct version depending what I am watching it on (at work it is 1080p) and at home it's 4K.  

Jellyfin shows it as one show but when I go into a season, it shows two episodes versions for each episode.

---

I understood the question, I think. I have such files also grouped in different folders.
But I don't get it why JF should switch between different versions of the same movie, depending on the client watching it.

Since Jellyfin does a very efficient transcoding just keep the "best quality" of a file and JF manage the client capabilities automaticlly by transcoding the file in the required format.
I think the wrong way here is, putting lots of different encodings of the same file in this common library. There is no need to do so. It's simply wasted storage space.

So I think the issue is trying to adapt an old concept to JF, without the need to do so.

It's more about not wanting to transcode, due to it not working great all the time, and storage is so cheap, I'd rather just have 1080p/4k versions since I watch things all over the place (work, travel, etc)

---

What do you mean? I don't understand why you have to group folders like this. So you can easily share media to platforms by quality group?

Because I don't want two separate libraries for quality.

I am trying to figure out why Jellyfin can't handle this like every other media server does.

[jellykrabbypatty]

I see what you're saying. I'm not an official Jellyfin rep but from what I've seen from my time with the platform, that is not something you can currently do. I see why you would want to though. I have some 4K files that transcode to play on non-4K equipment and they often look washed out and worse compared to just playing the 1080p counterpart.

Hopefully that will be added as a feature someday. For now I think the only options are two libraries (one for 1080p and one for 4K), or two files per film in a library, or making a collection folder with the two files for each film.

[Necromind]

It's more about not wanting to transcode, due to it not working great all the time, and storage is so cheap, I'd rather just have 1080p/4k versions since I watch things all over the place (work, travel, etc)

---

Well, wasted storage is the most expansive one for sure 

What you like to do is simply not (yet) supported by Jellyfin.
They put a lot of efford in the transcoding feature. Even by changing ffmpeg's code for better integration.
I constantly use it, even on ridiculous low bit rates while on travel. The results are excellent.
Sure, there are possible problems with HDR/Dolby Vision and such encodings. But Jellyfin supports a proper tone mapping, which must be activated.

I just try to explain why such a "file mapping" function is not part of Jellyfin. Because of it's excellent transcoding features it's not needed in my opinion.
Well, an encoding/decoding hardware is required. Many people let run Jellyfin on low-end hardware or a very old one, with no such capabilities.
I use a current Intel iGPU and it works crazy fast with excellent results. But this may vary depending on the type of files in the library. An Intel Arc card will do the job fine aswell.

Beside that the main info here is: Such a function is not (yet) existent in Jellyfin. And I don't believe it ever will be...
You may file a feature request about it, tho