Trickplay on Roku

[Mushie]

I'm more interested in having trickplay thumbnails actually work on Roku. I don't mean to come across as indignant but the competition has had this feature forever, it seems. Is there a timeframe for this feature? Or is there a behind-the-scenes issue that is making this difficult to implement?

[TheDreadPirate]

I believe this is a limitation of the kind of trickplays that Jellyfin uses and what Roku supports. Our trickplay images are "too heavy" for Roku devices to handle, or something like that.

[Mushie]

That's unfortunate. Thanks for the answer.

[HokieRulz]

I'm more interested in having trickplay thumbnails actually work on Roku. I don't mean to come across as indignant but the competition has had this feature forever, it seems. Is there a timeframe for this feature? Or is there a behind-the-scenes issue that is making this difficult to implement?

I was able to get TrickPlay working on my Rokus some time back, but now can't find the article that helped me.  The essence is that Trickplay images are stored as a grid of images whose size is defined in Jellyfin under the Admin Panel->Playback->Trickplay, and the Jellyfin default produces a grid that is too large for most Rokus to handle.  In the Trickplay settings screen look for "Tile Width" and "Tile Height".  I remember the default being 10 for both.  I had to reduce each of these to 5 to get Trickplay working on my Rokus.

The catch is that after you change the trickplay grid size then you need to delete any existing trickplay image grids and regenerate the trickplay grid for this to be effective.  I have the option set on my libraries so that the Trickplay images are stored at the same location as my library, but the Jellyfin default stores the trickplay images somewhere else (https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-trickplay-a...e-location).  

The point is, to test you can delete the trickplay images for a single show and then go into "Scheduled Tasks" and initiate "Generate Trickplay Images" to regen the trickplay images for that single show using the smaller trickplay grid, and then verify that it works on your Roku.  If it does, then you would need to delete all of your trickplay images for everything, initiate the trickplay image generation, and wait for it to complete for all shows using the smaller grid size - which could take quite some time if you have a lot of shows.

[Mushie]

I was able to get TrickPlay working on my Rokus some time back, but now can't find the article that helped me.  The essence is that Trickplay images are stored as a grid of images whose size is defined in Jellyfin under the Admin Panel->Playback->Trickplay, and the Jellyfin default produces a grid that is too large for most Rokus to handle.  In the Trickplay settings screen look for "Tile Width" and "Tile Height".  I remember the default being 10 for both.  I had to reduce each of these to 5 to get Trickplay working on my Rokus.

Thanks a ton for this! I changed the width and height to 5 as suggested. I then just scheduled a random show to record to see how it would work. When the recording was completed, I checked on the Roku and the thumbnails were showing, but only for the first couple minutes of the show. I went back to the PC and under scheduled tasks I clicked to generate trickplay images hoping it would complete the thumbnails for the new recording. About 20 minutes later when the progress was only at 32.6% I realized it was regenerating thumbnails for my entire library (movies, home videos. TV recordings, etc...). I also discovered in the "metadata/library" folder, the trickplay folders now contained both 10x10 thumbs and the new 5x5 thumbs. 

11 hours later (this morning) I was able to quickly test one previous recording that never had thumbnails but now it does (for the entire recording, nonetheless). I will check the Roku later this weekend to see what does and doesn't have thumbnails. Considering that I now have 2 sets of trickplay thumbs for each movie, show, etc...I will likely delete all the trickplays and regenerate them once again with the new settings.

Overall, this appears to be a promising solution!

[He-who-is-tired]

The catch is that after you change the trickplay grid size then you need to delete any existing trickplay image grids and regenerate the trickplay grid for this to be effective.  I have the option set on my libraries so that the Trickplay images are stored at the same location as my library, but the Jellyfin default stores the trickplay images somewhere else (https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-trickplay-a...e-location).  

The point is, to test you can delete the trickplay images for a single show and then go into "Scheduled Tasks" and initiate "Generate Trickplay Images" to regen the trickplay images for that single show using the smaller trickplay grid, and then verify that it works on your Roku.  If it does, then you would need to delete all of your trickplay images for everything, initiate the trickplay image generation, and wait for it to complete for all shows using the smaller grid size - which could take quite some time if you have a lot of shows.

If you do not have the trickplay images stored at the same location as the library, how do you go about deleting images for either a given show or for all shows?  I have not yet enabled trickplay, but it sounds great.  I am somewhat leery of having thousands of new images within .../metadata/library, is the mechanism for managing trickplay-related files pretty sound, should I perhaps hold off to see if any further options are offered for where images are stored?

I have my libraries mounted as read-only for Jellyfin and prefer it store its metadata separately; I do that when trialling any media-manager type software so that when I decide to switch from say, plex to jellyfin, the now-defunct media manager files can all be cleanly jettisoned.

Thanks for any insight!

[HokieRulz]

If you do not have the trickplay images stored at the same location as the library, how do you go about deleting images for either a given show or for all shows?

See if post #2 by @Efficient_Good_5784 in the following thread helps you any:  https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-trickplay-a...e-location

FYI Edit: For my Jellyfin TV recording library, with my Trickplay grid set at 5x5 and otherwise Jellyfin default Trickplay sizing settings, I'm seeing 15 Trickplay jpg files per hour of recorded show. Each of the Trickplay jpg files I'm getting is typically between 350-550KB, for a total of ~4.5-6MB of Trickplay jpg files per hour of recorded show.

[Mushie]

Just an update regarding my experiment to regenerate trickplay files at a grid size of 5x5:

All recorded TV shows display video thumbnails on Roku when skipping commercials, etc...

Movies and other home videos do NOT show any video thumbnauls, however, they are present when checking on the web browser. This is not a big deal as I'm typically not going to need to skip over anything while watching a movie. That being said, if anyone (@HokieRulz) knows how to get the thumbnails to display for movies, it would be much appreciated. While it isn't a deal breaker for the movies, it would sure be nice since it works for recordings.

Thanks again for your help @HokieRulz

[HokieRulz]

if anyone (@HokieRulz) knows how to get the thumbnails to display for movies, it would be much appreciated.

TL;DR Trickplay doesn't work for me on the Jelly Roku client when direct playing, but does work when the playback requires transcoding (or even just remuxing.)  

I hadn't tried Trickplay for movies or home videos for the same reasons you mentioned - I just wouldn't use it much.  After reading your message I created a "test" movie library and a "test" videos and photos library, and then copied several movies and home videos.  What I've found is that Trickplay is working when there is transcoding and/or lossless repackaging happening, but Trickplay is not working when full direct play is achieved.  

I'm going to look at this a bit more.  If you force it to transcode, for example by setting the Jellyfin Roku player's max bitrate, then trickplay images will show - but to me that is giving up more than you gain and isn't a solution.

I'll look at it a bit more as I have time.  Anyone else have a viable workaround?

[HokieRulz]

First a disclaimer - while I've made a couple contributions to Jellyfin, I'm not a strong Brighterscript developer and haven't worked on the Jellyfin server itself, so take my feedback for what it is - a best effort.

What I'm seeing is that the Trickplay we are getting when transcoding/remuxing is the Roku device itself presenting the Trickplay images when they are available. There is code in the Jellyfin Server to provide the Trickplay images, but nothing specific in the Jellyfin Roku app to present them. I believe that coding changes would be needed in the Jellyfin Roku client for Trickplay to work for Direct Play.

Anyone able to confirm or refute this? Should I open an issue on the Jellyfin Roku github project regarding the need for the Jellyfin Roku client to present Trickplay images for direct play?