Request: Cache All Artwork with Path Substitution

[nuentes]

I have path substitution enabled in Kodi, which means all my images in Kodi are actually hosted on my server. I just clicked "Cache all artwork", which I know is a slow process, but it seems like it could potentially be MUCH faster in this instance, where Emby and the images actually live on the same physical host. It feels as though the images are going from my Emby server, to Kodi, and then back to the Emby server. Is this something that can be made more efficient? Is Emby Next Gen able to see whether I have path substitution enabled? And if so, can it detect if it's the same physical host as where Emby resides?

[nomandera]

I have a setup using an architecture like this so can perhaps give you some advice.

First question though, why do you want all art cached. What is the gain you hope to achieve.

[nuentes]

Interesting question. I don't necessarily want all artwork cached. I really just want all cover (poster) images cached. The main reason is my Kodi home screen includes random TV episodes and random Movies, and I hate looking at a black box waiting for the cover image to load. I'm less concerned about fanart/logos/etc. However, I don't really see a way to ONLY sync cover art. But anyway, this all kind of seems like a moot point? I don't need help with anything. I'm requesting an efficiency improvement.

[nomandera]

With a SSD drive driving the Emby side cache you should be able to choose the default cache on the fly option Kodi side and have a near complete experience without millions of needless file syncs. Scanning through the movie listing in Emby once should build most of your cover cache. I have completed extensive testing on this vs a full cache and the benefits of a full cache are not IMO worth the marginal gains.

However if Emby scrapes from "art beside media" (e.g generated by tiny media manager etc) you will see a slow down of all related artwork right down the chain because Emby treats that differently and never permanently caches it.

However I will leave it at that as you don't need help with anything.

[nuentes]

Emby-side cache is hosted on an SSD. The default cache on the fly is slow and results in me staring at black boxes while waiting for the image to get cached after initial sync. I realize that I just need to build the cache initially. I did it by performing the full sync. You do it by scanning through the movie list (which I had done every time prior, this was my first time trying the image cache). But regardless - why do I need to do this manually? Why is your solution to just take 20 minutes and click the down button a thousand time? I clicked a single button. How is your way better? Sure, my way took longer, and that's the spirit of why I created this issue. The single click could have been much more efficient in this case, since the images just needed to move to a local drive on my server. But instead, the files took the scenic route by going to Kodi via wifi, and then going back to the server via wifi. If I'm misunderstanding how Kodi handles path substitution, and this is indeed the way it needs to be done, then so be it. But I'm not here to complain about speed. I'm here to make a suggestion for an optimization.

I have no idea what your comment about is TMM is relating to. Emby controls my media collection metadata/images.

[nomandera]

Good luck with your feature request

[quickmic]

Please test with 6.x beta. Artwork cache is rewritten but the concept is the same as on previous versions.
If I understand you correctly, you want native path access from Kodi to your artwork? I think, could be possible...

[nuentes]

Please test with 6.x beta. Artwork cache is rewritten but the concept is the same as on previous versions. If I understand you correctly, you want native path access from Kodi to your artwork? I think, could be possible...

I'll test shortly. Native Path access would be great. But if I needed to have images cache to a separate drive, that would be fine. I just think the art cache process could be more direct. It seems like the artwork goes:

Emby > Kodi > Path Substitution

Since Emby and the Path Substitution folder reside on the same device, the process could be

Emby > Path Substitution

Where during this process, Emby Next Gen would essentially update the db with the file path, but Kodi would never actually touch the image during the cache process.

[quickmic]

In 7.x the artwork cache is once again re-written and is much faster yet.
Kodi uses "hashes" as file names. From my research you cannot use the existing artwork paths due to file relabeling.
Please try 7.x, I think is is a good compromise. The artwork cache performance is improved by a factor 100.