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encoderPro/DASHBOARD-GUIDE.md
Christopher Koch fe40adfd38 initial comment
2026-01-24 17:43:28 -05:00

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Enhanced Dashboard with Configuration UI - Complete Guide

🎉 What's New

The dashboard now includes full configuration management:

✨ New Features

  1. Configuration Editor

    • Edit directory paths (movies, archive, work)
    • Adjust parallel processing settings
    • Toggle processing options
    • Real-time validation

  2. Profile Management

    • Create custom encoding profiles
    • Edit existing profiles
    • Set default profile
    • Delete unused profiles

  3. Enhanced Job Control

    • Dry Run Mode - Test without encoding
    • Profile selection per job
    • Visual status indicators

  4. Three-Tab Interface

    • Dashboard - Monitoring and control
    • Configuration - System settings
    • Profiles - Encoding presets

🚀 Quick Start

# Start dashboard
docker-compose up -d dashboard

# Access at
http://YOUR-SERVER:5000

📋 Dashboard Tab (Monitoring & Control)

Job Control Panel

  • Profile Selector: Choose encoding profile for this run
  • Dry Run Checkbox: Enable to scan only (no encoding)
  • Start Button: Begin processing with selected options
  • Stop Button: Gracefully stop current jobs
  • Refresh Button: Manual data refresh
  • Status Badge: Shows Idle or Processing

Statistics Cards

  • Pending: Files waiting to process
  • Processing: Currently encoding
  • Completed: Successfully processed
  • Failed: Encoding errors
  • Skipped: Files without subtitles

Progress Overview

  • Visual progress bar
  • Original vs encoded sizes
  • Space saved with percentage
  • Average encoding FPS

System Monitoring

  • GPU utilization, memory, temperature
  • CPU load average
  • Real-time updates every 5 seconds

Recent Activity

  • Last 10 processed files
  • Success/failure indicators
  • Encoder used and FPS

Live Logs

  • Streaming log output
  • Color-coded messages
  • Auto-scrolls to latest

⚙️ Configuration Tab

Directory Settings

Movies Directory

/mnt/user/movies
  • Source directory containing your movie library
  • Must exist and be readable

Archive Directory

/mnt/user/archive/movies
  • Where original files are stored after re-encoding
  • Will be created if doesn't exist

Work Directory

/mnt/user/temp/encoderpro-work
  • Temporary encoding directory
  • Should be on fast storage (SSD preferred)
  • Needs space for largest movie file

Parallel Processing Settings

Max Workers (1-10)

  • Number of concurrent encoding jobs
  • Recommended: 1-2 for GPU, 2-4 for CPU

GPU Slots (0-5)

  • How many jobs can use GPU simultaneously
  • Recommended: 1 for single GPU, 2 for high-end GPUs

CPU Slots (1-32)

  • CPU threads available per job
  • Recommended: Half of physical cores

Processing Options

✓ Skip files without subtitles

  • Automatically skip files that don't have subtitle streams
  • Saves time by not processing unnecessary files

✓ Cleanup stale work files

  • Remove abandoned work files on startup
  • Keeps work directory clean

✓ Prefer GPU encoders

  • Use GPU encoding when available
  • Much faster than CPU

✓ Fallback to CPU

  • Use CPU encoding if GPU fails
  • Ensures processing continues

Configuration Actions

✓ Validate

  • Check configuration for errors
  • Shows warnings and suggestions
  • Always validate before saving

💾 Save

  • Write configuration to file
  • Creates backup of existing config
  • Takes effect immediately

🔄 Reload

  • Discard changes and reload from file
  • Useful to undo modifications

🎯 Profiles Tab

What are Profiles?

Profiles define encoding settings:

  • Encoder: Hardware (NVENC, QSV) or software (CPU)
  • Preset: Speed vs quality trade-off
  • Quality: CRF/CQ value (lower = better)
  • Audio: Copy or re-encode

Built-in Profiles

Profile Encoder Use Case
balanced_gpu NVENC H.265 Best for most users
fast_gpu NVENC H.264 Quick processing
quality_gpu NVENC H.265 Archival quality
balanced_cpu CPU H.265 No GPU available

Managing Profiles

Add Profile

  1. Click "➕ Add" button
  2. Enter profile name (e.g., "my_profile")
  3. Select encoder type
  4. Set preset (p1-p7 for NVENC, ultrafast-veryslow for CPU)
  5. Set quality (18-28 recommended)
  6. Choose audio codec
  7. Click "💾 Save"

Edit Profile

  1. Click "✏️ Edit" on existing profile
  2. Modify settings
  3. Click "💾 Save"

Delete Profile

  1. Click "🗑️ Delete"
  2. Confirm deletion

Set Default Profile

  1. Select profile from "Default Profile" dropdown
  2. Click "💾 Save All Profiles"

Encoder Options

NVIDIA NVENC

  • nvidia_nvenc_h265 - H.265 (recommended)
  • nvidia_nvenc_h264 - H.264 (faster, larger)
  • Presets: p1 (fastest) to p7 (slowest)
  • Quality: 20-25 recommended

CPU Encoders

  • cpu_x265 - H.265 (best compression)
  • cpu_x264 - H.264 (faster)
  • Presets: ultrafast, fast, medium, slow, veryslow
  • Quality: 18-24 recommended

Intel QSV

  • intel_qsv_h265 - H.265
  • intel_qsv_h264 - H.264
  • Presets: fast, medium, slow

AMD VAAPI

  • amd_vaapi_h265 - H.265
  • amd_vaapi_h264 - H.264

🎮 Using Dry Run Mode

What is Dry Run?

Dry run scans your library without encoding:

  • Detects subtitle streams
  • Updates database
  • Shows what would be processed
  • No files are modified

When to Use Dry Run

  1. Initial Setup

    • Test configuration before processing
    • See how many files need processing
    • Verify directory paths

  2. After Adding Movies

    • Scan for new files
    • Update database
    • Plan processing time

  3. Testing Settings

    • Check if subtitles detected correctly
    • Verify file extensions recognized

How to Use

  1. Go to Dashboard tab
  2. Check "Dry Run (Scan Only)"
  3. Select profile (optional)
  4. Click "▶ Start"
  5. Watch statistics update
  6. Review results in activity log

After Dry Run

  • Check Pending count - files that will be processed
  • Check Skipped count - files without subtitles
  • Review Statistics to plan processing time
  • Uncheck "Dry Run" and run for real

🔧 Common Workflows

First-Time Setup

1. Open http://YOUR-SERVER:5000
2. Go to Configuration tab
3. Set directory paths
4. Click "✓ Validate"
5. Fix any errors shown
6. Click "💾 Save"
7. Go to Profiles tab
8. Review default profiles
9. Go to Dashboard tab
10. Enable "Dry Run"
11. Click "▶ Start"
12. Review results
13. Disable "Dry Run"
14. Click "▶ Start" to process

Adding Custom Profile

1. Go to Profiles tab
2. Click "➕ Add"
3. Name: "my_quality"
4. Encoder: nvidia_nvenc_h265
5. Preset: p6
6. Quality: 20
7. Audio: copy
8. Click "💾 Save"
9. Set as default if desired
10. Click "💾 Save All Profiles"

Processing with Custom Settings

1. Go to Dashboard tab
2. Select profile from dropdown
3. Optionally enable "Dry Run" first
4. Click "▶ Start"
5. Monitor progress in real-time
6. Click "⏹ Stop" if needed

Changing Parallel Workers

1. Go to Configuration tab
2. Adjust "Max Workers" (try 1 first)
3. Adjust "GPU Slots" (1 for most GPUs)
4. Click "✓ Validate"
5. Click "💾 Save"
6. Restart dashboard container if needed

📊 Configuration Examples

Conservative (Safe for all systems)

Max Workers: 1
GPU Slots: 1
CPU Slots: 4
Profile: balanced_gpu

Balanced (Recommended)

Max Workers: 2
GPU Slots: 1
CPU Slots: 4
Profile: balanced_gpu

High Throughput (Powerful systems)

Max Workers: 3
GPU Slots: 2
CPU Slots: 8
Profile: fast_gpu

CPU Only (No GPU)

Max Workers: 2
GPU Slots: 0
CPU Slots: 4
Profile: balanced_cpu

🔍 Validation Messages

✓ Success

Configuration is valid!

All settings are correct, safe to save.

⚠️ Warnings

Warning: Movies directory does not exist
Warning: max_workers=5 is very high

Not critical but should be reviewed.

✗ Errors

Error: Missing required field: movies_dir
Error: max_workers must be at least 1

Must be fixed before saving.

🎨 UI Tips

Color Coding

  • Green - Completed, success, active
  • Blue - Processing, info
  • Yellow - Pending, warnings
  • Red - Failed, errors
  • Gray - Skipped, idle

Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Ctrl+R - Refresh page
  • Tab - Navigate between fields
  • Enter - Submit forms (in modals)
  • Esc - Close modals

Mobile Access

  • Dashboard is fully responsive
  • Works on tablets and phones
  • All features available
  • Touch-friendly buttons

🐛 Troubleshooting

Configuration Won't Save

Check:

  • All required fields filled
  • Paths exist or can be created
  • No validation errors
  • Dashboard has write permissions

Profiles Not Appearing

Solution:

  1. Go to Profiles tab
  2. Check if profiles list is empty
  3. Click "🔄 Reload" in Configuration
  4. Profiles may be in config file but not loaded

Dry Run Doesn't Update Stats

Wait:

  • Dry run takes time to scan
  • Refresh happens every 5 seconds
  • Check logs for progress
  • May take minutes for large libraries

GPU Not Available in Profiles

Check:

  1. Go to browser console (F12)
  2. Check for encoder detection errors
  3. Verify nvidia-smi works in container
  4. May need to restart dashboard

Changes Not Taking Effect

Solution:

  1. Save configuration
  2. Stop any active processing
  3. Restart dashboard container: 
    docker-compose restart dashboard

📱 API Access

The dashboard provides REST API for automation:

Get Configuration

curl http://localhost:5000/api/config

Save Configuration

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/config \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d @config.json

Start with Dry Run

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/jobs/start \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"profile": "balanced_gpu", "dry_run": true}'

Get Profiles

curl http://localhost:5000/api/profiles

Validate Config

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/config/validate \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d @config.json

🎓 Best Practices

  1. Always validate before saving
  2. Use dry run for new configurations
  3. Start with max_workers=1
  4. Create custom profiles for different quality needs
  5. Monitor first few files closely
  6. Keep original config as backup
  7. Test profile on one file before batch
  8. Check logs for errors regularly

🚀 Next Steps

  1. ✓ Configure directories
  2. ✓ Validate configuration
  3. ✓ Test with dry run
  4. ✓ Create custom profiles if needed
  5. ✓ Process a few test files
  6. ✓ Review quality and speed
  7. ✓ Adjust settings as needed
  8. ✓ Set up scheduled processing
  9. ✓ Bookmark dashboard URL
  10. ✓ Enjoy automated encoding!

📚 Summary

You now have a complete web-based management system for your media encoding:

  • ✅ Real-time monitoring
  • ✅ Configuration editor
  • ✅ Profile management
  • ✅ Dry run mode
  • ✅ Job control
  • ✅ Live system stats
  • ✅ Activity tracking
  • ✅ Log streaming

Access: http://YOUR-SERVER:5000

No more editing YAML files manually!

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