Serviio

I have noticed ffmeg.exe running in the background of Windows 10 and it appears to be downloading from my network.

I know that Serviio uses the ffmeg library. I am wondering why Serviio is downloading from the internet even though I am not presently watching anything?

I use Serviio to stream Youtube videos to my TV (and also local videos too of course) but even when my TV is off and Serviio isn't being used that ffmeg.exe will sometimes download in the background.

What you are seeing occurs when your media library is being updated:

• Serviio uses ffmpeg to gather "local" data about your media file(s). This data is either a property of the file or is held within the media file (eg. duration, size, video codec, audio codec, embedded metadata);
• If you are using Online Metadata Sources (Serviio Console, Metadata) then Serviio will access the internet to add "advanced" metadata information to its media library (movie rating, directors, actors, title, description, etc)

This is most noticeable when adding new media files, or after doing a forced refresh, or (as I suspect he case is here) after an update to Serviio which requires the library to be updated.

ffmpeg is also used to transcode media files and for piping from an internet source (eg. youtube). Sometime ffmpeg will continue to run even after your TV is off - this is due to the limitations of DLNA between the TV and Serviio. These limitations means that Serviio has no way of telling that the stream is no longer required (simplistically, it cannot distinguish between "off" and "pause"). Rather than cut the transcode/internet pipe off Serviio lets ffmpeg run its course and transcode the entire source, so that the source is available should the stream be re-required (is that a word ).

Thanks for your reply. It was helpful.

By the way I wasn't worried Serviio was doing anything malicious. I was worried that ffmeg had a virus on my system because I would see some pretty substantial download bursts.

I turned off Serviio searching for thumbnails and media information of my local files. I suspect that might take care of it.