Snacks - Automated Media Library Transcoder

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Analysis runs on the server — closing this dialog cancels it.

Quality Presets

Output

Output Format

MKV preserves every stream; MP4 is more broadly compatible but drops some subtitle types. WebM plays natively in browsers and forces AV1 video + Opus audio (subtitles stripped).

Video Codec

H.265 is a good default; AV1 gives the smallest files but encodes more slowly.

Hardware Acceleration

Use the GPU when available for faster encodes. Auto-detect uses every GPU found at startup in parallel — open the cluster device panel to enable, disable, or cap individual cards.

Target Bitrate (kbps)

Average video bitrate for 1080p content; higher resolutions scale via the 4K multiplier below.

Strict Bitrate Control

Caps peak bitrate close to the target (CBR-like) instead of allowing variable peaks.

4K Bitrate Multiplier

4K sources get Target Bitrate × this value. Only applied when Skip 4K is off.

File Handling

Skip 4K Videos

Leave 3840×2160 and larger files untouched.

Skip Threshold

% above target

Skip files already in target codec within this margin

Replace Original Files

Warning: Deletes original and moves encoded file to its location.

Retry on Failure

Re-queue failed files so the next auto-scan picks them up again.

Newest Files First

Convert recently added files before the backlog — ideal when new downloads should never wait behind a deep library conversion. Off = biggest files first (maximum space savings early).

Output Directory

Where encoded files are saved.

Local Transcode Scratch Directory

Optional: encode to a fast local disk, then copy result back.

Encoding Mode

Top-level strategy. Choose whether Snacks re-encodes video, takes a shortcut for files that already meet target, or never re-encodes at all.

Mode

Transcode — standard behavior. Files above the bitrate target are re-encoded per the Video Processing settings below; files already at or below the target are skipped. Audio and subtitles are processed per their tabs on any file that gets re-encoded.
Hybrid — same as Transcode for above-target files, but at-target files that would otherwise be skipped now get a video-copy mux pass so the selected audio/subtitle work can still run.
Mux Only — guarantees the video stream is never re-encoded. Files with audio/subtitle work get a mux pass; files with nothing to change are skipped entirely, regardless of bitrate.

Mux Touches

Which stream types a mux pass is allowed to touch. Streams outside the selected type are copied through untouched — their tab settings are ignored during a mux pass. Ignored in Transcode mode.

What a Mux Pass Does

Video — always stream-copied. Crop, downscale, and tonemap are disabled during a mux pass.
Audio — processed per the Audio settings when Mux Touches is Audio or Audio + Subtitles; otherwise copied through with every track preserved.
Subtitles — processed per the Subtitle settings (sidecar extraction, OCR, language filter) when Mux Touches is Subtitles or Audio + Subtitles; otherwise copied through with every track preserved.
Mux Only caveat — files that would otherwise need a video re-encode (codec change, bitrate reduction, HDR tonemap) are skipped instead. The Mux Touches setting decides what counts as "work worth doing".

Video Processing

Resolution

Downscale Policy

"Cap at target" only downscales content above the target; "Always" forces every file down.

Downscale Target

Maximum output resolution for the downscale policy above.

Quality

Tonemap HDR → SDR

Convert HDR/HDR10/Dolby Vision sources to SDR during encode for broader device compatibility.

FFmpeg Preset

Slower presets yield smaller files at the same quality.

Remove Black Borders

Detect and crop letterbox/pillarbox bars so no bitrate is wasted on pure-black pixels.

Audio

Languages

Audio Languages to Keep

Empty list keeps all audio tracks. Codes are stored as 2-letter ISO (e.g. en). Drag chips to reorder — the top language plays first.

Auto-keep original performed language

Requires Sonarr/Radarr/TVDB credentials in the Connections tab.

Auto-set first kept audio/subtitle as default track

After reordering, flags the top-priority audio and subtitle output as the default track so players auto-select it on playback.

Original-Language Lookup Provider

Codec & Mix

Preserve original audio tracks

Pass every kept source track through with -c:a copy alongside any added outputs below.

Output formats to add

For each kept language, the planner emits one stream per row, picking the best matching source track and downmixing higher channel layouts when needed. Rows that already exist in the source as-is are deduped to a copy automatically.

Subtitles

Keep List

Subtitle Languages to Keep

Empty list keeps all subtitle tracks. Codes are stored as 2-letter ISO (e.g. en). Drag chips to reorder — the top language is shown first.

Exclude hearing-impaired (SDH/CC) subtitles

Drops subtitle tracks flagged hearing-impaired by ffprobe, or with titles containing "SDH", "CC", "HI", "HoH", or "Hearing Impaired".

Extraction & Conversion

Extract subtitles to sidecar files

Write subtitle tracks as separate files next to the video instead of embedding them.

Sidecar Subtitle Format

Container format for extracted subtitle files.

Convert image-based subtitles to SRT (OCR)

Run OCR on image-based subtitles (PGS/VOBSUB) to produce searchable text. With sidecar extraction on, the result is written as a .srt file; without sidecar extraction, it's embedded in the output as a text subtitle track alongside any existing text subtitles.

Pass through image-based subtitles (MKV only)

Keep original image-based subtitle tracks (PGS/VOBSUB/DVB) in MKV outputs. MP4 always strips them — the format does not officially support PGS muxing. Combine with OCR to get both the original tracks and searchable SRT versions. If the encode fails, the pipeline automatically retries without these tracks before falling back to no subtitles.

Output Format

Container / Codec

Codec is fixed by container. Bitrate is ignored for FLAC.

Target bitrate (kbps)

Common: 128 (lower quality), 192 (default), 256, 320 (max for mp3).

Sample rate

Channel layout

Skip Ladder & Output

Skip files already in target codec

Lossy → lossless is always skipped (no quality recovery).

Bitrate match tolerance (%)

Source within ±N% of target bitrate is treated as a match and skipped.

Copy metadata & cover art

Preserves artist, title, album, year, embedded album art.

Delete original file after success

Concurrent music encodes

Independent of GPU video slots — music never starves a 4K encode and vice versa.

Dispatch music jobs to cluster workers

Off-loads to workers that report music support; falls back to master when none available.

Auto-Scan

Enable Auto-Scan

Scan Interval (minutes)

Watched Directories

No directories added

Pick a folder to watch, or use "Watch This Folder" in the directory browser.

Last scan: Never

Exclusion Rules

Filename Patterns to Exclude

Skip files larger than (GB)

Exclude Resolutions

Distributed Encoding

Enable Cluster Mode

Connect to other Snacks instances for distributed encoding

Role

Standard single-instance mode

Node Name

Friendly name shown in the cluster dashboard

Security

Shared Secret

All nodes in the cluster must use the same secret

Shared Storage

Enable shared storage mode

When master and node both mount the same NAS/SMB share, skip uploading the source and downloading the output. Both sides must enable this.

Allowed input directories

One path per line. The master may only ask this node to read source files from inside one of these directories. Leave empty to disable shared input.

Allowed output directories

One path per line. The master may only ask this node to write encoded output into one of these directories. Leave empty to fall back to downloading the encoded output.

Path rewrites (advanced)

One master-prefix => node-prefix pair per line. If the master sees a share at a different path than this node, translate it before validating — nodes mounting several shares need one line per share. Set the per-node scratch location with the existing Temporary Encode Directory field above.

Transfers & Bandwidth

Cluster Transfer Throttling

Master-only controls for upload and download concurrency and bandwidth. Set any cap to 0 for unlimited. Changes take effect on the next chunk — no restart required.

Concurrency Caps

Max concurrent uploads (cluster-wide)

0 = unlimited.

Max concurrent uploads per node

Default 1. Stops a single node from receiving multiple files in parallel.

Max concurrent downloads (cluster-wide)

Max concurrent downloads per node

Bandwidth Caps (MB/s)

Max upload bandwidth (cluster-wide)

Cap on total bytes-per-second the master sends across all uploads.

Max upload bandwidth per node

Whichever cap is slower (cluster vs per-node) wins.

Max download bandwidth (cluster-wide)

Max download bandwidth per node

Chunking

Upload chunk size (MB)

4–256 MB. Smaller chunks improve rate-limit smoothness but add HTTP overhead. If a bandwidth cap is set, very large chunks (>>cap) will create visible pause-and-burst behaviour.

Encoding Schedule

Per-Node Transcode Schedule

Schedules are evaluated against the master server's clock

— —

Restrict when each node accepts new jobs. A node with no windows is always available. In-flight jobs run to completion regardless of window.

Security

Control Panel Login

Require sign-in to access control panel

Username

Password

Stored as a PBKDF2 hash; never displayed back.

Notes

When enabled, every browser request must present a valid session cookie.
Cluster traffic between master and nodes uses the shared secret configured in the Cluster tab — it is independent of this login.
Disabling auth rotates the session secret, invalidating all existing cookies.

Advanced

Heartbeat Interval (seconds)

How often cluster nodes ping the master.

Node Timeout (seconds)

How long before a silent node is marked offline.

Maintenance

Re-checks every library file against the current encoder settings: skipped → unseen for files that newly need encoding, unseen → skipped for files that no longer do, and drops queued items that no longer need encoding. Safe to run any time. The button blocks itself while the walk is in progress.

Also retry encodes that previously produced no savings

Off by default. Re-running an encode that already proved “no savings” under the same settings just burns CPU. Tick this when you've changed encoder settings (target bitrate, codec, etc.) and want those files reconsidered.

Logs

Per-job log retention (days)

How long to keep per-job FFmpeg logs in the working directory. Each encode writes one file; over time they accumulate. Set to 0 to keep them forever. The app's rolling log is unaffected.

Rolling Verification

Files deep-verified per day

Continuously re-checks your library for silent corruption by decoding short samples of each file (oldest-checked first), spread evenly through the day. Problems appear on the Library Health page. 0 disables it; 100–500 is a gentle setting for NAS hardware.

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Now Processing

Queue

No work items yet

Notifications

Events

Plex

Jellyfin

Sonarr

Radarr

TheTVDB

TMDb

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Now Processing

Queue

No work items yet

Media Library Browser

Directories

Media Files

Directory Analysis

Settings

Quality Presets

Output

File Handling

Encoding Mode

What a Mux Pass Does

Resolution

Quality

Languages

Codec & Mix

Keep List

Extraction & Conversion

Output Format

Skip Ladder & Output

Auto-Scan

Exclusion Rules

Notifications

Events

Plex

Jellyfin

Sonarr

Radarr

TheTVDB

TMDb

Integration Sync Status

Distributed Encoding

Security

Discovery

Manual Nodes

Connection

Shared Storage

Cluster Transfer Throttling

Concurrency Caps

Bandwidth Caps (MB/s)

Chunking

Per-Node Transcode Schedule

Control Panel Login

Notes

Advanced

Maintenance

Logs

Rolling Verification

4K Dispatch Rules

Hardware Concurrency

Encoding Overrides Only checked fields override the global settings

General

Video Pipeline

Audio

Subtitles

Muxing

Select Folder

Remove from Queue

Transcoding Log

Confirm