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Emby Theater Vs. Emby for Media Center


jdthird

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jdthird

I've been using Emby since the beginning, and Media Center since I beta tested it with XP back in my MVP days.  I've been on Media Center forever, all iterations, and used the various versions and previous iterations of Media Browser as well. 

 

I really love the media center version.  It does absolutely everything I need it to do.  I tried the free version of theater, but I can't even type on a keyboard to jump to a movie - something critical since I have almost 3000 movies in my collection.

 

I also have a bunch of recorded cartoons in various formats that I just have in a single folder for my son (i.e. Arthur, Martha Speaks, etc) and I use the "videos" part of media center to browse those.

 

I've seen all the complaints about the pay for play for Emby Theater, and it was nice to be using free stuff for over a decade in various forms, but I don't have a problem paying for something that does what I want.

 

My problem is that only being able to use the free version of Theater, it's absolutely useless for me compared to the plug in for Media Center.

 

I'd like to move off of Windows 8.1, but can't since I still need to have Media Center to run Emby.

 

What is Emby Theater's paid beta like at this point?  Can I at least set it up so it's functionally comparable to what I use now with Emby for Media Center?  Will I be able to jump to a movie by typing in the name with a keyboard?  Navigate TV shows as easily as I do in the media center version?  It's nice having the full screen info for the current episode with forward/backward buttons to just jump to the next episode rather than having to either go back, or always have all the episodes down one side of the screen and not be able to get a full screen display for an episode and lay from there.

 

As I said, I wouldn't hesitate to pay, I just don't want to pay and find that it's no more useful for me than the free version was.

 

Thanks for any information

 

John

 

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MovieNut

EMBY for Windows Media Center is one of the nicest programs I've ever used. Love it. EMBY Theater, however, has a long way to go before it can be considered a replacement to Windows Media Center.

 

Sent from my N9810 using Tapatalk

Edited by MovieNut
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Hi, welcome. Emby theater is not a beta. It's ready for every day use. It is certainly not perfect, but it is improving rapidly with new features and fixes on a daily basis.

 

Yes you can install it and browse around, test playback and get a feel for it. Your payment not only gets you the windows version, but also the web version which is perfect when you're away from home or on a tablet.

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AdrianW

A few points:

  • You can't type a title to jump, but there is an alpha picker at the bottom of the screen - so it's quick and easy to get to the section starting with a particular letter. 
  • You can't (yet) skip forward/backwards on the episode detail screen - but if you make use of the "Next Up" episode feature - this updates automatically to the next episode once you've finished the previous one. There is also an optional "auto-play next episode" feature which will play episodes one after the other until you press stop.
  • Also, the episode listing screen includes thumbnails and overviews and if that's sufficient info you can simply press play from there without going down to the detail view.
  • For your son's random folder of TV episodes - you can configure this as "Home Videos" instead of TV, then you'll have a library of just random content that can be scrolled through.
  • You could always just install the hacked version of Media Center on Win 10 and use EMC.
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jdthird

Anyone in here do the hacked version and is happy with EMC's performance?  I'm not adverse to doing that, if I knew there was some success stores out there. :)

 

But the alpha picker really wouldn't do much - if you have 280 movies that start with S, for example, that's still just too much waiting to get to a movie.

 

TV sounds like the options are easy enough to have similar functionality at least.

 

Is there any plan to add the feature to type in a title?  Or has that been ruled out totally?

 

Thanks for the responses guys.

 

John

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AdrianW

 

Is there any plan to add the feature to type in a title?  Or has that been ruled out totally?

 

 

It does have search - click the magnifier and then type the movie, episode or person name.

 

I don't think it does triple-tap like Media Center - but there's an on-screen keyboard, or you can use a physical keyboard.

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Deathsquirrel

It does have search - click the magnifier and then type the movie, episode or person name.

 

I don't think it does triple-tap like Media Center - but there's an on-screen keyboard, or you can use a physical keyboard.

 

He means the function where if you are in a list of titles and just start typing a movie title the list jumps ahead to the first title starting with the typed string.  If I type S I go to the first title starting with S but if I type STAR I'll jump further, to Star Trek Collection in my case.  Cool stuff if you happen to keep a KB in your family room...which I do.

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AdrianW

He means the function where if you are in a list of titles and just start typing a movie title the list jumps ahead to the first title starting with the typed string.  If I type S I go to the first title starting with S but if I type STAR I'll jump further, to Star Trek Collection in my case.  Cool stuff if you happen to keep a KB in your family room...which I do.

 

Yes, I know what he meant. I was just saying that there is a search option available which allows you to get to a specific title quicker than scrolling.

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Heuer

WMC for Win 10 works perfectly and has not been disabled by any Microsoft updates. I can run Emby for WMC on it also without issue. As for Emby Theatre it is developing at quite a rate and all kudos to Luke for the fantastic work he is doing whilst keeping a positive attitude despite some of the (unnecessary) sniping we see at times. I now use Theatre exclusively and it is simple and practical to use with the added benefit of something new being added every few days. Fun to wake up and find out what has been put in there overnight.

 

If you are looking for a highly customisable user interface with dozens of options then Theatre is not there yet but I am confident it will be over time. I use EATV on a Shield TV and that is a delight to use. Ditto the Emby on my Android phone and the browser version. The server is stellar. 

 

So you have several options but I suggest you go to Win 10, install the WMC hack, Emby for WMC and enjoy. Please also consider installing Theatre (dev edition) and keep trying it, maybe when the family are not around, so you get a feel for it and you can decide when to move across.

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jdthird

Thanks everyone.  Tested it on my convertible tablet running Win10, worked fine.  Converted my HP Pavilion mini, and MC failed there.  Had to take ownership of the windows\ehome folder and manually remove everything from there first, then the install went fine.

 

On the emby theater page, there's just the one download that says it's for viewing only.  Is there another page I'd need to download from to get something to test with?  Or will this one run in some time limited demo mode?  I've done searches but this is the only place I've found reference to dev edition.

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jdthird

The page you said, where I had already found it, explicitly states "Emby theater is free to browse your media, while playback requires Emby Premire."

 

That was one of the things that started the thread, since I can't really test it's effectiveness for me at replacing the WMC plugin since it explicitly states only for browsing media.

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AdrianW

The page you said, where I had already found it, explicitly states "Emby theater is free to browse your media, while playback requires Emby Premire."

 

That was one of the things that started the thread, since I can't really test it's effectiveness for me at replacing the WMC plugin since it explicitly states only for browsing media.

 

But, you do get to do everything else - to validate that what you asked about in your initial post is possible. You'll be able to see what the episode listing looks like, how your son's folder full of random episodes appears and how quickly you can locate a movie in your "S" section, etc.

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What he said.

 

Also, don't discount the actual search capability - something that EMC cannot do well.  If you want to go directly to your Star Trek movies, just go to the magnifying glass and type in 'star' (or whatever) and bingo.

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barrettuk

I have been testing WMC on Windows 10 and so far its working great so I may switch over from Win7 soon. I too have enjoyed my WMC setup and don't want to loose how it looks and works in my theater. I think once ET has some more options (such as being able to match 3 or 4 rows of movies and letting me select the ordering of those in the same way as EMC) so it looks as good as WMC/EMC on my 140" projection screen I will be able to switch.

 

Oh and for all those years of enjoying this great software - you should consider supporting the effort with a small amount of $$$ regardless  :P

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jdthird

I have donated previously. :)  Felt it only right for the product they had, and the least I could do in thanks.

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