Few questions / thoughts

[cshaun 31]

How long is the Emby Premiere Lifetime special on for?

Are there still plans in offering Emby Theater as a separate paid app - ETA?

 

 

So I've switched to Kodi as a front end and been using that for the last few months. Relatively happy with it but it's not perfect.

Tempted to try out Plex properly (only tried it at a friend).

 

My main issues with Emby Theater are:

1. Left + Right on the remote skip 5 min! Useless. I thought we were targeting full use on 6 button remotes?
   I'm currently using Mele F10, have ordered Rii mini i25A, also have my TV remote with HDMI CEC adapter. (I want RF for PC control.) None of these remotes have fast forward / rewind buttons. So I can't do small skips. (I probably use small skips more than play/pause. 5-20 times a day.)
2. Speed - bit slow even though Intel 2.6Ghz dual core, 4GB RAM and SSD.
   Kodi is definitely faster/smoother. I do plan on upgrading in the not so distant future. But it's still slower than I believe it should be. Especially when having to wait for covers to load. Hell use 2GB+ of RAM if you need to!
   Or is there something I'm missing here and I can somehow get it running better?
3. So you access the playback bar / controls with the down button while playing video - how do you get rid of it? Other than just waiting? Back button, stops what's playing and goes to previous menu.
4. Needs a program launcher. E.g. launch Steam (and come back when exiting Steam).
5. YouTube integration - I guess a Windows universal app could be used and launched with above program launcher though decent integration would be far nicer.
6. Home automation integration - lighting control. Manually dim lights and automatically dim lights when playing a movie etc.
   Something I'm willing to look into creating a plugin for.

The above 6 points I have working with Kodi now...

 

I do like simplicity and how well things generally work out of the box with Emby vs having to customize and run different skins with Kodi. Although the next version of Kodi's default skin is looking very nice.

I've been using Emby / Media Browser for many years waiting for it to do everything I want. Just a bit frustrating trying to find something that best meets my requirements. I do like the idea of HTML/Javascript for Emby Theater interface - I'd certainly do a little work on skinning if I do the the Emby Theater route.

 

[cshaun 31]

Can someone explain to me how/why the '6 button' (up, down, left, right, enter, back) works the way it does? It just makes absolutely no sense to me.

Up and down do the same thing. Enter does nothing when playing a video.
 

Controls should rather be:

Enter should bring up the playback controls, with play/pause highlighted. So a double press pauses the video. (Back should get rid of the playback controls.)

Left/Right should be small jump forward/back.

Up/Down could be big step or chapter skip. (Or volume control - I'd look into how many remotes don't have volume. I imagine almost none so chapter/big skip makes more sense).

[cshaun 31]

Just tried a few of the Windows Universal apps for YouTube. MetroTube, MyTube and PrimeTube. None of the support keyboard navigation. I can't use the directional pad with them.

 

www.youtube.com/tv in full screen mode the best I've seen so far. But I couldn't exit it and had to get my keyboard out the draw to kill it. (Can't close with directional keys or mouse.)

Interface could be better, and it shows keyboard shortcuts which obviously useless when you're using a remote.

 

YouTube plugin for Kodi quite a bit better than the above.

 

Any other options I'm not aware of?

[Luke 37028]

The left/right behavior will be reviewed for a future release. Performance improves as you use the app. Like other Emby apps, the first few times you use the app you may see slow performance due to image processing required by the server. As the app builds up it's image cache, it will improve and be just as fast as the built-in web app.

[cshaun 31]

The left/right behavior will be reviewed for a future release. Performance improves as you use the app. Like other Emby apps, the first few times you use the app you may see slow performance due to image processing required by the server. As the app builds up it's image cache, it will improve and be just as fast as the built-in web app.

 

Great to hear RE the left/right behavior. Sooner the better, don't want people getting used to one thing and changing it on them. Not something you need/want an option for - one clearly makes FAR more sense.

 

I'll have another look tonight, but I don't believe it's caching / image processing. Unless cache somehow not working... seems to do it every time. Or at least if you go to your movies list, it doesn't seem to preload the images until you scroll to them.

[Luke 37028]

The app caches images after first use and is able to use them the next time, but yes you are correct, everything is on demand as it comes on screen.

[cshaun 31]

The app caches images after first use and is able to use them the next time, but yes you are correct, everything is on demand as it comes on screen.

 

OK had another play with it. Opened and closed it at least 3 times, waited at each screen, and also scrolled through the entire collection to prime the cache.

Didn't help with performance. Must be something else going on. I'll have to install on some other computers and see how it performs there.

 

But generally looks like I'm getting a couple FPS rendering - very choppy when scrolling around as well as the animations (e.g. size increase of selected poster).

Very noticeable having to wait for posters to load.

 

I'd say Kodi performance on the same system seems to be 2-5x better. Still room for improvement, it's not silky smooth. But it's night and day compared to Emby Theater.

 

Would it not be possible to preload assets into memory? Or is it a limitation of the HTML/JS renderer? Or at least preload enough so everything is instant for the user - memory requirement can't be that high.

[Luke 37028]

It might be more of an issue of the server performance in getting the data to the app. i have tested the app on a cheap intel compute stick and it animates smoothly, so your htpc should not be getting outperformed by that little device unless there is something else going on.

[cshaun 31]

mmm. Server is running on the same PC. Same as Kodi which doesn't seem to have the issues.

Windows install on C drive (120GB SSD) along with all the software. Only media on rotating disks. So shouldn't be any real bottlenecks.

[Luke 37028]

In order to best help you, please provide the information requested in how to report a problem. Thanks!

[Luke 37028]

@@cshaun

 

Updates are rolling out and you'll soon be able to use MB2-style alpha-numeric shortcuts. Enjoy.