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Emby vs Plex


junadlao

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Chyron

Right. I wasn't suggesting I'd do that, but perhaps transcode on the fly to my phone if my source is 4K.

 

How did you get the VRTV app to connect to your Emby server? I entered my local address in the "Open network stream" pop-up and it doesn't connect. 

 

You don't use VRTV as a front end for Emby Server a la Kodi. You tell the Emby client app to "Enable External Video Players" (in User Settings -> Playback). When you try to play a video in the Emby client, your device will ask you which video player you want to open it with. Nearly everything is happening through Emby, but Emby just feeds the stream to another app during playback.

Edited by chyron8472
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VaporTrail

You don't use VRTV as a front end for Emby Server a la Kodi. You tell the Emby client app to "Enable External Video Players" (in User Settings -> Playback). When you try to play a video in the Emby client, your device will ask you which video player you want to open it with. Nearly everything is happening through Emby, but Emby just feeds the stream to another app during playback.

 

Ah makes sense, thanks a lot!

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  • 4 weeks later...

I finally had the time & cash to setup my own media server. Hurray. Using the asus vivomini un68u (8th gen 25W Core i5u, HD620) - it's awesome and very powerful for it's tiny tiny size!

 

I tried both Plex and Emby running side by side running on top of W10. 

 

Couldn't get headless hardware transcoding working properly with Plex+W10 (Tried everything, latest drivers, reinstall, HDMI dummy etc.). . Worked flawelessy with Emby on W10, didn't even need a HDMI dummy. 

 

Kodi integration is far superior with Emby. If you use Kodi, Plex really isn't an option. There is no comparison. 

 

Emby client for Android is better and have more options, such as aspect ratio (no zoom though =/ ). 

 

Emby has better built in subtitle support. Had lots of problems with Plex and subtitles when transcoding. The subtitle add-on "Subzero" for Plex is awesome though and much better than anything available for Emby. I'm using a third party W10 app in order to fetch subtitles from addic7ed and subscene. 

 

Plex is a bit bloated. I didn't care much for the News channel etc. Had to spend some time disabling/hiding that stuff. 

 

 

I'll buy a lifetime emby license after giving it a few more months, but for my setup, Emby proved to be the far superior option. All in all both options are good and powerful depending on your needs and it's great to have a fallback option. 

 

One thing that really surprised me is the lack of features in both Plex and Emby media clients (Android, IOS). Touch support is weak, very few/next to no customisation options for aspect ratio/zoom, pixel ratio, subtitle configuration, adjust audio delay, adjust subtitle delay and so forth. I expected that both the Emby and Plex media clients would have a video player comparable to MX video player or the likes.  And this is why the Kodi integration with Emby is so great, because it gives you all those options. Touch support is still bad within Kodi itself though, but managable considering all the features. 

 

 

Addic7ed is now in the Emby plugin catalog. You'll need to configure your Addic7ed credentials in the plugin configuration. Enjoy.

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  • 7 months later...
Chyron

Plex recently changed their primary Music metadata agent from Last.fm to Musicbrainz. This means that (music and) audiobooks on Plex can have their metadata added to (or edited at) the cloud source, by the community. It nulls one advantage Emby had over Plex as far as building metadata sources for a proper audiobook library.

 

I have to say, I am not happy with Emby permanently putting audiobooks on the back burner.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Dibbes

Plex recently changed their primary Music metadata agent from Last.fm to Musicbrainz. This means that (music and) audiobooks on Plex can have their metadata added to (or edited at) the cloud source, by the community. It nulls one advantage Emby had over Plex as far as building metadata sources for a proper audiobook library.

 

I have to say, I am not happy with Emby permanently putting audiobooks on the back burner.

 

It's why most people I know use BookSonic for their Audiobook needs... the Docker image is small and hardly needs any resources at all. The only real disadvantage is that you cannot proper edit any metadata on the server.

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Chyron

It's why most people I know use BookSonic for their Audiobook needs... the Docker image is small and hardly needs any resources at all. The only real disadvantage is that you cannot proper edit any metadata on the server.

 

Which is a pretty severe disadvantage, in my opinion.

 

I would add that Booksonic is also ugly, and the server software hasn't been updated in years.

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Dibbes

Which is a pretty severe disadvantage, in my opinion.

 

I would add that Booksonic is also ugly, and the server software hasn't been updated in years.

 

True... unfortunately even though the server side has not seen a lot of active development recently, it's still light years ahead of what Emby can currently do... Same thing is true for Airsonic when it comes to music...

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Libraries now have multiple "mount points" that are configurable per user. That means I can have a single "Movies" library that points to these folders for me, this folder for my wife, and that folder for my daughter---but it's still just the one library on the backend. I don't need to have a different "Kids Movies" library anymore if I prefer not to.

 

 

Can you elaborate on this a bit more?

 

The way I see it, you still have to segregate the folders/physical location of your media, and then add these individual folders to the library. you can then control user access per folder.

 

in my case, since I just use Couchpotato to put all movies into a /Movies folder, and just point to this folder in my emby library, the only way for me to control access to specific movies (say to filter out those that may not be as kid friendly) is to use tags

 

apologies, as this may be exactly what you meant, but just making sure in case there are other ways to control access per user that I may not be as familiar with.

 

back on topic though - I've never really used Plex so probably can't give a decent comparison. I discovered Emby years ago when I was looking for a way to have a central database that stores watched status/movie pause points across multiple kodi clients. I still prefer to use kodi as the front-end, being a user since XBMC days. Emby did tick all the boxes of what I was looking for and I've been a loyal user since.

 

I run it off a QNAP NAS, with local and remote clients (on various Android boxes) running Kodi and the Emby for Kodi addon, off the Arctic Zephyr 2 skin. Have about 10 friends streaming off my server and everybody's happy with the fairly intuitive interface and overall solid user experience

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Chyron

The way I see it, you still have to segregate the folders/physical location of your media, and then add these individual folders to the library. you can then control user access per folder.

 

in my case, since I just use Couchpotato to put all movies into a /Movies folder, and just point to this folder in my emby library, the only way for me to control access to specific movies (say to filter out those that may not be as kid friendly) is to use tags

 

apologies, as this may be exactly what you meant, but just making sure in case there are other ways to control access per user that I may not be as familiar with.

 

It is exactly what I meant. What I was referring to though was that, previously, if you wanted to segregate different users movies into different physical folders, it required separate libraries in Emby to accomplish that. Now it doesn't. Now you can do that while still using a single library if you so choose. As opposed to using tags, which is fine. It's what I do in Plex.

 

It occurs to me that if you wanted to use separate physical folders while still using Couchpotato, you could have a folder into which Couchpotato originally deposits the files and have your library also monitor it. And then if you wanted to grant only certain users access to that content, you could then move the content to one of that library's user/group-specific folders instead. So long as Emby creates nfo files, any metadata it adds should stick when the files are moved. For example, you could have a movie library monitor a folder called .\Movies\CouchPotato and have Couchpotato download a movie to it. Then, if you only wanted yourself to list that movie, you could move it to the .\Movies\bangis folder that that same library only has selected for your profle.

 

I do find that having physical folders makes it easier for me to confirm who can see what without having to check the tag settings on each item, as well as easily make sweeping changes in permissions, especially since Emby doesn't have the option to edit tags in bulk.

Edited by chyron8472
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 the only way for me to control access to specific movies (say to filter out those that may not be as kid friendly) is to use tags

 

You could also just use the normal rating system and only have to manually adjust things that you don't agree with the rating on.

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It is exactly what I meant. What I was referring to though was that, previously, if you wanted to segregate different users movies into different physical folders, it required separate libraries in Emby to accomplish that. Now it doesn't. Now you can do that while still using a single library if you so choose. As opposed to using tags, which is fine. It's what I do in Plex.

 

It occurs to me that if you wanted to use separate physical folders while still using Couchpotato, you could have a folder into which Couchpotato originally deposits the files and have your library also monitor it. And then if you wanted to grant only certain users access to that content, you could then move the content to one of that library's user/group-specific folders instead. So long as Emby creates nfo files, any metadata it adds should stick when the files are moved. For example, you could have a movie library monitor a folder called .\Movies\CouchPotato and have Couchpotato download a movie to it. Then, if you only wanted yourself to list that movie, you could move it to the .\Movies\bangis folder that that same library only has selected for your profle.

 

I do find that having physical folders makes it easier for me to confirm who can see what without having to check the tag settings on each item, as well as easily make sweeping changes in permissions, especially since Emby doesn't have the option to edit tags in bulk.

 

Gotcha, just wanted to make sure I understood. Thanks for the suggestions and will look into it.

 

You could also just use the normal rating system and only have to manually adjust things that you don't agree with the rating on.

 

Thanks. Since I really only filter out a small minority of media, I was using the tags (manually), as ratings would tend to screen out more.

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  • 2 weeks later...

After the release about Plex sharing user data with other providers this interesting post appeared in one of the forums I visit.

 

 

Time for those that not ditched Plex completely to try Emby. Emby's Playback Reporting (which is a 'native' plugin) is in a good state rn, on par to Plex's Tautulli, that was one the most needed features for me. Emby is miles ahead imo. The simple things that made me make the move:

- It plays EAC3 without transcoding on Android/ATV
- No bugs where the subtitle forces transcodes.
- Can edit metadata from a smartphone client
- Easier solution for Live TV.
- Better handle of multi-resolution files
- And many more probably.

My server Transcode/DirectPlay ratio on:
Emby (Direct Stream is actually Plex's Direct Play)

5dd53f1460e82_2.jpg
 

Plex (Direct Stream means video is not transcoded while other track is)

5dd53f56c5133_1.jpg

Until, logically, someone discovers that Emby also sell your data. And even if that happens we can look for a class action lawsuit since Emby removed the telemetry and anonymous data reporting because "we no longed need any data reporting".

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foggystone

I was new to plex at the time of the privacy policy issue, that however made my decision much easier. I ended up liking emby's display, interfaces, connectivity, organization and backend much more. After even trying two months of premier, i purchased the lifetime pass. Haven't regretted it. i have even gotten rid of two cable boxes and use emby instead in two of the three rooms I watch tv in.

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