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I moved from Plex to Emby and even though I think Emby is superior in its flexibility there are some things I like better with Plex, especially in terms of its looks. This theme is trying to fix that by making it a bit more similar to Plex but with some, in my opinion, improvements. The CSS is attached to this post for anyone interested and below are some screens to show it off Good to know I only use Chrome so I can't guarantee this CSS works as expected in other browsers. If you want the sidebar menu to look like in the screens, make sure to pin the sidebar. Watched badge/banderoll is inverted which means that the badge will not be shown if media have been watched, like in Plex. For desired look, please use the "Dark" theme for both Theme & Settings theme in the display settings. Emby-Stable-style-v2.4.txt Emby-Stable-style-v2.5.txt Emby-Stable-style-v2.6.txt Emby-Stable-style-v2.7.txt

Just a little feedback on my initial experiments with 4K playback using the Emby LG app. I'm finding some 4K content works and some doesn't. 'Sully' 4K for instance will not play on the Emby LG App. It will play on the LG Plex app. Same results for 'Jigsaw' and 'It'. I'm playing UHD rips from my 4K blu-rays made using makemkv. That being said, where files do play I am noticing quality degradation. 'Argo' for instance streamed via the LG app looks terrible (however the server does say it's direct playing). 'Argo' streamed via DNLA to my UHD blu-ray player looks far, far better and as per the disc. So as it stands, if I want to watch 4K rips using Emby, the LG app is not up to the job. This may in part also be due to the TV itself. DNLA to the TV also results in reduced quality (however all files do manage to at least play, same as Plex). There could also be bandwidth issues involved. The LG TV does not have a gigabit LAN port. To sum up, the only way for me to get the true 4K (exactly as per the disc) is to stream using my phone or iPad via DNLA to my Oppo UDP203 and then HDMI into the TV. TL:DN Emby LG app plays some 4K (albeit in reduced quality. Plex LG app plays all 4K (albeit in reduced quality).

I recently downloaded Plex to see what it looks like nowadays and I was impressed with how it manages libraries. I root user can have access to all the libraries. However, the home screen can show only the pinned libraries. This is great! I want to havre access to three or four main libraries and hide the rest of the libraries. At the same time I can search for content from all of the libraries and if needed quickly access them. Can this be done with Emby?

Due to Plex drastic changes to the UI on Roku devices on 12/6/2018 a lot of long term Plex users are moving to Emby. - I am one of those users. I started the migration the same day and have one big question. Is there anyway to move the existing meta data from Plex into Emby? 1. Movie & TV show matching that have already been corrected in PLEX. 2. Custom/Not default Art Work already selected in Plex. Thanks in advance to anyone that can save me and others hours and hours of getting our servers back in order.

Hi, I recently bought a FireCube 3rd Gen and have generally been impressed with it so far, after using Emby on Roku sticks and a Roku steambar without issue for years. However, I'm noticing repeated freezing of films through Emby on the FC but when trying them on Plex, they play perfectly all the time. I've side loaded the Android (non TV version) of Emby too and that's been better but still with repeated freezing. The freezing doesn't happen at the same point in the files in question, and are playing off a Synology DS218+ which plays the same content upstairs on the Roku streambar. I've not had to troubleshoot an issue like this so any advice would be great as to a starting point please. Thanks

Hi Emby, Are there any plans to support external streaming services via plug-ins coming to Emby. I'm aware that Plex offers these, and I think it would be a boon for us as well. We've got TuneIn for Internet Radio, which is great. But what about Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify, YouTube Music or Apple Music? Perhaps one of our more accomplished developers could whip something up. Kind regards, Bill

Hey folks, new guy here. I’ve found myself tired of Plex and their growing issues and happened to stumble upon Emby and I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve seen so far. I’ve done quite a bit of research on some of the differences and what not but I’d love to hear some tips and tricks, and your overall experience with the differences especially if you’re a previous Plex user. Thanks for any help you may send my way! *Please feel free to close this topic if this isn’t allowed or if I’ve posted this in the incorrect area.*

Hi I am using a combination of Plex and Emby to record from my Homerun Duo onto my PC. All the files record as TS files, which is what I want as the conversion to an MP4 of interlaced material is horrible. TS files can retain both progressive streams and interlaced streams and a combination, so I want to stick with TS. I've just invested in a Shield TV and was going to make a choice between Emby and Plex as I don't want to keep paying for both. My issue is, all TS files layed on the Shield in Emby end up transcoding (Direct Play error). This ends up slower, but also converts them and deinterlaces them which I don't want. Old 90s shows which I record a lot of do not look good. It doesn't affect newer progressive shows so much. The same files on Plex alwats play directly and seek really quickly. Just for comparison, I tried the Emby and Plex apps on my Samsung TV and they both use direct play for these files, it just seems that it's Emby on the Shield that doesn't. After investing £150 on a Shield I want to be using it and the experience geneanrally is quicker than using the apps on my TV. I know that there has been talk in the past about problems with seeking on TS files in Emby, but if Plex can do it and the Samsung TV Emby app can do it, why can't the Shield TV do it? I'm leaning towards keeping Plex at the momnent which is a shame as there are many parts to Emby that I prefer.

Look I understand there are more important things to worry about for awhile and this sort of thing isn't super important. And It's not like I can't use the actual apps either but it sure would be nice to if you guys could work out a deal with apple and/or spotify to integrate. I 'll bet the Plex users who hate that dumb music service they added would love to see this as it has been requested multiple times. Of course Plex is probably being paid to add it. I personally will never use anything other than spotify or youtube to listen to my music, not some site I had never heard about previous to it landing on Plex.

Being a member since 2005 of a premier P2P tracker with 17,839 users that has closed invitations now for years in their Computers / Technology subforum a lively discussion is developing on the Emby vs Plex - What do you recommend? topic. Having been here since Media Browser and still running on a 32bit QNAP OS a Plex server, for the technology challenged users, you know where my loyalty lies and why I choose Emby over Plex. But some ideas from why others chose Emby would be helpful. In addition some of those who responded switched to Plex years ago after trying out Emby because of problems or shortcomings which no longer exists. These ones are missing out on the latest Emby version plus others will try again to evaluate with the latest Emby versions. It would be helpful to post some links here which I could relay that would help former Emby users now on Plex to reconsider an evaluation again plus perhaps the latest Emby version's pros over Plex. I did post the Techcrunch article about Plex's possible future path.

I currently have Plex and wanting to switch over to Emby, but when I installed Emby yesterday and tried to access the server from work or I turned my Wifi off on my phone and used cell service, I keep getting a, "We're unable to connect to the selected server right now. Please ensure it is running and try again." Well, the server is running, can access it while on my network at home, but getting this error on my work computer and iPhone. On Plex, I am using the UPnP and it works great with my router, I have my firewall off, but I do have the inbound rule of port 80 open, so something is blocking this from working, but for the life of me, I can't figure it out since Plex works just fine with UPnP. Can someone help me, please?

Hello, guys my knwlodge with plex and emby is very basic, so treat me as a child by now... I've started a private server to me and brother (who is in the other side of the country), I thought of that because I have some drivers with 187 TB of movies/series/docs ... (some of the TB are games .. so) But... since I started my plex server using a virtual mounted driver, I notice that my brother eats my cpu to watch it, that's because of the transcoder, I know I could disable it, but that would have problems with some codecs and some subtitles... as far as I understood. So my question is simple, is there a way to set my plex//emby ->> (i'm going to migrate to emby, that's why i'm searching here) to let the user (my brother) consume his own cpu/gpu to transcode the movie he wants? Or it has to be the server the only thing that can transcode... Excuse my ignorance, i'm new at this. If there's a way, point me the direction @@cayars

Hallo Zusammen, ich will mal versuchen, das Problem auf die bloßen Fakten zu reduzieren: Auf einem externen Server laufen ein PMS und Emby, Emby erst seit heute, ich kenne mich damit also noch nicht wirklich aus und bitte entsprechend um Nachsicht :smile. Clients für den Test sind eine Shield und ein Web-Browser. Der Content ist so, dass ihn die Shield und der Browser über den PMS als Direct Stream wiedergeben können, das sieht dann in etwa so aus: Das gleiche File an gleicher Stelle mit Emby wiedergegeben sieht dann so aus: Ich habe sowohl im Browser als auf dem Shield-Client die gefundenen Einstellungen so angepasst, dass alle Werte, die sich auf Bandbreite beziehen auf dem Maximalwert anstatt auf Auto stehen, mehr habe ich aber erst mal nicht ifnden können, gerade die Setings auf der Shield wirken eher spartanisch. Hat jemand einen Tipp für mich, wo man hier ansetzen kann?

To begin, I have been a longtime Windows Media Center user ever since Microsoft put out WMC in Windows XP about 15 years ago. I set up a cable card tuner and watched TV and DVR recordings on it for a long time. Then about 5 years ago, I discovered Plex and I loved that it had such a user-friendly interface on its client apps that even my wife and child was using them constantly. I think every tech savvy user feels an overwhelming pride when less tech-savvy people begin using whatever it was you've been spending so much time on. They just used it because of the nice and easy experience of being able to watch whatever they wanted to watch. With Plex's remote streaming, we were able to watch all our movies and TV DVR recordings anywhere in the world instead of just being able to watch them at home (with the old Windows Media Center). Then about a week ago, I installed Emby. Before that, I have been joining discussion forums on different boards about other media streaming software. I just wanted to have an alternative to Plex not because I had any problem with Plex (it's still great!) but because I just wanted to future-proof my home media setup in case that something happens and I do have a problem with Plex. Enter Kodi and Emby. Kodi is very popular and do have all the Add-ons one could ever want but remote streaming personal media with it thru SSH tunneling is no easy task (it's not a built-in feature). Also, my family members for some reason just gravitate towards using our Apple products (iPad, iPhone and appleTV) instead of our other devices and Kodi is not supported by Apple. I have sideloaded Kodi to all our devices but the whole procedure was too clunky and I gave up after my Apple developer account expired. So I am using Emby for about a week now and have been loving it. I love that it is open-source so that anybody could just make a fork of it if and when the developers get too greedy and try to become commercialized. I'm hoping to start this topic so that anybody else who's evaluating Emby vs Plex could just add in with their thoughts on which is better...

Is some level of integration with Plex on the Road map? At least just to transfer the data the first time. I'm a paid Plex subscriber (and now also Emby), but they are slowly moving away from the original feature set - target audience. And I don't like the way their mobile sync works. So I am here. And expect many folks like me, old plex pass users, to come here. But, we need to over the hurdle of all that meta data within our libraries. Any hope in this direction? Thanks, nat

Glad to see many of the Plex Expats posting here and in the various Plex forums venting their emotions. Since I have lifetime subs to both products I frequent the Emby forums daily but very infrequent the Plex forum since I believe from the selected posts in a 1800+ post thread complaining about the Roku app and its UI, Emby is definitely the superior product. However some of the quoted posts I selected are of interest on how the Emby Devs can endear users and avoid the downward spiral the Plex team has chosen. The path Plex has chosen resulted in an explosive and spirited discussion that opened the eyes to many included yours truly. From Cayars to Elan (CTO and Co-Founder) No, you’re misunderstanding what I’m saying. Server admins are clearly the masters of content curation, and they should clearly continue to have full control over that. But If a user you’ve shared with wants access to Podcasts via Plex (which come from the Internet), why should you have any say in that? What if the user has access to two shared servers, and both feel differently about whether the user should have access to Podcasts? This is what is not CLEAR to you. I’ll try and explain it on a very simple basis which I’m sure you will STILL disagree with and THIS is the heart of the matter and what determines the way you design/program. These “users” aren’t YOUR users. These are MY/OUR users. These users belong to the ADMIN not to Plex. How you tell/the simple test. If said ADMIN switches backend software to say Emby does USER stay with Plex or load Emby client and use that? 99.9% (I’m guessing what I think is low) will ditch Plex/remove it or ignore it, load the Emby client and go on enjoying the ADMIN’s content with the different client (Emby). That/This is the purest/simple test there is to show who’s user this is and who controls what client is used. As many people have been moving to Emby due to choices Plex has given them, their users will switch clients as well. They are ONLY using the client to access the CONTENT the ADMIN is providing. If “Server admins are clearly the masters of content curation” then I the ADMIN would be able to delegate who can play live TV or setup DVR recordings on my system. If “Server admins are clearly the masters of content curation” then they can determine what CONTENT (local or Internet/Plex) is available to THEIR users via the client app (regardless of vendor). Now relaxing this stance a bit. I know you are TRYING to provide useful content on top of what the ADMIN can provide but if FEELS TO US ADMINS that you are fighting us on this. We “Server admins are clearly the masters of content curation” NOT when it comes to Web Shows, Podcasts, News, Tidal or any other new content PUSHED to the users without the consent of the ADMIN. You assume it’s YOUR USER so you can provide this content, but as I’ve already shown it’s not YOUR USER but MY/OUR user and when you leave us no use we have one sure fire way to circumvent this and that’s to switch to other software that puts us back in control. That may seem harsh, but Plex, Inc has left us NO CHOICE and this is the only LOGICAL CHOICE we have, like it or not. I don’t like it, but I’m forced to play the cards I’m holding. It doesn’t need to be this way!!! And it never needed to be this way!!! ...Emby takes a different stance on ACCESS then Plex. Emby allows the ADMIN to control access to everything. On Emby I can control who has access to my live tv, who can schedule recordings, who can sync, who can download, who has access to specific plugins, ect. That puts the control back in the hands of the ADMIN where it belongs. There is no “home” requirement as ALL USERS are mine and under my control. Until you guys grasp this concept you will continue to bleed users. You need to realize the users are NOT YOURS but belong to the ADMIN. Along those same lines, you also need to stop spamming USER email accounts with Plex offers. I don’t like it and neither do my users. They don’t need Plex Pass nor do they want emails about it. I’m tired of answering users email about this. With Emby this is not a concern as Emby doesn’t know my user exists. They already realize it’s NOT their user but mine. Regarding the above, with Emby as an example I can have a user download the client without giving any information to Emby. They can install the clients on devices they own. They don’t need an Emby account. All account info is right on MY SERVER. I control their username/password and all access privs they have. That’s the way I WANT IT and the way MY USERS WANT IT. These same users can also signup for Emby Connect if they want which gives them single signon to multiple Emby Servers IF & WHEN the ADMIN associates the EMBY CONNECT username with their Emby account. I did not touch on UI specific improvements or client improvements beyond the design criteria because non of that matters if you can’t/won’t put the control back in the ADMIN’S HANDS. What a mess this has turned out to be over there. I am exited about the new 3.6 server release with the built in EPG data which gets me one step closer to phase out Plex.

Hiya Just testing out Emby and have a weird issue. Plex (my original media server) found a new movie added straight away, to my surprise it even got the correct artwork with no assistance. Emby fails to even acknowledge the file exists and I have no idea why. Can anyone offer any tips pls? Thx

Just wanted to say hi to the community. I’m moving away from Plex due to their terrible design decisions as of late, removal of features, and general apathy toward their users’ concerns. Their recent Roku release is causing a huge backlash, so I imagine more refugees will be popping in soon. Looking forward to migrating over completely and possibly working on some plugins as extensibility was a huge deal for me, and Plex took that away.

Hello, I'm a longtime Plex user wanting to move to Emby. The other night I downloaded Emby server on my computer (Linux Mint), uploaded all of my content from dual 8TB External HD's and added my nephew as a user to test out the remote access function...everything worked great with no problems!! The next day, I turned on my VPN (NordVPN, which does kick me off of the servers until I disconnect it), downloaded some content and that night, Emby worked inside my house but no longer worked remotely for me or my nephew. On Plex you can see if the remote access is red or green but cant fint that function on Emby. Anyway, When we try to connect to emby remotely outside of my house we get "We're unable to connect to the selected server right now. Please ensure it is running and try again" I have restarted the Emby server, restarted the router, restarted the computer, deleted and added my nephew and added him as a user again. Is there a setting i'm missing somewhere? Why would everything work perfect the first night and not work remotely after that?

I just started migrating over to Emby after Plex ruined the Roku app. After adding some of my libraries I noticed on the Emby home screen (dashboard) It created these really nice icons with images from the poster art. The problem is it didn't do that for all of the libraries (Anime is missing that). I attached a picture to show what I mean, is there a manual way to add that? I have a lot of libraries to add still I would love to know if I can add that to all the libraries.

Hi, considering Emby over Plex (long time subscriber) mainly because of the Plex UI changes. I will start a subscription shortly, but am using the free version right now. I have the Roku thumbnails generating right now which was question #1 My other major question: ---DVR functionality on Roku, can I set recordings from the Roku, and is it done from a grid type guide or something else? I've been looking for screenshots, can't find any. If anyone has any links to videos/screenshots, etc of the DVR functionality running and being setup on a Roku, it is much appreciated. Thanks.

Hello I'm new to emby, looks like a good software. I was a plex user for a long time and I jumped ship because of this having to login fiasco. This maybe far fetched but I am curious to comments. I have plex and emby working right now and I am wondering if there is a way to share or move the preferences from the plex DB. What I mean is the prefs that plex keeps to know what I have watched and not watched. Having a big media folder it would be cool to be able to move these preferences. any thoughts?

Hello, I'm coming from Plex due to their abrupt decision to end support for Cloud Servers. I have about 4TB hosted on Google Drive, and as of 11/30 will not be able to access it. Someone mentioned "Emby" as a Plex alternative, so I've been scoping it out. Hearing that Cloud Servers was an Emby "Premiere" feature and you don't offer a trial for a few hours or days, I paid $5 for the month and installed Emby to see how it's playback from Google Drive compared to Plex's. I've been tooling around with Emby for the last 2+ hours, frustrated with not being able to access my Cloud content after setting it up in Emby. After going through pages on these forums, it appears that I & most of the other people on here having difficulties with Google Drive have either been told incorrect information regarding Emby's Cloud capabilities, or simply mistook what Emby's Cloud capability actually is. So to confirm for myself and for others questioning Google Drive w/ Emby....Users can only (one-way) sync our Emby server content TO Google Drive, but cannot pull the existing media FROM it, correct?

Hello I just started to use this service, im a plex user that is closing cloud sync feature, i saw that emby also has the same service but there is some things what i dont really understand In Plex im able to sync google drive and see all my movies there, i purchased emby premiere but i saw that i need to install a server in my pc to access to the administration, i did that and then installed google drive plugin and i set it up But how i can add a library to browse my movies? i dont see such option And it's totally necessary have a pshycal pc to handle the cloud content? Because my internet provider doesnt allow the outside connections Thanks

Hi all! First of all, let me just say, I love Emby. As soon as I switched from Plex, I fell in love. Not just with the Kodi integration, but everything about the server and controls seem better for me. Seriously, awesome work to the devs and everyone involved. I went premium as soon as I could and recently just changed from a monthly to a yearly subscription. Which is why this next part is so hard... when I read the news about Plex getting a server app for Nvidia Shield TV, I was excited and disappointed. Excited because this could mean I can finally turn off my PC and only wake it for things like games. But I was disappointed that the news said Plex and not Emby. I really don't want to move back to Plex. I'm definitely going to give it some time to see how the server even works out. And regardless, I've still got 10-11 months on my year at Emby left. So it got me wondering if something like this is in the works, on the radar, or even possible with Emby. I don't know how closely Plex had to work with Nvidia to get this to work and I don't know if there is any kind of exclusivity deal with them. I mean, after all, Plex comes preloaded on the Shield TV. So I just thought I'd start a discussion to see if this is possible or planned, if anyone is interested/cares, or basically any of your feelings on this matter. Also, I apologize if this isn't the best place to post this. It's meant to be a discussion and not really a request for help or support. Also, I tried searching and didn't find anyone mention anything like this (but my search skills are often under par). Anyway... discuss?