Current Plex user looking for a change.

[adavis219 20]

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.*

[arrbee99 1682]

Not sure if you've actually installed anything yet, but as a (very) ordinary user I'd say

- check out the Wiki, or whatever its called, particularly regarding naming conventions

- start with a limited amount of media, don't fling everything in at once

- set up library options, so that you've decided where to store metadata and images (I prefer with the media) but up to you.

- Depending on how you watch, how many you share with, you'll quite probably need to get Premiere, so maybe just buy a months worth to see how it goes

- my personal fave - you can add css code to tart up the interface a bit in the browser versions.

Others will no doubt appear at some point with hints and unlike me they'll know what they're talking about...

[ebr 15549]

7 hours ago, arrbee99 said:

check out the Wiki, or whatever its called

Knowledge Base now https://support.emby.media

8 hours ago, adavis219 said:

happened to stumble upon  Emby and I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve seen so far.

Hi and welcome!  I'll leave more details to less biased folks but, basically, we aim to be a true personal media server system for you.  Please feel free to ask questions in the appropriate forum areas as you explore.

[adavis219 20]

Thank you for your quick replies, already seems like a more helpful community.

Spoiler

My main issues with Plex:

• Little to no customization options.

• Subscription service doesn’t offer much more flexibility.

• Horrible server updating experience, along with updating media libraries. 

• Metadata limitations 

• Dead Plug-In Support

• Direction they seem to be going as a company.

etcetera. 

My biggest concern is the remote features, It’s really the other reason I never used Kodi, Jellyfin, etc. I have a few people outside of my home who occasionally use my server, almost everything being direct played.

I’ve already tested this without Premiere and everything seems to run just as well if not better than Plex. 

I’m currently converting most of my library to h.265 to save some space, and plan to migrate to Emby, test it for about a month with Premiere, and go from there.

 

[TMCsw 156]

As another former plex "liker"...

I'll just say take it slowly... ...it is different and dose not do things the same way you may be used too...

...with always improving features, PLUGIN'S and other user hints, tricks, scripts and tips I'm sure you will find emby better... ...as I have.

So please do some reading, But don't shy away from asking here.

 

[Gilgamesh_48 1087]

When Emby was young (The MediaBrowser days) I was looking for a media manager to put together my already quite large media library. I Tried all that I could find and installed MediaBrowser for a while. However I found MB to be buggy and simply did not work well for me at all. But it was obviously young and clearly had huge possibilities. But I was not willing at that time to expend the effort needed to keep MB working so I looked further for alternatives.

I tested Plex and found that it was a great program and did exactly what I needed so I installed it and tested for a while and became so enamored that I purchased a Lifetime Plex Pass to support Plex even though the features unlocked were not of interest to me.

Then Plex started to listen to their greed impulses over what their customers wanted and a few years ago they passed my "threshold of tolerable abuse" so I began a new search.

I almost did not even try the new Emby because of the bitter taste left by my experience with MediaBrowser. I did try Emby and I have never really found anything truly wrong whith Emby so I migrated virtually everything over to Emby except I did keep a Plex server running because I had helped other folks to install Plex and I wanted to be able to help them when needed. I was so happy with Emby that I bought the lifetime to support Emby and I actually do use at least one of the "paid" features in "Live TV" but I would have bought lifetime even if it unlocked nothing of interest for me.

The people I helped to install Plex started becoming very upset by Plex's greed so they started migrating to Emby and finally just last month (Due to Plex's crappy "Discover" feature) the last one completed their upgrade from Plex to Emby. So I completely wiped everything "Plex" from my server computer systems and I even stopped following the Plex forums or blog(s).

Emby is NOT perfect and some of its abilities I do not use at all but I find nothing even close in the client/server media manager family.

One more truly important "feature" where Emby beats Plex (and every other media manager I have found) is customer support and responsiveness. Although there would be some advantage (and many disadvantages) to actual live phone/chat support the way Emby has implemented their forum support is about as good as any I have found and we do not have to deal with unknowledgeable support people reading from a script and we usually get a response from someone high up in the Emby structure very quickly, sometimes even in the middle of local night.

I have had my disagreements with Emby (Emby still will not acknowledge that I am always right   ) some still ongoing but Emby does listen while Plex became deaf to their users many years ago.

As far as the use differences between Plex and Emby they are not really as major as some people say/believe but Emby is different. I suggest simply installing Emby (The folder/naming that worked for Plex should work without problems for Emby but, like Plex, Emby can be very persnickety about naming particularly TV shows. But, again, if it works for Plex it should work for Emby. The last family I helped to move from Plex to Emby had to make no changes to their library for the move to work.

If you have questions you can ask in the appropriate forum and you will receive a good answer pretty quickly.
I do have one strong suggestion if you have questions be as through as possible and include all relevant data in your post. Some of the Emby folks get a bit anal about what they need to answer questions. Just give them what they ask for and if you can do it before they ask so much the better.

I think you will be happy with Emby over Plex. I know I am.

[adavis219 20]

Thanks for all of your help guys, I'm migrating 'Movies' only as I type this, plan to test things out some and if I get stuck on anything I'll search around a bit, and ask questions if need be. My Plex server was pretty optimized w naming, codecs, etc. so hopefully all goes smooth. 

[Audiomixer 365]

I have used kodi for years, then plex also for years. One day we lost power and then even on my own internal network with a generator it basically took forever to stream my own media on my own network if at all. As far as im concerned, plex doesnt need to call home intranetwork. I tried emby and saw that this issue didn't occur and that it easily handled all my needs as good if not better than plex. I invested in premiere access and haven't regretted it. I still use plex as i had an early lifetime, but emby for me has been solid. The devs actually respond.

Edited May 27, 2022 by Audiomixer

[adavis219 20]

Hey quick question for anyone who may know, is there a way to see what movies are gathering metadata/being scanned like Plex shows under the “Activity” tab. It’s just nice to know as time progresses with adding metadata, images, etc.

[GrimReaper 3900]

Nope. Only place you'd find that is in the logs. 

[Luke 39339]

It's something that we plan to add though. Thanks.

[adavis219 20]

Thanks for the quick reply guys.

[adavis219 20]

Alright I searched around and couldn’t find anything on it so I guess I’ll ask here. Is there a way to add a custom home screen section?

So for example:

Hs section 1: My Media

Hs section 2: Con. Watching

Hs section 3: Slashers (Friday, Halloween, Nightmare, etc. could show up here)

Hs section 4: Looking for treasure (Ind Jones, Journey, Jumanji, etc. could show up here.)

Sorry if that’s been talked about, or requested before.

I know I could also do these as Collections regardless but it’d be nice to be able to rotate the look on home screens, and even do holiday themed movies under there. 

[GrimReaper 3900]

Those need to be separate libraries in order to be shown as separate Home Screen sections. 

Edit: Further on, it would be more advisable to post questions in the appropriate forum sections, as it is likely that answers will somewhat differ based on your client app/server platform, so you'd get your queries answered in a more relevant manner. 

Edited May 27, 2022 by GrimReaper
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[Dreakon13 139]

I feel like unloading a little and I'm not sure where better to do it... so I'll just drop this here.

A while back I was toiling for a while over Plex vs Emby, to the point where I ultimately just kept both running on my NAS and maintained both.  As time went on, thanks to a slightly better performing Android mobile app for music casting and some convenient tools like Tautulli, I ended up going all in on Plex and just kept Emby running as a plan B if Plex ever went too far over to the dark side or shit the bed.  I invited my parents and my brother to my share and everything was going well enough.

Randomly a week or two ago my Mom calls me saying one of the shows keeps randomly buffering every couple of minutes on Plex.  I tried everything (over the phone, what a pain in the ass) to get it working smoothly for her, ie. assuming it was her internet I lowered the quality and forced transcoding but that led to other issues... knowing that there was no way I was actually going to get support from the Plex team,  I eventually just had her try Emby since its library was mostly up to date and she hasn't had a single issue since.  Even in my own experience, Emby has been virtually rock solid when it comes to video playback.  This weekend I went over to my parents house and got their other devices switched over, I went over to my brothers house and got his devices switched over, and I've officially disabled (pending deletion) my Plex share for the first time since I started using it back in 2020.

This experience, and the steps Plex has made recently drifting more into the "streaming hub" space and further away from the "personal media" space, made it an easy decision for me to give Emby back the throne for the time being.

I don't have any advice, just wanted to share that story as a former Plex user.

Edited June 12, 2022 by Dreakon13