Jump to content

Watch Party


chef

Recommended Posts

21 hours ago, Cheesegeezer said:

Chef just disable the emby setting for cinemaintros  and once watch party is completed reinstate it if it was enabled. and i can add code in to disable VantagePoint if watch party is active.

The problem there is how do you define "active"?  The party doesn't "start" until the first or controlling person starts playback and, by that time, its too late for that person.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

BillOatman

Looks like Amazon Prime beat us to Watch Party :)  Interesting user interface for it.  The button at the very bottom says "Create Watch Party".  Things typed in the chat appear in the lower right of the screen.

image.thumb.png.0f5a9688074a8dff20b62fe7eb205923.png

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

chef

Damn, they called it Watch Party.

 

I should have known that, I am an Amazon fan boy.

 

 

Edited by chef
Link to comment
Share on other sites

BillOatman
2 hours ago, ebr said:

The problem there is how do you define "active"?  The party doesn't "start" until the first or controlling person starts playback and, by that time, its too late for that person.

Could consider "active" when the server owner configures the party in the plugin? 

Of course doing that turns off the intros for everyone, not just the party goers.

Edited by BillOatman
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cheesegeezer

Sofa Party…

yeah the intros can be controlled i think. But would need a flag from watchParty to say the item is in the watch party. Then in the GetIntros function in cinemamode or VP we just return an empty list for intros.
 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Cheesegeezer said:

But would need a flag from watchParty to say the item is in the watch party

That is only going to work for slaves, not the master - but maybe that is good enough...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

sydlexius
1 hour ago, chef said:

Damn, they called it Watch Party.

 

I should have known that, I am an Amazon fan boy.

 

 

What does it matter if an Emby plugin uses the same name?  I highly doubt they'll be able to trademark the term.

  • Agree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cheesegeezer
23 minutes ago, ebr said:

That is only going to work for slaves, not the master - but maybe that is good enough...

Are you meaning party controller. Or plugins being slaves? 
 

EDIT: because they are all connected to the same server the admin can just disable cinema intros. 
 

I cant find the global option, via userConfig, serverConfig. It the setting exposed at all as it comes under Playback options.

Edited by Cheesegeezer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Cheesegeezer said:

Are you meaning party controller. Or plugins being slaves? 

I mean the person who starts the playback/party vs. all the ones who follow along with it.  The only way the plug-in knows that the party is started is by the "controller" (or whomever) starting playback of that item and it does that by monitoring playback events and looking for a specific item.

So, by the time that happens, any intros for the person starting the party have already played.  Again, that may be an acceptable solution.

  • Agree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cheesegeezer
Just now, ebr said:

I mean the person who starts the playback/party vs. all the ones who follow along with it.  The only way the plug-in knows that the party is started is by the "controller" (or whomever) starting playback of that item and it does that by monitoring playback events and looking for a specific item.

So, by the time that happens, any intros for the person starting the party have already played.  Again, that may be an acceptable solution.

I edited my reply above

but yes i agree as soon as play is started the intros are collected. And will play

Link to comment
Share on other sites

chef

Sending a play request to clients doesn't play intros. Just the controlling user sees an intro.

But when a user is being added to the party then they see their intro.

In any case... not really a deal breaker.

Do client devs want to add a plus icon to their detail pages that sends a message back to the server?

Then technically anyone could create a watch party, simply by pressing the button.

The plugin could sort out what parties exist and weather the user is adding, or joining a party.

There are other logistics to consider like who is in control. But... That is another avenue to investigate too. It is a much larger implementation of course.

Edited by chef
  • Agree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, chef said:

Do client devs want to add a plus icon to their detail pages that sends a message back to the server?

Sorry, no, we're not going to be able to do that.

  • Agree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

chef
4 minutes ago, ebr said:

Sorry, no, we're not going to be able to do that.

That is okay. It is totally understandable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

chef

Hey guys,

I have spent quite a bit of time looking into this.

I have written a lot of code, and I'm not entirely convinced that a watch party environment is currently possible in a way that would satisfy the user base.

I feel like it is a bit of a hacky work around, and I didn't want to get everyone's hopes up.

It isn't to say that it wouldn't be possible as more core features are added to emby over time.

If I were to post anything I've worked on over the last couple days, I feel like it would not meet the expectations of the community. It doesn't feel intuitive. 

I've pushed what I have worked on, open source, to GitHub.

Just wanted to be upfront about it.

 

  • Like 4
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cheesegeezer

Great effort and it does work, but like you say it's not polished enough for end user experience.  

Need more access to the UI to make this work and that's Admin's jobs.  :( 

Well done tho matey

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

MBSki
30 minutes ago, Cheesegeezer said:

Need more access to the UI to make this work and that's Admin's jobs.  :(

Is that Luke that needs to make changes to get the plug-in to work more intuitively?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, MBSki said:

Is that Luke that needs to make changes to get the plug-in to work more intuitively?

We cannot make changes to the apps to accommodate a specific 3rd party plug-in specifically.  The crux of the issue here is that the technique they are attempting to use to implement this is simply not really designed for what they need to do.  Some other approach would need to be taken and, other than true integration in the core, I'm not really sure there is a suitable alternate approach.

  • Agree 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

MBSki
9 minutes ago, ebr said:

We cannot make changes to the apps to accommodate a specific 3rd party plug-in specifically.  The crux of the issue here is that the technique they are attempting to use to implement this is simply not really designed for what they need to do.  Some other approach would need to be taken and, other than true integration in the core, I'm not really sure there is a suitable alternate approach.

Can you use what @chefhas done and incorporate it into the core?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, MBSki said:

Can you use what @chefhas done and incorporate it into the core?

Sorry, no.  As I said, the technique they were attempting is not really suited to this purpose.

There is an open feature request for this feature.  However, there are just still way too many other items that have a much better cost/benefit for a wider audience at this time.

Thanks.

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

chef

It doesn't have anything to do with the core.

Infact the core has "Session.AdditionalUsers" which can group many users to the same session.

This would (I imagine) even be a simple way to sync watch status.

But creating and syncing a session group just doesn't (currently) do what you'd expect.

I just wouldn't want to release something that is a half hazard.

 

  • Like 1
  • Agree 1
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

rbjtech
6 minutes ago, chef said:

It doesn't have anything to do with the core.

Infact the core has "Session.AdditionalUsers" which can group many users to the same session.

This would (I imagine) even be a simple way to sync watch status.

But creating and syncing a session group just doesn't (currently) do what you'd expect.

I just wouldn't want to release something that is a half hazard.

 

I just think we need to manage expectations at this stage of what is a proof of concept.

As an admin - can I create a 'watch party' item that any number of users can 'join' - yes.

As an admin - can I start the 'playback' and all the other sessions start up - yes

Are all the sessions within a half to one second of each other - yes

Have we tested any pausing, stopping, resuming, network delivery hiccups etc - no, not at this time.

Is it a great user experience to join the party - no, not really - but it's not exactly disastrous having to click 'play' to join the watch party either.

 

If people are expecting a 'plex' or 'amazon' experience from emby where there is a proper lobby and it all works from end user input - then we can report back now that this is never and WAS never going to happen with the toolset we have as 3rd party dev's.

If people want something 'working' but needs a little compromise on their part - then it's worth continuing - but if the consensus is 'it's not as good as plex' - then we should stop right now and focus on something else.   I know the dev's involved have a LOT going on in parallel to this - all backend work that doesn't need user interaction - thus they have full control over it's outcome.

  • Agree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

sydlexius
1 hour ago, chef said:

It doesn't have anything to do with the core.

Infact the core has "Session.AdditionalUsers" which can group many users to the same session.

This would (I imagine) even be a simple way to sync watch status.

But creating and syncing a session group just doesn't (currently) do what you'd expect.

I just wouldn't want to release something that is a half hazard.

 

Plus, why waste a ton of time and resources on an approach that can't be developed to fit your vision?  I've seen other solutions for other products that are based around an external (and occasionally "containerized") web apps.  Perhaps this is a more sensible approach?  It might allow for multi-server configurations (using OAUTH would be nice but impossible for Emby...API Keys would have to do), and an independent means of supporting chat/telecommunications (perhaps through Discord or some other established solution?).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

BillOatman
25 minutes ago, sydlexius said:

Plus, why waste a ton of time and resources on an approach that can't be developed to fit your vision?  I've seen other solutions for other products that are based around an external (and occasionally "containerized") web apps.  Perhaps this is a more sensible approach?  It might allow for multi-server configurations (using OAUTH would be nice but impossible for Emby...API Keys would have to do), and an independent means of supporting chat/telecommunications (perhaps through Discord or some other established solution?).

I've had a look at the code and followed comments in this thread by both @chef and @ebr and unfortunately I have to agree, core is the place for this feature and not a plugin.  Also, trying to bolt on a external web app, which I think at one time there was working being done on that approach in this forum that seems to have died off, or other such things just won't accomplish what needs to be accomplished. 

For those that really want or even need this feature, maybe look at Plex and/or JellyFin for "parties" at least until the Emby core team can do a proper implementation.

Edited by BillOatman
  • Agree 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...