Plex Meta Manager (Emby Support)

[hthgihwaymonk 21]

16 hours ago, juanmartinbravo said:

In any case apologies to anyone I might have offended.

On my attempt to get everyone to collaborate I might actually end up achieving the opposite!

I posted the part you were looking for, to add images to the collections, to code you didn't write.
As I was busy working on other things at the time and that is what I had available to share.

I had spent a bit of time cleaning of the rest of it today so it wasn't specific to my needs.
But based on your repeated assertion that the JF folks are somehow better at sharing with you...
I think I will just stop participating in this thread now.

[Guest juanmartinbravo]

1 hour ago, hthgihwaymonk said:

I posted the part you were looking for, to add images to the collections, to code you didn't write.
As I was busy working on other things at the time and that is what I had available to share.

I had spent a bit of time cleaning of the rest of it today so it wasn't specific to my needs.
But based on your repeated assertion that the JF folks are somehow better at sharing with you...
I think I will just stop participating in this thread now.

Lol, that's even after I even apologizing for acknowledging it was a mistake to make such comments. 

By the way, this thread wasn't about sharing anything with me in particular. Weeks before I even knew discovered this thread and made my first comment, there two or three users at least asking for a script to those who said they had something (you were one of them). But yeah. now you actually have the perfect excuse to not do so. 

I, for one, will certainly go back to where I was using Plex/PMM and Jellyfin and leave this forum for good. My intention really wasn't to negatively impact other 'readers in the shadows' that don't have anything to do with my comments... I can see someone already used that as excuse, so I better leave.

[rbjtech 4265]

2 hours ago, juanmartinbravo said:

Lol, that's even after I even apologizing for acknowledging it was a mistake to make such comments. 

By the way, this thread wasn't about sharing anything with me in particular. Weeks before I even knew discovered this thread and made my first comment, there two or three users at least asking for a script to those who said they had something (you were one of them). But yeah. now you actually have the perfect excuse to not do so. 

I, for one, will certainly go back to where I was using Plex/PMM and Jellyfin and leave this forum for good. My intention really wasn't to negatively impact other 'readers in the shadows' that don't have anything to do with my comments... I can see someone already used that as excuse, so I better leave.

I guess this is the danger of using forums as a communication medium - it really don't convey thoughts and emotions well.

We appear to have lost a lot of the open source Dev's in emby recently - chef and cheesegeezer appear to have moved on - and a lot of that is due to the 'demands' of users - with a large percentage of users not even expressing a basic level of gratitude for the personal/free time the Dev's spend giving to (and supporting) these projects.    They are also of course enhancing a product (largely filling basic functionality gaps..) that emby themselves are being paid to do - so yes, there is also a question to be raised on 'why' they would do this..

Maybe lets reset - and concentrate our efforts to add this functionality (and that includes the Emby Dev's) - I believe we all want the same goal here.

Edited October 7, 2023 by rbjtech

[Bagul 146]

So, already hello

I had already thought of adding Emby support to the PMM project.

After a quick read of the code, I think it's possible without too much difficulty.
I've forked the basic repo to be able to test things out first and, if I come up with something, submit it to the PMM author.

I think that if I'm not the only one working on it, it can go quickly.

Here's the fork repo: REPO

I'm willing to add as many contributors as I need if people want to help me.

Like many people I have a job in real life so I can't work on it all the time. 

 

If someone has already started adding support for Emby and I haven't seen it (sorry) I'll help out if they show up.

[bakes82 90]

On 10/8/2023 at 3:07 PM, Bagul said:

So, already hello

I had already thought of adding Emby support to the PMM project.

After a quick read of the code, I think it's possible without too much difficulty.
I've forked the basic repo to be able to test things out first and, if I come up with something, submit it to the PMM author.

I think that if I'm not the only one working on it, it can go quickly.

Here's the fork repo: REPO

I'm willing to add as many contributors as I need if people want to help me.

Like many people I have a job in real life so I can't work on it all the time. 

 

If someone has already started adding support for Emby and I haven't seen it (sorry) I'll help out if they show up.

Pretty sure the issue is the IMDB support scrapes the website and is not supported by Emby since it would be against the TOS,  Also you shouldnt create channels as it duplicates the libraries.  Currently, emby has no support to "pin" collections.  PMM could easily just use the REST API to create the collections instead of using a plugin.

[bakes82 90]

On 10/5/2023 at 9:12 AM, rbjtech said:

Yes - creating a channel on the home row - is just a matter of adding the items Id's from the collection - it's easy enough to do.

Luke has said not to do this, as it causes issues with duplicate entries.  He said the ability to pin collections to the home is something they want to support.

[bakes82 90]

@timtim9000@rbjtech

 

https://mdblist.com/lists/hdlists/top-ten-pirated-movies-of-the-week-torrent-freak-com

This issue with plugins is the SDK isnt documented that will so its a lot of banging head on wall to get it to work, plus in 4.8 they entire UI for the plugin stuff is changing and its not documented.  Ive run in to issues that they have then had to fix because I was trying to use something they didnt think of yet.  Also yes, most people will then want support on it, and most people just do it quick and dirty and dont test all the use cases.  Im waiting for some more UI support to make this plugin better, but then yeah I might post it and charge for it.  You can do it really dirty with just a yaml/json file and a sched task if you wanted 

Edited October 9, 2023 by bakes82

[Bagul 146]

6 hours ago, bakes82 said:

Pretty sure the issue is the IMDB support scrapes the website and is not supported by Emby since it would be against the TOS,  Also you shouldnt create channels as it duplicates the libraries.  Currently, emby has no support to "pin" collections.  PMM could easily just use the REST API to create the collections instead of using a plugin.

Sorry I don't understand what you are talking about. PMM is a tool external to Emby that currently uses plex's rest api to generate collections/playlists or even modify media posters by adding information.
But it's not a plugin.

[rbjtech 4265]

11 hours ago, bakes82 said:

Luke has said not to do this, as it causes issues with duplicate entries.  He said the ability to pin collections to the home is something they want to support.

As long as the channel has unique embyid's - then there is no duplicate items.   These are uniquely generated when creating the channel.

When you watch an item in the channel, because it uses the same providerId - then it becomes watched in both the channel and the main library.

It appears to be a viable solution... that works exactly how everybody is expecting it to work.   

Creating 'static collections' and 'Playlists' are just workaround hacks that get you 'something' - but they are just hacks vs the main libraries with filters.

As an example - I created a Western Channel - just using Genre -

There are no duplicates in my main Movie library -

So 'all' we need to do - is take the JSON from mdblist - use that as the channel input rather than an internal items query and hey presto - there is your channel...

The bonus of a channel is of course it has it's own permissions - so you can give users permission to use it, or not..

Edited October 10, 2023 by rbjtech

[rbjtech 4265]

5 hours ago, Bagul said:

Sorry I don't understand what you are talking about. PMM is a tool external to Emby that currently uses plex's rest api to generate collections/playlists or even modify media posters by adding information.
But it's not a plugin.

Collections and Playlists are currently a really poor way to display this type of information.

If we can pin the CONTENTS of a Collection or Playlist to a 'row' in the home screen - then that is good - but we can't.

So we need to convert the mdblist (which is just a list of imdb provider id numbers) and then create a 'channel' to display it - effectively as a virtual DYNAMIC library.     THIS is what we need a plugin to do.

[jaketame 86]

1 minute ago, rbjtech said:

Collections and Playlists are currently a really poor way to display this type of information.

If we can pin the CONTENTS of a Collection or Playlist to a 'row' in the home screen - then that is good - but we can't.

So we need to convert the mdblist (which is just a list of imdb provider id numbers) and then create a 'channel' to display it - effectively as a virtual DYNAMIC library.     THIS is what we need a plugin to do.

I believe Luke has confirmed that we will eventually be able to display Collections as a Row... So is it worth developing a plugin for this or putting the effort into automating the creation of collections.

On 08/10/2023 at 20:07, Bagul said:

So, already hello

I had already thought of adding Emby support to the PMM project.

After a quick read of the code, I think it's possible without too much difficulty.
I've forked the basic repo to be able to test things out first and, if I come up with something, submit it to the PMM author.

I think that if I'm not the only one working on it, it can go quickly.

Here's the fork repo: REPO

I'm willing to add as many contributors as I need if people want to help me.

Like many people I have a job in real life so I can't work on it all the time. 

 

If someone has already started adding support for Emby and I haven't seen it (sorry) I'll help out if they show up.

I appreciate this. I've looked through the code and its quite large to pick apart. Do you have any notes on where best to start? Do we need the Emby API endpoints to be created first?

[rbjtech 4265]

2 minutes ago, jaketame said:

I believe Luke has confirmed that we will eventually be able to display Collections as a Row...

'Eventually' ..

This has been a FR for about 8 years ... 

3 minutes ago, jaketame said:

 So is it worth developing a plugin for this or putting the effort into automating the creation of collections.

The Plugin exists - the above screen shots are 'real'    It wouldn't take much to just parse the JSON and use it to create the channel - infact the Python code to do just that is in this thread, I (or somebody) just needs to convert that into c#.      Maybe at the weekend I will find some time and look at it but agree 100% that if this is 'coming' soon to emby - then I would rather wait... but for how long ?

[jaketame 86]

1 minute ago, rbjtech said:

'Eventually' ..

This has been a FR for about 8 years ... 

The Plugin exists - the above screen shots are 'real'    It wouldn't take much to just parse the JSON and use it to create the channel - infact the Python code to do just that is in this thread, I (or somebody) just needs to convert that into c#.      Maybe at the weekend I will find some time and look at it but agree 100% that if this is 'coming' soon to emby - then I would rather wait... but for how long ?

@LukeI know you don't like timelines but I have been seeing you don't like to create duplicates within the IDs/movies/tv shows etv (based on other threads)
Do you have a timeline for Collections as Rows within the home display? To save people making effort if its soon.

Cheers

[rbjtech 4265]

So automating the creation of the collections is super easy - using the python code above, I just hacked this together - this is what's displayed in the 'home view' - but if we could 'Pin' the contents (not just the name) of a collection as a 'row' or 'channel' then that is a good step forward imo.  Lets wait and see if Luke responds ...

[jaketame 86]

1 minute ago, rbjtech said:

So automating the creation of the collections is super easy - using the python code above, I just hacked this together - this is what's displayed in the 'home view' - but if we could 'Pin' the contents (not just the name) of a collection as a 'row' or 'channel' then that is a good step forward imo.  Lets wait and see if Luke responds ...

I've seen that however to expand onto that would be, custom posters using posterdb, descriptions if possible, passing multiple lists via yaml file. So can just grab ID, add it to the list then off it goes on a schedule/file watch/checking for changes within the lists vs building once off. 

[rbjtech 4265]

29 minutes ago, jaketame said:

I've seen that however to expand onto that would be, custom posters using posterdb, descriptions if possible, passing multiple lists via yaml file. So can just grab ID, add it to the list then off it goes on a schedule/file watch/checking for changes within the lists vs building once off. 

Sure - with you 100% - but all that would need to go into a Plugin - there is no way that is going to be part of core emby unless mdblist gets official added as an emby Provider - and can't see that happening anytime soon for a multitude of reasons.

Thus, we have the basic need to just display the contents of the said collections - any bells and whistles (ie limited PMM functionality) needs to come from a Plugin.

[jaketame 86]

3 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

Sure - with you 100% - but all that would need to go into a Plugin - there is no way that is going to be part of core emby unless mdblist gets official added as an emby Provider - and can't see that happening anytime soon for a multitude of reasons.

Thus, we have the basic need to just display the contents of the said collections - any bells and whistles (ie limited PMM functionality) needs to come from a Plugin.

Sure sure. A plugin makes sense but i'm def not going to be of any help with C#.

I was thinking a container to work with API.

Edited October 10, 2023 by jaketame

[jeremyrent 1]

3 hours ago, rbjtech said:

So automating the creation of the collections is super easy - using the python code above, I just hacked this together - this is what's displayed in the 'home view' - but if we could 'Pin' the contents (not just the name) of a collection as a 'row' or 'channel' then that is a good step forward imo.  Lets wait and see if Luke responds ...

 

That's fantastic, and what you accomplished with the Latest Western Channel is quite impressive.

I have reservations about Emby adopting such features; their backlog of promised features seems extensive.

So, if achieving this is possible through a Python script, that's excellent; if it relies on a community plugin, that's equally good.

Porting PMM to Emby would be remarkable, although it could be quite a challenging task. Nevertheless, you already made something that would be beneficial to many!

[bakes82 90]

5 hours ago, rbjtech said:

As long as the channel has unique embyid's - then there is no duplicate items.   These are uniquely generated when creating the channel.

The issue is it becomes duplicated in the search, continue watching, and in the database bud.  There is a whole debate on this and he even said I believe one of your plugins causes them support issues

[bakes82 90]

@rbjtech

 

 

[bakes82 90]

I have a plugin that takes a MDB list and makes a channel also.  The issue with channels is you cant have a dynamic number of them, so the plugin has to have a hard limit of like 10 or whatever number, its not hard, the code to get the items is in the Channel of TV Shows for the most part, the MDB api returns imdb/tvdb, you then just need to loop all the items to see if they have that id and add it your channel.

[rbjtech 4265]

49 minutes ago, bakes82 said:

@rbjtech

 

 

The current channel plugins are Chef's and Cheegeezers - I haven't released any Plugins other than MediaInfo.

Dev's and experienced emby users are just so frustrated with these lack of options to display the contents of a collection.   It's a pretty basic requirement.   Give us the tools to simply reference a collection properly - and we wouldn't have to go 'hacking' things to make them work .... 

(sorry to shoot the messenger !) .. 

[bakes82 90]

2 hours ago, rbjtech said:

The current channel plugins are Chef's and Cheegeezers - I haven't released any Plugins other than MediaInfo.

Dev's and experienced emby users are just so frustrated with these lack of options to display the contents of a collection.   It's a pretty basic requirement.   Give us the tools to simply reference a collection properly - and we wouldn't have to go 'hacking' things to make them work .... 

(sorry to shoot the messenger !) .. 

Its so basic it wasn't even part of Plex until the past couple of years  Also PMM doesnt need to be a plugin, they just need to use the REST API to make collections as thats what its doing for Plex, so while yes the ability to make channels or to pin collections would be good, the basic support for PMM is the rest api as thats exactly what its doing for plex.  At this point youre now asking to rewrite PMM to a emby plugin that wouldnt be able to support IMDB scraping, so you now have to use trakt or mdb, or any other source with a "real" api to pull from.  Also the majority of the new requests for things are from people who are share sellers as plex is banning hetzner ips on October 12, so they are all migrating from plex to emby/jelly to not have to deal with the ban or setting up vpns and playing the whack a mole with plex.

[Bagul 146]

8 hours ago, jaketame said:

I appreciate this. I've looked through the code and its quite large to pick apart. Do you have any notes on where best to start? Do we need the Emby API endpoints to be created first?

Indeed the code is consistent and many things are coded to be used by Plex (logical ahah).

I've started writing things for testing purposes only (the code isn't very clean, but it allows you to test the first steps of PMM). 

I've created a branch for that, if you'd like to take a look. I think most of the work is in the builder.py file where a lot of things only work for plex.

I hesitated to recreate a project just for Emby but if the possibility of a plugin being created to do the same thing (a lot of things so maybe a plugin isn't the best solution) then I don't necessarily see the point of doing that.

[jeremyrent 1]

27 minutes ago, bakes82 said:

Also the majority of the new requests for things are from people who are share sellers as plex is banning hetzner ips on October 12, so they are all migrating from plex to emby/jelly to not have to deal with the ban or setting up vpns and playing the whack a mole with plex.

Making the assumption that most new Emby users requesting additional features are Plex share sellers is a bold leap. Such judgments are often inaccurate. What truly matters is whether these features will enhance the Emby experience for users or not.