Help with Emby promotion and marketing

[beckfield 93]

2 hours ago, sross44 said:

As a side note.... I use the nvidia Shield as well and absolutely love that device. I. have one on every TV in my house. 

Do you find that you have to reboot it every day or two?  If I'm binging on Netflix, Emby, Plex, or Amazon Prime (probably every app, but those are my most frequently-used), I find that the app starts freaking out (starting a new episode or movie never load the video, etc.).  The behaviors I see make me think it's a memory leak.  Rebooting the Shield clears it up.

Have you had that experience?

[sross44 235]

1 hour ago, beckfield said:

Do you find that you have to reboot it every day or two?  If I'm binging on Netflix, Emby, Plex, or Amazon Prime (probably every app, but those are my most frequently-used), I find that the app starts freaking out (starting a new episode or movie never load the video, etc.).  The behaviors I see make me think it's a memory leak.  Rebooting the Shield clears it up.

Have you had that experience?

I don't. I usually close all the apps after I use them, but mostly it's Emby, Kodi (using as a front end player for Emby at times) or TiviMate. Those are the main apps I use and it doesn't really cause any issues with the Shield. 

Which Shield are you using? Is it updated with the most up to date software? 

Edited January 20 by sross44

[beckfield 93]

9 minutes ago, sross44 said:

Which Shield are you using? Is it updated with the most up to date software? 

It's a 2017 Shield, model P2897.  Auto-upgrade is on, so it's up to date.

[sross44 235]

5 hours ago, beckfield said:

It's a 2017 Shield, model P2897.  Auto-upgrade is on, so it's up to date.

Have you tried to do a factory reset? Also, I've seen with the 2017s and older that the thermal paste goes bad. Sometimes you have to take it apart and apply new thermal paste to them when issues like this rise up. You could also just try cleaning it out too. Get the dust out of there etc. All of it can't hurt.... only help. 

[beckfield 93]

10 hours ago, sross44 said:

Have you tried to do a factory reset? Also, I've seen with the 2017s and older that the thermal paste goes bad. Sometimes you have to take it apart and apply new thermal paste to them when issues like this rise up. You could also just try cleaning it out too. Get the dust out of there etc. All of it can't hurt.... only help. 

I have done a reset, but it's been like this from the start, so it's unlikely an issue of thermal paste or dust.  I reported it to nVidia, but they didn't have an answer.  I may dig into it eventually if it annoys me enough.  I was just curious if it was a known thing.

[Q-Droid 652]

41 minutes ago, beckfield said:

I have done a reset, but it's been like this from the start, so it's unlikely an issue of thermal paste or dust.  I reported it to nVidia, but they didn't have an answer.  I may dig into it eventually if it annoys me enough.  I was just curious if it was a known thing.

There was a time when I had to reboot mine (2017) almost weekly but that hasn't been the case for a few years now. It still happens now and then but more like every few months. I was also trying IPTV apps and browser back then which I haven't for a long time. Those could have been contributing to instability.

[ebr 14923]

20 hours ago, adminExitium said:

Nitpicking here, but having an account is irrelevant to providing SSL certificates. You only need a unique server ID to map to the domain & the remote IP, which you already have for Emby Connect.

Connect is completely optional and we are actively seeking ways to provide the same functionality in the system without the requirement for an actual account with us because, with our commitment to your users being your users, that requires two sets of credentials which then leads to all kinds of confusion.

The other guys took a different approach which, while not directly related, makes providing the SSL service a lot easier and more palatable for the user.  Their entire business model (IMO) is about capturing your users.  Its quite ingenious, actually, from a business perspective.  They get you to install a "personal" server and then, in order for any of your family or friends to actually use it, they have to sign up with them.  Now they have increased their users by an order of magnitude and can use this to present to advertisers, content providers and other partners as "look at all the eyes we can put your [product] in front of".  That's not what we're about.

All that being what it is, we could definitely do something here.  However, every solution we've come up with so far has too many compromises and costs (to both us and the users) for us to go all in on.

Not really the thread for that discussion so I'll leave it at that.  Carry on.

[beckfield 93]

On 1/19/2024 at 12:48 PM, sross44 said:

I would love to see what you come up with for a comparison list.

 

Here's a start.  Positive and negative traits are marked with "+" or "-".  Features are in no particular order, just as I thought to add them.  Also, "Winner" is not determined by number of pluses vs. minuses.  Some factors are more important than others.

Emby vs. Plex

 

Edited January 21 by beckfield
Forum Table feature doesn't seem to work.

[beckfield 93]

Well, that was a colossal fail.  I entered all that as a table, but it isn't displaying that way.

Replaced it with a screenshot.

Edited January 21 by beckfield

[HouseOfCards 71]

On 1/19/2024 at 4:21 PM, adminExitium said:

Providing something like this for video streaming is prohibitively expensive. As an example, cloudflare tunnels allows the same remote access for free for any service (https://blog.cloudflare.com/tunnel-for-everyone) but try streaming video through it and see how fast your accounts gets throttled (if not disabled outright).

I'm not talking about passing the entire stream through the connection, just facilitating the connection. 

Syncthing uses a peer-to-peer type solution where it simply provides a directory of connected servers, mapped to information about where to locate it on the internet.  Just provide a unique code to connect/verify devices with the server, and let the directory service tell them how to find each other?

[beckfield 93]

In my Plex/Emby comparison chart above, I mentioned that Emby's support for Composer tags was "a huge first step."  After spending some time with it, I'm seeing just how huge an advantage it is.  I no longer have to misuse the Artist tag as a substitute for Composer.  I thought this may be a little chaotic, since classical music albums can come in such different forms (soloist-centric, composer-centric, orchestra-centric, etc.), but after "fixing" a couple of albums to be tagged properly, it's coming together very well.  The number of albums being stuffed into the "Various Artist" bucket is going down.  There will always be some that belong there, but too many are there simply because they could not easily be categorized correctly.

This is a game changer for the Emby web application, especially since you added the ability to make the Composer tab the default start page for a library, and with the "Appears On..." hub.  When I look at a Composer's detail page, I see the albums that are specifically theirs, as well as other albums where any of their works appear.

So, a huge "Thank you!" to Emby for adding these features.  I'm eagerly anticipating this capability coming to the Android TV app (I use an nVidia Shield).

[adamstewiegreen 147]

• What brought you to Emby? Did you leave Plex or Jellyfin or was Emby your first media server?
  • I went from XBMC to Boxee Box to Plex to Emby.  I moved because there were too many bugs in Plex, specifically there was an audio bug that, while there was a massive post in the forums about the issue, Plex never addressed over the course of about a year.
  • I've stayed with Emby because of the forum and support - even though Emby hasn't always run smoothly on my old hardware (which changed with 4.8 btw, works great!)
• What about Emby do you like or dislike?
  • All my media in one place, works well, easy enough that my wife can find what she wants to watch.
  • I'd like to see music get the attention to detail that tv and movies get.  I think Emby could be like Roon or Apple Music.
  • I'd like to see a music app. 
• Have you tried the alternatives out there and if so what is your feedback compared to Emby?
  • I tried Jellyfin out of curiosity a little while after it was forked.  Probably to soon, since it was basically still (old) Emby.
• What OS are you running your server on? What clients do you use on a daily basis? 
  • I'm running my server on a 2014 mac Mini which is also - sometimes - used as the household computer (kids and wife).  Attached to it I have a 5 bay Drobo (and I just discovered today that they went bankrupt) which has worked flawlessly, I've had a disk fail and swapped it with no problems.
  • I use the Android app side loaded on to a Nvidia Shield.  My wife uses it on her Android phone and we have an old old Amazon fire tv box that gets used sometimes.
• Any other general comments about Emby and your experience are always welcomed.
  • Update the website.  It's exactly the same as it was in 2017 (?) when I first check it out.  None of the images are current and it looks a bit dated.

Edited April 7 by adamstewiegreen

[sross44 235]

@adamstewiegreenthanks for the great feedback. To your last point, we are actually working on updating the website now with modern pictures and rewriting some of the sections. Thank you again for taking the time to respond. 

[user24 94]

1 hour ago, adamstewiegreen said:

I'd like to see music get the attention to detail that tv and movies get.  I think Emby could be like Roon or Apple Music.

Yes, I agree with that and put forward a question about it for the Q&A that I hope gets answered in the next round(s) of answers?  I had previously been using Asset UPnP for music for many years, tried Plex, on and off, and looked enviously at Roon (and still do). Emby music is good, but limited. (Some of my wishlist is covered in other relevant posts.) Emby has great music potential and improved music capabilities could open up a much wider market for new (and paying) customers.

Emby needs a Roon-like music premiere version (much less expensive than Roon of course).

Edited April 7 by user24

[user24 94]

1 hour ago, sross44 said:

we are actually working on updating the website now with modern pictures and rewriting some of the sections.

This will be most interesting to see and I look forward to it. I have worked in product strategy/management/development/marketing for tech-based product companies for a couple of decades. I think Emby has the right overall consumer-marketing focus and direction, but as well as updating website pictures/text, there are many more marketing improvements that Emby could make with branding/positioning towards attracting new customers. (I don't mean changing the logo - more marketing-science oriented - yes, there is such a thing!)

Edited April 7 by user24

[user24 94]

On 4/7/2024 at 12:47 PM, user24 said:

there are many more marketing improvements that Emby could make with branding/positioning towards attracting new customers.

@sross44 I forgot to add "Let me know if you would like any help". If yes, please send me a PM. Cheers!