OK, I just installed Emby and I'm already ready to give up

[n4aof 0]

Emby was recommended as being better than Roku's media player for navigation on the computer network, so I decided to try it.

I don't know if it is or isn't better at navigating my 10TB of video files, because I can't get Emby to do ANYTHING except ask me to come to the PIN website and enter another new PIN.  It does say I could skip this step and set up my server manually, but it has absolutely no information about how to do that.

I've had Emby validate my PIN

I've confirmed my email address (which is how I got here)

But nothing in Emby gives me any way to do anything except "Connect to Server" which it will not do.

 

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

Do you have a computer, or some other device, set up as a server? 

Emby is a client server application and both are required. 

For example I have an Emby server running on a local computer and I use my Rokus to see and play the content the server provides.

You must have both the server and the client for Emby to work correctly but Emby is a LOT better for playback than just using the Roku Media Player. 

[Luke 37068]

Hi, did you install Emby server on your computer first?

[ebr 14913]

Quick Start

[n4aof 0]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Hi, did you install Emby server on your computer first?

No.  I had not installed an Emby server on the computer because I never head of an Emby server -- perhaps some instructions might have been helpful.

After reading this I found, downloaded, and installed the Emby server on my computer.   I used the Wizard - which said it was successful but did not ever get to setting up media

After fighting through several pages of linked instructions (all of which assume that Emby would do everything automatically) I finally found where to try to set up the library.  

Setting up the library started out looking like it was working, but having tried to play some of my files, I'm not sure if Emby and I are compatible with each other.  I've got a bit over 10TB of video files in multiple folders.  One folder of Movies, with over a hundred sub-folders for various genres and franchises, and a bit over 2000 individual files (most in the "Movies" folder, others in the subfolders). 

There are also five folders of TV shows with a subfolder for each series.

From what I have found so far, Emby only looks one folder down, and treats each folder as if it were a single item.  I can select one of the TV folders, and it displays the subfolders which each contain all the episodes for all seasons of a show.  But it doesn't let me access the individual files. It doesn't list any of the individual episodes.  I can click play and it starts with the first episode in the folder so I have to step through every episode to get to the one I want.

Even the folders aren't listed in any order I would want -- apparently Emby thinks I should only be interested in whichever folders are the "latest" and there doesn't seem to be any way to tell Emby to just list the folders alphabetically or to list all the individual files.

 

Edited January 25 by n4aof

[n4aof 0]

27 minutes ago, ebr said:

Quick Start

I found that, it led me down more dead ends than useful places, but I finally got it to let me set up the library.  I will grant that it is better than Roku media player in that it doesn't waste hours to rescan the media every time you use it, but apparently I must be the only person in the world with 10TB of video files including over 2000 movies and the rest TV shows.

I would love to like Emby -- I really would -- but every time I find the path to take one small step forward, it smacks me with something else to try to find a way to fix or work around.

[Luke 37068]

Quote

I used the Wizard - which said it was successful but did not ever get to setting up media

Hi, are you sure, there is a step in the server setup wizard about setting up libraries. Can't miss it.

Maybe you clicked next really quickly just to get through it? Either way it's fine, you can still go to the Libraries section and setup libraries.

[Luke 37068]

Just now, n4aof said:

I found that, it led me down more dead ends than useful places, but I finally got it to let me set up the library.  I will grant that it is better than Roku media player in that it doesn't waste hours to rescan the media every time you use it, but apparently I must be the only person in the world with 10TB of video files including over 2000 movies and the rest TV shows.

I would love to like Emby -- I really would -- but every time I find the path to take one small step forward, it smacks me with something else to try to find a way to fix or work around.

Why do you think it leads to dead ends? There are links to install Emby Server and download Emby apps. How are those dead ends?

[Luke 37068]

Quote

Setting up the library started out looking like it was working, but having tried to play some of my files, I'm not sure if Emby and I are compatible with each other.  I've got a bit over 10TB of video files in multiple folders.  One folder of Movies, with over a hundred sub-folders for various genres and franchises, and a bit over 2000 individual files (most in the "Movies" folder, others in the subfolders). 

Quote

From what I have found so far, Emby only looks one folder down, and treats each folder as if it were a single item.  I can select one of the TV folders, and it displays the subfolders which each contain all the episodes for all seasons of a show.  But it doesn't let me access the individual files. It doesn't list any of the individual episodes.  I can click play and it starts with the first episode in the folder so I have to step through every episode to get to the one I want.

it sounds to me like you just haven't waited for the scan to complete, right? If you really have 10TB then it couldn't have finished in these few minutes.

[n4aof 0]

2 minutes ago, Luke said:

Why do you think it leads to dead ends? There are links to install Emby Server and download Emby apps. How are those dead ends?

OK, Luke, let's try this a bit more slowly without you telling me that I can't tie my own shoes just because a I'm encountering problems with a piece of complex software that has "documentation" piecemeal scattered all over.

I'm sure the links throughout the "documentation" all go to valuable information for someone.  I did not mean "dead ends" in the sense of not going somewhere, but in the sense of not going anywhere USEFUL FOR MY SPECIFIC PROBLEMS.  For example, I don't care about metadata, so anything telling me to choose where it goes for metadata or for subtitles, etc, is a dead end for me.

 

1 minute ago, Luke said:

it sounds to me like you just haven't waited for the scan to complete, right? If you really have 10TB then it couldn't have finished in these few minutes.

I guess I made the mistake of thinking that "100%" meant that it had finished with that folder.  Silly of me, I know.  I'll look at this again tomorrow to see if it has improved.

And since you assume that I am a liar to too stupid to know what's on my own computer, here are two of the six folders that we are talking about.

[Luke 37068]

Right ok, if that's the first library scan since adding those libraries then I would just allow it to finish. Then you'll have both better playback and browsing. Please let us know how things go. Thanks !

[Lambtalk 43]

10TB isn't really a lot. Many users here, myself included have magnitudes more than that and use Emby without issue.

But if you don't care about metadata, then Emby probably isn't the right system for you anyway. Emby isn't just a basic DLNA server/player used for navigating your folders and playing files. It's a media server that curates and displays your media with rich metadata.

You're also using a library structure that doesn't really resemble Emby's recommended structure. So you might just be setting yourself up for more failure down the line.

[n4aof 0]

37 minutes ago, Lambtalk said:

10TB isn't really a lot. Many users here, myself included have magnitudes more than that and use Emby without issue.

But if you don't care about metadata, then Emby probably isn't the right system for you anyway. Emby isn't just a basic DLNA server/player used for navigating your folders and playing files. It's a media server that curates and displays your media with rich metadata.

You're also using a library structure that doesn't really resemble Emby's recommended structure. So you might just be setting yourself up for more failure down the line.

Thank you for the advice. I'd be surprised if there are many users here with hundreds of Terabytes of video files on a single computer, but that's largely immaterial.  

You may well be right that Emby isn't a good fit for me -- I'm really just looking for a player that has decent navigation of Windows folders and will successfully play mkv, mp4, and occasionally avi files.  One thing I learned about software decades ago is that features you don't need or don't use are not a problem if the features you do use work.  In this case though it does seem that the program's emphasis on being smarter than the user is going to get in the way of just using it as a simple video player. 

 

Some of the design choices in Emby seem unbelievable.  Is it really impossible to get any sort order besides "Latest" and does Emby always ignore the folder structure of the library contents? 

 

I'm following Luke's suggestion to give it more time to finish 'scanning' the libraries, but so far it looks like you are right.  Emby is displaying more information about individual files, but still seems deliberately unwilling to sort them in any order other than it's idea of "Latest" and doesn't allow simple navigation of the folders.  I strongly expect that I will be uninstalling Emby by this time tomorrow.

[Luke 37068]

Quote

Emby is displaying more information about individual files, but still seems deliberately unwilling to sort them in any order other than it's idea of "Latest" and doesn't allow simple navigation of the folders.

Every library has a Folders tab and all the sorting you could ask for. Are you just not going any further than the home screen and drawing all conclusions based on that?

[arrbee99 1560]

Personally, I've been using Emby for, maybe 7 years, and I don't think I've ever used the Folders view.  There's lots of useful stuff to explore, so I'd give it a good go before any chucking out. Entire up to you of course.

[n4aof 0]

3 minutes ago, Luke said:

Every library has a Folders tab and all the sorting you could ask for. Are you just not going any further than the home screen and drawing all conclusions based on that?

Yes, they do, in the dashboard on my computer -- but if there is a way to do that in the Emby app on Roku it isn't obvious.

In the computer dashboard, the libraries default to sorting the subfolders by file name, but the Emby app on the Roku only does "Latest" and doesn't show any way to change that.

[n4aof 0]

10 minutes ago, arrbee99 said:

Personally, I've been using Emby for, maybe 7 years, and I don't think I've ever used the Folders view.  There's lots of useful stuff to explore, so I'd give it a good go before any chucking out. Entire up to you of course.

One good reason for not using the Folders view would be because it doesn't seem to have one -- at least not in the app on a Roku TV. @speechles

 

[Lambtalk 43]

22 minutes ago, n4aof said:

Thank you for the advice. I'd be surprised if there are many users here with hundreds of Terabytes of video files on a single computer, but that's largely immaterial.  

Don't get strung up on thinking we all just use a computer. Many of us have purpose built NAS devices or rack mounted homeservers which are built to hold hundreds of terabytes of content.

I'm personally sitting at about 300TB used, and I know there's others around that number too.

You're right though, it's largely immaterial, but just thought I'd point out that 10TB isn't something that Emby will choke on.

Based on your most recent replies though, yeah Emby isn't really what you're after. 

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

20 minutes ago, n4aof said:

I'm following Luke's suggestion to give it more time to finish 'scanning' the libraries, but so far it looks like you are right.  Emby is displaying more information about individual files, but still seems deliberately unwilling to sort them in any order other than it's idea of "Latest" and doesn't allow simple navigation of the folders.  I strongly expect that I will be uninstalling Emby by this time tomorrow.

In certain circumstances the scanning of a large library can take a long time. I have something over 5300 movies and over 40,000 TV episodes and something like 3000 pictures. I do not judge library size by terabytes as some people keep very large files while others, like myself, keep their files as small as possible while retaining watchability. My largest movie file is something like 3.5 gb and most are in the 1-1.5 gb range. 

I just completely redid my backup server (pointing at the same files) and the scan has taken 1.5 days so far and it is not finished yet. I used to obsess over things like "When will it be done" but i now just get things started and let it run and then I check back periodically (maybe once or twice a day) just to be sure things are progressing. The last time I rebuilt my library from scratch it took almost three days for everything to get downloaded and attached to the correct file. 

It will take time. And, if your naming/structure is not exactly what Emby expects it could take longer. 

After the scan finishes the will be a number of files that are either mismatched or not matched at all and you will have to fix those manually in a lot of cases.

As you have problems, and you will have problems, just post back here and someone will try to help. I do suggest that you create separate threads for each problem as if you jumble many problems together many will get overlooked. 

[speechles 1918]

1 hour ago, n4aof said:

One good reason for not using the Folders view would be because it doesn't seem to have one -- at least not in the app on a Roku TV. @speechles

 

Home view on Roku

 

Movie library suggested view on Roku

 

Movie library grid view on Roku

 

Movie library folder grid view on Roku

 

Movie library folder grid view on Roku ( use the ... 3 dot menu to open the display settings when on the grid )

 

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When using the Roku it is usually best to keep "My Media" always at the top. Make sure not to disable this My Media or you won't have entry points into your libraries. If you set this up like I have mine above all will work as it should.

All the above screen shots show that the Movies library does work as well as the folder view of the movie folders does work on Roku.

Please make sure you follow the advice given by @ebr as far as setting up your library paths. Also make sure you go to the "Scheduled Tasks" section and perform a fresh library scan and wait for it to finish. Once it has the database will properly contain metadata from partner websites. It will provide a Netflix type experience for you. Where Emby keeps track of what you have watched. What you have favorited. It keeps track of where you leave off so you can watch the next episode on TV shows. It keeps track where you leave off on movies so you can resume.

The reason people use Emby is so the software can provide a customized experience for each user. If you set up different users for your children, your spouse, yourself, etc that is where the power comes in. You can each track individually how you proceed as far as consuming content and Emby will keep track of where you are when watching that content.

Can you show us a picture of the Roku screen as you see it. A cellphone picture of any quality is fine. As long as it shows us what you see. Then we can suggest ways to make it more like what I've shown you. Where it becomes better the more you use it. Then Emby has more information about what you watch to make suggestions and starts to offer new things to watch. You just haven't given us enough time. It is worth it.

Edited January 26 by speechles

[n4aof 0]

3 minutes ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

In certain circumstances the scanning of a large library can take a long time. I have something over 5300 movies and over 40,000 TV episodes and something like 3000 pictures. I do not judge library size by terabytes as some people keep very large files while others, like myself, keep their files as small as possible while retaining watchability. My largest movie file is something like 3.5 gb and most are in the 1-1.5 gb range. 

I just completely redid my backup server (pointing at the same files) and the scan has taken 1.5 days so far and it is not finished yet. I used to obsess over things like "When will it be done" but i now just get things started and let it run and then I check back periodically (maybe once or twice a day) just to be sure things are progressing. The last time I rebuilt my library from scratch it took almost three days for everything to get downloaded and attached to the correct file. 

It will take time. And, if your naming/structure is not exactly what Emby expects it could take longer. 

After the scan finishes the will be a number of files that are either mismatched or not matched at all and you will have to fix those manually in a lot of cases.

As you have problems, and you will have problems, just post back here and someone will try to help. I do suggest that you create separate threads for each problem as if you jumble many problems together many will get overlooked. 

Sounds like you have almost exactly twice as many movies and TV episodes as I do, with similar file sizes.  I rarely save a movie with a file size over 2GB unless it is a real favorite and no other release is available. Most of my older videos are 720p, gradually being replaced by 1080p files with better compression.

Movie filenames are pretty straightforward: Title (year)

Older TV episodes are named as they were in Sickbeard:  Series Title - season#xEpisode# - Episode Title
Newer TV episodes are mostly named as found, which usually means Series.Title.S##E##.who.it.came.from.x265

Emby seems to be digesting most of the filenames correctly, although I did notice that it had invented a season 20 of Murdoch Mysteries for the 2016 Christmas special.

 

Overall, Emby seems to be doing fine as a way to manage the video files on the computer (which is OK, but just not a priority for me).  My only real interest was trying to find an app that could be used to play movies and occasionally TV episodes on my new Roku TV without tying up one of my computers to mirror the screen to the TV.  I generally have a pretty good idea of which movies and TV shows I have and I am not particularly interested in searching for films based on the cast or genre, so it's usually just a matter of navigating to the file and clicking play. Roku's own media player does everything I need except that it takes hours to scan each folders each time.

 

[n4aof 0]

38 minutes ago, speechles said:

 

 

----

When using the Roku it is usually best to keep "My Media" always at the top. Make sure not to disable this My Media or you won't have entry points into your libraries. If you set this up like I have mine above all will work as it should.

All the above screen shots show that the Movies library does work as well as the folder view of the movie folders does work on Roku.

Please make sure you follow the advice given by @ebr as far as setting up your library paths. Also make sure you go to the "Scheduled Tasks" section and perform a fresh library scan and wait for it to finish. Once it has the database will properly contain metadata from partner websites. It will provide a Netflix type experience for you. Where Emby keeps track of what you have watched. What you have favorited. It keeps track of where you leave off so you can watch the next episode on TV shows. It keeps track where you leave off on movies so you can resume.

The reason people use Emby is so the software can provide a customized experience for each user. If you set up different users for your children, your spouse, yourself, etc that is where the power comes in. You can each track individually how you proceed as far as consuming content and Emby will keep track of where you are when watching that content.

Can you show us a picture of the Roku screen as you see it. A cellphone picture of any quality is fine. As long as it shows us what you see. Then we can suggest ways to make it more like what I've shown you. Where it becomes better the more you use it. Then Emby has more information about what you watch to make suggestions and starts to offer new things to watch. You just haven't given us enough time. It is worth it.

Apparently the Roku app needs to wait for the library scan -- when I got your reply my immediate reaction was that the first screen looked like mine, and then the second screen looked about like mine, but that I never had the one with the folders.  I got up to take some cell phone pictures of the Emby app on Roku and now the top menu bar had "Folders" on it and there was a screen with folders that had not been there earlier.  

I'm going to just wait until tomorrow afternoon and see what I've got once the Emby server and the Emby app are both finished.

[n4aof 0]

2 hours ago, Lambtalk said:

Don't get strung up on thinking we all just use a computer. Many of us have purpose built NAS devices or rack mounted homeservers which are built to hold hundreds of terabytes of content.

I'm personally sitting at about 300TB used, and I know there's others around that number too.

You're right though, it's largely immaterial, but just thought I'd point out that 10TB isn't something that Emby will choke on.

Based on your most recent replies though, yeah Emby isn't really what you're after. 

I've got NAS and a rack mounted home server on my to-do list
They are on the list right after the entry for Win-The-Lottery

10TB isn't something Emby will choke on, but 2TB is definitely enough to choke the Roku media player, which is how I got pointed to Emby. 

From what I'm seeing, Emby probably can do everything I need, but it is certainly designed to do a lot of things I don't care about, and a few things that I don't want it to do (like display the content of subfolders as if they were in the parent folder).  I am not looking for what someone described as the Netflix experience.  I'm an unrepentant dinosaur, who cut his teeth on CP/M before moving to DOS, and then learning to tolerate Windoze.  

You wouldn't happen to have any alternative suggestions for a media player with adequate navigation of 

[speechles 1918]

The Roku Media Player cannot direct play all your media. There are times when you may have no audio and just silence. Or other times when you just get fed a black video stream with nothing showing. Other times it just says "Cannot play this media". Roku Media Player only has the ability to Direct Play from USB.

If you use Emby on Roku you can get around this limitation. The Roku app will read the device information from your Roku and then run tests to determine what can direct play on that exact Roku device. It will then give these capabilities to Emby server along with a device ID. Emby server will know exactly what each device is capable of playing based on these capabilities and their device ID. It makes it so you can just press play. Then Emby decides how best to send the media to your Roku. If it needs to convert the video, audio, or subtitles to work on the Roku it will do that on your Emby server and pass those to the Roku. You can see these devices in the devices tab of your Emby server when you choose the manage server option.

I do not have any alternative suggestions because being able to transcode unsupported media types is too nice of a feature to lose. There is no other way that unplayable media can become playable without any user intervention all 100% automatic. This is why you should stay with Emby. We also have playback correction when direct playable media encounters errors. On Roku media player it cannot play through these errors and will stop playing. On Emby we have "Playback Correction" and automatic error recovery which will attempt to restart the media using alternative playback methods to continue the stream playing. This is not possible using Roku Media Player.

Edited January 26 by speechles

[Luke 37068]

Hi, has your scan completed?