Text only option for images

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

I believe that Emby should allow for making all images (except the bif files) a text only option. That is there should be a way to have zero art work but sill have a form of poster that is text only. 

Emby would not have to search for it as it can be generated easily from the title where just a generic template exists of the right shape and then , during scan, the title inserted into it.

I am not talking about a list or table but rather exactly what we have now but the artwork replaced with text.

The reason for this is something I have run into as I have aged, namely I have problems, even with glasses, reading the text of the tiny labels currently used under the posters.

I also have problems with distinguishing any text or writing in the wildly multi-colored and intricate posters. I can and in a few cases have made posters that work for me but it is time consuming for me and I am simply not able to do it for all my movies. 

I do not care about "pretty" at all but a list like what is sort of available now is just not as good as the full movie screen that Emby uses now. 

The Emby interface is overloaded with "pretty" and that is not what I need. I only need a nice large display, like we have now, with only text in the place of the extra bright and busy posters that assault the senses every time a screen is opened. 

I think, but cannot be sure, this would be fairly easy to implement and I can see a bevy of complexities that might be wanted but all I want is to see little of the posters that so violently attack us when Emby is used.

It would also have the advantages of saving drive space and reducing internet access and reducing the load on the server.

BTW: If there is another request like this I could not find it but i still think that for those of us with failing eyesight it could be a great, optional, addition. 

[Luke 37067]

HI, I think if you just remove images then you get something like this, right? For instance in some cases we'll show a poster with the text in the middle.

Anyway this sort of thing is best rendered client-side using the app text and font rendering. Doing it server-side as a generated image will not be anywhere near as sharp.

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

14 minutes ago, Luke said:

HI, I think if you just remove images then you get something like this, right? For instance in some cases we'll show a poster with the text in the middle.

Anyway this sort of thing is best rendered client-side using the app text and font rendering. Doing it server-side as a generated image will not be anywhere near as sharp.

The problem is that if you remove the images you only get some of them as text, as you said, many/most would be blank and that is not an improvement. I also do not think it is a client side feature that would work as on the server side you only need to do it once but, if it is a client side then every client would have to do it every time it displays an image. 

To be honest I do not "expect" Emby to implement this as the subset of users that would benefit is small,. I just wanted to put it out there as I often have trouble telling what a movie/TV show actually is because of the crappy "pretty" posters that often get used are less readable that my dog's writing.

Maybe just an option to use a much larger font and no posters might work. But I see more problems with that than with generating text only posters. 

I believe that text only posters would be OK as "pretty" gets trumped by the ability to tell exactly what the poster represents. 

But, again, there probably are not a lot of us that need something other than a jumbled nearly unreadable "pretty" poster to tell what is actually there. 

[GrimReaper 3294]

1 hour ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

I also have problems with distinguishing any text or writing in the wildly multi-colored and intricate posters. I can and in a few cases have made posters that work for me but it is time consuming for me and I am simply not able to do it for all my movies.

In the meantime, have you tried increasing Image size from "Default" to some bigger size, like "Larger" or "Extra Large", that should somewhat mitigate readability as the text would get larger by proxy? Also, maybe "Thumbs" view could also work, as thumbs generally have larger text - though not all items do have thumbs so it'd be more hit-or-miss solution.

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

1 minute ago, GrimReaper said:

In the meantime, have you tried increasing Image size from "Default" to some bigger size, like "Larger" or "Extra Large", that should somewhat mitigate readability as the text would get larger by proxy? Also, maybe "Thumbs" view could also work, as thumbs generally have larger text - though not all items do have thumbs so it'd be more hit-or-miss solution.

The only difference between larger images and regular images is that the unreadable image displayed is bigger. It really, for many/most of the crappy set of images is worse to have them big instead of smaller. The text in many of them is so illegible that not matter how big they are they still look much like "art" attempted by a three year old by splattering paint on a somewhat pre-stained bedsheet. 

Admittedly most images are pretty good but a significant part are much like the image I have attached. And, yes, I am sure that is not a capture as it is one of the ones offered by IMDB and other services. They have other posters available but that is the one Emby chose.

[arrbee99 1560]

D'you think a kind of oversized List view would help ?

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

19 minutes ago, arrbee99 said:

D'you think a kind of oversized List view would help ?

Maybe. But I like a grid type pf view and that is what I am used to. If a list type view is implemented to improve this then I " think" it should be multi column rather that one long list. 

Also, after posting this thread I realized that I also use collections and I wonder if some collection view could be implemented that also incorporates the enhancements. 

But, if I could have it for the main view, losing the use of collections would be a small/tiny price to pay. 

BTW: I teste in the web browser, wher I can change sizes easily, and I do not much like the list view even when big enough to read clearly. But it is a more useable view, when readable, than what we currently have when encountering unreadable posters. 

Your question makes me think it may be possible to use a list view on my Rokus. It has been quite a while since I actually looked at the display of lists on my Rokus. 

It will be at least a while (a couple of days, maybe) before I can report back as I tire easily these days and testing, just about any testing, tires me out. Sorry about that.  

[arrbee99 1560]

Bit like this maybe ?

or

OK, its the best I can do

[arrbee99 1560]

No idea about Rokus. Thats in Firefox with css.

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

Both of those look better than what we have now. But I would like slightly bigger text on the view that also has poster. And, if it were to prove big enough, that view would be quite good. However the list view would also work depending on if it is actually readable on my TVs.

I need the improvements on my Roku as, when I am at my computer, the text and posters are large enough and mostly readable.

That is one reason that I asked for a change at the server level. If the change comes at the client level then both my Rokus and my Fire stick would need the change.

I "hope" something gets done to make this more pleasant but, because it only helps a small subset of users, I do not have great hopes.  

I also think it might be a bit easier on Android devices than on the Roku as the Roku's programing is somewhat (read a lot) more difficult. 

This may be overthinking it/overreaching on the abilities involved but I have a couple of Shields available (currently in a drawer) and I would not be adverse to using them if there proved to be an easier way to implement what I am asking for.

BTW: @arrbee99How the heck did you get a copy of my library? Those movies look almost exactly how the first part of my library looks right down to "12 Angry men" and "2001" except I only have one version of each.  

Edited February 11 by Gilgamesh_48

[arrbee99 1560]

11 minutes ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

 

BTW: @arrbee99How the heck did you get a copy of my library? Those movies look almost exactly how the first part of my library looks right down to "12 Angry men" and "2001" except I only have one version of each.  

The answer to that, of course, is great minds think alike. That also sounds better than the alternative version anyway...

The 1997 12 Angry Men was included when I bought the '57 12 Angry Men 4K version.

You could possibly try sideloading the new Android app thats being worked on on the Shield, it does have different sizes for posters available (but to be honest I haven't noticed what it does to font size).

I also noticed you can probably increase the poster size in a browser using Embys options and combine with css to increase the font size, as bigger posters hopefully give more space for text (though as you say, you don't really need it on the PC anyway.

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

5 minutes ago, arrbee99 said:

The answer to that, of course, is great minds think alike. That also sounds better than the alternative version anyway...

The 1997 12 Angry Men was included when I bought the '57 12 Angry Men 4K version.

You could possibly try sideloading the new Android app thats being worked on on the Shield, it does have different sizes for posters available (but to be honest I haven't noticed what it does to font size).

I also noticed you can probably increase the poster size in a browser using Embys options and combine with css to increase the font size, as bigger posters hopefully give more space for text (though as you say, you don't really need it on the PC anyway.

I have to experiment a bit (OK, maybe a lot) to try the options you suggested even excluding the browser options. I also have to test the options already available on my clients. However it, like any other testing I might do, it will take time. I will report back when I test thoroughly. That could be tomorrow or next Wednesday. I think  I liked my life a lot more several years ago. My one piece of advice to most people is, "Don't get old."  The older you get the more things go wrong. Sometime I feel a bit like the robot greeter for Westworld: (The original not the TV remake.)

"Welcome to Westworld all our attractions are safe and fun. Nothing can go wrong
"GO WRONG"
"Go Wrong"
"go wrong"
"go wrong"
"go wrong"
"go wrong"

"GO WRONG"...

 

[speechles 1918]

@Gilgamesh_48Since it is the Roku you want this fixed on lets start there. I already know what you mean since I also have issues reading some screens. The challenge on the Roku isn't what you think. It is how to handle keeping everything on the screen without leaking off or covering each other and such. Since you are a Roku die-hard I can let you see something.

The built-in focus handler on the Roku does not make sure what is given focus is actually on the screen. It makes it so if you make these very large images and text areas there is a possibility they may leak off screen, or into each other, and other bad things.

What I do know is that on the Roku will soon be getting a new entry on the view menu of the grid. The new entry on the view menu will be List and will change the size of the text when the image size changes. Since there is so much wasted space in list view the text size changes.

 

 

 

Did you also mean the size of the text on the rows? Because of the size of the overhang, the expanded info area, it doesn't leave a lot of room to increase the text size. As you increase text size the faster the text is cut off and ellipsized...

How much larger would you need this text to be? Above is the actual size these are for both portrait and landscape. Notice that portrait consumes much more real estate and leaves less room for the text. Whatever is done must work in all formats: portrait, landscape, and square.

Which areas of the Roku app do you feel are hard to read? The detail screens? The text on the home screen? Knowing exactly what you mean we can better work with that information.

Edited February 11 by speechles

[Gilgamesh_48 943]

22 minutes ago, speechles said:

Did you also mean the size of the text on the rows? Because of the size of the overhang, the expanded info area, it doesn't leave a lot of room to increase the text size. As you increase text size the faster the text is cut off and ellipsized...

How much larger would you need this text to be? Above is the actual size these are for both portrait and landscape. Notice that portrait consumes much more real estate and leaves less room for the text. Whatever is done must work in all formats: portrait, landscape, and square.

Which areas of the Roku app do you feel are hard to read? The detail screens? The text on the home screen? Knowing exactly what you mean we can better work with that information.

Well it is kind of hard to itemize as I cannot really test right now. My meds make concentration hard at best. I think about a 20-30% increase would get me through the next 5-10 years  and even a 10% increase would make it better. As far as where I need improved reading it is pretty much everywhere but the main Library view (and the Next up row) is where I notice it the most as I notice it most  when I am looking for something to watch. Also inside collections is often hard o read.

There are many places where what is on the screen is less than ideal but except for when I am looking for content those screens do not much come into play. 

I do not expect any changes just to make me happy or happier.  But I think taking into account the ageing population might be good for everyone, including Emby.

Edit to add: I really do not need or want larger posters. I just want the text to be more readable.  

Edited February 11 by Gilgamesh_48