Android TV App

[Vidman 589]

The Shield is not available in Australia and sadly it seems like it never will be.

AFAICT Kodi on Android TV doesn't understand HD audio either.

 

That kinda makes my point I think.

That doesn't mean you can't get one though, and HD audio is planned for the next version of kodi on android

[drhill 2]

The Shield is not available in Australia and sadly it seems like it never will be.

AFAICT Kodi on Android TV doesn't understand HD audio either.

 

That kinda makes my point I think.

 

It's a really good box.  As Vidman said if you can get one and it's in your price range you won't do much better for an all in one.  Chromebox is great for open elec but it lacks Netflix in 1080p+ among other things.

[drhill 2]

double post. :\ 

Edited December 5, 2015 by drhill

[drhill 2]

Well, unfortunately, whatever research went into the designs of these things in the past several years disagrees with you .

 

Even WMC's grid operated this way (we forced it to go the other way as an option in our app but the default is horizontal).

 

It is possible that we may get to the point of trying to do that in this app too but there are a lot of issues with it. Not just the irregular item issue but also one of access to things like tool bars.

 

And, we'd be fighting the trend of every other design with which people will be interacting.

 

5000 years of books back up my idea, and a long time ago I took a few classes in statistics (CS requirements).  I understand how market research means whatever the administer's bias goes.  How is WMC doing now a days?  

 

If you do ever stop "going with the flow" and allow an option to satisfy my lizard brain mind emailing me?  I've no need to waste a space on my launcher for software that doesn't suit me so I won't see the update.  $5 spent on an upgrade be damned.

[Luke 37116]

WMC lasted over a decade and has had an extremely loyal following. For any piece of software I'd say that's a pretty good run. The apps are constantly being improved with new features based on what you guys want so I would stay tuned for updates.

[Vidman 589]

5000 years of books back up my idea, and a long time ago I took a few classes in statistics (CS requirements). I understand how market research means whatever the administer's bias goes. How is WMC doing now a days?

 

If you do ever stop "going with the flow" and allow an option to satisfy my lizard brain mind emailing me? I've no need to waste a space on my launcher for software that doesn't suit me so I won't see the update. $5 spent on an upgrade be damned.

If i had an idea that the world was flat, i too would have thousands of years of history to back me up. ..that doesnt make it a good idea tho ...times change. Edited December 5, 2015 by Vidman

[Schimi 26]

it´s possible to add a sync future to the fireTV stick? or "optimize" the preload?

 

A friend of mine had a very bad DSL line (~1Mbit) with her 36' TV is ok for tv-shows... but movies lock sometimes very bad (HLS goes sometimes down to a 7xxkbps stream)...

I know thats not a problem from the emby app :-) but maybe someone had a other idea :-)

[ebr 14930]

It is possible sync will make it into this app eventually but syncing content on a connection like that would take quite a while as well so it would require a lot of pre-planning .  Also, for the stick specifically, it only has about 5GB of storage available so you couldn't sync much.

 

The only suggestion I would have at this point would be for her to lower her max bitrate setting in the app.

[drhill 2]

If i had an idea that the world was flat, i too would have thousands of years of history to back me up. ..that doesnt make it a good idea tho ...times change.

 

That's an poor analogy.  When did we start reading books top to bottom then left to right?  How about websites?  Forum threads like this one?

Edited December 5, 2015 by drhill

[Vidman 589]

That's an poor analogy. When did we start reading books top to bottom then left to right? How about websites? Forum threads like this one?

So is yours, in the views you are viewing a list of images on a landscape screen not reading words on a portrait page, so your analogy has zero relevance. Edited December 5, 2015 by Vidman

[raven-au 17]

That doesn't mean you can't get one though, and HD audio is planned for the next version of kodi on android

 

Sure but to my mind the situation is no different than it was years ago when I first tried to get consistent HD audio with my household devices. I'm still waiting for sufficient support from enough devices before I go down that path again.

 

Seriously, the TV manufactures seem to not know there is anything but stereo and that is only just beginning to change.

 

The fact is getting consistent DD and DTS support across my household devices is still a problem.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'd like to get a Shield or two but I'm more concerned about the overall consistency of all my devices (and in reality there aren't many) and that mix changes quite a bit as time passes. So unless the Shield is right in my face locally I'm not likely to get any.

 

Mind you, if Kodi on Android TV gets HD audio right then suddenly the picture changes quite a bit (for my current mix of devices) so here's hoping I'll be motivated to re-encode some of my shows in the not to distant future.

Edited December 6, 2015 by raven-au

[Luke 37116]

I think they're aware there are more options than stereo. That's what happens when the market goes into a price war as it is now, all the non-essentials like Dolby licensing get stripped to drive down cost. I say non-essential because it's not needed for surround via soundbar, which is where the mass market is right now. If you want that to change, then fight the establishment. Go buy some receivers and 7-channel systems, and tell all your friends to do the same.

[raven-au 17]

PlexBMC works fine if you use the beta zip.

 

Based on that I had a quick go at PlexBMC (again) and now I remember why when I did get it to function I removed it and gave up.

That was quite a while ago and I don't see anything has changed.

 

Your claiming that PlexBMC 4.0.0-beta4 works with managed users!

 

What's that you say, "no managed users aren't supported"!

Oh I say, "could that be because PlexBMC support is non-existent"!

Factual answer "yes, that's right".

Edited December 6, 2015 by raven-au

[raven-au 17]

I think they're aware there are more options than stereo. That's what happens when the market goes into a price war as it is now, all the non-essentials like Dolby licensing get stripped to drive down cost. I say non-essential because it's not needed for surround via soundbar, which is where the mass market is right now. If you want that to change, then fight the establishment. Go buy some receivers and 7-channel systems, and tell all your friends to do the same.

 

A receiver setup is not something I could do without and has been for many years.

 

I purchased my first receiver about 40 years ago which might give you some idea how long I've suffered poorly implemented and poorly supported products and products that have transitioned to that state.

 

Still I'm inevitably in a constant wait for features state for various devices and software, now including Emby, year after year.

 

The only saving grace is that I acknowledge that change takes time and it's hard pressed to keep up with changes I make to my environment.

 

So my mantra is simple, "pick what works best at the time I'm looking" and review as change happens.

Right now that happens to be primarily Emby purely because the things I want that work outweigh the things I want that don't work.

 

I admit that my attitude is fairly poor toward things that I think should work but don't for some reason or another (you could even call me bitter and you'd be pretty close) but that's what happens after such a long time in a perpetual wait loop.

Edited December 6, 2015 by raven-au

[drhill 2]

Based on that I had a quick go at PlexBMC (again) and now I remember why when I did get it to function I removed it and gave up.

That was quite a while ago and I don't see anything has changed.

 

Your claiming that PlexBMC 4.0.0-beta4 works with managed users!

 

What's that you say, "no managed users aren't supported"!

Oh I say, "could that be because PlexBMC support is non-existent"!

Factual answer "yes, that's right".

 

I don't use managed users so I wouldn't know anything about that.

[drhill 2]

So is yours, in the views you are viewing a list of images on a landscape screen not reading words on a portrait page, so your analogy has zero relevance.

 

No... I'm not "looking at pictures".  I'm reading movie posters.  Like reading an inventory.  I don't use these devices for looking at pictures... unless you mean those moving pictures with sounds.

[Vidman 589]

You most certainly are "looking at pictures" then to use your misquote

Unless you are viewing a purely text based list, which you are not

Edited December 6, 2015 by Vidman

[drhill 2]

If there is text on the posters.. which almost all have I would be reading the text.  Or in the case there is a label for each poster I would be reading the label.  The only app I have seen behave the way emby does is Youtube on AndroidTV.  Google's photo's app (and web) has the staggered picture layout, and it scrolls vertically.  All that market research has produced a result of two.  What a trend!

 

Is there a flavor of ice cream I should be eating or am I allowed to have my own favorite?  All I asked was an option to have what I believe is a more natural experience with the app as the current flavor is unusable for me.  If it's fine for you then party on and their is no reason for them to take that away from you.   But the app does not follow any real world model of efficiency for me, unless you think looking at a wall of movie posters that are three tiers high and wraps around a city block is efficient. Then we fundamentally disagree and you don't need to try to put your way of thinking in my head.  I obviously don't want to be you.

[Vidman 589]

of course you are entitled to do as you wish and ask for whatever you want, but your arguments for your feature request aren't sound. I agree....i really dont want to be you either. Im leaving it there

[drhill 2]

of course you are entitled to do as you wish and ask for whatever you want, but your arguments for your feature request aren't sound. I agree....i really dont want to be you either. Im leaving it there

 

I've listed real world models for my feature request.  You are just backing up ebr's market research claim, which no source was given, out of sheer fanboyism and no real desire to advance a debate.  Where is the current model proven to be an efficient way of progressing through a list of 300+ movies?  At least ebr's contention was that breaking down the list by filtering is efficient and can then make a horizontal list a good idea, but that's only if you actually want to break down the list.  A horizontal grid works great for a timeline.  A photo album is a good use case for that as you can progress through time and their is no specific need to arrange alphabetically.  But you could do that just as well vertically, see google photos for that.  A list of movies is a list of names.  A poster is a symbol for that name.  If you want to sort by a rating you could certainly go through a mutli row horizontal list.  Sort by release date as well (which would be the same as photo album).  Sort by name only works easily horizontally if you limit yourself to one row.  Add more rows and you create a cognitive gap between columns for the alphabetical ordering.

 

 

If I'm missing something here please do explain.

[CBers 6771]

@@drhill and @@Vidman.

 

I think it's time to stop the debate.

 

It's not helping anyone's cause and if EBR was going to be swayed, I think he would have said so by now.

 

Thanks

[Luke 37116]

Just make a separate feature request topic like all other things and that will help us assess demand

[raven-au 17]

If I'm missing something here please do explain.

 

Perhaps but I don't know as it's been years since I've played with the Android API and never the Android TV extensions.

 

Perhaps my point about this was lost in my rant, sorry, so here it is again.

 

If the display layout that's needed isn't natively provided by the product API then it can be difficult to maintain.

 

For example, if this view type needs a custom control first you need to develop it which is itself time consuming, then you need to ensure it still works with every new release, and that's even more time and can be difficult itself.

 

Of course I'm assuming that the layout you'd like isn't natively available. If it is then adding a new layout option that could be selected along with the other filter options might not be such a potential time sink.

 

I think these guys have a lot of ground to cover and I believe they need to be very careful about the implications of what they add.

 

Perhaps in time they will get more resources and be able to invest more time in enhancements that might not so closely match the development environment.

 

But then I seem to be the only one saying this might be the reason so I may be completely wrong....

 

Ian

[ebr 14930]

Your not wrong, raven.  There are multiple issues with breaking from the norm of the platform.  One is just what you outlined and one of the other major ones is fighting the design paradigm of the device from a user perspective.

 

I've already said what I needed to say about this several posts ago.

 

 

It is possible that we may get to the point of trying to do that in this app too but there are a lot of issues with it. Not just the irregular item issue but also one of access to things like tool bars.

 

And, we'd be fighting the trend of every other design with which people will be interacting.

 

Nothing is being completely ruled out at this point but we will always try to target the 80-90% in our initial designs.

[drhill 2]

Perhaps but I don't know as it's been years since I've played with the Android API and never the Android TV extensions.

 

Perhaps my point about this was lost in my rant, sorry, so here it is again.

 

If the display layout that's needed isn't natively provided by the product API then it can be difficult to maintain.

 

For example, if this view type needs a custom control first you need to develop it which is itself time consuming, then you need to ensure it still works with every new release, and that's even more time and can be difficult itself.

 

Of course I'm assuming that the layout you'd like isn't natively available. If it is then adding a new layout option that could be selected along with the other filter options might not be such a potential time sink.

 

I think these guys have a lot of ground to cover and I believe they need to be very careful about the implications of what they add.

 

Perhaps in time they will get more resources and be able to invest more time in enhancements that might not so closely match the development environment.

 

But then I seem to be the only one saying this might be the reason so I may be completely wrong....

 

Ian

 

 

You can programmatically set a LayoutManager for a recyclerview (or gridview) in the oncreate/oncreateview (depends on activity or fragment).   I believe only a layout manager initialization setting is required to switch between vertical and horizontal direction.  Going through a beta right now for an app all I needed to do was set the number of columns and my fragment scrolls vertically.  I'm using a recyclerview in a CoordinatorLayout.  No need for a scrollview.  You could also have different layout xml files for a vertical scrolling orientation or a horizontal scrolling orientation and just inflate whichever one the user setting tells you.  That's depending on what widgets you use (there are sublcasses of recyclerview for VeritcalGridView or HorizontalGridView).  AndroidTV's widget set isn't paired down (I believe Google TV's was) but also offers the Leanback library with additional widgets.