Android TV App

[ebr 14930]

Android 5.1.1 should work for DD and DTS (as PCM).  Anything less than that should still work for DTS as PCM but DD will be forced to stereo (due to problems in the OS).  That assumes the hardware supports it too.

[raven-au 17]

Okay, i will test some dd 2.0 files and audio track changing again later when i'm at home. Dts with pcm 5.1 doesn't work in my setup (Sony Android TV, Yamaha rx-v673, plugged with HDMI/ARC) and that's the biggest problem for me.

So you don't have any plans for external player support, right?

 

Have a look at (hope that's the correct way to specify a post link):

http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/25743-does-anyone-here-use-emby-on-an-smarttv-running-android/&do=findComment&comment=250731

and the next few posts, basically DD pass-thru does in fact work OK, DTS is passed through as stereo.

 

I believe this is a Sony problem and not an Emby player problem but I can't be sure.

 

Ian

[raven-au 17]

Have a look at (hope that's the correct way to specify a post link):

http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/25743-does-anyone-here-use-emby-on-an-smarttv-running-android/&do=findComment&comment=250731

and the next few posts, basically DD pass-thru does in fact work OK, DTS is passed through as stereo.

 

I believe this is a Sony problem and not an Emby player problem but I can't be sure.

 

And I don't think I said in that post that Kodi and the Emby for Kodi plugin (on Kodi) along with the incremental sync plugin (on the server) works well, so I need to use that for my SD and DTS content.

 

So if you want DTS that's what you need to do for now.

[mmb 5]

Right, it's Android TV v. 5.1.1 on the Sony. The TV should become v.6.0 maybe this year. Would be great if it works then.

Changing the audio track does now work without any crashes of vlc :-), but some tv shows with dolby digital 2.0 still stuttering

[chambonito 0]

Is there anyway to change the coverart view to the grid view again?  I can't find the setting in the app on my TV or on the server...I hate the coverart view....

[ebr 14930]

CoverArt view...?

 

You mean the screen that shows you in progress and latest etc?

 

If you want a particular library to default to the grid view, you need to open the grid view for that library and go to the settings from there (cog wheel) and set the default view to "Grid".

[drhill 2]

Is there a vertical grid layout for Movies, Shows, Seasons, and Episodes?  Horizontal scrolling is not fun to use.

[ebr 14930]

Is there a vertical grid layout for Movies, Shows, Seasons, and Episodes?  Horizontal scrolling is not fun to use.

 

Yes for movies and series but seasons and episodes are shown within the display of shows/seasons in the standard UI of the device.

[drhill 2]

Yes for movies and series but seasons and episodes are shown within the display of shows/seasons in the standard UI of the device.

The device is a Shield TV.

 

Mind sharing the magic for getting a vertical scroll to work with Movies and Show?  I switched from smart to grid and they still only scroll left to right.

 

Two things.  1)  Can we get a grid view for Episodes at least?  It certainly switched to a new fragment/activity and having to scroll through 12-20 things vertically isn't intuitive when 3-4 rows of 5-6 items a row could do it fine.

2)  Live TV... why does it keep showing up.  I delete my HDHomerun Prime on the server, and it comes back.  I don't want to use Emby for TV as Google has that covered quite well with Live Channels.

[Vidman 589]

For 2 you need to click on the tuner in Emby server and select disable-not delete

[ebr 14930]

Sorry, I glossed over the word "vertical" in your request for a grid view.

 

The grid views scroll horizontally because the width of the individual items cannot be predicted and, therefore, you cannot guarantee proper alignment to allow for vertical scrolling without forcing everything into a specific "box" and we don't want to do that because we get nice, modern displays like this without it:

 

[drhill 2]

Sorry, I glossed over the word "vertical" in your request for a grid view.

 

The grid views scroll horizontally because the width of the individual items cannot be predicted and, therefore, you cannot guarantee proper alignment to allow for vertical scrolling without forcing everything into a specific "box" and we don't want to do that because we get nice, modern displays like this without it:

 

 

 

It is nice... but completely useless to me.  I will only use Emby for Shows and Movies (i.e. things that are just posters) and without vertical scrolling I'm going back to Plex/Plexbmc+Kodi.  It's too much of a hassle to scroll horizontally.  There is no cognitive connection to horizontal scrolling and alphabetically "ordering".

 

Thanks Vidman.  I didn't realize that is what I needed to do..

[Vidman 589]

It is nice... but completely useless to me. I will only use Emby for Shows and Movies (i.e. things that are just posters) and without vertical scrolling I'm going back to Plex/Plexbmc+Kodi. It's too much of a hassle to scroll horizontally. There is no cognitive connection to horizontal scrolling and alphabetically "ordering".

 

Thanks Vidman. I didn't realize that is what I needed to do..

Have you tried emby for kodi? Much better integration than plexbmc ....I have heard, never tried Plex myself:)

For instance with the emby add-on you are free to use any kodi skin you like ,to suit your vertical scrolling needs;). I believe you can only use compatible skins for plexbmc?

Edited December 3, 2015 by Vidman

[drhill 2]

Have you tried emby for kodi? Much better integration than plexbmc ....I have heard, never tried Plex myself:)

For instance with the emby add-on you are free to use any kodi skin you like ,to suit your vertical scrolling needs;). I believe you can only use compatible skins for plexbmc?

 

 

I find Plex a better less draining backend.  I also found the Emby plugin for Kodi wasn't reliably syncing.  On four of my TVs I only want a simplistic setup that Plex/Emby would do since neither does a good job at refresh rate switching or decoding HD audio.  In my theater I use Kodi with Plexbmc.

[Vidman 589]

Sounds like that is the answer for you then:) good luck:)

[drhill 2]

Plex has it's own problems on Android TV.

 

I really can't fathom how a horizontal scroll could be good for lots of movies or episodes.  I just can't see it.  In fact the only good use case I could think of is pictures.  Also, there is no requirement for a staggered layout in android to go horizontal, but it would be difficult to navigate (edit: with a d-pad that it... no issues on a touch scroll).

Edited December 4, 2015 by drhill

[raven-au 17]

Plex has it's own problems on Android TV.

 

I really can't fathom how a horizontal scroll could be good for lots of movies or episodes.  I just can't see it.  In fact the only good use case I could think of is pictures.  Also, there is no requirement for a staggered layout in android to go horizontal, but it would be difficult to navigate (edit: with a d-pad that it... no issues on a touch scroll).

 

And part of the problem with the Plex player is the fact that is uses a grid for some views.

 

What a good layout is, is very much dependent on what you want most in day to day usage and not everyone has the same requirements.

 

Three rows for movies and two rows for TV shows would get tedious for large numbers of movies and TV shows but changing to a grid type view would likely cause the features I like most to go away.

 

They would need to be present in some other format (which I don't see in other grid layout products) for me want to continue to use Emby.

 

IMO Android TV Plex is particularly bad with its grid layouts (for one thing) having really obvious and simple functionality omissions present for months now without any effort to improve them.

 

Perhaps Plex could make the grid views they use better but they barely acknowledge the existence of Android TV which is another problem.

 

Ian

[raven-au 17]

I find Plex a better less draining backend.  I also found the Emby plugin for Kodi wasn't reliably syncing.  On four of my TVs I only want a simplistic setup that Plex/Emby would do since neither does a good job at refresh rate switching or decoding HD audio.  In my theater I use Kodi with Plexbmc.

 

I gave up on including HD audio in my encodes long ago because it's so hard to get anything that handles them well enough.

 

Even DD and DTS support being so poor after so many years boggles my mind.

Unless of course the aim of the companies that hold the rights to these technologies is to annoy the people that use them and pay money for devices that support them which are connected to other devices that should be able to forward audio to them without restriction.

 

As for PlexBMC, well that product suffers from contribution product ageing, an affliction many contribution based products suffer and one that I expect will also happen to similar Emby products in time.

 

I don't know if PlexBMC works because trying to get an installable zip with the correct version together with the correct version of the dependent helper script is such an unpleasant experience, getting to a point of finding out if it actually works just doesn't happen.

 

Ian

[ebr 14930]

I really can't fathom how a horizontal scroll could be good for lots of movies or episodes.  I just can't see it.  In fact the only good use case I could think of is pictures.  Also, there is no requirement for a staggered layout in android to go horizontal, but it would be difficult to navigate (edit: with a d-pad that it... no issues on a touch scroll).

 

Almost every single major interface now uses horizontal scrolling.  See Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, etc.  At least, when you get to the item level.  The basic design paradigm we are seeing these days is vertical scrolling individual horizontal scrolling rows (the basic interface we have in this app).

 

The goal is to get the number of items you are wading through down to a manageable number before you start having the need to scroll anywhere and we attempt to do that with intelligent logic to present you with in-progress, new and suggested items as well as ways to slice and dice things to get to smaller lists.

 

However, we do have the grid option for most things as well and, I don't think it produces a hard-to-use experience when combined with things like sorting, filtering and jump-list capability (all things our grid can do).

 

For instance, I don't believe this view of TV shows or movies could really be increased to any more information on the screen at once without being completely overwhelming:

 

BTW - this view demonstrates why, even though it is all movies, we cannot predict the width of all the items being exactly the same.  Of course, we could force it, but then we run into a lot of other issues people don't like.

 

 

Also notice that our grid view has some interesting options like which image to use and the ability to auto-adjust the size of the items based on the number of them there are. So, with fewer items you aren't left with small posters in a big grid.

 

 

In short, I don't think the horizontal scrolling hinders the usability.  On the contrary, I believe it enhances it.

[drhill 2]

ebr,

 

I have never read a book top to bottom then left to right.  Having a movie list grid as (we will see how this format ) :

 

A      Bc   Fa  === scroll ===  Gj  === scroll ===   Ma

Aa    Bd   Fb                          Gk  === scroll ===  Mb

Ab    E     Fc                          Gs  === scroll ===  Mc

Ba    Ef    Fd                          Hi   === scroll ===   Md

BB    Eg   Gi                          Ha   === scroll ===  Mz

 

is maddeningly confusing and contrary to ever book, shopping list, or excel spread sheet (ignore right to left languages) anyone has ever used.

 

It's bad design.  While I don't disagree that "drilling down" is a good paradigm it isn't how I like my movies.  Watching shows is a good function for "on deck" or "recently aired".  And resuming a movie you had to pause is also good for a "on deck" feature.  But I pick movies as I would "channel surf" back in the day.  I like to scan my list.

 

Using Youtube as example is a bad idea... that app is horrible in every way.

 

Netflix is a good case for arguing and comes down to personal use for sure.  I open up Netflix and go, "That's pretty.  Where is my list?  What?!? I have to move up twice through the options bar to even see the movies I've designated I wanted to watch later?!?!  Ok I want to watch something else.  Hey they gave me suggestions great... :scrolls:  Don't like them.. wait did I just restart the scroll?  Why is there indication I started over?!  Ok lets see a genre they recommend... what order are these in?  I don't like that one next.  Next.  Next... when does it end how do I just pick a genre or search for a specific title?  It's hidden away up at the top and I have to scroll through 30 things again?!?"  The way I use it, I already added something to my queue and I struggle finding the queue.  

 

Could we please get an option for vertical scrolling?  Horizontal scrolling does not work for me.  It's confusing for movies and inefficient for looking for an episode in a list of 20.  Personally i don't want to jump through the "movies also staring Ben Affleck" section just to get to "all movies" every time.  You are just wasting my time with that nonsense.  I'm sure others find it cute and useful. An option for "direct lists" to go to the deeper fragment in the stack would streamline this process.  

[drhill 2]

I gave up on including HD audio in my encodes long ago because it's so hard to get anything that handles them well enough.

 

Even DD and DTS support being so poor after so many years boggles my mind.

Unless of course the aim of the companies that hold the rights to these technologies is to annoy the people that use them and pay money for devices that support them which are connected to other devices that should be able to forward audio to them without restriction.

 

As for PlexBMC, well that product suffers from contribution product ageing, an affliction many contribution based products suffer and one that I expect will also happen to similar Emby products in time.

 

I don't know if PlexBMC works because trying to get an installable zip with the correct version together with the correct version of the dependent helper script is such an unpleasant experience, getting to a point of finding out if it actually works just doesn't happen.

 

Ian

 

I can use Kodi on the Shield to decode all HD audio formats to PCM and output that way.  I don't need atmos so it is equivalent to bitstreaming.

 

PlexBMC works fine if you use the beta zip.  I modified it further to enable sorting by "sort title" instead of just title.  It's one noticeable negative is that movie sets aren't grouped like a normal Kodi DB though (e.g. Dark Knight collection is all three movies).

[drhill 2]

And part of the problem with the Plex player is the fact that is uses a grid for some views.

 

What a good layout is, is very much dependent on what you want most in day to day usage and not everyone has the same requirements.

 

Three rows for movies and two rows for TV shows would get tedious for large numbers of movies and TV shows but changing to a grid type view would likely cause the features I like most to go away.

 

They would need to be present in some other format (which I don't see in other grid layout products) for me want to continue to use Emby.

 

IMO Android TV Plex is particularly bad with its grid layouts (for one thing) having really obvious and simple functionality omissions present for months now without any effort to improve them.

 

Perhaps Plex could make the grid views they use better but they barely acknowledge the existence of Android TV which is another problem.

 

Ian

 

I never said to remove functionality.  I asked for them to make it usable for me.  Android widgets have an option for saying which direction a grid scrolls.  You can set that in an xml or at runtime both of which could trigger off a setting.

 

Plex's grid are superior for me.  While Plex still has bloat issues with extraneous things getting in the way that Emby also has.  Plex has done nothing to make a pretty OSD or small usability enhancements that go a long way like hitting the play button on a list to avoid having to drill down to start playing an episode/season.  There are also bugs with playing 23.976 content back with transcoded audio at the native refresh rate.  Major stutter caused by whatever algorithm that pauses the video to wait for the audio to play.

[ebr 14930]

ebr,

 

I have never read a book top to bottom then left to right.  Having a movie list grid as (we will see how this format ) :

 

A      Bc   Fa  === scroll ===  Gj  === scroll ===   Ma

Aa    Bd   Fb                          Gk  === scroll ===  Mb

Ab    E     Fc                          Gs  === scroll ===  Mc

Ba    Ef    Fd                          Hi   === scroll ===   Md

BB    Eg   Gi                          Ha   === scroll ===  Mz

 

 

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.

[raven-au 17]

I can use Kodi on the Shield to decode all HD audio formats to PCM and output that way.  I don't need atmos so it is equivalent to bitstreaming.

 

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.

Edited December 5, 2015 by raven-au

[raven-au 17]

Plex's grid are superior for me. 

 

Yeah, if it works for you then there's not much else to say, 

 

For me an example of one problem I have with the grid view used by Plex is that I (read family members) need to be able to look through all episodes of a season or show to decide which one I'd like to watch, a sort of random selection.

 

But a simple episode screen capture is usually not enough to work out what to watch so I need to select each episode, have a look, and either play or go back and try another. That is tedious.

 

There just doesn't appear to be enough free space in the Plex layout to display the sort of info. template I'd need for it to be useful.

 

I get that your asking for the addition of a layout selector but I wonder if that layout would suffer the same difficulties as the one in Plex and once it's added it must be supported and if the work needed to make it work well is significant, perhaps because it doesn't fit all that well with the underlying product UI libraries, then it becomes a time sink that takes away from other work that could be more productive.

 

Basically my point is that changes like this are very much related to how the application is designed and what it's long term goals are.

So convincing a developer to add or change something is not necessarily as simple as offering usability improvement descriptions.

 

The fact is a developer needs to always be wary of the support impact of changes they make, most especially those requested or contributed.