Theme: blue neon night

[speechles 1929]

1) Hi, I'm very new to the Blue Neon Night Theme, less than an a couple hours actually, but already I find it much more usable than the default Emby player for Roku. My sincere thanks for all the hard work developing this fork. I really only have one small issue/request/suggestion...

 

2) Is it possible to use Poster view instead of backdrop on the home screen? I know within the TV library there is the 'Change View Style' option, which is great for those who don't like Poster view, but I don't see anything like this for the home screen. Mainly, I want this because it has the extremely useful 'Latest' category which is where I will spend most of my time. I loathe being stuck with Backdrops (seriously, I hate them!) and would very much like an option to use Posters here. If it's not possible or too difficult to implement, then how about an 'Episodes' category added within the TV Library?

 

3) To me, the 'Shows' category in the TV library is next to useless for everyday use. I'm not saying it doesn't have a use, just not a daily use. There just isn't any truly useful way to sort it so that it works identical to the 'Latest' category. Much more useful would be an Episodes category, ideally able to be sorted in various ways, but particularly useful would be sorted by the date the ep was added to the library. So, essentially the same thing as Latest on the home screen. Only in the TV library we would have the Poster view option which I feel is vastly more recognizable and space saving... in other words, I get to see more releases per line/page and recognize each one quicker, making for a better user experience, imo. But if you find any value in the suggestion, please don't limit it to some small number like 30! ...100 minimum, I think, infinite would be ideal. Many is the time I wish I could just flip back through the episodes a few weeks (a few hundred eps) and find some show I can't recall the name of, that I kept meaning to watch... but with the Emby Roku players, there is NO WAY TO DO THIS! This can be done on the server... but there I am also stuck with Backdrops instead of Posters, even though I have Poster view selected! No idea why that is. Thanks for hearing me out, I know I sometimes have a tendency to digress a bit. Cheers, and thanks again for all your efforts.

1) Thanks for the interest. Yes, feature requests are welcome. At least until the end of 2017, at that point the SDK1 will no longer be able to upload app updates. So for the 2018 year, the app will continue to work, but I will not be able to update it. In 2019, the SDK1 will be removed from roku firmware and at that point this app, and any others using SDK1 will be uninstalled by the firmware update. This is beyond my control and unfortunate, but it is what it is. Out of our control and something we can't change.

 

2) On the homescreen, it is using gridstyle, into this grid it then loads thumbnails. The problem is, when viewing as poster on the homescreen you lose titles and descriptions. You must enable the popup info bubble to have information displayed when in poster view. The issue on the homescreen are several icons designed to be used in thumbnail view. Every Icon in the "Options and Quickviews" row is stored in the app as either a JPG or PNG in thumb format. It is quite easy to change it to poster view with some quick changes, but unfortunately this means using "scale-to-fill" which stretches all the images out of shape. This looks funky as you can see below. I am still working on seeing if this can look better. So this may make it in the next update possibly.

 

 

3) Instead of using the "TV Library" and it's toggle to change it to the latest tab, you can use the two latest views below. Use "By Date Added" if you want them sorted as they were added to your library. Use "By Premiere Date" if you want them sorted according to how they were released to the general public. These latest views will sort descending. So the newest of each is the first item you should see in each row. Also added a cool new setting in the options for the next update. The Episode Max, this will let you adjust how many episodes show up in each of the latest views.

 

 

 

Also here is a teaser of the new HUD display. This should make it super obvious why the app is transcoding. Looks good right?

 

 

 

 

 

I should have a new release ready by tomorrow that includes all this new stuff. This probably will not include "poster view" homescreen yet. There are still issues doing it, such as the horrible way it has to stretch images to make them appear in portrait rather than thumbnail. Not stretching them makes them appear too small and oddly sized. Stay tuned...

Edited August 17, 2017 by speechles

[speechles 1929]

 

 

@@speechles

 

So help understand this.

 

Synology 216play, Roku Ultra, Bule Neon

Roku Ultra connected to network via wifi 5GHz band.

 

My Local quality in Blue Neon is set at 70 mbps. I thought this was a MAX setting.

 

When I pull up your hud while playing a file I am sometimes well above 70 mbps playback measured.

The measured value on the OSD/HUD/overlay is actually the peak transfer rate. This can read incorrectly because it is very susceptible to reading burst rates, and not actual throughput.

 

I put the value there so that when users experience issues like stuttering video that repeatedly buffers you have a way to see immediately if your burst rate is high enough. As long as your measured rate is over the media bitrate you are golden.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[mikeraburn 60]

Are you done sailing the high "seas" for awhile?

 

I sent some pictures of the surrounding mountains here in Anchorage to a friend of mine in Redding this morning.

Made him jealous to see the new snow we received overnight while ya'll still boil down there.

 

There is a tv show, I hear, on HBO that has a catch phrase that describes this occurrence.

Winter is Coming.

[speechles 1929]

Are you done sailing the high "seas" for awhile?

 

I sent some pictures of the surrounding mountains here in Anchorage to a friend of mine in Redding this morning.

Made him jealous to see the new snow we received overnight while ya'll still boil down there.

 

There is a tv show, I hear, on HBO that has a catch phrase that describes this occurrence.

Winter is Coming.

 

The seas, yeah, done sailing those. Primarily I am sailing on blue lakes in California, as in yesterday was last time. My parents have a house right by the lake, makes this possible. Me and my kids set sail on that lake with the hobie 14, all the time, along with kayaks, canoes, and paddleboards. The prindle 18 we use primarily on bigger lakes with lots of wind since it can carry more than 2 people. Also have a hobie 16 that my son uses on clearlake in California. The hobie 14 is rigged light so anyone can sail it. The other 2 require some knowledge to sail.

 

https://goo.gl/maps/6G2oe1NjJ6G2

 

We went camping at lake mendocino and took the prindle 18 camping with us. Thats what caused my absense for a bit. Not really the sailing in and of itself.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/contrib/114002271962291080230/photos/@39.1419765,-123.2081156,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m3!8m2!3m1!1e1?hl=en-US

 

The above is a link to all my google map photos.

Edited August 17, 2017 by speechles

[mikeraburn 60]

Looks "horrible"!

[speechles 1929]

New Version: v4.18
* add context menu to homescreen
* add verbose transcode info to osd
* add episode max to preferences
* add more episode support to latest views

Got support for the context menu on the homescreen now. This was requested so here it is. Press * on the homescreen and now "Change View Style". On the next dialog, choose "Image Type" and use thumb. This will return it to normal. The app will default to an image type of poster on the homescreen until you change this. When in poster view, the popup info bubble will always appear. When in thumb view, the popup info bubble will never appear. This happens regardless of how you set the info popup on the homescreen in the context menu. This is by design.

The OSD now has the ability to tell you why something is transcoding. It will also show if a stream is being copied, and if the item is using directstream or transcoding. This was made possible by recent changes to the server core which allow apps to see this information in the transcoded items json object.

Now you can change the limit of episodes show on the two latest views, both the "date added" and "premiere date". In options, find the preference "episode max" and raise that to a ridiculously high numner. Now you have the freedom to scroll back as far as you want into the past and catch anything you might have missed, or want to watch again.

As always, with any new version changes may inherit mistakes. Any issues please make them know in this thread. updated all links in first post. Have fun.

[mediacowboy 438]

I applaud you @@speechles. Even though you know your channel is on life support you continue to add more and more features.

[chattojimnow 9]

Awesome Mate. AWESOME

[vaise 307]

While Blue neon night was great, and feature rick, i have converted to the new Roku app (future proofing myself).  two of the kids seem stuck in their ways and keep using blue neon night even though I say 'one day it will stop working so you may aswell get with the program ahead of time'.  

 

One thing I keep having to flip back to blue neon night from the new roku emby beta is the force transcode option.  Every now and again I get a media file that is 'choppy' on playback (sound is fine but picture jumps), I guess due to its encoding or something.  Its not often, just every now and again.  

 

Emby server or the roku 3's think they can direct play it, but they cant.  My only option is to either re-encode it, find another sourse, or jump into blue neon night and tell it to force transcode.

 

I really hope that feature makes it into the emby beta or when it dies, it will be a bit of a pain for me.

[MBUser1 0]

Thanks for the reply and quick work on the feature request, Speechless. Bad news about the phasing out of SDK1. Will it remain possible to sideload the app and still use it on the Roku devices? I hate that there is no way in the settings to stop Roku from accessing our devices. Since by far the main use here for our Roku devices is EMBY, I'd consider possibly keeping them all on a separate non-internet connected network. So worst case scenario, I could sideload whatever the latest version is, and set up a non-internet connected LAN to preserve our EMBY use. [-paragraph break-]

 

At the time of my previous post I hadn't yet discovered the, Options and Quick Views: Latest (by date added). Thanks for pointing it out! It is exactly what I wanted and the newly added Episodes Max option just makes it ideal. So I'm even more enthused about this great fork than I was yesterday, as it now suits my needs perfectly. [-paragraph break-]

 

I do have an issue I discovered last night... all our Roku devices using BNN connect to the server and their respective profiles just fine, except one, a TCL Roku TV (Roku 5132X, TCL Model 32S3750-W, s/w 7.7.0 build 4117-08). The rest are all various Roku 3 units. The Roku TV connects fine using the official EMBY player still, but although it sees the server & profiles fine, Blue Neon Nights fails to log in to any profile I attempt. I get the message, 'Authentication Error! Invalid Username or Password' every time, whether I manually input the profile names with a password or pin, or use the profile icons with a password or pin. I tried resetting and re-entering passwords/pins at the server, rebooting the server, rebooting the Roku TV (removed/reinserted power), but it still rejects both the password and the pin. All this troubleshooting applies to both Emby servers, 3.2.26 and 3.2.27, and this latest BNN update, as well as the previous BNN version. Any ideas? TIA!

[MBUser1 0]

I forgot to add, each time I attempt to log in using BNN on the RokuTV, in the server's Recent Activity, I see "[Profile] successfully Authenticated" Every profile I use, the server says authentication successful, but the opposite actually happens on the RokuTV screen, I'm booted back out to the Profiles screen.

[speechles 1929]

@@MBUser1 the tcl TV uses weird characters in their device name. This causes issue because emby expects plain text. There is a work around to replace bad characters with underscores, but that creates other problems.

 

The easiest way to fix it is log into:

Http://my.roku.com

 

Once logged in scroll to the bottom and rename the TCL tv.

 

 

Once youve renamed the device, go to system update on that device and update. The name change _should_ take effect immediately. Not sure on rokuTV if its immediate, I know on pure roku devices it is. If it isnt immediate it should rename within 24 hours. You can also rename the device inside the app, but that does no good if you cant get into the app that far. Apologies for the issue.

Edited August 19, 2017 by speechles

[MBUser1 0]

Thanks Speechles. I'll give it a shot later this afternoon. I forgot to mention how great the home screen looks now that it's in poster view. Very nice, IMO. I came over from PLEX to EMBY a couple months ago. Had been using PLEX for a few years I guess. Because of the official EMBY Roku player I contemplated going back to PLEX more than a couple times. At times I just use the Roku Media Player instead of the Emby player because I disliked it so much. BNN to me is far superior to the official app and I really think they could learn a lot from it's layout and offered features. IMO, it should be the official app because by comparison theirs looks and feels unpolished & incomplete. I love this latest version of BNN. Thanks again.

[mikeraburn 60]

I am stuck in Blue Neon too.

 

I would love to see the FORCE options also. Direct and Transcode.

 

I also just like the "look" of Blue Neon.

The official app looks too "busy" for me for some reason.

It's not that the official app is not usable and works great, but for me it's the look.

 

If I ever put my finger on what that means, I will share it with ebr and all.

 

While Blue neon night was great, and feature rick, i have converted to the new Roku app (future proofing myself).  two of the kids seem stuck in their ways and keep using blue neon night even though I say 'one day it will stop working so you may aswell get with the program ahead of time'.  

 

One thing I keep having to flip back to blue neon night from the new roku emby beta is the force transcode option.  Every now and again I get a media file that is 'choppy' on playback (sound is fine but picture jumps), I guess due to its encoding or something.  Its not often, just every now and again.  

 

Emby server or the roku 3's think they can direct play it, but they cant.  My only option is to either re-encode it, find another sourse, or jump into blue neon night and tell it to force transcode.

 

I really hope that feature makes it into the emby beta or when it dies, it will be a bit of a pain for me.

[chattojimnow 9]

Is the reason the official app advance not being able to be sideloaded a roku requirement or a future proofing effort?

 

As once this ends so does my emby experience on my device

[mediacowboy 438]

Is the reason the official app advance not being able to be sideloaded a roku requirement or a future proofing effort?

 

As once this ends so does my emby experience on my device

Blue Neon isn't being phased out by emby or Speechles but by Roku. They are pushing their new SDK and Blue neon isn't compatible.

[speechles 1929]

Yeah, the issue is with roku. They have drawn a line in the sand. Apps using SDK1 can continue issuing updates until 2018. So after 2018, the app will still work. It is just any major server changes that affect endpoints the app uses could break. After 2018, these breaking changes cannot be fixed. The app will continue to work until 2019. So you still have alot of life left in the app. I am not saying emby will purposefully go out of their way to break the app once it is 2018 and the app is unmaintainable. But any major changes that happen, could break many things in the present app. I dont expect changes to break the app since emby server is quite robust and mature now. Api endpoint changes should be few and far between. Any api endpoint changes have to be fixed in every emby app, so these types of changes are rare.

 

Now as far as why isnt emby releasing a sideloadable version of their present official app is pretty obvious. This is a competitive marketplace where emby exists. That makes it a problem keeping everything open. Some assets need to be closed off, and only certain individuals now have access to them. The emby project has grown into a business and business dictates what action to take. You cant make money, and give away at the same time. That model is not sustainable. So the zip to sideload of the official emby app, can reveal the entire source to a user. That user can take some of the code and port it to their app. Their app can take leaps and bounds overnight by in effect "stealing". You can understand why they have a reluctance to share now.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Edited August 20, 2017 by speechles

[mikeraburn 60]

I blame Zuckerberg and Bezos. (why not)

[MBUser1 0]

speechles on 19 August 2017 - 07:54 AM, said:

 

@MBUser1 the tcl TV uses weird characters in their device name. This causes issue because emby expects plain text. There is a work around to replace bad characters with underscores, but that creates other problems.

 

The easiest way to fix it is log into:

Http://my.roku.com

 

Once logged in scroll to the bottom and rename the TCL tv.

Worked perfectly! Took a a little while to go through, simply doing a system update after making the change wasn't enough, but when I checked back a few hours later it was good to go. Odd that only BNN had an issue with the default TCL RokuTV name, while the official Emby Roku client had none. Anyway, no biggie, thanks again, speechles!

[speechles 1929]

@@MBUser1 The official emby app used the underscore replacer for things before it went full public. The problem with blue neon is, if I replace characters in the friendly device name after your device.json has been created, that change could lock you out of the app. The sha1 sum of things will no longer match the auth token for the user.

 

Say for example, you used the app years ago and never an issue. Then suddenly it wont let you login and throws an error. This would happen to old users, instead of new users, if I were to change this midstream.

 

So rather than affect old users of the app and potentially cause problems for them, it will instead only cause problems for new users with devices that use funky characters in their device names.

 

The official app like I said adopted this when I mentioned it was a problem awhile ago. The app at that time had a very small subset of users unlikely to be affected. The issue I had was the blue neon app already had a big audience and disrupting them hurts more than disrupting new users. So for me adding the replacer is past the point of no return. It cant be added now without causing issues for an unknown amount of present users.

 

Also, I will have a new release tomorrow to clean up some bugs. This also hopefully fixes quite a few things that rely on async calls. I found a major issue with how they were handled in the app where ridiculously low timeouts are used. Ive increased these 5 fold now and have yet to experience an issue with timeouts again. This may also solve the problem some users have with liveTV not working for them in the app. We will find out tomorrow.. stay tuned.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Edited August 21, 2017 by speechles

[speechles 1929]

New Version: v4.19
* fix async timeouts by raise them by 5x
* fix music player bugs
* fix context menu "go to" options

Fixed the AsyncGetToString() issues which caused problems with broken responses. This affected cast&crew for sure, when selecting an actor/artist image it was a game if the request would crash the app or not. There were also other functions this affected. This is because of how low the timeouts were on this request. It was 1 second. If that failed, it tries 4 more times using 2 second timeouts. I've now upped this to a minimum 5 second timeout first time, if that fails the next 4 use 10 second timeouts. @@dboyer This should fix the issue with liveTV, hopefully *fingers crossed*

There were issues with the music player not advancing the play position pointer when using the music screen. This was caused by changes to the now playing screen. So changed a few things to both the now playing screen and music player screen will play nice together again.

The new context menu on the homescreen had useless "go to ..." buttons that would simply flash back to the homescreen. I've addressed this and made them actually work as intended. This also allowed me to find other context-menu screens with broken functions that would crash the app. Now if an option cant be done, it will simply do nothing instead of crashing.

Updated all links in first post. Have fun. Any issues point em out. Use the force (when applicaple) and may it be with you, always.

Edited August 23, 2017 by speechles

[Happy2Play 8351]

Not sure if it just a beta server issue, but could you fix /item/tatest+grouped images?

[speechles 1929]

Not sure if it just a beta server issue, but could you fix /item/tatest+grouped images?

Yeah, snap.. that was caused by me allowing the homescreen to be both poster and thumb, while letting the user choose which to show. I was using a "hack" to allow latest grouping, and that hack required only thumbnail images. The "hack" is basically, "EnableImageTypes: Thumb,Backdrop". You can see the problem this causes with poster view, since the primary image is required for poster view with a series viewed as grouped episodes. Otherwise its going to do the wrong thing. Show a blank placeholder, stretch images to fit, etc. Things it should only do as a last resort, not a first.

 

Ive corrected the problem with both poster and thumb set to the homescreen. This is hack free this time. Both screens are now consistent with each other. I dont have at the moment to package and upload, but I will have this time later tonight. Stay tuned...

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Edited August 23, 2017 by speechles

[mikeraburn 60]

I have my movies sorted as latest, at the main screen, and did not see any issues.

Not sure if that is the same issue that Happy2play is talking about. 

 

I am not using posters either. 

[Happy2Play 8351]

I have my movies sorted as latest, at the main screen, and did not see any issues.

Not sure if that is the same issue that Happy2play is talking about. 

 

I am not using posters either. 

 

You have to change your preference setting to /item/tatest+grouped, and it applies to grouping Latest TV episodes when there is more then one for a series

Edited August 23, 2017 by Happy2Play