Poll- Which Emby Client do you WANT (or use most)??

[CBers 6771]

So really what I "WANT" is a set top box that direct plays all videos and HD audio (if the video contains it). Does that even exist yet? Maybe the new Fire TV or the new Nvidia Shield, if not I'm sure there will be something....... eventually????

 

Whatever the solution, I believe it is much more likely to come in the form of a set top box than an HTPC.

Emby for Kodi on a Nexus Player?

[legallink 187]

I"m surprised the votes for Roku are so low given the large amount of installs.  Maybe this is aspirational vs actual?  And reality is, this season's holiday product releases (including Apple tvOS) are most likely going to change peoples unit preferences given their low cost.

[Luke 37071]

remember these are just votes from the community, which will lean more to the enhusiast side. think about all of the people who just install the software from the app stores and never visit here. they represent the largest demographic of our user base now.

[MSattler 387]

remember these are just votes from the community, which will lean more to the enhusiast side. think about all of the people who just install the software from the app stores and never visit here. they represent the largest demographic of our user base now.

 

Exactly.  Between my family I have about 10 users.  For 4 of us, in my home we use Kodi/Emby.  The remainder when remote use Roku, FireTV Stock, Android Client <mobile phone>, or a Browser.

 

One of the biggest reasons I use Emby is the variety of access points we have, and it shows among my family user base. 

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

I"m surprised the votes for Roku are so low given the large amount of installs.  Maybe this is aspirational vs actual?  And reality is, this season's holiday product releases (including Apple tvOS) are most likely going to change peoples unit preferences given their low cost.

 

It is also a poll on what client you want most. Roku already works for the most part. My family uses it and likes it. I want something more.

[Tharnax 49]

For me this exists in a ChromeBox, or any J1900 intel box, running OpenElec/Kodi, and Emby Sync.  It get's me TrueHD/DTS-HD, and apparently it can even do 4k 30hz, although I have yet to try it.

 

TrueHD audio output on android settop's seems to be hit or miss.  

 

I've read about OpenElec quite a bit here but I'm not familiar with it, so can't reference ease of use.  Also, your's is the first post I've read about a ChromeBox or J1900 intel box.  Price wise it appears the around the same cost as a Intel NUC device. 

 

Emby for Kodi on a Nexus Player?

 

It does TrueHD audio output?   I know through Emby for Kodi it is possible to pass through DTS and Dolby Digital but True HD (Dolby Digital Plus, DTS HD, Dolby Atmos)?  I haven't been able to find a link to verify audio pass-through support.

[MSattler 387]

I've read about OpenElec quite a bit here but I'm not familiar with it, so can't reference ease of use. Also, your's is the first post I've read about a ChromeBox or J1900 intel box. Price wise it appears the around the same cost as a Intel NUC device.

 

 

 

It does TrueHD audio output? I know through Emby for Kodi it is possible to pass through DTS and Dolby Digital but True HD (Dolby Digital Plus, DTS HD, Dolby Atmos)? I haven't been able to find a link to verify audio pass-through support.

OpenElec is a linux distro thats pruned down to the essentials and boots right into Kodi. Upon every kodi release there is an open elec update which can be applied by uploading the update tgz file to the machines update folder and rebooting. Total ease of use and limited issues with the OS. It just works, and the only device non windows that has given me TrueHD audio.

 

On the j1900 boxes and chrome boxes you can get TrueHD audio. To me these boxes are much cheaper than NUC's as I have been able to find these boxes for $140-200.

Edited September 23, 2015 by MSattler

[Vidman 589]

For me it depends on where I'm at in the house. In my theater I have a 120 inch screen with 11.2 surround, I want something that can do HD audio and direct play all formats. I currently use kodi with the plugin but it has it's quirks sometimes and I can't wait for the emby theater app.

 

In my living room I've tried several things, rokus, fire tv, etc and ended up going with a small zbox atom setup running kodi. it's only a 3.1 setup so hd audio isn't important.

 

In my daughters room we have an android box that is set to boot to kodi, it's simple, and having only stereo speakers hd audio also doesn't matter.

That doesn't sound like it depends.... You are using kodi in every example;)

[Jdiesel 1114]

I picked Emby Theater in the poll but at the moment am using the Kodi plugin as it is the only current option for a true full featured HTPC frontend.

 

I also use the Kodi plugin on my Android devices instead of the Emby Android software.

Edited September 23, 2015 by Jdiesel

[Xzener 729]

Been a while since I tried Openelec/Kodi... Giving another go.

[pritch33 5]

Voted for Emby classic (WMC) although I am running it on the windows 10 and so far so good. but I am waiting to see how the new Emby theater goes. Did use theater for a bit but a little flakey, but for most parts was not to bad but not having the live tv and recording was a major downside.  

[wolf359 6]

[Emaster 10]

Voted for Emby Theater.

Using Emby for Kodi in my raspberry and in my HTPC. Will not change my setup in my raspberry but willing to change to Emby Theater in my HTPC as it becomes available.

Also using Emby for Android in my smartphone and tablet.

[Deathsquirrel 741]

The app I'm most interested in is an xbox one client.  The one I use most now is theater.

[PurposelyCryptic 31]

I switched to MBT sometime early/mid last year after a forced rebuild of my machine when my boot drive and mother board decided to simultaneously up and die on me. Was still using MB2 before that (had been for years, didn't feel like upgrading).

 

Moved to MBC a little over a month ago due to a few continuing annoyances in MBT that were slowly driving me nuts: 

• MBT's insistence on transcoding certain files despite it being on the same machine as MBS (Usually with either older anime with OGG audio, or newer BluRay rips with FLAC), which caused my little 3.1GHz i3 to sputter to a halt. Disabling transcoding simply gave an error message saying the media could not be played.
• The integration of codecs into MBT itself, which made changing settings and troubleshooting a major pain.

This, combined with my long-term frustration at not being able to move through the library by typing a series' name (which is unbelievably helpful when you have 1000+ entries and want one specific show), and the inability to adjust the 'skip forward' function to anything other than 10 seconds, finally pushed me to make the move. MBC may not be as shiny, and has its own annoyances (GameBrowser setup is a major pain, compared to both MBT and MB2), but is a much more reliable daily driver.

 

That being said, I greatly look forward to the upcoming relaunch of MBT, as with these issues addressed there would be no contest as to what I'd use. I do hope it will be more open though in terms of configuration, customization, etc, like MB2/MBC, where XML files gave easy access.

[RedBaron164 18]

Roku app for me. I'm in the process of transitioning from WMC. I've using MediaBrowser with WMC for years ever since v2. But with MS officially giving up on WMC combined with running into a catastrophic guide failure recently I've decided to jump into something else. I'm in what I hope are the final phases of testing out Emby with a Media Portal backend. Currently the client I use the most is the Roku app so I can stream live/recorded TV shows to several rooms in my house. The new Theater app sounds good and when it comes out I will try it out and see how it compares to Media Portal's interface but I my family currently uses the Roku's extensively and would use that app the most.

[DruTheFu 9]

iOS for viewing on my iPhone...at work

[z0mbi 76]

I use emby for Kodi the most, as it is installed as an appliance front end on my dedicated HTPC, as well as installed on each of my three other PC's. However, I voted for Emby Theater as I wish I didn't have to run a program as complex as Kodi just to watch a movie on my PC while I'm playing a game or working. I also just pre-ordered a SurfacePro4, and again, would rather not have to deal with Kodi on that device if I don't have to.

 

But I also have a strong interest in emby for Windows Phone as I will be moving from iOS to Windows Phone next month.

 

So between actively watching media, watching media while working, and watching media while on the go, I rank Kodi, embyTheater, and WindowsPhone in that priority/useage

[Vidman 589]

I use emby for Kodi the most, as it is installed as an appliance front end on my dedicated HTPC, as well as installed on each of my three other PC's. However, I voted for Emby Theater as I wish I didn't have to run a program as complex as Kodi just to watch a movie on my PC while I'm playing a game or working. I also just pre-ordered a SurfacePro4, and again, would rather not have to deal with Kodi on that device if I don't have to.

 

But I also have a strong interest in emby for Windows Phone as I will be moving from iOS to Windows Phone next month.

 

So between actively watching media, watching media while working, and watching media while on the go, I rank Kodi, embyTheater, and WindowsPhone in that priority/useage

you could use the win10 store app on the surface pro

[Cerothen 89]

In looking at it I would actually like to see a native Linux application for emby something that will run on arm/x86/amd64 and also can be launched from the command line/startup script into the interface.

 

Also a bonus would be to also support being a dlna renderer would be nifty

[z0mbi 76]

you could use the win10 store app on the surface pro

 

If you're talking about the 7Illusions app, I think that's the one that I like the interface but I don't like the player, It transcodes too much. I'll definitely give it another shot, though. I've also got the smartplayer installed, but I think I had the same problem with that one, transcoding all the time. I'd rather not make my server do overtime when I'm watching from a full-blown PC and on my local network.

 

There's so many apps for emby sometimes it gets confusing, lol.

[Vidman 589]

What OS did you try it on? I believe it direct plays alot more on win 10 than win 8.1

[KarterJK 35]

I don't get it....

 

What is the purpose of running EMBY through Kodi?  To me it seems EMBY does pretty much everything Kodi does, or am I missing something?

[pmac 132]

I don't get it....

 

What is the purpose of running EMBY through Kodi?  To me it seems EMBY does pretty much everything Kodi does, or am I missing something?

It's because Emby has such a solid backend. Great server management, and metadata fetching, etc. It's the simplest and most feature rich tool for organizing your media. Plugging it into Kodi gives people a lot of the benefits of using Emby, with an interface that they're used to (Kodi)

 

Personally, I'd stick with one of the native Emby apps, but some people like Kodi's interface, but want the media management capabilities that comes with Emby

[Vidman 589]

I don't get it....

 

What is the purpose of running EMBY through Kodi? To me it seems EMBY does pretty much everything Kodi does, or am I missing something?

Try running multiple copies of kodi with multiple users and keeping everything in sync between them all