Offline Viewing?

[Dizzy49 94]

Possible dumb question, but can Emby be used offline (ie on a boat or plane) to view the synced videos?

[Vidman 589]

Not ATM but hopefully very soon

So for now you can use emby to sync content and use another media player app such as vlc or mxplayer to browse to the sync folder and play the media when you are offline

Edited September 30, 2015 by Vidman

[Dizzy49 94]

Luckily I synced it to the same place her other videos are, so that will work.

 

Yeah, offline mode would be great.  Sync up at the airport then watch content on the plane

[Luke 37011]

@@Dizzy49

@@Vidman

 

2.9.32 is rolling out and supports offline browsing and playback. The feature is still very new so please make sure to leave your feedback and we will continue to improve it. Thanks !

[Dizzy49 94]

Thank you so much for this feature, it will be one that is used quite often in our household  I will review from my two main devices, my Pixel XL 128GB, and my LG GPad 8.3 (VK815).  Sorry, I use "click" and "tap" interchangably in my feedback.

 

Pixel XL

 

Video Selection

• Browsed my collection and selected 3 videos to download.
• I selected Original quality.
• The videos were downloaded after a short time.
• Clicking the cog under My Downloads gives you a list of files and their status
• I did see a notification, but no other indication on the server or anything of the file downloading or transfering

     Feedback: Selecting the videos was fairly straight forward and intuitive.  Downloading was simple though, I'd like to see it on the server, so I could cancel if my son was trying to download a 16GB video remotely (or some other reason).

 

Search & Playback

• I now have a "My Downloads" section
• "My Downloads" populates initially with "Latest Downloaded Videos"
• Latest Downloaded Videos isn't refreshed until re-login (or other event).  It is not updated upon new file being downloaded/completed.
• Tapping on the My Downloads expands that section.  You have Latest Downloaded Videos at the top, and servers at the bottom with "video buckets" such as TV and Movie.  Tapping on the bucket will present you with the videos from that server that fall into that bucket.
• One of my videos starts with about 10 sec of black screen, so the screen cap used is blank and it is difficult to see that it is there.  Additionally, with the My Downloads expanded, the two videos on the top row have titles, but the one on the second row is missing/cut off or something.  From the look of the other two, it appears as if the title is missing.  (See screenshot below)
• I have two TV shows downloaded.  They are the same show, and consecutive episodes.  When one episode completed, it played the next.  That was nice.
• It did not mark the episode watched in the My Downloads or in the TV Show area.
• When I browse to the show in the TV Shows area I have to tap the ( i ) to view the episode info, why isn't the title tappable?
• The only indication that the episode is downloaded is with the "Downloaded" link on the episode detail page
• Playing the episode from the TV Show area plays it from the server, not the device.
• Could not seem to "Mark Watched" for the downloaded videos.  When I clicked it, the icon would turn red, but appear to be greyed out as well. (See screenshot).  If I exited to the My Downloads, and went back into the video, it was white again.
• I wanted to test to see if I marked it watched in My Downloads if it would mark the episode watched in the TV Shows area. 
• Clicking the show title, or season in the video detail page of the My Downloads section gives a loading circle and doesn't do anything.

     Feedback: Playback works!  BUT, only when played back via My Downloads.  Doesn't mark watched automatically.  I should be able to watch a downloaded video from the video's detail page (ie tv show section).  IMO the app should automatically play from the device if it has been downloaded, but at the very least, it should have an icon or something to allow playback from the episode detail screen.  It should mark watched automatically in both the Downloads and the tv show page.  This is particularly useful when you only want episodes downloaded that are unwatched (more on this when I review from my tablet).

 

File Deletion

• Click the cog in My Downloads, click the trash can, confirm.  Couldn't be any easier.
• Can also delete from the TV show area by clicking the "Downloaded" link in the video detail page.  Select to Keep or Delete, and confirm.
• Video is removed from the UI, but not immediately removed from storage, however, it is removed within a minute or two.
• My Downloads on the Home page is not updated when a file is deleted.
• Note: Removed a tv show, and the movie was moved to the first line of the Latest Downloaded Videos, and it was still missing the title.

     Feedback: Video deletion is pretty straight forward, and quick.

 

 

OVERALL FEEDBACK:

 

Functionality wise, it works, and is a great addition!  Some refresh issues, and some browing/continuity issues, but no showstoppers!

 

 

 

Screenshot showing that the 3rd video downloaded that appears on the second line is missing the title.

 

 

 

 

Screenshot showing the "Mark Watched" is checked, but appears greyed out at the same time, when you tap it.

 

[Dizzy49 94]

Quick Addition:

 

I downloaded two more movies to test the display issue, and all 3 of them are blank and missing titles when you go into the My Downloads area.  It's impossible to determine what video to play.

[Dizzy49 94]

LG GPad 8.3 (VK815)

 

Video Selection

• Browsed TV shows and selected to download an entire show (12 episodes), in Original quality.  It will exceed the available space on my device.
• When video/season/series is selected to download, you are presented with an option to select quality: Original, High, Medium, Low, Custom.  Custom allows you to enter a Bitrate, but no detailed info is given on the others.
• Browsing/Selecting is the exact same experience as on the Pixel.

     Feedback: Experience is the same as on the Pixel, which is good.  I assumed it would be, but you never know  My only complaint (and I hesitate to even use that word) is that I would like to know the details for the Qualities, and/or even better yet, how the original quality compares to them.  Ie, if Original quality isn't as good as High, then I don't want to waste the cycles to convert it.  For some videos I actually want a smaller size, so would High give me a smaller size and retain good quality?  Or would Medium give me better results?  Here are my real world examples.  I have some OLD (ripped from my VHS tapes) Care Bears episodes.  They are MKV and propably way overkill.  A Low would probably yield similar quality results as the original video due to the source.  I have some new episodes from DVDs where medium would probably give me similar results and a smaller file, but I'm curious how Low would look.  That's just me being the number cruncher that I am, and trying to optimize the limited amount of space on devices (particularly now that they are removing SD slots!)

 

Search & Playback

 

• The refresh issue of the My Downloads on the Home page is the same
• Again, user experience is pretty much the same.  I did run into an odd issue.
• When I go into My Downloads the Latest Downloaded Videos displays 9 videos (the remaining 3 would not fit due to storage being full).  They are displayed 2 to a row, and 5 rows.  The 5th row has a single video, and only shows the top half of the video icon due to screen size.  However, I cannot scroll down at all.  I cannot scroll to see the video, or to see if the Servers are listed at the bottom of the section.  The tablet is not locked or anything, I can play any of the videos on the page.  Turning the table horizontal gives me a 3x3 grid with half the 3rd row cut off, but still unable to scroll.

     Feedback: Pretty much the same experience as on my Pixel (which is good) except for the odd scroll issue in the My Downloads section.

 

File Deletion

• When I click on the cog for My Downloads from the Home page, I see the Series listed, and that its 75% done.  I cannot delete individual episodes or seasons from this area.  You have to click on the 3 dots and select 'Edit', which gives you a list of episodes which can be deleted.
• Selecting the ( - ) gives you the "Keep Download" and "Remove Download" options I'd expect.
• Selecting Remove Download gives the video a status of "Cancelled" and changes the icon to ( ! ).  Clicking the ( ! ) gives you the same Keep or Remove options, which is confusing as I thought I had already removed the download.
• The file was not removed nearly as quickly as on the Pixel.  I waited several minutes and the video was still in the My Downloads area.  After about 5 minutes, I fired off the sync processes on the server.  I still did not see any changes.  I ran upstairs and changed into my PJs (about 5 minutes), and when I returned the video had been removed, and the next video in line had been downloaded.
• With the video removed, if you edit the Series in the My Downloads the episode still displays "Cancelled" and the ( ! ) still gives the confusing messages
• While I am glad that the next video started once space had freed up, I'm not happy with the deletion process for this use case.  It's still confusing.
• On the Pixel the deletion wasn't immediate, but it was still done in a timely manner.  I'd guess that the deletion process on the Pixel caused a process on the server to queue and fire off.  Is seems as though the use case I used for the tablet was not similarly optimized.
• I have the option selected to only download unwatched episodes.  I wanted to see if when I watched an episode if it was queued up to remove automatically.    In my use case, ideally I'd watch a video, it would be marked watched, and then removed, which would then allow another episode to be downloaded automatically.

     Feedback: It looks as though the downloading of series/seasons need the deletion process tweaked.  Additionally, need to confirm my use case that would allow a user to constantly view and download files to their device in an ongoing cycle.

 

 

OVERALL FEEDBACK:  Similar experience to the Pixel.  I use actual use cases for several common scenarios that we've tried to implement in my household.  I will test a few other things on the GPad, but the deletion process and marking videos read is a must fix.

[Luke 37011]

@@Dizzy49 Thanks for the feedback ! I'm looking into all of these.

[Dizzy49 94]

@Luke Thanks!  Hopefully I provided some good info.  You clearly spent some good time on the feature, so I thought I should put some good time into checking it out and providing meaningful feedback

[maegibbons 1267]

@@Dizzy49.  Well done on some very well presented feedback!!

 

Krs

 

Mark

[geotux 4]

This sounds cool and was what I have been wanting for a while as I do a lot of commuting on the train. I have 2.9.6.1 installed. I can view from within the app? How do you achieve this?

[Luke 37011]

Yes just use the download features inside the app. Then check out the my downloads section.

[geotux 4]

Guys, I tried this on the train today and even with my iron age Moto G2, this rocks quite nicely. I was wondering whether once you have seen an episode on the phone off-line (after having downloaded), shouldn't the app tell the server "hey, this guy has watched episode X of film Y" and tick it as watched automatically instead of me having to tick it as watched? If not present, it would be a nice feature to have so that you can seamlessly watch content across all devices and have the server keep track of what has been watched and what not. I logged into the server tonight via the phone and it did not mark the episode as "watched" when I connected to Emby from my PC.

 

Some kind of syncing must be happening as I just noticed in the browser from the desktop that from the list of "Downloads", the episode that I watched and deleted from the phone is not shown under "Downloads" anymore.

 

Cheers

Antonio

Edited October 9, 2017 by geotux

[Luke 37011]

Currently you would have to manually mark it watched once you reconnect to the server. the windows app handles this automatically though and we just need to get it into android as well. thanks.