Jump to content

Paid app


kolbasz

Recommended Posts

kolbasz

Is the android app a paid app now? I ask because I know before it was free and now I am being prompted to pay in order to use it and wanted to confirm this was right.

 

I can open the app, but when I try to play media is when I am prompted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For new devices, yes, although it is free if you have Emby Premiere. Also any device that used it prior to a month ago will continue to have free access. The app needs to be able to support itself going forward. We hope you understand and thank you for your support.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

major_briggs

For new devices, yes, although it is free if you have Emby Premiere. Also any device that used it prior to a month ago will continue to have free access. The app needs to be able to support itself going forward. We hope you understand and thank you for your support.

 

Not just for new devices it looks like.  I had to wipe my phone last week, reinstalled the app and now I can't access my media.  I wouldn't mind paying for a premier membership but Emby has to mature quite a bit first.

Edited by major_briggs
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you totally wipe your phone it is, for all intents and purposes, a new device as far as we can tell.

 

You said you "can't access your media".  Do you really mean it won't play without restriction or can you actually not access anything?  Perhaps it is a different issue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

kolbasz

So, is this like plex pass type membership?

 

Also, is it once pay per android, meaning I can install on phones and tablets by buying the app once?

 

Worst case, I'll use plex to play media when my dB needs reset, that is the only reason this came about.

 

My kodi db was resetting, I wanted to use chromecast, but was prompted to pay. I usually don't stream, just enjoy emby to manage my media, etc.

Edited by kolbasz
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

major_briggs

If you totally wipe your phone it is, for all intents and purposes, a new device as far as we can tell.

 

You said you "can't access your media".  Do you really mean it won't play without restriction or can you actually not access anything?  Perhaps it is a different issue.

 

 

Sorry, I CAN access all my data.  It will just only play one minute of a given file.

Edited by major_briggs
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bert-KS

same here, wiped my phone and now it does play only for a minute. It states the app is free but what's a 'free' app worth when you cannot use it???

 

That is bad customer service. If this is your intention, you lost me and I'm going elsewhere. Emby is pretty good but this looks like a rip-off to me! Lot's of negative feedback in the Google Play store too. User's are not happy. That's not how you build a satisfied customer base...

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bert-KS

If you totally wipe your phone it is, for all intents and purposes, a new device as far as we can tell.

 

 

It's not a new phone at all, it's still the same, just the software has reset.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's not a new phone at all, it's still the same, just the software has reset.

 

I understand but, from a software perspective, there is no way to know that as the device presents itself as brand new.

 

If you previously paid for the app we have a process in place to get it back working for you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

major_briggs

I understand but, from a software perspective, there is no way to know that as the device presents itself as brand new.

 

If you previously paid for the app we have a process in place to get it back working for you.

 

 

I think the app maybe should have started off as paid so people would not have gotten use to it being free as in this case.  If I'm going to pay, I'd rather just pay for premium access and get the app for free than just the app.  The motivation for opting to pay more to be a premium member is to support you guys as I feel Emby is a little more grass roots than Plex.  But, as I said, I feel Emby has some maturing to do first.  There are a lot of features I would like to see, and not see, before I pay.

 

Question: Are there plans for any major revamps or does Emby feel like they are, for the most case, ready for prime time?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

kolbasz

Plex now did this too. I have a paid app, but now the app is free, if I want to use it, I need to email them to make it work.

 

A brutal model, especially if I am a person that resets their phone often. Let Google or Amazon handle my paid apps, that's what they do.

 

What is the pricing model for multiple devices?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Plex now did this too. I have a paid app, but now the app is free, if I want to use it, I need to email them to make it work.

 

A brutal model, especially if I am a person that resets their phone often. Let Google or Amazon handle my paid apps, that's what they do.

 

What is the pricing model for multiple devices?

 

Hi, you can unlock and it will apply to any device you have with the same play store account signed in. Same with amazon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

kolbasz

Hi, you can unlock and it will apply to any device you have with the same play store account signed in. Same with amazon.

OK, that's good to hear. Is that then retained in the future, in the event I re-install?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Latchmor

OK, that's good to hear. Is that then retained in the future, in the event I re-install?

 

 

...

 

If you previously paid for the app we have a process in place to get it back working for you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fallen Archangel

I feel really bad now. I've recommend Emby to many of my friends, and I've even set everything up for them and showed them how to use it and add media to their servers.

Tonight I went to listen to music before I go to sleep, and I can only play one minute. I expect my friends are going to be asking for my help soon.

This is the reason I left Plex, and I'm now considering Kodi. I don't know much about it, but maybe it will work better. I would probably pay to use Emby. But I didn't set up this server for myself, if I have the media I could just watch it on my PC.

I started the server so my mom, dad, brothers, and sisters could all enjoy it on their own devices. It's not worth $40 a month (The price it would cost for all of use having premier) to play my own content running on my own server.

For half that I could get a family plan from Amazon which would provide everything, as well as free up one of my computers.

I assume that I'm not the only person in this position.

Edited by Fallen Archangel
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I started the server so my mom, dad, brothers, and sisters could all enjoy it on their own devices. It's not worth $40 a month (The price it would cost for all of use having premier) to play my own content running on my own server.

 

Fortunately, that's not how Premiere works :).  Your premiere subscription is good for your local household.  So if your whole family uses your one server and it is premiere, then it is just the one subscription (assuming they all can be local to the server at some point).

 

Or, a single app purchase per account of

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fallen Archangel

Fortunately, that's not how Premiere works :). Your premiere subscription is good for your local household. So if your whole family uses your one server and it is premiere, then it is just the one subscription (assuming they all can be local to the server at some point).

 

Or, a single app purchase per account of < $5.

:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

andyuser

I understand but, from a software perspective, there is no way to know that as the device presents itself as brand new.

 

If you previously paid for the app we have a process in place to get it back working for you.

With android you can get UUID information from a phone. You should be able to tell the device is the same as a previously installed device. The user would have to allow permissions, however it is possible with Android.

I dislike that there was no communication about the change. I also feel the app is too young to be paid. I dont mind support, but prices are too high IMO. The software is great, but the app on android seems to lack cacheing, loading content takes awhile. If I pause a video for very long it starts over. The multiselect that was added in, is triggered on my phone accidentally often.

Over the last year especially, the android app has gotten SO much better. Its getting great, but deceptive practices like this will make some users, (myself included) turn away on principle. It may be stubborn, but I dont like marketing or being lied to. You're not lying, but I feel it is deceiving. Between my friends that run their own servers, one uses Plex, one owncloud and I run Emby. I like Emby a lot, and owncloud a lot (for different things for sure.)

One thing that is frustrating is, I can subscribe to a music streaming service and not have to purchase my own media (i currently use emby mostly for music on my android) where with emby I have already purchased the media, as well as have to purchase the ability to stream it. double whammy. :/

 

I hope a model comes out where there isn't s subscription. One of the main reasons I run my own services is because I have zero interest in paying monthly for services. I am likely a minority, also business.

 

Thanks for the hard work. I hope you are more forthcoming with any new changes you may be making. For reducing confusion if nothing else.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

With android you can get UUID information from a phone. You should be able to tell the device is the same as a previously installed device. The user would have to allow permissions, however it is possible with Android.

 

We were not willing to force that specific permission plus, it would have had to have been done on the previous app, not the new one.

 

As I said, there is a process in place to allow those who purchased before to be sure they still have access.

 

The only way we can continue to deliver all of the things that everyone is asking for is by getting financial compensation for the time and resources required.

 

We thank everyone for their support.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

andyuser

We were not willing to force that specific permission plus, it would have had to have been done on the previous app, not the new one.

 

As I said, there is a process in place to allow those who purchased before to be sure they still have access.

 

The only way we can continue to deliver all of the things that everyone is asking for is by getting financial compensation for the time and resources required.

 

We thank everyone for their support.

You do understand what a bait-and-switch is? I understand needing financial support. you can find many a research paper on how asking for help vs forcing it always yeilds better returns. By "buying" the app on google play, I have purchased it. If the price was free, I purchased a free app. Yes, you can change the free app, but the only way to force users to pay that have a free version is to turn the app into a framework that implements its own authorization system, turning a one time paid app into a subscription based app. I believe google supports subscriptions, I know they do for things like magazines at least. Eventually everyone will get a new phone, and will either jump ship, or pay to use the app. Or they'll use something like titanium backup to backup the app content from their old phone and push it to the new one.

Needing funding is great. But being dirty about it isn't. :(

Same goes for "from a software perspective, there is no way to know that as the device presents itself as brand new" which is not actually the case. Its a great technical excuse for a business decision, however you also easily could have released a version that fixed the technical issue, then released the version that required new accounts to pay. Symantics? maybe. But at least be truthful. I think. "It would have been technically possible to implement a system that allowed a clean wipe reinstall to remember you are an old user, however we decided not to go that route due to development costs and to better support the direction we are taking our business model."

I realize at this point i'm just bitching. I'll get off my soap box. Personally, using technical excuses for business or mgmt decisions bothers me a lot. I bet most it doesn't.

 

I love the speed improvements you've made to Chrome. The server encoding with better ffmpeg is awesome. The server side is getting rock solid. Browser streaming is getting better and better. I'm glad you are finding ways to keep on developing Emby and i'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and say, "you've lost a customer!" I've thought about purchasing a lifetime membership a few times. I don't find myself using the features it brings or missing them. I think the way I should be feeling about it is, do I feel it is worth supporting the devs. and screw the extra features. Yes I should. No I haven't. Yes, i feel this could have been done better (the android rollout) but it wasn't horrid.

 

So thanks again for all your hard work. And I hope the change pushes some people towards paying for the service. Maybe a family key or something is in the future. I'd hate to code it, but perhaps something that shares active connections so more of a session license rather than a device license, managed at a server / user level.

 

Anywho, For what it does, I think Emby is one of the best things going.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are things beyond our control. You probably don't know this but prior to 2014 the app was owned and maintained by a third party developer. After the app was transferred to us, we lost the ability to uniquely identify users who had paid for it with the previous developer. That's out of our control, nothing we can do about it. The best we can do is the manual unlock procedure using the "Already Paid?" button, which we have now. So the technical reasons are valid, and if there was a better way, there would be doing it. After it was transferred to us, we put in a full year of free development on it, working pretty tirelessly to improve it. Now the app needs to be able to support itself going forward, or there's just not going to be an app. As always we thank you and everyone else for your support.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeesh. I guess I'll be the first here to actually thank you guys for the work you do making Emby look good, work well, and easy to use? Anyway, I fully support an opensource, free product. I also don't mind paying a little for good service. IMHO the only reason I even have Plex is because their Android app has the super convenient pause/play feature on the lock screen. Once Emby has that for Chromecast use then I'll drop Plex entirely. For every other use I use Emby anyway. As a software engineer myself I know I could probably dig through some Java (not my language of choice) and help out making that a reality but I am quite busy with my family of 6 and over-full-time job :)

 

I also don't understand how people can compare this to Plex. Plex locks away a ton. I can't have a "Kid" account with parental controls on Plex without paying, I can do so for free with Emby. The description of the app also mentions the need:

"This app is free to browse your media collection and cast to other devices. Local playback on the device requires either a one-time in-app purchase, or an active Emby Premiere subscription. Prior to December 2014, this app was owned and sold by another developer. We are doing our best to automatically detect and honor your purchases made during that timeframe. If this does not work for you then please click the Restore Purchase button to open a support ticket with us and we'll resolve the issue immediately."

 

Anyway, thanks again guys for the awesome app!

 

 

Just bundle the whole thing up and charge once for everything or implement device licenses. This is all a mess.

So wait, they shouldn't allow you to stream it for free? I honestly never watch my videos on my phone/tablet. I strictly stream to Chromecast. I get that you might only fit one use case, but trust me when I say there are other people out there that have different needs. Just because they blocked what you do behind a very small 1 time charge doesn't mean everything is "behind a pay wall."

 

I can never understand how anybody can complain about free stuff, ever. It already amazes me that I can use Emby in such a refined state and not pay anything at all.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...