Sync Support

[rjay 21]

I appreciate the hard work Emby's developers are putting in to improving the software, and I'm sure that it is a lot of work to roll out a syncing feature across mobile platforms. I don't exactly mean to complain. But (and there's always a but, isn't there...), it would be helpful to have a sense as to Emby's planned timeline. When Luke says that Emby is currently working on a sync feature, is the plan to roll it out or beta it in 3 months? 6? 12? 24?  I'm not asking for a definitive "it will be done on/by X", we clearly aren't going to hold you to a date-things happen, but a general sense of your timeframe would be really helpful/useful.

 

This is actually a pretty good idea, like you said I don't think anyone is going to hold Dev to particular dates but a public Roadmap with a section for each of the the different App platforms would be great. Also a voting system for feature requests would also be advantageous in knowing the popularity of features. Again it wouldn't necessarily hold the Dev to a certain path for the app at all. The benefits of these might be reduced stress on the Dev as well as you wouldn't need to be putting out spot fire questions about features on the forums constantly and also it would give you an idea of the popularity of features and developing which ones is likely to attract the most new users to the app also.

 

Just a thought

 

thanks

Edited April 10, 2017 by rjay

[AndyBak 11]

Hi any updates on this one and the activity over the past couple of months?

[theriverlethe 0]

It would be nice if I could just run a single media server instead of needing a separate one for music.

[liquidox 0]

We are actively working on it now for all of the mobile platforms at the same time.

Any updates? We are 4 months into the future. Much coveted feature!

[AndyBak 11]

Any updates that can be shared with the community on the IOS progress made in the last six months of active development? Thanks

[simonk83 7]

While I enjoy Emby, and it works well for what it does, I do think the core team would do well to rethink their communication strategies (or lack thereof).   Like many here I'm sure, I'm a techy and a tinkerer and have my hands in a lot of different projects, and one thing that makes a huge difference to me (and many) is communication.   There are varying degrees of how projects handle this, but almost universally the teams/companies that are communicative and transparent get so much more goodwill and support than those on the other end of the spectrum.   I have a lot of Ubiquiti network gear in my place for example, and part of that is because the company is absolutely amazing at communicating with their customers.  They're super transparent on their forums, always posting roadmaps and constantly pushing out impressive iterative releases with extensive patch notes, prioritized by user demand.   On the other end of the spectrum you have companies like Samsung (for example, mostly their TV's) who will occasionally release an update for their products but never include patch notes and never communicate with their customers (granted they're a huge company with a lot going on, but it still leaves you feeling in the dark and wondering what they improved, or removed, with their latest patch).

Emby is closer to Samsung than Ubiquiti here.  They're pretty good with their releases and patch notes, but their communication and transparency is pretty far down the bottom end of the spectrum, as evidenced pretty well by this thread.   It's just frustrating for customers to be snubbed when asking perfectly valid questions.

 

I'm sure I'm not going to change any minds with this post as it's Luke's prerogative to communicate how he wants, and he's clearly wired to just work this way, but honestly I think he'd probably be surprised at the level of uptake if he got a bit more transparent.  We all know there are competing products in this space, Plex being the main one, (or a simple MySQL backend to your Kodi box), but it's features like Sync that bring people across.   I'm not sure if the Emby guys are worried about discussing their roadmap in case naughty Plex steals all their ideas, but honestly Emby or Plex is much of a muchness at the end of the day and a feature that may start on one will find its way to the other eventually anyway so I'm not sure development needs to be in such a vacuum.  

 

I'd suggest the majority of the randoms out there would gravitate towards Plex first anyway as it's just more well known at this point, so personally I think anything Emby can do to stand out (and that would be by giving excellent support and transparency) would only benefit them.   I know that if I was choosing between Emby or Plex, and one of them had really great customer relations and a well documented roadmap for the future, I'd definitely choose that one as the featureset is basically the same otherwise.

Edited June 29, 2017 by simonk83

[mediacowboy 438]

What is the plan for this? I do not understand the hold up on it. People have been asking for sync for years, myself included. I switched to andriod because the old app developed by another developer had it. Then he left the project in embys hands and they decided to start from scratch. This has been done time and time again. Third party developers try to improve emby by creating apps. Then somethings happens between third-party developers and the core developers. Third-party developers leave the code and emby scraps it.

 

I know you guys are busy and I love everything you do. It's just frustrating when other programs I use communicate better and even have scheduled release cycles.

[rjay 21]

While I enjoy Emby, and it works well for what it does, I do think the core team would do well to rethink their communication strategies (or lack thereof).   Like many here I'm sure, I'm a techy and a tinkerer and have my hands in a lot of different projects, and one thing that makes a huge difference to me (and many) is communication.   There are varying degrees of how projects handle this, but almost universally the teams/companies that are communicative and transparent get so much more goodwill and support than those on the other end of the spectrum.   I have a lot of Ubiquiti network gear in my place for example, and part of that is because the company is absolutely amazing at communicating with their customers.  They're super transparent on their forums, always posting roadmaps and constantly pushing out impressive iterative releases with extensive patch notes, prioritized by user demand.   On the other end of the spectrum you have companies like Samsung (for example, mostly their TV's) who will occasionally release an update for their products but never include patch notes and never communicate with their customers (granted they're a huge company with a lot going on, but it still leaves you feeling in the dark and wondering what they improved, or removed, with their latest patch).

Emby is closer to Samsung than Ubiquiti here.  They're pretty good with their releases and patch notes, but their communication and transparency is pretty far down the bottom end of the spectrum, as evidenced pretty well by this thread.   It's just frustrating for customers to be snubbed when asking perfectly valid questions.

 

I'm sure I'm not going to change any minds with this post as it's Luke's prerogative to communicate how he wants, and he's clearly wired to just work this way, but honestly I think he'd probably be surprised at the level of uptake if he got a bit more transparent.  We all know there are competing products in this space, Plex being the main one, (or a simple MySQL backend to your Kodi box), but it's features like Sync that bring people across.   I'm not sure if the Emby guys are worried about discussing their roadmap in case naughty Plex steals all their ideas, but honestly Emby or Plex is much of a muchness at the end of the day and a feature that may start on one will find its way to the other eventually anyway so I'm not sure development needs to be in such a vacuum.  

 

I'd suggest the majority of the randoms out there would gravitate towards Plex first anyway as it's just more well known at this point, so personally I think anything Emby can do to stand out (and that would be by giving excellent support and transparency) would only benefit them.   I know that if I was choosing between Emby or Plex, and one of them had really great customer relations and a well documented roadmap for the future, I'd definitely choose that one as the featureset is basically the same otherwise.

 

Accuracy of this post 11/10. You will see my posts on various topics throughout the Emby forum previously putting this same suggestion out there. Roadmap at the minimum and then user upvoting of features if you want buy in from users by prioritising the features they want. Doesn't mean Dev has to stick to the timeline perfectly or if he has different plans for the product he can prioritise features how he sees fit. Most of us are aware coding/testing/planning is a time consuming process and we are all grateful for the solid features, but also most of us can see that a Roadmap would greatly help transparency and definitely calm some of the constant spot fires on the forum regarding long awaited features.

[Vidman 589]

The Emby team is actually going the other way , less open and transparent , something to do with staying competitive in the market I remember reading once. 

[MadibaJ 20]

This lack of sync really annoys me annoys me they used to advertise it as coming soon. It's one of the reasons I forked out for emby over plex. I've really regretted it.

[Luke 37085]

We are actually working very hard on offline downloading, and there is regular feedback helping to evolve it in both the windows and android sections of the forum. iOS will get it's turn.

[AndyBak 11]

So no progress with the iOS support then (waiting it's turn)?

 

I understand the focus on Android with that holding the largest market share, but Windows above iOS?!? Isn't their market share something like 0.3% compared to around 19% for iOS.

 

Just get the impression that there are blockers that aren't being shared with the community; would rather we were told 'right it's not happening' or 'it won't be here for at least x years' rather than continued 'it's coming soon/in development' that keeps being stated over the last 2 years when probed. 

[rjay 21]

@@Luke thoughts on a central roadmap with sections for different OS and possible voting on feature requests in the future?

[aptalca 70]

So no progress with the iOS support then (waiting it's turn)?

 

I understand the focus on Android with that holding the largest market share, but Windows above iOS?!? Isn't their market share something like 0.3% compared to around 19% for iOS.

 

Just get the impression that there are blockers that aren't being shared with the community; would rather we were told 'right it's not happening' or 'it won't be here for at least x years' rather than continued 'it's coming soon/in development' that keeps being stated over the last 2 years when probed.

Windows version is not just for windows mobile. It works on desktop windows 10 as well, so its market is pretty big

[Luke 37085]

The community actually already has a voting system, many just don't realize it. Just go into a feature request topic and hit "like" on the first post. The vote count for that topic will be incremented and it is visible in the list of forum topics.

[rjay 21]

The community actually already has a voting system, many just don't realize it. Just go into a feature request topic and hit "like" on the first post. The vote count for that topic will be incremented and it is visible in the list of forum topics.

 

@@Luke Thanks, yep definitely looks like a fair few ppl are unaware of that being the official voting method as it hasn't been mentioned by any forum members any time previously when forum topics I follow have turned to the aforementioned suggestions of a voting system/communication methods. What was your thoughts on having an official road map side of things?

 

thanks for addressing these questions directly also

[AndyBak 11]

Thanks, I've found this applicable thread in the feature request section and liked/voted

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/39370-emby-mobile-offline-mode/?hl=ios#entry456322 

[AndyBak 11]

Hi, are there any updates that can be shared with the progress of offline syncing for iOS or where it stands in the priority list of things to tackle?

 

The continued need to convert all my media to an iTunes friendly format for syncing to devices is slowly making me consider moving away from Emby which is a shame as for everything else it's pretty much ideal.

 

Thanks.

[legallink 187]

While I have no idea as to the priority list of offline syncing, I don't think it will change the requirement of switching to an iTunes friendly format.  It is just whether Emby will do it for you or if you will do it in advance.  The iOS app, as far as I am aware, uses the native player and without the transcoding engine in the middle, you'll need to have the media in an iOs friendly format.

[Luke 37085]

We use the native iOS player, that's correct.

[Diedrich 355]

@@Luke, is there any work around, or beta available, that we could use in the interim?

Install VLC player and then side load your content over the cable from your computer. You will need iTunes. Go to the device in iTunes and then Apps and then find VLC. You will then see a button on the bottom right to add videos.

[MadibaJ 20]

I'm using infuse, if you're on the same wifi network it'll see your emby server. I sync the shows I need for the week that way.

[AndyBak 11]

Oh right, I was under the impression that the Emby client with sync support would allow me to just copy over mkv files etc and play them natively. So it would look like even with sync I'd still be in the same situation. 

 

Will investigate infuse.

Edited August 10, 2017 by AndyBak

[AndyBak 11]

Only taken a quick look at infuse but so far very impressed, if the emby client could do similar but with the familiar emby interface that would be awesome.

 

Especially like how it can also include the existing iTunes synced media into its interface.

[Dibbes 431]

Infuse is currently the main player over here for both iOS and ATV in my house, as the Emby-client is really nowhere near the performance quality in comparison.