Emby Development Path

[Vidman 589]

Railguns and volcanos, lol!

 

As a "former" dev and project manager I see the server as the central "core" of Emby. The core needs to be rock solid, and then the clients can be finalized. I also believe that if Emby focuses on the server and lets 3rd parties develop clients, that we would have some really good stuff going on. Emby's team would be able to focus on the core, instead of being spread across so many things. By adding features and support to the core, it allows the clients to have better functionality. Other devs will create clients for other platforms, and we may see multiple clients in iOS and Android. But, this shouldn't hurt Emby... Emby should BENEFIT from it.

Emby's Premiere service is tied to the server, NOT THE CLIENTS. The clients can log in, and will have access to premiere options, but they are handled at the server level. So, again... Emby should focus on the server, and let others focus on the clients. As the server becomes more solid, and good clients are readily available, Emby will see an increase in premiere subscriptions. Win-Win-Win all around.

 

 

Some Suggestions for Server

 

User Permissions - Actually this has gotten a lot better, so I'm putting this here just to give the devs props

 

Device Settings - Currently you can rename the device, and allow syncing of camera images. The ability to set preferred audio/video rates per device, not only makes sense, but adds HUGE value. Currently this is done in the client, but it makes more sense to set at the server level. This allows the server admin (not a clueless device user) to set the max rates so that someone on a 720p tablet isn't trying to stream a 20GB HD video at 100mb across a 3G connection. A "device wizard" would be great. Can select device type (tablet, cell, tv box, pc, etc), which would default to certain settings (with the option to change of course), etc.

 

Direct Play (aka Pass Through) - Ability to play a file directly without any transcoding. This is HUGE for the home theater folks. If I have a nice 1080p encode with 7.1 audio, I want it to go directly to my A/V receiver. Transcoding is a waste of CPU cycles on the server, and degrades the audio/video quality. This is when the device settings com in handy

 

Transcode Once - Option to save files that are transcoded so that it doesn't need to be transcoded again if played by the same device. Great for movies, great for road trips where a movie might be started, and then finished days later. Also great if you have multiple devices with the same audio/video setup. Again, ability to set device settings is good for this as well.

Ios and android originally had paid 3rd party clients that were abandoned by the original devs which inevitably has users complaining to the emby team about something emby had no control over and did hurt emby by giving emby a bad name.... I would not call that a benefit or a win win win

 

And as already mentioned emby will direct play when possible if it doesn't it's either a bug or user/configuration error

 

Folder/cloud sync is a feature that saves pretranscoded videos for reuse

Edited April 2, 2016 by Vidman

[Lawrage 13]

Direct Play (aka Pass Through) - Ability to play a file directly without any transcoding.  This is HUGE for the home theater folks.  If I have a nice 1080p encode with 7.1 audio, I want it to go directly to my A/V receiver.  Transcoding is a waste of CPU cycles on the server, and degrades the audio/video quality.  This is when the device settings com in handy

 

@@Dizzy49 not sure what issue you are having with this but have this working with no issue.

[Tranquil 93]

Transcoding is only done when it is necessary and it also handel the video and audio steam different. If only one steam is supported by the client, for eg just video and not audio, only the audio data is transcoded and the initial video stream is untouched.

 

Transcoding can also be necessary to reduce bandwith, so make sure there is enough. (Hardwired ethernet should be enough for most cases)

 

Are you using DLNA to stream to your AVR? When "yes", you are able to edit the DLNA profile for your AVR and tell Emby, that your AVR is capable of playing the content without transcoding.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Tranquil

[CBers 6771]

Ios and android originally had paid 3rd party clients that were abandoned by the original devs

The original Android dev didn't abandon the app, but handed it over to Luke and Eric.

 

Not sure about the iOS dev though.

[Vidman 589]

So what do you call it when a developer stops supporting their software?

[CBers 6771]

So what do you call it when a developer stops supporting their software?

Handover.

[Vidman 589]

...so tiamat was handed over too?

 

 

To be clear for a handover to happen by definition the originator must leave or abandon something for the next person to take it over

Anyway it amounts to the same

Edited April 5, 2016 by Vidman

[CBers 6771]

No, but then Tiamat was never publicly released.

[Deathsquirrel 741]

So what do you call it when a developer stops supporting their software?

 

That depends entirely on what they then DO with the software.  Could be total abandonment, could be they release it as open source and say 'good luck', could be they sell or hand it over to another active dev team.

[dcrdev 251]

This is a really good idea. I will work on this next week.

 

Any update on this?

[Vidman 589]

That depends entirely on what they then DO with the software. Could be total abandonment, could be they release it as open source and say 'good luck', could be they sell or hand it over to another active dev team.

My point was about the original developers , not what happened after they stopped.

You are added extra context and taking issue with my choice of using the word abandoned

 

 

give up completely (a practice or a course of action).

 

"he had clearly abandoned all pretence of trying to succeed"

 

synonyms:renounce, relinquish, dispense with, forswear, disclaim, disown, disavow,discard, wash one's hands of; More

 

give up, drop, do away with, jettison;

 

informalditch, scrap, scrub, axe, junk

 

"the party has abandoned policies which made it unelectable"

 

give up, stop, cease, drop, forgo, desist from, have done with, abjure, abstain from, discontinue, break off, refrain from, set/lay aside;

 

informalcut out, kick, jack in, pack in, quit

 

"by that stage, she had abandoned painting"

 

antonyms:keep, claim, continue, take up

 

discontinue (a scheduled event) before completion.

 

"fans invaded the pitch and the match was abandoned"

 

 

In my opinion it is appropriate

Edited April 13, 2016 by Vidman

[ebr 14925]

Any update on this?

 

App Status

[b0dyr0ck2006 57]

App Status

 

Its a start EBR, but it is only one app. As mentioned this should be uniform and across all apps. A blog post would be better as suggested as just another post on the forum will be overlooked.

[xnappo 1593]

I don't think you guys are really talking about Emby for Kodi, but our status is best tracked on Trello:

https://trello.com/b/qBJ49ka4/emby-for-kodi

[b0dyr0ck2006 57]

Bumpy bump @@ebr

[dcrdev 251]

I'd like to bump this thread - 

 

Again Emby server is a great product - but the communication is rubbish, what was promised here in terms of communicating some sort of roadmap has completely fallen on it's side.

 

Not to drudge up old points here but we're now another half year on and no sight of iOS sync, new features or anything really apart from the app breaking in some fashion every other week; now I appreciate all software will have bugs no matter how much testing is carried out, but the essential things such as playback and navigation should at least work. Now I know I didn't exactly pay a fortune for the app, but I would have expected some modicum of commitment to fixing advertised features other than just "it's being looked at" which you can guarantee is the answer to your question before you've asked it. I am ofcourse currently referring to being able to play music continuously as oppose to one track at a time.

 

It annoys me that as far as what you communicate to users all of your efforts are concentrated on delivering new platform after platform as oppose to ironing out the issues with the plethora of existing platforms. This doesn't extend to the Kodi team who are doing a brilliant job of working with end users to deliver something rock solid.

 

Now yes I could just go elsewhere - but I've bought into the ecosystem now and to be honest I don't want to I just want better communication; I'd really like to invest more financially in the project in the future but at the moment I just feel like it'll get thrown in my face. 

[denz 426]

I see that emby supports tizen and so many bugs are still not being fixed that is a biggest disappointed so far.

 

Some are in emby theater like the date is in USA format and I am in Australia.

 

Still no 24 hour clock and can't cancel recordings in theater. It doesnt inform you that you don't have enough tuners etc.

 

I record a series and it recommends a movie and so many others. Lucikly WMC works perfectly.

[dcook 265]

Its been discussed before, and I will mention again, I think all future features and new client apps should be put on hold until the majority of the reported issues and bugs are fixed in the server and existing client apps such as IOS.

[Deathsquirrel 741]

Its been discussed before, and I will mention again, I think all future features and new client apps should be put on hold until the majority of the reported issues and bugs are fixed in the server and existing client apps such as IOS.

 

If you've worked in or with software development the two go hand in hand.  It almost never makes sense to cut off all effort on one or the other.

[dcrdev 251]

If you've worked in or with software development the two go hand in hand.  It almost never makes sense to cut off all effort on one or the other.

 

That is true and I have worked in software development - but usually as  part of a commercial development there are adequate resource plans to ensure that the requirements of a project level development are met; that does not appear to be the case here.

 

In terms of the weekly iOS breakages etc.. there's semblance of any kind of testing plan, uat plan or otherwise.

 

Why don't you atleast implement some kind of bugtracker - I have absolutely no idea why some of the development for the apps was taken offline where as before it was on Github. It would make a lot more sense instead of all this informal rubbish.

Edited August 28, 2016 by dcrdev