Music Improvements

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

We also need to be able to share playlists with other users on Emby. The share command is nice but doesn't allow you to create a playlist on one user and share it with other users. That seems more useful than sharing to twitter or pinterest.

[Tremas 156]

This is almost like the same boring and unusable interface we have now. Remote playback is nice but this interface provides no usable way to create and manage playlists. The developers need to be looking at dedicated music players to bring an interface that is usable with music. We shouldn't be using the same interface for music that we use for videos or live television.

 

I agree that there must be a viable way to create and manage playlists (emby is a database with tons of rich data after all). However, this can be an additive feature and the playback experience should still be visually pleasing. I believe that the music playback experience should use an interface that is as close to music and video as possible. That's just consistent UX and better for the WAF. Playlist creation and managment can be separate

 

I don't think I've ever seen an effective 10-foot solution for creating playlists. You can do some basic filtering and sorting with a 6 button remote, but beyond that is very cumbersome. However, if we can get a view in the web app that allows this type of UI, it would be possible to do all of the creation and management with a mouse and keyboard (the best tools for this job) and the just use emby theater (or other emby apps) for music playback. I'm talking about something like the metadata manager - it's not a tool you would use with your remote, but it is invaluable with a mouse and keyboard (and one of the biggest feature differentiators for the software).

[Guest asrequested]

What I want most of all, is a separate music playing 'engine'. It's own codecs and playback settings. All LAV does is decode, and nothing else. There needs to be much more control over the output. Music listening has a much higher standard than video playback. The music play should align itself with that.

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

I don't think I've ever seen an effective 10-foot solution for creating playlists. You can do some basic filtering and sorting with a 6 button remote, but beyond that is very cumbersome. However, if we can get a view in the web app that allows this type of UI, it would be possible to do all of the creation and management with a mouse and keyboard (the best tools for this job) and the just use emby theater (or other emby apps) for music playback. I'm talking about something like the metadata manager - it's not a tool you would use with your remote, but it is invaluable with a mouse and keyboard (and one of the biggest feature differentiators for the software).

 

Some of us don't use remotes at all . Even if I used Emby Theater on a television, I don't, it would be with a keyboard and trackpad. Emby Theater has three modes; Television (10 Foot), Tablet, and Desktop. The same interface isn't necessary for all three. To ignore the Desktop mode in favor of Television just ends up pissing customers off. Might as well just remove it and tell people that you're not going to support playback on laptops and desktop computers. However, for the majority of people under 30, this is exactly how they watch television and movies today. With a laptop or small desktop.

 

Eventually, Emby Theater will replace the current web app anyway. At least I believe that is the plan. I certainly dread that day at this time.

Edited January 7, 2017 by Koleckai Silvestri

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

The Neon version of Microsoft Groove (probably available later this year) looks nice and modern. Emby could pull some queue from it.

 

[BloodyIron 24]

Uh there's plenty of us who use a phone/tablet to send instructions to a Chromecast too. So, that should be taken into account too.

 

 

 

Some of us don't use remotes at all . Even if I used Emby Theater on a television, I don't, it would be with a keyboard and trackpad. Emby Theater has three modes; Television (10 Foot), Tablet, and Desktop. The same interface isn't necessary for all three. To ignore the Desktop mode in favor of Television just ends up pissing customers off. Might as well just remove it and tell people that you're not going to support playback on laptops and desktop computers. However, for the majority of people under 30, this is exactly how they watch television and movies today. With a laptop or small desktop.

 

Eventually, Emby Theater will replace the current web app anyway. At least I believe that is the plan. I certainly dread that day at this time.

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

Uh there's plenty of us who use a phone/tablet to send instructions to a Chromecast too. So, that should be taken into account too.

 

You're right. That is why Emby Theater has a "Tablet" Mode.

[BloodyIron 24]

I'm still learning the distinction between Theater and the other features, the pages that describe them leave me with more questions than when I entered

 

 

You're right. That is why Emby Theater has a "Tablet" Mode.

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

Emby Theater is a cross-platform client. It is currently available on Windows, Linux, XBOX One, PS4, and the web.

[ginjaninja 569]

one more for consideration

 

Add Album Type to Emby Album Schema..and client views...or as a starting point segregate album artist albums from complication albums....and add sort studio albums in chronological order

Edited January 10, 2017 by ginjaninja

[Tremas 156]

Some of us don't use remotes at all . Even if I used Emby Theater on a television, I don't, it would be with a keyboard and trackpad. Emby Theater has three modes; Television (10 Foot), Tablet, and Desktop. The same interface isn't necessary for all three. To ignore the Desktop mode in favor of Television just ends up pissing customers off. Might as well just remove it and tell people that you're not going to support playback on laptops and desktop computers. However, for the majority of people under 30, this is exactly how they watch television and movies today. With a laptop or small desktop.

 

Eventually, Emby Theater will replace the current web app anyway. At least I believe that is the plan. I certainly dread that day at this time.

Right. It can be additive. Don't throw away or drastically change the 10 foot interface. Instead, add an effective mouse and keyboard interface because that's how playlist management works best.

 

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[nwcatalyst 4]

Just want to voice my support for upgrading the music experience on Emby. With how lame Android sync was functioning, now on iOS (phone broke) without sync at all, and really poor playlist management, I am feeling that I need to explore other options. Subsonic seems to be where I'm headed, despite my intention to have it all handled in one service.

I really like the suggestions on this thread. Devs - hope you are listening!

[Luke 38500]

Some of the improvements are beginning to happen. You can now drag and drop saved playlist items using the drag handles. You'll also notice the quick add to playlist buttons next to individual songs.

 

These additions will be coming to the now playing queue as well.

[skuuup 24]

Just want to voice my support for upgrading the music experience on Emby. With how lame Android sync was functioning, now on iOS (phone broke) without sync at all, and really poor playlist management, I am feeling that I need to explore other options. Subsonic seems to be where I'm headed, despite my intention to have it all handled in one service.

 

I really like the suggestions on this thread. Devs - hope you are listening!

 

Yeah I switched to Subsonic a couple months ago and haven't looked back since. Highly recommended

[BloodyIron 24]

I have been using Subsonic for years, however with the last major version they moved to closed source, and haven't actually added much of anything in the last year+ or since the release of the major version.

 

The developer for Subsonic has really turned their back on the community. Many feature requests have gone ignored for literally years.

 

I'm going to be switching away from Subsonic when Emby meets my music needs, and I'm quite unhappy with Subsonic's future and current state.

[skuuup 24]

I certainly agree that Subsonic feels pretty 2008..but really there is nothing better ATM if you want your own "music cloud" unfortunately.

 

The dev going closed source was certainly upsetting to hear. I did try the still-open source "Libresonic" alternative, but that seemed to be under even slower development with even less features, so I switched back.

 

Really, it's all about the DSub app for android. Thankfully Subsonic has a pretty good API and the developer for this app really picked up the slack with features on mobile. If it wasn't for this app I wouldn't be using it.

[BloodyIron 24]

dsub is awesome, I use it all the time, that is until the fab emby devs get the "needful" done

 

It sounds like they are! Luke sure seems to be keeping us appraised

[arrbee99 1645]

In my humble opinion, the main thing to be added is importing playlists. The only reason I still use WMP is cos I'm too lazy to recreate it in Emby.. Mentioned before I know. Just trying a little positive reinforcement.

[Luke 38500]

I would like to soon add m3u playlist support which shouldn't be hard.

[nwcatalyst 4]

Thanks Luke and all. M3U is big for me as well.

 

I'd also like to voice support for subsonic API so we gain access to clients. The web and app interfaces are pretty responsive for me with my video library but function much more slowly with my music. It would be fun to try an Emby back end with MusicBee and dSub.

 

Oh, and tho its not directly related, iOS offline sync

 

 

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[BloodyIron 24]

dsub is awesome for music, but it's pretty lackluster for video playback. I found the web interface for Emby to be way better, it's also faster than dsub to connect to my chromecast and start playing! (yes, even for music)

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

Music Playback should have the option to link a Youtube video and use that for playback if linked.

 

Also here is a video of the UWP Spoticast app. The interface shows some nice features.

[skuuup 24]

Thanks Luke and all. M3U is big for me as well.

 

I'd also like to voice support for subsonic API so we gain access to clients. The web and app interfaces are pretty responsive for me with my video library but function much more slowly with my music. It would be fun to try an Emby back end with MusicBee and dSub.

 

Oh, and tho its not directly related, iOS offline sync

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Yeah--open up the API & let the community help some of the dev work!

 

dsub is awesome for music, but it's pretty lackluster for video playback. I found the web interface for Emby to be way better, it's also faster than dsub to connect to my chromecast and start playing! (yes, even for music)

 

Can't say I've even tried the video support for Subsonic. Wouldn't even dare lol. Thanks for sharing

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

If the server has music videos, those should be linked to the music and play in their stead. (Could already do this, I don't have any music videos.)

[Tremas 156]

Thanks for the updates Luke. Glad to know progress is being made, and it is much appreciated. Like others, I'm really looking foward to the m3u playlists - that's a big one!

 

Just a bit of feedback about the quick add to playlist buttons: they are not present in every view.

1. Click on "More" songs from a selected Artist's Page
2. Click on "More" songs from selected Genre's Page
3. Within Playlists
4. Folder list view of tracks

Most of those aren't frequently used, but I just wanted to make sure it was reported.

 

The quick playlist buttons are nice, and as we continue forward with some of the ideas discussed here I would suggest that a quick "add to queue" button would be a more useful replacement. If a user were able to add a song to the current queue with one click, then the prompt to select a specific playlist is not required. A user would also need to be able to view the current queue and save that queue as a playlist. This would streamline things considerably.

 

That said, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, the ability to multi-select several tracks at once and send them to a playlist from a filtered songs list (or album or artist view) would be most helpful. 

 

Keep up the good work.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Tremas