Consistent TV user experience

[Bobba86 31]

Didn't really know where to post this so have dropped it in feature requests.

 

I love Emby and gave been using it for several years now, the Server and the server management is Top, and in my opinion smashes what plex offers.

But where Plex does rule is on a more standardised tv interface across apps and Devices.

 

I love the look of Emby Theatre, and https://TV.emby.media the layout used on these is beautiful and easy to use.

What I would like to see is that all TV apps could follow a consistent look and feel. Specifically the Android tv app and maybe even a Kodi skin developed which looks and feels close to the experience of Emby Theatre.

 

I understand why there are differences between the TV apps and the usage of them, different developers different priorities/opinions etc. But Emby Home Theatre feels nice and I would like this interface on all my TV devices.

. OSMC / Raspbmc / Kodi

. PS4

. Windows

. Amazon Fire TV

Edited November 30, 2016 by Bobba86

[ebr 14924]

Actually, the reason those other TV interfaces are different is that they are utilizing the interface paradigm of their actual devices.

 

I think what you are going to see is more consistency across these platforms and also Theater making some moves more in the direction of the other apps.  But, also, we are working to bring the current Theater interface to more platforms as well so it will be a kind of convergence.

 

There are two lines of thought here:

 

1) Keeping a consistent UI across all platforms - this works well for something like Netflix and they did this a few years ago.  Now, when you use Netflix, you get pretty much the exact same interface no matter what the device.  When you are as big as Netflix I think this paradigm works really well.

 

2) Keeping a UI that is consistent with the platform on which it is running - this is more of the tack we have taken so far but most of these devices are starting to come around to have very similar designs so the same thing is happening with our apps too.  The Android TV, Apple TV and new Roku interface we are working on now all share a very similar layout and design.  Luckily, this also fits well with the layout and design of the platforms upon which they run.  The thinking about staying with the UI of the device is so that a novice user who just found your app already knows how to use it because it looks and works just like the other apps they have on that device.  This works well when you aren't so big and the app is how people are discovering your existence .

 

So, in short, I think we are starting to get more consistency and you will see this evident in all the TV apps moving forward.