What is your preferred Emby client? What Emby client is used the most on your server?

[PenkethBoy 2063]

@@Ian-Highlander

 

Do your TV cards not work with one of the Emby plugins - NextPVR etc - then they would work with Emby?

[Ian-Highlander 145]

@@PenkethBoy

 

Possibly, although then I'm in a bit of a rock/hard place situation lol. We did try ServerWMC and for the life of me I don't remember why we dropped it, but it was something that we couldn't live with at the time, I do remember that.

 

However, even if the Emby plugins work as we want, putting aside the reliance on third parties to maintain things for a mo, again preference would be for it to be native within Emby), I'm then back round to EMC doesn't have a TV interface, the Emby plugin won't integrate with the WMC interface and neither my wife (most importantly) or I like the Emby Theater interface at all (we've tried honestly).

 

I do a lot of web development and design for other people but never seem to have any spare time to do stuff for myself these days, however the option is still to try and skin Theater in a way that my wife and I can live with. This is very much a realistic option but one I just don't have the time for at the moment.

 

I'm aware my case is probably fairly unique also and I certainly would never expect the devs to change their plans for an individual user, I'm just expressing my opinion and thoughts here

 

I guess, my ideal situation would be native Emby support for internal PCI-E TV cards so I can stick all three of them in to my server in the loft that runs Emby (as all the tv/satellite connections are up there anyway) and for me to get off my arse and see what's involved in skinning Theater and see if I can come up with something that we like. Problem solved and everyone's a winner, but that's a lot of time both for the Emby devs and for me.

 

I do however feel that native support of internal TV cards is something that Emby should be looking into though, relying on one particular brand of network TV streaming device (not to mention the options available on HDHR in the UK is pretty pitiful) feels a bit short sighted to me, however it's not my product and the devs do an awesome job so I don't want to sound like I'm criticising them as such, again just an opinion.

[ebr 14913]

I do however feel that native support of internal TV cards is something that Emby should be looking into though, relying on one particular brand of network TV streaming device (not to mention the options available on HDHR in the UK is pretty pitiful) feels a bit short sighted to me, however it's not my product and the devs do an awesome job so I don't want to sound like I'm criticising them as such, again just an opinion.

 

We are.

[PenkethBoy 2063]

@@Ian-Highlander

 

Yes i understand your problem - i gave up on live TV and recording it even though i have a Homerun (which is sort of natively supported) and using a dual Hauppauge HD Tuner (usb) with NextPvr and its plugin.

 

Both Homerun and NextPvr leave a lot to be desired from a stability and usability standpoint which makes the TV guide in Emby appear with lots of blank info every other day - so i parked playing with them for now.

 

The quality was good when it works but it does not work regularly enough to persist with it.

 

I'm not sure where the faults are but will wait a while and try again to see if things have improved.

 

I suggested the NextPvr plugin as an option to try - your mileage may be better as different tech being used

[maegibbons 1267]

I really did not realise how popular Emby for Kodi was.  Must take a look.

 

Krs

 

Mark

[dcook 265]

I have heard of Kodi, but don't really understand what it does?  

 

Is it a plugin for Emby?  that does what? 

A replacement for what Emby?  

A skin to change the look of Emby?

 

If someone can explain what Kodi is and why they are using it?

 

I am using Emby out of the box so to speak, so maybe I am missing something great?

 

 

I really did not realise how popular Emby for Kodi was.  Must take a look.

 

Krs

 

Mark

[Latchmor 584]

I'm similar to Ian except I use HDHomeRuns. I just can't get away from EMC/WMC because it just works. I get my vertical scrolling in EMC and Live TV in WMC never misses a heartbeat for me. I am going to do a trial week with ET as my main Live TV/Recording app soon to see how it goes though.

[ebr 14913]

I really did not realise how popular Emby for Kodi was.  Must take a look.

 

Krs

 

Mark

 

Yes it is popular and great for a lot of applications.

 

However, you have to realize the bias that a poll like this inherently has.  Only people who are active in the forum and comfortable with it will ever respond to such a poll.  People who use systems like Kodi (or administer a server like ours) are much more likely to fall into that category.  People who use devices like Smart TVs and streaming boxes - much less so...

[Jdiesel 1114]

Kodi has been around for about 15 years and the UI hasn't changed much in the last 10 years so people are comfortable with it whether they installed and configured it themselves or were just a user in a home that used Kodi. People who have been exposed to Kodi are accustomed to it and seem to like it, not to mention people are resistant to change. My girlfriend, for example, is completely non-techy and knows nothing about home theater, media or computers but she prefers Kodi and hates it when I change the media playback software to anything but Kodi. 

 

I would suspect that the number of users who aren't the administrator of the server but decide on and configure the client are fairly small. My thoughts are that the Emby server administrator is also the same person in the house that purchases the home theater equipment and playback devices therefore they will purchase hardware they like to use. If they like Kodi there is a very good chance all other clients in the home run Kodi even if they are not the primary user, same goes for Roku, Android, WMC, etc. When there are multiple options in the home, the server admin is likely to setup the client they prefer, for example they prefer the smart TV app over the Xbox One and PS4 apps which are all connected to the same TV. The server admin's preference can influence users outside the home as well as other users tend to ask for advice on which device to purchase if they don't have one or which one to use if they have multiple devices capable of running an Emby Client.

 

My experiences may be different than others but as the server admin I have had some influence in what devices are connecting to my server in one way or another. I want the users on my server to have the best experience possible so I direct then towards using what I think is the best client available to them even if it means purchasing new hardware.

[Guest asrequested]

I'm an Emby lifer lol

[Spaceboy 2493]

Yes it is popular and great for a lot of applications.

 

However, you have to realize the bias that a poll like this inherently has. Only people who are active in the forum and comfortable with it will ever respond to such a poll. People who use systems like Kodi (or administer a server like ours) are much more likely to fall into that category. People who use devices like Smart TVs and streaming boxes - much less so...

And people using tapatalk can't even see the poll. I've been reading g this thread for a while, first time I realised here was a poll in it!

[overClocked! 63]

And people using tapatalk can't even see the poll. I've been reading g this thread for a while, first time I realised here was a poll in it!

This is a poll? LOL!! Ok. Web version time.

[Pelon 160]

I started to look into Kodi, when Media Browser 2 was a WMC plugin, and they functioned similarly. Then MB3 started and around the same time Windows 8 started the process of getting rid of WMC, so before the first ET, I started to look at a WMC replacement running on Windows (I still had the MB2 mentality of having both running in the same system). I remember back then that at first I thought that Kodi was very complicated, you had a Live TV and a TV section, then you has a Videos and a Movies section, it was very confusing at first trying to understand the differences.

 

For me, I like Kodi for a couple of reasons, I like the player, being able to skip in different increments pointing left or right, or easily change chapter by going up or down. Also since I have it running with direct access, I can access my media when Emby is down (restarting or doing an upgrade), plus if I'm playing a 3D movie, the interface changes to work with the 3D glasses.

 

These days I'm using the Android TV app more each day.

[aspdend 174]

@@Ian-Highlander I'm with you - I like Theatre, but the lack of themes and the live TV with my internal tuners (like you, I'm not prepared to buy HD Homeruns to give the same functionality) means we use Win7 and WMC - works perfectly.

[PrincessClevage 173]

We have Emby for media center on two different media pcs in the house.

 

I've tried Theater over and over again and keep going back to try it again to see if I can train mine and my wifes minds to accept it, but we both hate the interface as it stands at the moment and always go straight back to EMC (old dog, new tricks issue maybe).

 

I keep saying I'm going to have a go at building a theme for Theater at some point and see if I can make it more how we'd want it to look which might help but finding the time is another issue.

 

But apart from that one of the biggest show stoppers for us right now client wise is no support of internal PCI-E TV capture cards. Basically if you want to use the live TV/recording functionality within Emby you have to have HDHomeRuns. I don't want to buy HDHomeruns, I have perfectly good internal PCI-E TV cards that probably cost more originally, which are multi tuner each and work beautifully with WMC, everything our WMC machines record goes into a network share on our server and both machines have that as a library so we can watch any of our recorded TV on either machine just like you can with Emby. The WMC live TV interface is very hard to beat in my opinion but I don't currently have the option to try it without spending a chunk of money on new receivers that I don't want or need.

 

Give me the ability for Emby to manage my internal PCI-E cards and give me the functionality I get from WMC's live TV with them (I can easily slap them in the server if need be) and who knows.

i have PCI express hapauge tv tuner card (dual concurrent channels) runnin windows 10 using Ported WMC and Serverwmc and ET desktop and one xbox one with ET client and runs pretty smooth guide and all.

[Spaceboy 2493]

@@Ian-Highlander I'm with you - I like Theatre, but the lack of themes and the live TV with my internal tuners (like you, I'm not prepared to buy HD Homeruns to give the same functionality) means we use Win7 and WMC - works perfectly.

its not even equivalent functionality. There is no possibility to stream multiple channels from the same mux as far as I am aware with the hdhomerun with my tbs6984 which has 4 Dvbs2 inputs I can get almost unlimited concurrent streams

[Guest plexman]

Chromecast is missing!

[Jdiesel 1114]

Chromecast is missing!

 

Ah yes, forgot about the Chromecast. I've added it to the lists.

[Jdiesel 1114]

Does anyone have any opinions on the Xbox One for Emby? I'm thinking of getting one for Bluray playback, light gaming, and Netflix all in a single device. Does it do refresh rate switching and bit-stream HD audio? What about supported formats? Can I expect it to direct play most things?

[gjviii 48]

After seeing some of the statistics released by the Kodi for Emby developers it made me curious as to what client apps everyone prefers to use. Feel free to comment on why it is your preferred app if you have experience with multiple apps.

 

Edit: I added a second question as I realized that on my server the client that I enjoy the most is actually not the most used client. It would be interesting to see if there is difference between what the server admin prefers versus what the users are using. 

@jdiesel 

maybe a silly question, but how are you monitoring what devices are hitting your server? 

[Jdiesel 1114]

@jdiesel 

maybe a silly question, but how are you monitoring what devices are hitting your server? 

 

I was referring to this post by the Kodi for Emby Devs which I assume is using the plugins internal metrics logging.

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/43547-emby4kodi-addon-usage-metrics/?hl=stats

 

I though I would get a poll going to get a feel for the overall Emby ecosystem. I'm sure the Emby Dev's are collecting this data themselves and maybe they will share it someday but for now this informal poll is a start. 

 

As far as seeing who is connecting to your server and with what device there is not really a good option at the moment. I hope that eventually the Statistics plugin @@reggi is working on will include this metric much like how PlexPy does for Plex.

 

Edited April 6, 2017 by Jdiesel

[schmitty 61]

I use ET on Xbox One, and when that's playing up, I revert to the web app in Chome on my Win10 media server (Emby Server), which is connected to the HDMI in on the XBone.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[pir8radio 1292]

@jdiesel 

maybe a silly question, but how are you monitoring what devices are hitting your server? 

You can use nginx as a reverse proxy, then analyze the nginx logs using weblogexpert   a few of the results below.

 

 

I was referring to this post by the Kodi for Emby Devs which I assume is using the plugins internal metrics logging.

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/43547-emby4kodi-addon-usage-metrics/?hl=stats

 

I though I would get a poll going to get a feel for the overall Emby ecosystem. I'm sure the Emby Dev's are collecting this data themselves and maybe they will share it someday but for now this informal poll is a start. 

 

As far as seeing who is connecting to your server and with what device there is not really a good option at the moment. I hope that eventually the Statistics plugin @@reggi is working on will include this metric much like how PlexPy does for Plex.

 

 

 

Emby Clients used:

 

 

 

 

Per-user Emby Device stats:

 

Edited April 19, 2017 by pir8radio

[Jdiesel 1114]

Quite a few changes in the last few months, new Roku client has made it out of beta, Android TV client has had a refresh, complete refresh of ET, plus lots of work done on other clients. Anyone want to change their vote? I know I have. 

[mastrmind11 717]

yep, changed mine as well.