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Feature Request - Allow screensaver during pause


adam1010

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adam1010

Android TV

 

I have a photo screensaver that comes up after 5min of inactivity. The screensaver comes up fine when Emby is left on a non-playback screen (such as the home screen or item details screen).

 

However, if a TV show is paused, the screensaver NEVER comes on. (If you have the auto-logoff feature enabled then that will eventually allow the screensaver to appear, but setting that to the lowest option of 30min would be pretty annoying)

 

This is necessary because 1) I like seeing my screensaver and I often leave playback paused   2) in order for my TV to auto power-off after an hour it needs Emby to report that it's idle

 

I see two possible solutions:

1) After X minutes (maybe default to 10 but provide a setting), Emby will report that it's idle so that the screensaver can appear.  Playback will not end so that closing the screensaver allows easy resuming.

 

2) Exit playback automatically after X minutes. If the screensaver is set to 5min then it would appear after X + 5 minutes automatically. (This is less ideal than #1 for several reasons, but if it's significantly easier then it's probably good enough)

Edited by adam1010
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This is problematic.  People with Live TV like to pause to build up a buffer and, if we allow the screen saver to kick in, our app will be paused and we will have to stop playback and this will lose that buffer. 

 

Why are you pausing for these extended periods instead of just backing out of playback?

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adam1010

@@ebr Good point, I didn't think about the live TV case.

 

I can think of a few scenarios where something comes up and I pause the TV and then get distracted by something else (phone calls, children interruptions, a quick run to the kitchen, etc, etc) -- I generally intend to come right back so I just pause it, but then hours later the TV is just displaying the same paused screen.

 

Even if I know I won't be coming back soon, I always pause instead of stop playback for one simple reason: I've been burned too many times where I was within the first few minutes or the last few minutes of a TV show, and stopping playback causes Emby to lose its playback position (if I'm at the beginning I have to re-watch, or if I was near the end it marks it as watched!).  I usually end up skipping too far forward trying catch the last few minutes (or sometimes I forget that I didn't see the last 3 minutes when I go to watch the next episode and realize I missed something important) -- so it's simpler to just always pause and not worry if you happen to be outside the threshold or not.

 

Can Emby distinguish between live TV and non-live? If so we could just exclude live TV mode from being affected.

 

A few seconds before the screensaver comes on you could force a position save to the server (even if the position is outside of the normal threshold) so that when I come back the episode isn't accidentally marked as watched (or has the resume position at 40sec) so that no one is adversely affected by the playback stopping.

 

Thanks for considering this. I know it'll be really nice in my family room since photo slideshows on the big screen are a huge hit, and right now I keep getting blamed for the screensaver not working :-)

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I've been burned too many times where I was within the first few minutes or the last few minutes of a TV show, and stopping playback causes Emby to lose its playback position (if I'm at the beginning I have to re-watch, or if I was near the end it marks it as watched!).

 

Please just stop how you want to stop and if you have an issue with resuming then let us know. Thanks.

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adam1010

@@Luke I'm not sure what you mean. In Emby Server under Playback > Resume Settings I have the defaults:

 

Min Resume: 4%

Max Resume: 93%

 

Unless I set those as 0% and 100%, there will always be a risk that stopping playback (to pause) will cause the episode to be accidentally marked as watched (or I have to start over even though I was 7min into a 200min movie). Stopping playback sends a mixed message to Emby about your intentions of wanting to resume playback at the exact spot you're at now -- Emby has to guess whether or not you were really at the end or not. Without an extra button on my remote labeled "Stop but save progress", I don't know how you'd conveniently let Emby know your intentions.

 

The "pause" button unambiguously tells Emby that you're coming back and will want to resume exactly where you left off (regardless of if that's 10sec or 10hours later).

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Based on your desires, it sounds to me like you should adjust the default resume parameters to something like 1% and 99%.  That's why those are available for you to edit.

 

In all of my usage, I have very very rarely run into what you say you've been burned by many times though.  Must be the specific content we are watching.

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adam1010

Hey @@ebr

 

Yeah, if the content has the credits cut out, using the 99% threshold still cuts off over 30sec of content at the end of a 60min video.

 

I have updated my thresholds to 1% & 99%.  But what about the scenario where people have the intention to come back in a minute or two (so they naturally just pause) but then don't come back? Aside from not getting the nice screensaver, the TV will never auto power-off.

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As you noted above, the auto logoff in the app will eventually shut it down and the current position will be remembered (within the configuration settings).

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adam1010

@ebr  So I tried doing the 1% and 99% to re-train myself to stop playback every time I would pause -- I had trouble within the first few hours!

 

I was watching an 84min episode of Chicago Fire and I stopped it like ~30sec before the end when the detective was giving a speech. Emby marked it as watched and I would have missed the scene after the speech where they reveal a plot twist. I think you may be under-estimating how often shows like to put important information right at the end (to build suspense so you'll tune in next week).

 

So based on this it really isn't practical to always stop playback -- pausing is a vital feature that deserves to be a first class citizen.

 

If I had paused in that same -30sec spot, the auto-logoff would have had the same action (stopping playback which would have incorrectly marked it as watched).

 

So at a minimum you would need to update auto-logoff feature to save the EXACT playback location (without changing the watch status) if you expect people to use that as a solution to cut their TVs off when idle (or even just use it without fear of losing their playback position).

 

Obviously I'm still a fan of allowing the screensaver to kick in after X minutes (excluding live TV mode/playback). You would need the same process of forcing an exact time/progress update (without changing watch status) so that when I came back to Chicago Fire it would say I still had 30sec left. If I had paused it during credits so there was only 5sec left, that's fine, I can immediately exit out and that will cause the normal update/thresholds to kick in and mark it as watched. But at least I won't risk missing an important scene just because I paused in an inconvenient spot.

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So at a minimum you would need to update auto-logoff feature to save the EXACT playback location (without changing the watch status) if you expect people to use that as a solution to cut their TVs off when idle (or even just use it without fear of losing their playback position).

 

The app doesn't control that, the server does.  The app always reports the exact position and then the server applies the settings you've chosen.

 

None of this really has anything to do with pausing vs. stopping.  It is all just related to your content and the resume settings.

 

Given this is the case for you:

 

 

I think you may be under-estimating how often shows like to put important information right at the end (to build suspense so you'll tune in next week).

 

Wouldn't setting the max resume % to 100 cover you?

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adam1010

@@ebr Yes, a server feature would be needed as well --- you would need to send a flag/parameter to the server when reporting the position that indicates you do not want the watched state changed. Basically a "forced position save" feature that can be used when you don't want the server to make assumptions  (since in this case the client has better information than the server does for making that decision)

 

The reason a 100% threshold isn't great is because that basically disables Emby from automatically marking items as watched. There are two different scenarios, and in the most common one I DO want Emby to automatically mark it as watched:

1) The credits appears at the end so I stop playback at 99%  (I want Emby to mark this as watched)

2) I pause playback at 99% to go to the kitchen  (under no circumstances should Emby mark this as watched. When I come back I should be able to resume where I left off)

 

So to my above point about the "forced position save" feature --- maybe all you need to do when you tell the server the current position is to let it know if playback was STOPPED or PAUSED. If it was stopped it can use its threshold values to determine if a watch status change is needed (and it will reset the playback position to 0), as it does currently -- but if it was paused, it should save that EXACT position without applying the thresholds, and should NOT make changes to the watched status.  This seems pretty reasonable to me -- I can't think of a situation where you would PAUSE and expect the content to be marked as watched.

 

 

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Pausing doesn't ever cause an item to be marked watched.  Only truly stopping it does.

 

The problem is you cannot pause a stream indefinitely - it simply would potentially tie up too many server resources so we have to have some point in time that we decide you have truly stopped watching the item and treat it as such.

 

Can I ask why you are so often pausing your items for long periods at such critical junctures (within 1 min of ending)?  This seems to be fairly unusual since this is the first report we've had of issues like this :).

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adam1010

Makes sense! I was drawing the distinction to illustrate why I can't be expected to stop playback every time I want to pause. You're right that it's not super common that I end up pausing near the end (particularly now that I've moved my threshold to 99%) -- I'm sure most people don't know about this setting and are just using the defaults.  Regardless, I think it does speak to a fundamental assumption -- as the user I expect that if I leave the show paused I will be able to resume from that exact spot when I come back. So if other factors (such as the auto log-off or the screensaver) are going to cause playback to be stopped without my consent, then the server should be notified that the stop event was NOT user initiated so that it can know not to mark the content as watched.

 

Even if you don't add a feature to allow the screensaver to end playback after X minutes, you're still allowing auto log-off to end playback after Y minutes, so this "bug" already exists. So I think this thread has now split into two separate issues:

1) allow paused playback to stop after X minutes so the screensaver can engage  (FEATURE REQUEST)

2) whenever playback is stopped without user interaction, it should not be marked as watched (BUG)

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2) whenever playback is stopped without user interaction, it should not be marked as watched (BUG)

 

I would not classify that as a bug as the system is working as designed.  Also, your desire for this situation not following the server settings is not necessarily going to be what others would expect.  We have the server resume settings to handle these cases the best we can but it obviously cannot guess 100% what every person is expecting.

 

Thanks for the suggestions.

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adam1010

Right, the server is having to guess and it needs to know if a stop event was user-initiated or not to make a fully informed decision.

 

I can't say I agree that users really know that using the auto log-off feature could cause them to mark items as watched when they hadn't actually finished watching it (I certainly didn't).

 

Regardless, would you be willing to expose this internal setting so that users can change the default? Implicit in the server's "Resume Settings" page is a checkbox that says "Use these settings when playback is stopped without user interaction". That checkbox is currently defaulted checked and unchecking it would tell the server to ignore those thresholds when receiving a non-user-initiated stop event (thus saving the exact position and not changing the watched status).

 

I know this deviates from my original request for the idle playback stoppage/screensaver, but I think in order for that to work properly, this situation has to be addressed first. And since it already affects auto log-off behavior, I think it should be considered regardless of where you stand on the screensaver issue.

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adam1010

I guess it's not unreasonable but are you really pausing things with 30 seconds left?

 

@@Luke -- Absolutely! Why would I be less likely to pause near the end than in the middle? Life happens around you so you pause, not considering what percentage of the content is viewed. And with the default of 94%, you're actually talking about the last 215 seconds of a 60min show.

 

As I mentioned, I've run into this problem multiple times in the past due to my 30min auto log-off. I'd really like to set a 5min screensaver as well which means this would become an even more frequent occurrence!

 

If I still haven't won you over, why don't I create a new thread for this specific issue/bug so we can see if other community members have some input (since it's currently buried 10 comments deep in this screensaver feature request).

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But of course it also just begs the question why not have a way to disable our smart handling altogether so that in your case you would have to watch to the end to have it be marked watched.

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But of course it also just begs the question why not have a way to disable our smart handling altogether so that in your case you would have to watch to the end to have it be marked watched.

 

We already have that (set them to 0 and 100) and that did not satisfy his use case.

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adam1010

I've created a new bug report  for the pausing near the end issue, so I'll move all discussion regarding that over there.

 

So back on the topic of an idle timeout feature (so that paused content is stopped after X minutes) to allow my screensaver and TV power-off to work:

 

I paused a TV show on both Amazon Prime Video and on Netflix and both allowed my screensaver to kick on after 5 minutes! So due to this I'd say most users expect their screensaver to appear when playback is paused (excluding Live TV of course).

 

Given these facts are we in agreement that an idle timeout feature is worth pursuing?

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I've created a new bug report  for the pausing near the end issue, so I'll move all discussion regarding that over there.

 

So back on the topic of an idle timeout feature (so that paused content is stopped after X minutes) to allow my screensaver and TV power-off to work:

 

I paused a TV show on both Amazon Prime Video and on Netflix and both allowed my screensaver to kick on after 5 minutes! So due to this I'd say most users expect their screensaver to appear when playback is paused (excluding Live TV of course).

 

Given these facts are we in agreement that an idle timeout feature is worth pursuing?

 

Doing that is just going to create more problems for you because, as I mentioned before, if the screen saver comes on, we have to stop playback (our app is paused and moved to the background).

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adam1010

@@ebr That's correct -- I want playback to stop so that my screensaver comes on.

 

Similiar to the auto-logoff feature, except that does two things, it stops playback and then it logs me out of the app. In the case of the idle timeout feature I just want playback to stop (without logging me out), so that when I stop the screensaver I can quickly resume playback.

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