New here! Impressions from a former Plex user

[kesm 25]

As I understand, Emby Theater is designed to be used on TV screens and its movie details page have a poster, links to edit subtitles and audio and a part of the casting visible.

 

It could be nice to have a unified movie details interface for all TV screens

[ebr 14913]

As I understand, Emby Theater is designed to be used on TV screens and its movie details page have a poster, links to edit subtitles and audio and a part of the casting visible.

 

 

It could be nice to have a unified movie details interface for all TV screens

 

That interface is actually shared across multiple platforms and we will probably be unifying it to match the other TV apps when on the big screen.  Notice how you cannot see the backdrop at all?

 

As I said a while back.  It is impossible to make everyone happy here but there may be options in the app in the future.

[MRobi 159]

I use both myself but actually prefer the Emby version overall more for looks and functionality with a few quirks.

Very slow movie loading on Emby (in general for me) but I have over 10K movies. Very fast on Plex.

Slower searching in Emby across the board. Can take several seconds for usable results vs near instantaneous in Plex.

I highly dislike horizontal lists of movies and much prefer vertical listings.  Who ever thought horizontal (besides Netflix) was a good idea?  People make lists vertically and it's much easier and less fatiguing to read lists things vertical.  Think about it, do you write grocery lists vertical or horizontal? Why?

 

I'd pick Emby hands down if it had vertical library listings and if you could hold down FF/RW buttons to advance though content.

 

 

Ideally if it were configurable/Skinable we could each choose the format to use.

 

The other thing I wish we had was the alphabet either over top (horizontal) or on the side (vertical) like in Plex and other Emby apps.  With a large amount of movies this is quite helpful to have without having to go up and access it from a menu which is a bit awkward IMHO.  Maybe I'm just really used to this functionality in the Plex app.

 

 

Being new and trying a free 30 day plex pass as well as Emby imo Emby has much more features. I would like to see the ability to scroll vertical or horizontal as a user preference personally I like vertical like the theater version and the phone version.

I hate resurrecting an old thread but I came across this one looking for an answer to. I'm new to this app as I picked up my first NVidia Shield.

 

I put the Emby app beside the Plex app in a head to head over the weekend. While I generally prefer the added options in the emby app, there are a few major areas where the Plex app shines,

 

The first, as others have alluded to, is the long horizontal menu for scrolling tv shows and movies. It's hard to read, and tiresome especially with large collections. The Android mobile app and the web app use vertical style menu's with the alphabet off to the side for easy scrolling, I don't see why the change for Android TV. This alone is enough for me to not use this app. All the added features that the emby app has over plex does not take away from the fact that it is very hard to scroll through a large list of shows or movies. I chose this thread to reply to as there are at least 3 others in here echoing the same thing. I realize some users may prefer a horizontal list, but there should be an option to allow horizontal as well.

 

On the topic of these lists, I found when I filtered to only show unwatched content they took forever to load. Usually between 2-3 minutes. Meanwhile in the Plex app it was mere seconds. If I wanted to browse through shows starting with an S, I'd have to scroll all the way to the right until I hit the end of the H's, wait another 2-3 minutes for the next group to load, scroll all the way to the right until I hit the end of the P's, wait another 2-3 minutes to load, and then continue to scroll right to get to the S's. Once everything was loaded in stages I could go back and forth all I wanted with no delay, until I went back to the home screen then it would start all over again. Every so often (I'd say 1 out of 10 maybe), when I would make it to the end of the H's, the middle section would load as A-H again. I assume this wait is because it's trying to fully load and then filter 100 items at a time. With the vertical list on the Plex app it would be loading as I was scrolling. Every so often I'd notice it would take a second as the metadata loaded.

[ebr 14913]

Hi.  There are several topics around describing the reason for mainly horizontal scrolling but the highlights are that it allows us to have variable width content (posters and thumbs in the same view) and that a vertical scroll design is very problematic in an interface where you have to navigate linearly with a remote and have things like tabs on the top.  In web, mobile, you can easily point at those tabs with a mouse or finger.

 

As for your performance issue - this app brings in the list while you are scrolling too but it sounds like there may be some sort of performance issue on either the server or network end.

 

Also, there is an alpha picker you can use to go directly to a particular letter.

 

Finally, the latest version of the app allows you to advance rapidly through content by holding down the navigation keys.

[MRobi 159]

Hi.  There are several topics around describing the reason for mainly horizontal scrolling but the highlights are that it allows us to have variable width content (posters and thumbs in the same view) and that a vertical scroll design is very problematic in an interface where you have to navigate linearly with a remote and have things like tabs on the top.  In web, mobile, you can easily point at those tabs with a mouse or finger.

 

As for your performance issue - this app brings in the list while you are scrolling too but it sounds like there may be some sort of performance issue on either the server or network end.

 

Also, there is an alpha picker you can use to go directly to a particular letter.

 

Finally, the latest version of the app allows you to advance rapidly through content by holding down the navigation keys.

I see the purpose of the variable width content on the main screen, and that is actually one feature I enjoy over plex. Under "Latest TV" it will show an episode thumb if there's only 1 unwatched episode for that season, and it shows the show poster and unwatched count if there are multiple. But when I actually go into TV or Movies then everything there is all posters, there isn't any multiple types of of content in this section and I believe that this is where everybody is asking for a vertical view.

 

As for the performance issue, the server is a beast with dual octacore 2.9ghz cpu's with a 3.8ghz turbo and 96gb ram so it's unlikely server related. It's connected with a 10gbe switch. The performance issue was identical both locally and remotely so I doubt it's network. Using the latest NVidia Shield which is said to be the best android tv device out there, but this is still probably the weakest link in the mix. When all content is visible, it loads quickly. Only when I filter content to show unwatched does it slow way down. 

 

The fast navigation worked great until it hit the end of the first group that was loaded and then it hangs. I didn't notice this without the filter on.

[ebr 14913]

The filtering is done on the server end so I still suspect something there.

[MRobi 159]

The filtering is done on the server end so I still suspect something there.

Interesting and good to know. I'll do some comparison when I'm back in town this weekend

 

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

[Riggs 300]

@ebr 

I have some thing to pointed you about the Android interface.

 

 

For the poster/cover primary. (movies)

 

TMDB use 1000 x 1500px. 

Fanart use 1000 x 1426px.

 

Both use the same width (1000px), BUT the Android APP on my nVidia Shield, cut the art at the sides (only the sides, the APP respect the height). For some artwork that contain something like HDR tag inside the art or if something is close to the border of the cover, it looks terrible. (I design cases on both sizes to insert the artwork

 

The web interface respect the size. 

 

Since this two providers are the main used by Emby, I ask, why that weird crop is happend in the APP side?

 

1 APP wiew - CUT at sides

2 web view --OK

3 original artwork 1000 x 1426px

 

Thank you.

Edited June 7, 2018 by HRSCR

[Luke 37066]

@, please create a separate topic with your feedback and suggestions. Thanks.

[Riggs 300]

Sorry about it

[Luke 37066]

Not a problem, it's just easier for everyone so that your message doesn't get lost in the middle of another conversation. Thanks !

[Riggs 300]

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/59746-question-about-the-crop-covers-in-the-app-and-quality/

 

 

[Riggs 300]

I close my lifetime Plex account. (Yes, i loose my money for my suscription)

 

If you can't see the reason, you don't know Emby.

Edited June 23, 2018 by HRSCR

[Luke 37066]

thanks for the feedback !

[WilhelmStroker 96]

I can't wait to convert my yearly emby sub to lifetime. I've not used plex in months. Seeing emby get updated on Windows 10 on a regular basis is great, and I have no stability issues on any of my other devices.