Some thoughts and opinions

[levander 96]

Hi,

 

After few weeks of introducing myself to emby environment and after I successfully but incompletely migrated from Plex (looking for ways to migrate plex 1000+ collections to nfo tags or whatever) I collected some opinions and thoughts on all that... so here it's part of it concerning emby app for Apple TV.

 

 

Miss...

 

Refresh

 

I miss some way to refresh active page/app so changes made on server could be seen on Apple TV without having to restart the AppleTV app. Also missing in iOS app.

 

Searching persons 

 

I am aware that searching is ongoing feature you're working on to improve so at this point I just want to point out I miss searching for actors in addition to only title searching on Apple TV. Since this is available on other clients and server.

 

Year & Director in movie info pull down while playing movie

 

Though sometimes there is year shown but wrong and it doesn't correspond to date added o release date from metadata, I can't figure out what is it.

 

Show all titles by/with person selected

 

Clicking on person (actor or director) shows is limited titles (around 20) although in some cases there is a lot more and there is no other way to get to them

 

Number of items listed in a library

 

I miss number of items in active library. Filtered or not filtered, favourites or collections.

 

Thumbs View

 

I miss at least an option to view library items as thumbs (fanart/backdrop/backround, whatever it is called). It is somehow supported (unintentionally it seems to me) in mixed libraries but only when primary image is thumb image. So I guess that implicates that it is possible to show movie/tv show images as thumbs and since it is supported in emby server (and it looks great there). The two main reasons I always like to see thumbs rather than posters are:

 

1. When you browse your libraries "to be inspired" and then to choose a movie to watch thumbs always look more inviting and "describable" than posters.
2. There is just too many cases when there is no posters available or posters look bad or you have to use same DVD collection poster for bunch of Charlie Chaplin short movies for example because individual posters differ so much in quality, design, size and type and that looks strange. And at the same time you can always find or easily make movie background/fanart/thumb which is unlikely with posters if you want it looks decent.

 

 

Fix...

 

Favorite on/off button does not respond until exit and re-enter

 

 

 

 

Wouldn't it be good....?

 

Collections view

 

When showing different types of collection items inside a collection there is no more info preview feature available because other types are shown as other items below first, main, row. I stumbled upon some discussions about that and it seems that someone had idea to show all mixed up in main row. I don't know about that. It's not bad idea to overcome this problem but I would always rather give up on info preview for usual item list as in emby server and not all in one "endless" row...

 

Titles centered

 

I love centered items list in emby server. When you have 2-3 items listed it looks way better. Especially in mixed content libraries, subfolders etc.

 

Showing collections movie belongs to

 

I think it is already mentioned somewhere as feature request or something. That would be definitely useful: in movie details page, beneath similar/recommended movies, a list of  movies from collections a given movie is also part of.

 

 

Thanks for reading.

 

[corey 315]

Hey @@levander --

 

First thank you for taking the time to provide feedback. I'll try and address each point one by one.

Refresh

 

I miss some way to refresh active page/app so changes made on server could be seen on Apple TV without having to restart the AppleTV app. Also missing in iOS app.

 

This is a work in progress across the application. We've implemented new automatic refresh functionality in the Movie library and will be bringing it to other sections in the future.

 

 

Searching persons 

 

I am aware that searching is ongoing feature you're working on to improve so at this point I just want to point out I miss searching for actors in addition to only title searching on Apple TV. Since this is available on other clients and server.

 

Can you clarify what you mean here please? You can search for actors today in the Apple TV app. For example:

 

 

 

Year & Director in movie info pull down while playing movie

 

Though sometimes there is year shown but wrong and it doesn't correspond to date added o release date from metadata, I can't figure out what is it.

 

There are a number of limitations with the player interface in tvOS 11 and earlier. We are working on a new player and once we get the basics delivered we'll consider how we can provide additional information.

 

 

Show all titles by/with person selected

 

Clicking on person (actor or director) shows is limited titles (around 20) although in some cases there is a lot more and there is no other way to get to them

 

I've added this as an enhancement request to our internal tracking system. Thanks for suggesting it.

 

 

Number of items listed in a library

 

I miss number of items in active library. Filtered or not filtered, favourites or collections.

 

I'd like to understand this request a bit more. Can you clarify what you're asking for here?

 

 

Thumbs View

 

I miss at least an option to view library items as thumbs (fanart/backdrop/backround, whatever it is called). It is somehow supported (unintentionally it seems to me) in mixed libraries but only when primary image is thumb image.

 

I've also added this as an enhancement request. Thanks for suggesting it.

 

 

Favorite on/off button does not respond until exit and re-enter

 

I'm not sure I understand this problem. I just tested setting favorite on and off for both a TV show and a Movie and it works as expected. Any detail you can provide would be great.

 

 

Collections view

 

When showing different types of collection items inside a collection there is no more info preview feature available because other types are shown as other items below first, main, row. I stumbled upon some discussions about that and it seems that someone had idea to show all mixed up in main row. I don't know about that. It's not bad idea to overcome this problem but I would always rather give up on info preview for usual item list as in emby server and not all in one "endless" row...

 

There's a bit here so lets unpack it a bit. First, not showing info preview when there's more than one row. That was a conscious decision by me because I personally thought it created a jarring experience when I was testing it so I opted out of including it. Second, the structure of this collections view matches the behavior of the other TV based devices like Android TV.

 

 

Titles centered

 

I love centered items list in emby server. When you have 2-3 items listed it looks way better. Especially in mixed content libraries, subfolders etc.

 

Showing collections movie belongs to

 

I think it is already mentioned somewhere as feature request or something. That would be definitely useful: in movie details page, beneath similar/recommended movies, a list of  movies from collections a given movie is also part of.

 

I've added these both as enhancement requests.

[Luke 38560]

 

 

Showing collections movie belongs to

 

As far as this goes, yes this is something you can expect to see in all Emby apps in the future. Thanks !

[levander 96]

Hey, thank you all for your answers!

 

 

to clarify....

 

 

1. Let me just apologise for not testing some things again right before sending this report. Mainly regarding searching people but that was definitely not working some week ago when I wrote it down!

 

2. By number of items listed I mean this: 

 

 

...Collections, Folders, Photos, Music Videos, TV Shows and Mixed Content Libraries has this item count shown but Movie libraries are missing this.

 

3. Favourite on/off button also behaved differently a week ago when I wrote it down but here's how it behaves at the moment: it does respond immediately when clicked to show the favourites and it also responds immediately when clicked again to show all content UNLESS there is no favourites to show when clicked (zero), THEN un-clicking favourites doesn't respond - I have to exit and re-enter the library.

 

4. Collections View

 

 

There's a bit here so lets unpack it a bit. First, not showing info preview when there's more than one row. That was a conscious decision by me because I personally thought it created a jarring experience when I was testing it so I opted out of including it. 

 

Agree with your decision 100%

 

 

Second, the structure of this collections view matches the behavior of the other TV based devices like Android TV.

 

 

I don't know about Android TV but what I meant is suggesting to show it as on emby web server, like this:

 

 

...and not in one row.

 

Thank you for reading!

[corey 315]

2. By number of items listed I mean this:

 

If you cannot tell we redid the movie library to create a smoother and functional experience that was more aligned to the other clients. I chose not to include the item counts primarily due to performance. A user shouldn't be able to tell but we transparently fetch 'chunks' of content as you scroll down the screen. This allows us to load the first view really fast and then efficiently get data as you need providing a smooth experience. Constantly fetching the item counts, especially with filters and sorting applied would slow this process down and hence why we don't show it.

 

 

3. Favourite on/off button also behaved differently a week ago when I wrote it down but here's how it behaves at the moment: it does respond immediately when clicked to show the favourites and it also responds immediately when clicked again to show all content UNLESS there is no favourites to show when clicked (zero), THEN un-clicking favourites doesn't respond - I have to exit and re-enter the library.

 

Okay this looks like a bug so thanks for reporting. I'll note it down and take a look when I have a moment.

 

 

I don't know about Android TV but what I meant is suggesting to show it as on emby web server, like this:

...and not in one row.

 

As far as I know this is not easily possible with the tools Apple gives us. It would probably take way more effort than the value you'd get from it. Additionally according to Apple they prefer that applications horizontally scroll when possible because that's an easier interaction than trying to scroll vertically.

[levander 96]

Ok, I understand and I appreciate your effort to explain the things. I surely can live with those compromises on behalf better efficiency. I am looking forward to those things you put on enhancement list. Thanks.

[corey 315]

@@levander --

 

 

Show all titles by/with person selected

 

We just pushed a new version (1.2.12) today that increases the limit of what's shown on the person detail view. If you force close the application and restart you should be able to see many more items. Please let us know what you think!

[levander 96]

Good timing! I just sat down in front of the Apple TV and trying to see all Steve Martin movies I have... Works great. Thank you!

 

I hope it works for TV shows also.

 

BTW...

Is there someplace where emby Apple Tv app changelogs can be seen?

[Luke 38560]

Good timing! I just sat down in front of the Apple TV and trying to see all Steve Martin movies I have... Works great. Thank you!

 

I hope it works for TV shows also.

 

BTW...

Is there someplace where emby Apple Tv app changelogs can be seen?

 

Hi, yes. The best place to learn about new releases is by following our blog announcements:

https://emby.media/blog.html

 

Thanks.

[corey 315]

@@levander —

 

It should work for TV shows as well.

Edited June 18, 2018 by corey

[levander 96]

Hi, yes. The best place to learn about new releases is by following our blog announcements:

https://emby.media/blog.html

 

Thanks.

 

 

Yes, I know but I noticed 2 updates of Apple TV app since last announced update on blog (v. 1.2.09) so I was wondering is there some other place to see changelogs, like https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Emby/releases.

[corey 315]

We currently don’t post changelogs anywhere else for the tvOS app. Typically the releases that don’t make the blog are bug fixes that are important enough to get out there very quickly.

[levander 96]

Oh, ok. Thanks.