Volume control on Emby Theatre for Windows 10

[joechilds 14]

The volume control media keys on my keyboard, that control the system volume in Windows 10, also change the volume in Emby Theatre. This doesn’t seem logical, as the two volume levels are not synced up. Perhaps the Emby Theatre volume control should have a different keyboard shortcut?

[Luke 39644]

Hi, are you using the Windows store app, or the desktop app?

[joechilds 14]

The desktop app

[Luke 39644]

I think it is best to keep the app volume at max, which we try to do internally, and then change volume via system volume. I always find it confusing to have to manage two different volume controls.

[joechilds 14]

I agree. I can’t figure out a way to do that right now though, would this be something you could change in the next update?

[Guest asrequested]

You realize that if you bitstream, the volume in the app is non-functional. And that slider does nothing. Is this what you're talking about? Playing music, however, will be different.

[joechilds 14]

I’m not bitstreaming, I’m using speakers plugged straight into the computer. So the volume media keys control both the speakers and the app’s volume.

[joechilds 14]

I’m guessing this functionality was designed with bitstreaming in mind, as it would be much more useful in that scenario.

[Guest asrequested]

I would imagine it's just linked to the system volume. If you adjust the slider, does the volume change?

[joechilds 14]

No they don’t seem to be linked, they move independently. Emby could be at full volume when the system volume is only at 20. Then I could keep increasing the system volume to 100, Emby wouldn’t change. But if I went down one step in volume, Emby would go down one step too.

[Guest asrequested]

And of you have theater volume at 50%, the system at 50%, then decrease the system volume. Does the theater volume change with it? Both up and down?

[joechilds 14]

If I change the system volume by clicking the Sound icon in the taskbar, and dragging the slider up or down, no Emby’s volume does not change. It seems it just responds to the media key volume controls on a keyboard.

[Guest asrequested]

So then it's the key mapping. I'm assuming Luke already understood that.

[joechilds 14]

I wonder if it would be easy to implement custom key mapping, like Kodi has. Some would find that very useful.

[Luke 39644]

Yes it's possible for the future. Thanks.

[pgriffith 73]

My volume controls are also not in sync, the only way to get them in sync is to keep increasing volume to 100% until they both are at 100 then lower the volume to normal listening level.

 

If I reduce the volume to zero, and then keep lowering the volume, windows obviously stays at 0, but then emby cycles back to 100 and then goes to zero again and again.

 

I am using the standard MS Media Center remote control standard with no remapping or modification.

[Luke 39644]

that cycling is something we can look at. thanks.

[Spike6792 0]

Any update on this? My issue is when I attempt to change system volume via my keyboards media control while watching something on emby, the emby volume also begins to change. (I.E. both the system volume and the emby player move together,) example: PC at 30% vol, emby at 100% vol, turn down on keyboard, now PC at 25% and emby at 80%)). I want emby to stay at 100% always and just change my system volume with keyboard media control. Any work around? Thanks in advance. 

[iflo 4]

Hi there, I see this feature request is 5 years old now - but I'm having the same "issue" - on PC, when I use the media volume keys it changes both the Emby volume and the Windows master volume at the same time, so you get a double volume decrease/increase. Ideally it would be great if there was a checkbox in settings to lock the Emby volume to 100% so media keys can't affect it.

Edited June 15, 2023 by iflo

[Luke 39644]

Hi, we are working on a new windows app that will improve this behavior, so stay tuned. Thanks.

[65535 4]

This annoyance is still happening in the new Windows app in desktop mode.

Edited December 20, 2024 by 65535

[softworkz 4492]

On 12/20/2024 at 11:02 PM, 65535 said:

This annoyance is still happening in the new Windows app in desktop mode.

Confirmed. Yes, that needs to be fixed.

[softworkz 4492]

The problem 

On 6/15/2023 at 4:14 PM, Luke said:

Hi, we are working on a new windows app that will improve this behavior, so stay tuned. Thanks.

@Luke - I think this might be more a general issue rather than specific to Windows? On every device where hardware buttons for volume controls are supported, there are two possible cases:

1. The hardware volume control is directly mapped to OS functionality for master volume control
   and there it's undesired for Emby to react to such input commands
2. There's no direct effect of volume input controls, which could be for multiple reasons, like
   • The OS doesn't support those buttons
   • The OS supports those controls, but the audio path from the player in Emby to the audio output goes a way which is not affected by OS volume control
   • probably others...

I don't think that we'd be able to reliably detect this automatically, so it might be best to provide an option to control whether Emby should react to those volume input commands or not.

[softworkz 4492]

The next update has an option that allows to ignore volume changing input commands: