Improvements coming for the official Roku app

[ebr 14904]

I'm pleased to announce that Speechles has agreed to spend some time helping us with the official app.  This will allow us to focus more on providing features in it that are currently either missing or not working as well as they should.

 

Please have patience with him as he comes up to speed on the app and helps to improve it.

 

For you Blue Neon fans, we will be working to try and bring most of its capabilities to the official app (however, some of the settings will need to be hidden from default users ).  Please, again, be patient as we work towards this goal.

[speechles 1917]

For those wondering, what is the fate of BNN? Well.. it is resting.. sleeping. Maybe it isn't required anymore?

 

But from me, with the support of @@ebr you will get a better app. It will be official, no more private links, we can share with more this way.

 

I will make sure to push for features that you guys(&girls) expect from blue neon. This will include the "also here", the missing "Go To" buttons, adding back studios and networks, and some of the other features, like forcing play methods? Yes, its possible. A full text screen for overviews, media information, and more.. probably...maybe even an about my device? That one not so sure.. maybe?! But like ebr said, this will be an ever evolving process. First come the playback issues, and fixing bugs.. the priorities..

 

Please continue to spot and find bugs. This is required to keep us going forward, not backward. Thanks everybody who has faith and I am happy to help. Go team Emby!

Edited September 22, 2018 by speechles

[Lane03 14]

Fantastic news!

[mediacowboy 438]

This is great news. Glad to see the team growing.

[speechles 1917]

First wave of improvements submitted.

 

Updated device profile with new direct play and direct stream support. This should include all codecs, video and audio. Once @@ebr updates the app you will love the roku even more. This does not fix the audio portions yet where things fail to play. Next step, correct that. ;0)

[mikeraburn 60]

Force Direct Play option, pretty pretty please!?

 

Sugar on top.

 

FYI, it snowed here on the back peaks Friday night.

 

Seasons Greetings, ya'll.

 

Sent from my SM-T560NU using Tapatalk

[speechles 1917]

Nice. Wish it would snow here. We get it rarely, maybe once every few years. In the morning for a few hours, melts with the rain hours later. Usually it times itself to be a few days before christmas, or dead on. So it does have that magical feeling when people mention snow because of how rare it is here.

 

 

*Knock Knock*

Would you like to build a snow man?

 

 

But honestly, you will get your force options very soon. I understand the entire reason, sometimes even the greatest minds make a mistake. It would be nice to be able to force play methods in exchange for not having external players to invoke. I completely agree. First, there are some problems that need to be addressed. Need to make a list of the ones i've noticed so far. Most of these are Quality-of-Experience issues. Why is the crew gone from cast? There should be an option to add the crew back to the cast & crew. This is something of immediate need. Writers, Directors, Producers are of need. Also a way to somehow view networks and studios. I use these options so frequently to lose them frightens me. I feel lost navigating to what used to be. I find myself still going to back blue neon for the random screen, oh how I love the random screen. The cast&crew/studios/networks still exist on blue neon. I am a user of the app, as well as a developer. So certain things stand out more than others to me.

 

How do you all feel? What is the most upsetting issue you find using the Roku app? How should this be? All input is welcome. As fellow users of the app, your opinion matters. Please feel free to share your opinions. No opinion is wrong. Be honest. Don't feel you have to be nice.

Edited September 23, 2018 by speechles

[ebr 14904]

Force Direct Play option, pretty pretty please!?

 

In what instance is this required?

 

IOW - what media can we not determine that it will direct play automatically?

[mikeraburn 60]

@@ebr

 

 

I understand the question and how it is tough for you guys to get the information from users.

It like playing whack a mole.

 

To ME it seems an issue with acc 5.1.

I have SOME files that will direct play in BOTH apps just fine.

Other files I have to Force direct play to get it going, in BN.

That was just the most recent "issue" for me. 

Now I avoid acc 5.1

 

So if Force Direct play is being integrated I will sit tight and see what shakes out related to Force Direct play.

It will be better when there is one place to post issues and ask advice, for ROKU, at least. 

 

The idea of one app and collaboration to meld some of BN into the official app is awesome.

I believe that was the intent  from the beginning of Beta.

 

Emby Beta is now on version 3.0.107?

My Logo on the ROKU still says Emby Beta, thats why I am confirming.

Edited September 23, 2018 by mikeraburn

[speechles 1917]

That might be because the roku will convert AAC 5.1 to AAC 2.0 on the device now. It used to convert AAC 5.1 to AC3 5.1 on the device. This obviously was a grey area, as they aren't licensed to encode dolby. So I think this is why that disappeared so quickly. They got caught holding the bag. In the blue neon app is an option to not let AAC 5.1 direct play on the device. This was done because the roku will lie, and say sure I support AAC in 5.1 and then it will convert this to 2 channel stereo and ruin your audio. To prevent this, the app has that option and if enabled will always transcode AAC 5.1 to AC3 5.1 on your server before sending to the roku. This might be what make you feel this way. It is Roku forcing things to change.

 

Believe me, the new profile will address lots of problems with playback. You will see more support for things that never used to direct play or direct stream before and would force a full transcode. Now the auto-detection in the official app is better than blue neon ever was. I can say this with total honesty. As ebr said, you may not need "force direct" with the new profile. If you find something that doesn't play, please let us know. This will move up the priority of forcing play methods. 

 

I promise to you @@mikeraburn that I will push for, and get you your force play methods. First though, it would be uncool to just move onto new features without addressing bugs presently in place. This is where we are at now. Make what is there rock solid and then move into new ground.

[paulsalter 84]

Great news to hear, this is my main app i use

 

One little bug i would like to see fixed, if the cause is spotted during making other improvements

 

The aired date for episodes, i think this only affects people with a GMT+X timezones, where the date will show as the previous day

I think it just picks up the date from the server (which is wrong), but other apps like like Theatre makes a compensation and correct it

[samuelqwe 313]

These improvements sound pretty great. I love the Roku to use Emby, it’s a great experience. I had a few feature requests in a note somewhere, from a while ago, so I’m gonna post them here, but they are in no way things that need to be prioritized. These are things that could be looked into eventually.

 

Feature Requests:

- Picture in picture in the guide when switching between channels

- Use (*) button on the remote in the Emby guide to, for example, jump back to present in guide, jump to specific days in the guide or go back to currently playing channel (the one playing in PiP mode)

- Have option to record shows in all the menus where you can see show info

- Have record button during playback of live channel

- Scheduled recordings page

- Information about next episode during playback, at the end of an episode, when using auto-play next episode

Edited September 23, 2018 by samuelqwe

[Erik 120]

Just cosmetic, but I would prefer if the login screen was like theater. Larger user pictures with horizontal scroll and. Removing all the text on the left side.

 

I know hat information is helpful on a server selection screen or something. However, for daily usage it detracts from the look and feel of the app.

 

Thanks.

[samuelqwe 313]

Just cosmetic, but I would prefer if the login screen was like theater. Larger user pictures with horizontal scroll and. Removing all the text on the left side.

 

I know hat information is helpful on a server selection screen or something. However, for daily usage it detracts from the look and feel of the app.

 

Thanks.

Even the server selection screen should be like that. It's like that on mobile and on web. I do really like this idea, and it would really help with the design of the app.

[Wordman 4]

Great news about future updates to the Roku app!  I'm fairly new to Emby having been using Plex for the past few years.  Emby just seems so much faster than Plex and I love all the Cast info.  I would love to see a button that would return to the home screen no matter where you are in the app.  Hitting the back button several times is a pain sometimes.  Also, theme music would be a plus.  Thanks for all your work!

[Lane03 14]

Speechles, what is the version number of Emby with the new profile you mentioned? I ask because I have the beta (3.0.107) and it's transcoding a file due to it having 5.1 Opus, which I can direct play on the Roku Media Player App.

Edited September 24, 2018 by Lane03

[speechles 1917]

Speechles, what is the version number of Emby with the new profile you mentioned? I ask because I have the beta (3.0.107) and it's transcoding a file due to it having 5.1 Opus, which I can direct play on the Roku Media Player App.

 

is this music or a video?

 

The music player is still in migration to using a new endpoint and method. It being broken is a known issue ATM, and next on the list to be addressed.

 

If this is a video that doesn't direct play or direct stream the opus 5.1 then we have a problem.

[mattyg8 18]

Will continue to just use Blue Neon theme as it is the only one we can side load to our Telstra Tv devices

[speechles 1917]

Will continue to just use Blue Neon theme as it is the only one we can side load to our Telstra Tv devices

 

I feel ya. Do you know if telstra is following along with the SDK1 removal on their device come Jan 1st 2019? If they do not remove the SDK1 I can still support you with builds. It might not be verbatim the same code written for emby and their codebase. For certain legal reason, it cannot be. But I am able to still contribute some things to the older BN1 fork with certain restrictions. None of which I am at liberty to discuss.

 

https://github.com/speechles/BN-ONE/releases

 

This is the present repository for the app. Feel free to clone this and make your own changes. This is the best I can do at the moment. I apologize. It is what it is.

[mattyg8 18]

I feel ya. Do you know if telstra is following along with the SDK1 removal on their device come Jan 1st 2019?

I'm not sure what they will follow

[Lane03 14]

is this music or a video?

 

The music player is still in migration to using a new endpoint and method. It being broken is a known issue ATM, and next on the list to be addressed.

 

If this is a video that doesn't direct play or direct stream the opus 5.1 then we have a problem.

It is a video. I'll try to get you media info and transcoding log when I get home.

[Angus Black 4]

This is great news for me.
I am new to Emby. I had tried it in the past but am in the process of switching from Plex now.

I use four Roku 3 devices.

 

On of the main reasons I am switching is the horrible Plex GUI on the Roku, all platforms really.

 

I am willing to test any changes if you're looking for volunteers.

Edited September 24, 2018 by Angus Black

[Jdiesel 1113]

@@speechles So how about bringing back your much loved random movie generator feature from Blue Neon to the official Roku app?

[ebr 14904]

@@speechles So how about bringing back your much loved random movie generator feature from Blue Neon to the official Roku app?

 

Please let us get through all the basic features for the Emby system that are still lacking in this app (like Live TV and recording management).

 

That particular item is an existing feature request for the system in general.

 

Thanks.

[Luke 37022]

Exactly, the app is going to be consistent with other Emby apps. If we import one of those features into the Roku app, it will be because we are adding it to all of our apps, not just this one.