Create/invite user without premiere benefits

[aptalca 70]

I have no issues with Emby's device limit for home use. However, the fact that all users (including external) invited to my server automatically get emby premiere and count towards my home device limit is a big issue.

 

My suggestion is to allow us to create or invite users without sharing the premiere benefit. Those users would have to unlock their apps to connect to and stream from my server the same way a non-premiere user would have to unlock their apps to access and stream from their basic server.

 

That way, I would only worry about the devices that I have in my household, sharing with family and friends wouldn't penalize me; and Emby would still get paid (through app unlocks). In fact, it would increase Emby's revenues because I'm sure many users like myself are not sharing their emby with family and friends because of the limit, but if they could invite non-premiere users, these additional people would bring in additional income to Emby through unlocks.

 

This is now the only reason I haven't switched over from Plex yet. I have a bunch of family and friends accessing my plex server that if I switched, I would be over the device limit right away. And by the way, those friends and family are paying plex to unlock their apps, and they would do the same for Emby.

 

Thanks

[mastrmind11 717]

disable the premiere features on the accounts in question, and they won't count toward the device limit.  it's not perfect, but i believe that would work.

Edited October 9, 2018 by mastrmind11

[aptalca 70]

disable the premiere features on the accounts in question, and they won't count toward the device limit.

 

I believe emby team wrote that it wouldn't work like that in another thread before

 

Plus, simple playback is considered a premiere feature on android

Edited October 9, 2018 by aptalca

[Carlo 4330]

This is something that always bugs me about this license.  Admin shares with Bob.

Bob loves the media so he sets up a client on his Android TV in the living room, his Roku in the bedroom, the xbox in the basement.  He d/ls the app for his phone and maybe installs the tablet app. He might even install the windows app or Theater for good measure to be able to use his friend's Emby server where ever he is.

 

If you share with Fred and he does similar then a shit load of potential license get used.

 

Now in reality this may not happen as some license will fall off from not being used but the thought is always there that friends can kill your license counts. JUST AS YOU MENTION.

 

It would be far better to limit specific features being used and/or stream counts.  It really shouldn't matter if Bob and Fred installed the app on a dozen devices if they can only use one at a time or limited to 2 streams or similar by the admin.

 

Regardless of how well Emby thinks the current system works, it does SCARE OFF people and I hear this a lot of Plex forums from people I work with.

 

Combine this with the fact the admin has no way to see what devices are using a premium license or have the ability to revoke a device license to force the friend to purchase the client and it just muddies the waters.

 

@@aptalca, what I'd suggest is to run both Emby and Plex side by side and start to share Emby with a couple of friends at a time and see if you hit any problems.  You really don't see many people here in the forums having issues like this, so that says something.  The scenario I mentioned above seems to be what people worry about, but in reality it doesn't seem to happen often. So try it and see how it goes.

[ebr 14942]

In the case of Android TV and Fire TV right now, if you unlock the app with the single purchase and don't use any Premiere only features, that device will not count towards your limit.  So, you can have Bob purchase the app to get off of your Premiere.

 

The other apps should be following suit soon.

[aptalca 70]

 

@@aptalca, what I'd suggest is to run both Emby and Plex side by side and start to share Emby with a couple of friends at a time and see if you hit any problems.  You really don't see many people here in the forums having issues like this, so that says something.  The scenario I mentioned above seems to be what people worry about, but in reality it doesn't seem to happen often. So try it and see how it goes.

 

Most of the people I share with are not very technical. I'd rather not ask them to start using emby until I'm ready to commit to it.

 

But looking at the devices they use with plex and the frequency (thanks to tautulli, which gives me great stats on that) I would most definitely hit the limit.

[aptalca 70]

In the case of Android TV and Fire TV right now, if you unlock the app with the single purchase and don't use any Premiere only features, that device will not count towards your limit.  So, you can have Bob purchase the app to get off of your Premiere.

 

The other apps should be following suit soon.

 

Can you expand on the "don't use any Premiere only features"?

 

Do they have to purchase the app before the library is shared? If not, is there a way to force that behavior for some users?

[Carlo 4330]

Since you have stats if you wouldn't mind:

How many different devices is used on average by each user?

How many total devices?

How many users do you share with?

 

I certainly don't mean to pry, but this type of information is useful so the Emby team can see concerns of people using Plex when they want to move to Emby.

[ebr 14942]

Can you expand on the "don't use any Premiere only features"?

 

Live TV and Cinema Mode I believe would be the ones for the Android/Fire TV apps.

 

You basically would need to not give them access to Live TV (and features like download for the other apps)

 

Feature Matrix

 

I don't think it is a bad idea to create some way of keeping someone from using Premiere at a user-level.  It is just something that isn't needed by a very large audience so isn't near the top of our list(s) right now.

[aptalca 70]

Since you have stats if you wouldn't mind:

How many different devices is used on average by each user?

How many total devices?

How many users do you share with?

 

I certainly don't mean to pry, but this type of information is useful so the Emby team can see concerns of people using Plex when they want to move to Emby.

 

Of course the usage varies from week to week, but to give you an idea, my mother in law has 3 TVs at her house and when she's babysitting grand kids, she'll have 3 TVs streaming cartoons at the same time. She also has an ipad she uses plex on, so that's 4 devices by herself.

 

In total, I have 7 family members who occasionally stream. Most use 1 or 2 devices each (except for my mother in law). I also have about 10 friends who occasionally stream. Most use it on 1 device, a couple of them use 2, and one uses 4.

 

In my household, we have 3 TVs with streamers, 2 phones, 2 tablets and 1 laptop that frequently stream (many more capable devices in the house but they don't often stream).

 

So you can see that during certain weeks, we can easily have 30+ devices. If premiere was limited to my household, I would be perfectly fine.

 

Live TV and Cinema Mode I believe would be the ones for the Android/Fire TV apps.

 

You basically would need to not give them access to Live TV (and features like download for the other apps)

 

Feature Matrix

 

I don't think it is a bad idea to create some way of keeping someone from using Premiere at a user-level.  It is just something that isn't needed by a very large audience so isn't near the top of our list(s) right now.

 

OK, it sounds like part of the functionality is there, and it will come to more clients in the future. That's great.

 

It would be neat however to be able to easily limit that in the user settings at the time of creation/invite.

 

Thanks

[Carlo 4330]

You are probably OK. It really depends on the devices being used.

For example what devices does your mother in law use?

 

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/Emby-Premiere-Feature-Matrix

 

Many of the device apps (mobile excluded) will allow basic features and playback without using a premium license.

Xbox/Android TV/Fire TV are the exceptions.

 

Mobile apps have additional features that can be used such as sync, camera upload, offline playing, which makes them a bit different.

 

If your friends don't need Live TV and they use Rokus for example you won't have an issue.

 

@@Luke, @@ebr

It would be helpful if full playback was available as non premium across the board.  That would "fix" the license issue for most people.  Premium would then be "actual premium" type features like syncing, live tv, dvr, offline playback. You could throw camera sync/upload in there as premium as well.

 

Taking this a step further:

On the server add a checkbox for each user to allow shared premium license (admin's license) use. Admin could reserve premium license counts this way.

Add a checkbox for each user "Allow Premium features for Unlocked Apps".

 

Of course allow users to purchase all apps.

 

With those changes the admin has complete control.  They could for example keep their own premiere license for their own devices.  They could give access to Live TV to a adult brother, sister, mom or dad but require them to purchase their app to use it beyond basic playback.  If you brother wants Live TV or Sync on 5 devices, no problem that will be $5 each please.

 

The admin could grant Live TV or Sync to a friend outside their house but not allow them to use their premium license. So the feature wouldn't work UNTIL the user purchased their own app license.

 

Another feature that could be useful for Premium and would be an expansion of an existing feature is Trakt.  If this was able to be used by all users then it could also be a source to get people to upgrade to an unlocked app. It would be very cool to allow all users to sync their media watched lists this way. Of course this would apply at the user vs device level but user would have to have one unlocked app or be using the admin's premier license.

 

Something along these lines would be ideal IMHO.  It wouldn't scare off people who don't understand the current license plus would open the door to more unlock app sales.  Is this something you would consider?

[aptalca 70]

All the devices I mentioned are ones that count towards the limit. Mostly fire tvs, some rokus and mobile (android and ios), a couple windows store apps and an xbox.

[richenginner 0]

why android tv requires emby premiere?

[PuffyToesToo 281]

So this is the first time I've become aware of a device limit with premiere. My fault, but here I am.

So my brother, (for example) has 6 different devices he connects with (2 tablets, a desktop, a firestick, 2 phones and a Roku - all at home). My son has about 5. Does this mean that this takes up 11 out of the 25 device limit total? I have about  7 devices as well, quickly bringing that up to 18 in no time. Is this limit devices per user overall, or simultaneous connections? Also, is there a basic rundown of Premiere features that can be turned off per user or device? Thank you. Apologies for asking.

[GrimReaper 3318]

2 minutes ago, PuffyToesToo said:

So this is the first time I've become aware of a device limit with premiere. My fault, but here I am.

So my brother, (for example) has 6 different devices he connects with (2 tablets, a desktop, a firestick, 2 phones and a Roku - all at home). My son has about 5. Does this mean that this takes up 11 out of the 25 device limit total? I have about  7 devices as well, quickly bringing that up to 18 in no time. Is this limit devices per user overall, or simultaneous connections? Also, is there a basic rundown of Premiere features that can be turned off per user or device? Thank you. Apologies for asking.

Have you read KB article:

Is there a limit to Emby Premiere?

[PuffyToesToo 281]

2 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

Have you read KB article:

Is there a limit to Emby Premiere?

Thank you, I will go read this now. I appreciate you linking that.