Slide show with music

[jiikoo 4]

Dear Sirs

 

It would be great to be able to play music and view photos at the same time. It would be even better if you could drop a music playlist into the picture folder.

 

BR

 

Jukka

[ebr 14913]

Hi.  You can already do this.  Just start playing some music and then go start your slide show.

[jiikoo 4]

Really? I just tried that with browser and music stops when picture opens. In my TV (LG) which uses DNLA it is possible to play music during the slide show, but you basically can't select what you are playing because all the 10.000 tracs of my music library are in the same pile.

[jiikoo 4]

Of course I hope I'm wrong and I just can't configure the server properly :-)

[ebr 14913]

The browser may not support it but the TV apps should. Why do you say you cannot choose what to play?  You can play any playlist, album, artist, etc.

[jiikoo 4]

I think that is LG DNLA client's problem. It shows all tracs in one list which you can browse with your TV's remote.

 

I installed the emby app to my TV and it does the same thing. Music stops when I open a picture.

Edited November 29, 2019 by jiikoo

[EZEd 53]

The browser may not support it but the TV apps should. Why do you say you cannot choose what to play?  You can play any playlist, album, artist, etc.

 

@@ebr, I'll check against Android TV and Roku tonight when I get home but I know for sure this does not work on Samsung (Tizen) Smart TV app.  I just tried last night on my Samsung TV and this feature does not work.  Please add capability to Samsung TV app to simultaneous play random order of both pictures/photos and music.  Would prefer this to be at the folder level and randomization for both picture and music folders but for now will take whatever I can get.

 

Thx

[EZEd 53]

@@ebr, after experimentation here is the result of my observations on what happens with three different devices

 

Up front info...I have all of my pictures separated into folders by year then subfolders for each month under each year.  All photo files use a naming convention that begins with the date the photo was taken so a set of photos taken in December 2019 would be in folder <2019>/<201912>/<201912XX_filenamesuffix.jpg>.  Similarly, music is organized much the same way in a folder structure <Artist name>/<Album name>/<Artist name - song name.mp3>

 

Samsung Smart TV (Tizen) - start music playing --> go to photos --> go into subfolder and try to start pictures playing...music immediately stops playing. Whether I choose one photo or hit the play button for the entire folder music immediately stops playing.

 

Android TV (I'm using ematic Jetstream so I'm sure it is the same for Shield) - start music playing --> go to photos --> view all photos --> go to right side play button choose play-all --> music continues to play but no pictures start to play. --> choose shuffle play --> music continues to play --> no pictures play.  So the play button for pictures is completely inoperative for me inside of photos.  If I go click on a picture and hit select/ok --> music continues to play --> the selected photo displays full screen but I see no way to advance photos in slideshow fashion.  I can manually advance the photos by pressing the right arrow key. Pressing play has no effect.  Good news is that music continues to play.  If I view photos by folder and then go to a subfolder (so in this case example <2019>/<201910>) I can then press the play button and the picture files for that folder begin to play in file name sort order.  Music continues to play.  I do not see a way to have the pictures play in a random fashion.  Also only the pictures for that particular subfolder will play. There is no way for me to play all picture files in my library in any order and then there is no way to have them play in random order while music is playing.

 

Roku (I'm using Premier Plus unit) - start music playing --> go to photos --> I can only view at folder and subfolder level.  There is no way to view all library photos as is the case with Android TV.  Go into a subfolder with pictures (example same as above <2019>/<201910>).  Choose a starting picture --> press play button --> music continues to play --> pictures do advance for that folder only --> no random picture play. If I go up a level and press play on the highlighted folder the entire system locks up and a playback error message comes up. I have to exit out of Emby and get back in for another attempt.

 

Of the three devices that I have Android TV provides the closest, most versatile and functional experience.  Then Roku is next but less functional. Then Samsung TV not functional at all.

 

The desired capability would be to achieve playing any random music queue or playlist while playing any and all photo files in the library in a random fashion simultaneously. A stretch goal would be to incorporate slideshow visual affects such as pan and zoom, fade in and fade out on photos as well as collage style mosaic.  This was what Windows Media Center was extremely successful at and is the functionality that I am trying to recreate.

 

Adding this functionality as well as screen visualizations to music playback would put Emby over the top for me and make it the go to application for all of my AV needs.  I personally would love to see these functions elevated in the queue of priorities for software development.

 

Please contact me if you need more information on current and future functionality description.

 

Thx

[bigfry 3]

Similar but different boat to @@EZEd here. I tried this on my Fire Stick 4k tonight (used to love the music/slideshow in WMC) and couldn't get it to work right. If I start playing music, then go to the "Photos" tab and select either Play All or Shuffle All it shuts off the music and starts playing home videos - not photos. If I do select a single photo and open it, the music does keep playing, but I don't have a slideshow, just a static image. Same thing happens if I do it from the "Videos" or "Folders" tabs, but I'm not surprised to get a video playing from there...

[ebr 14913]

We'll look at those on-screen buttons in the photo view but, if when on one of your photos you hit the "play" button on your remote, it should start playing from that picture through the rest of them.

 

Thanks.

[EZEd 53]

@@ebr yes it did within only one subfolder on Roku. But only did manual advance on Android TV. Ill try again tonight on Android to see if I can make it behave like Roku. Samsung has no functionality at all in any regard of music and photos playing simultaneously.

[Luke 37065]

Samsung has no functionality at all in any regard of music and photos playing simultaneously.

It's something we'll look at in future updates to the app. Thanks.

[ebr 14913]

 But only did manual advance on Android TV.

 

 

Ok/Select will bring up a single image with manual advance.  The "play" button on your remote will start a slide show which should be immediately obvious because the slide show has a "Ken Burns" effect on it.

 

Thanks.

[ebr 14913]

Android TV (I'm using ematic Jetstream so I'm sure it is the same for Shield) - start music playing --> go to photos --> view all photos --> go to right side play button choose play-all --> music continues to play but no pictures start to play. --> choose shuffle play --> music continues to play --> no pictures play.  So the play button for pictures is completely inoperative for me inside of photos.  

 

I just tested this and it worked fine for me.  I got shuffled images with the music playing.  How long did you wait for pictures to show up?

 

If you can reproduce this, please do so and send a log from the app.

 

Thanks.

[EZEd 53]

@@ebr, just tested again with Android TV.  Yes behavior is the same as Roku.  With music playing I have to navigate to a subfolder and then pictures will play for that folder only. The activity does not work at the higher level where I can view all photos from all folders (i.e. photos highlighted in the top left border of the screen).  I waited a good 3 mins for it to start at the higher level and the pictures never started.  It could be because I have in excess of 90K pictures total on the server and they are spread out across 40 some odd folders which some are nested inside of other folders.  Again, it does work on an individual folder level just like with Roku.

 

Thx

[ebr 14913]

Yes, my guess would be the query to get the pictures to show is timing out.  Can I see the server log from when you did that?

[EZEd 53]

Will try to post log tonight after work.

[Luke 37065]

Great, thanks.

[EZEd 53]

Ok, Luke & ebr.  Here are the results...  keep in mind my photo files are organized similar to music files.  So I have a top folder called Photos, then several subfolders by year from early 1900s to 2020.  Then starting in 1990 because of the number of photos in each folder I have each year folder broken down into months of the year.  Everything prior to 1990 is just a bunch of jpeg files in a folder.  Then each jpeg file begins with the date taken for that file.  So the structure looks like

 

<Photos_folder>

<Photos_folder>\<Year_folder>\<jpeg_files>

after 1990 - <Photos_folder>\<Year_folder>\<Month_folder>\<jpeg_files>

 

So the path to a picture taken on October 3rd 2017 would look like \\ Photos \ 2017 \ 201710 \ 20171003_IMG00001.JPG

 

The Emby slideshow feature only seems to work at the lowest folder level.  So if I go to the folder \\ Photos \ 2017 \ 201710 and press play-all on the play button to the right of screen the slideshow will begin while music is playing.

 

However if I back up one level and want to start a slideshow of all pictures from 2017 at that folder level it will not work.  I tried pressing the play-all/shuffle-all button to the right of screen and physically hitting the play button on my Harmony remote controlling my Android TV device. The files will not play at the higher 2017 folder level.  My guess is because there are 12 other folders below this level.

 

Neither when I go to the top level at <Photos> and repeat the steps will I get a slide show using either play-all/shuffle-all button onscreen to the right or the physical play button on the remote.

 

If I go the Photos tab at the top of the screen I am presented with what appears to be all of my photos in correct sort order (file name order ascending). And because my pictures are all named with the date taken in the file name they are by default in date order even when selecting file name order.  The counter in the bottom right of the screen says picture # x of y # pictures (current count is roughly 96 thousand - picture x / 96000).

 

So from this screen no manner of slideshow can be started, neither using the onscreen play button or the physical remote button.  I can highlight any picture shown on the screen and press OK/Select and the picture does go full screen but does not advance.  Even while the picture is full screen, hitting play on the remote does nothing.  I do not see an onscreen option to play/advance when a full size picture is showing.

 

I did not try to recreate the scenario on the Roku.  My assumption is it behaves the same.

 

Again, none of this works on the Samsung TV app.  If music is playing in the Samsung app and the command is given to play pictures, the music stops, no matter where it is in the cycle.

 

Logs are attached.  Activity to test begins at roughly the 2011 hour mark.  Log was taken after a fresh server restart.  So everything there should be issue related.

 

Thx

EZEd

 

 

embyserver-63717827125.txt

[ebr 14913]

What if you go one more level up and press the play button on your remote when hovered over the "2017" folder?

[EZEd 53]

What if you go one more level up and press the play button on your remote when hovered over the "2017" folder?

Same behavior. It only plays at the subfolder/month level. Any level higher does not play. I'll check Roku tonight to see if it is the same but if memory serves it is. But I'll check again.

 

Thx

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[EZEd 53]

Checked Roku...its even worse. At any folder level higher than month per year with music playing and I press the play button on the remote I get an error... "Playback error - No streams were provided for playback".  This is for both the highest level <Photos> and <Photos>/<Year>.  It only works when I get down to the <Photos>/<Year>/<Month> level.  And even then it only works after I have entered the folder and can see the photos.  Then I can press play and the slideshow will begin.

 

While testing this I also noticed something different about the Roku presentation compared to the Android TV presentation and the Samsung TV presentation, Roku does not have a way to sort files and folder views as does Android TV.  There is no control to sort by name, date or other in ascending and descending order.  So when I go to the photos item the first view is of the yearly folders but they are not in a recognizable sort order.  They seem to be haphazardly arranged.  But if I click on one of the month subfolders the files themselves seem to be file name ordered correctly.  I didn't check them all but the one or two that I checked seemed to be file name sort ordered.  Just more ancillary information found in observation.

 

Thx

[bigfry 3]

We'll look at those on-screen buttons in the photo view but, if when on one of your photos you hit the "play" button on your remote, it should start playing from that picture through the rest of them.

 

Thanks.

On my end, I just now had the chance to verify this is correct, and it is on my Fire Stick. Pressing play while on a photo starts a slideshow and music continues playing. Of course it plays the photos in sequential order. Until you fix the on-screen buttons I don't see any way to shuffle the photos. Also it would be nice to have an overlay with the currently playing song info, or at least a pop up when a song starts/ends.

[ebr 14913]

On my end, I just now had the chance to verify this is correct, and it is on my Fire Stick. Pressing play while on a photo starts a slideshow and music continues playing. Of course it plays the photos in sequential order. Until you fix the on-screen buttons I don't see any way to shuffle the photos. Also it would be nice to have an overlay with the currently playing song info, or at least a pop up when a song starts/ends.

 

The on screen button is working fine for me.  Can you please try to use it, wait about 60 seconds and then post the server log from that time?

 

Thanks.

[bigfry 3]

The on screen button is working fine for me.  Can you please try to use it, wait about 60 seconds and then post the server log from that time?

 

Thanks.

Here's the last ~60 seconds. Same as before, I go to "Home videos & photos" Open the "Photos" tab. Scroll to the right and press OK on the "Play" button. Select "Shuffle All" and press OK. Instead of photos I get videos every time.