Remove Branding

[Lighthammer 80]

Per request from Luke, I am breaking up the suggestions from this thread:

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/80816-cumulative-suggestions-from-lighthammer-end-of-2019/

 

I'll add additional information for each topic as needed

 

Remove Branding

Finally, I would like to see the ability to straight up remove all the Emby Branding for a nominal fee. I image you can already do this via the Custom CSS but an easier update for the branding would be very nice.

As with ALL CMS packages, I would expect this to cost a substantial fee. Packages such as uBulletin cost around $200 to remove the branding. I think this is fairly in line.

The option really should be available for those looking to parle Emby into novel usecases. For instance, I setup an emby server for a local fitness club so that they could stream music play lists and their own workout videos.

[fizzyade 124]

i’d like to suggest an addendum to this, i understand lighthammers requirement and suggestion of a fee to remove/replace branding.

 

id like to see the ability to set a server image, i don’t mind there being additional images/text saying “Powered by Emby”.  can i suggest that this be a lifetime subscription perk.  allows us to personalise our servers inside our house but not completely remove all traces of emby.  this is a slightly different usage case to what lighthammer wants.

[Lighthammer 80]

i’d like to suggest an addendum to this, i understand lighthammers requirement and suggestion of a fee to remove/replace branding.

 

I talked about this on the other (massive) thread, but I'd like to iterate here for good conversation flow:

 

I don't think the average user has ANY reason to remove branding. Heck, I think it helps grow the brand and understanding of what Emby is. I think about this in the terms of the old vBulletin days. The average person running a small server had no reason to not have "Powered by vBulletin" stabled on the bottom in the copyrights, but when companies like Paramount, Ubisoft and Adult Swim wanted to use vBulletin, they sure as heck had no interest in advertising that they outsourced their development tools.

 

That being said, I wonder if it wouldn't be a bad idea to have the Loading Screen and/or Icon have some sort of personalization to it.

 

Honestly, if I felt that is worth the development time and that there weren't a few other BIG things needing to be done to Emby, a light weight UI to customize colors in Emby would be really neat.

[fizzyade 124]

I talked about this on the other (massive) thread, but I'd like to iterate here for good conversation flow:

 

I don't think the average user has ANY reason to remove branding. Heck, I think it helps grow the brand and understanding of what Emby is. I think about this in the terms of the old vBulletin days. The average person running a small server had no reason to not have "Powered by vBulletin" stabled on the bottom in the copyrights, but when companies like Paramount, Ubisoft and Adult Swim wanted to use vBulletin, they sure as heck had no interest in advertising that they outsourced their development tools.

 

That being said, I wonder if it wouldn't be a bad idea to have the Loading Screen and/or Icon have some sort of personalization to it.

 

Honestly, if I felt that is worth the development time and that there weren't a few other BIG things needing to be done to Emby, a light weight UI to customize colors in Emby would be really neat.

 

 

I think we’re just going to have to disagree here, home users are the usage case that i see most likely to want to set their own server image, it’s a nicety, something that looks neat.  If home users didn’t like tinkering or changing the way stuff looked then their wouldn’t be a million skins for Kodi.  With a bit of poking around i could probably achieve what i want for web clients with some changes to my reverse proxy config.

 

My addendum isn’t about remove the branding, it’s about allowing us to set a server image, i have no problem with the application indicating it’s emby, this was the reason i was given why this was a non starter before, they’ve spent a lot of effort building their brand - i’m suggesting meeting us in the middle for my usage case.

 

Your usage case is specific, you want to pay a (substantial) fee to completely remove the branding, i totally get that and it’s for a completely different situation.

 

i think there’s scope for both and they both share a commonality which is why i’ve tacked onto your post.

[Lighthammer 80]

I think we’re just going to have to disagree here, home users are the usage case that i see most likely to want to set their own server image

 

Maybe we have to.

 

I'm looking at this from a business analyst perspective and you're looking at this from an end user perspective.

 

This is the sort of thing that we have to step back and consider what is best for growing the brand.

 

Your usage case is specific, you want to pay a (substantial) fee to completely remove the branding, i totally get that and it’s for a completely different situation.

 

I kind of agree as I suggested in my last post, but I'm honestly not in the shoes in the dev and have a hard time considering what is best for their business model.

 

I think its irrefutable that if someone wants to drop a huge wad of cash on their laps to get rid of the branding that the option should be there.

 

For your solution of customization to be what you're suggesting, there are *A LOT* of factors needed to be considered:

- How strong is the brand already?

- How strong is the user base?

- How reputable is the brand?

- Whats your monthly income at current?

 

These are all very big questions to gauge how good of an idea this is.

 

I mean, lets be honest, on the surface one of the biggest problems you're going to face if you give a wide birth to these changes is how to address getting the Emby Apps for other devices. Are the users you're servicing with your server going to be smart enough to go look for the Emby App on the Play Store / iOS Store? I mean, sure, we could start to do some neat things like link the various apps from a user's configuration screen and make the branding centralized on the server (which are good ideas to pursue), but there are serious socio-psychological things to consider here in allowing a wide spread, easy rebranding.