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Emby in Xbox browser now requires Premiere?


jOzy

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HylianSidekick

I don’t know about anyone else, but I would feel a lot better about this if it had been transparently announced first.

 

My family’s main usage of Emby is through the Xbox browser. I’ve already bought app access for several phones and would probably have bought access to the Xbox app too, but this feels sneaky and I am definitely not going to pay for an ongoing subscription. Guess I should have just gone “Lifetime Premier” in the beginning. Instead, I’m probably just going to stop using Emby.

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  • 1 year later...
thelanranger
On 4/17/2020 at 1:37 PM, daedalus said:

^ justification would be interesting

 

no one asked for everything, just equal treatment

 

jag a NUC to your tv, run the webclient from your couch -> free

jag a Xbox to your tv, run the webclient from your couch -> get premium

 

that there is no outstanding feature over the webclient on that platforms is not our fault

As a paying customer, I have to agree with this sentiment. 

I just found out that the Xbox has had full Chromium based Edge deployed to it today. Since the Xbox native theater app (which I'm paying you $5 a month for) crashes constantly and doesn't play audio on 4k to the point where I have to re-transcode my files, I had planned to test out using the Edge browser on the Xbox to see if it worked better than the app (which I suspect it will since you can stream games from Stadia/Steam). 

If this is the case, why are you differentiating between the piece of crap app that doesn't work and the web interface that works perfectly? Why not stick to charging for 'features' or nothing. This is the same road that lead me to you guys over Plex in the first place. I paid them SPECIFICALLY for xbox development for YEARS and then they never delivered and just went "oh yea, we're just going to drop that now." Don't be those dudes.

I understand that you enjoy being paid for your work, but if you want to attract customers and make money from a happy user base then keep doing what you're doing and charge for 'premium features' like skins, artwork, database management, etc, and not for making the product actually function.

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I'm not really sure where the issue is or how we can make it more clear looking at our feature matrix:
https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001173099-emby-premiere-feature-matrix

image.png.a8883273914fd961b08ed66282560a35.png

That clearly states the Xbox One and PS4 require Premiere.  That says nothing about the client used on those consoles as it's the console itself that requires Premiere.
image.png.87c6ad27d7f248b94b1ec1064f7f53bc.png

In the section on browsers it says nothing about any browser running on any platform but specifically says PC or Mobile browser.
Neither the Xbox or PS4 is a PC or a Mobile device.

If you look at our specific app download pages they are crystal clear as well.
For Xbox you can either download an app or use tv.emby.media which is a browser based UI designed for TV user vs desktop.

It clearly says you can browse your media, while playback requires Emby Premiere (app or browser).
image.thumb.png.31966390a1ec39df81ef1521013294d7.png

 

The PS4 is the same as Xbox only it requires use of tv.emby.media as there is no downloadable app for it.  The page is very clear that using the the PS4 web browser for playback requires Emby Premiere.
image.thumb.png.d14bf6569212ae5d3887610f30681443.png

We try hard to be clear in our documentation regarding what is free to use and what requires an Unlock or a Premiere License. We are open to making changes to these pages if needed but it's already pretty clearly stated that both PS4 and Xbox require Emby Premiere for full playback.

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By the way as soon as the Chromium-based webview is available on Xbox, then the app will also be Chromium-based and most of the Xbox-specific issues that we're currently seeing will go away in one fell swoop. The browser is there of course but the webview is not yet there for developers.

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Deathsquirrel
9 hours ago, thelanranger said:

I just found out that the Xbox has had full Chromium based Edge deployed to it today. Since the Xbox native theater app (which I'm paying you $5 a month for) crashes constantly and doesn't play audio on 4k to the point where I have to re-transcode my files, I had planned to test out using the Edge browser on the Xbox to see if it worked better than the app (which I suspect it will since you can stream games from Stadia/Steam).

If you're paying a monthly fee, you're paying it for premiere.  There is no xbox app-specific $5/month charge.  That isn't a thing.

If you have premiere then you've ALREADY PAID for playback on the xbox, regardless of whether you're using the browser or Emby theater..so you have absolutely nothing to complain about.  You were paying for premier and it let you use the xbox as a playback device.  You are still paying for premiere and it's still letting you sue the xbox as a playback device.  There has been no change.

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thelanranger
18 hours ago, Luke said:

By the way as soon as the Chromium-based webview is available on Xbox, then the app will also be Chromium-based and most of the Xbox-specific issues that we're currently seeing will go away in one fell swoop. The browser is there of course but the webview is not yet there for developers.

This is what I am hoping. 

The Chromium based Edge is currently available on Xbox. I opened it this morning and tested it but I was unable to get my local system to connect via the web view so I'm not sure if this will solve some of the 4k issues i'm having. I'll be testing this this weekend more extensively. If the Xbox premiere app itself can use the chromium interface (or just integrate VLC player into the app as the native player or something) to correct all its issues that would be perfect.

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thelanranger

So, I tried this last night and the Chromium Edge version of emby is significantly less functionally on the xbox than the app. 

I was hoping that it would solve some of the audio issues and the transcoding issues but it tends to not even recognize the video codecs let alone the audio codecs. I fear that the dream of using the webui for the xbox app might not be plausible.

Is there a timeline on a more workable native app? The audio/4k issues on xbox are pretty annoying and they work fine through emby in kodi on the xbox. Isn't there something that can be done to utilize the native kodi player inside the emby app?

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Hi, can't give a timeline but the unified version of Theater for Windows is getting closer.

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4 hours ago, thelanranger said:

So, I tried this last night and the Chromium Edge version of emby is significantly less functionally on the xbox than the app. 

 

What specifically do you mean?

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thelanranger
On 10/23/2021 at 4:00 PM, Luke said:

What specifically do you mean?

 Well, aside from all the issues of navigation and the initial link up, the in-browser player seems to recognize significantly fewer codecs than the in-app player. 100% of my 4k movies fell into full transcoding (audio AND video) and I was also unable to get any audio passthrough (which I can do with the app).

Basically the app is 'functional' in 4k at the moment as long as the audio stream is compatible with the xbox or my receiver (because it will fall into passthrough). There are some weird HDR issues (like the video looks washout on some videos like it's not getting the proper rec data) but I have no way to confirm 100% if that's the file itself or the player. Some things work, some don't. With the web player, 0% of 4k works.

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Quote

Well, aside from all the issues of navigation and the initial link up, the in-browser player seems to recognize significantly fewer codecs than the in-app player

Well yes that goes without saying when comparing a browser video player to a native app. I was actually curious about everything else though.

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FrostByte
On 10/23/2021 at 11:34 AM, cayars said:

Hi, can't give a timeline but the unified version of Theater for Windows is getting closer.

I'm getting closer to dying also, but I'm hoping the new Xbox app will get here first 😃

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thelanranger
14 hours ago, Luke said:

Well yes that goes without saying when comparing a browser video player to a native app. I was actually curious about everything else though.

I mean...normally on a computer I've had very few issues with the web player. It tends to work better than the 'theater' player. I was hoping that this would be the case on the xbox but not so much.

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10 minutes ago, thelanranger said:

I mean...normally on a computer I've had very few issues with the web player. It tends to work better than the 'theater' player. I was hoping that this would be the case on the xbox but not so much.

Can you please be more specific? Thanks.

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16 minutes ago, thelanranger said:

Pretty much summed it up above I thought.

Understood but I was curious about other areas outside of playback.

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  • 2 weeks later...
thelanranger
On 10/26/2021 at 11:36 AM, Luke said:

Understood but I was curious about other areas outside of playback.

Well the new browser itself is a little janky on xbox so I don't know that I'd necessarily blame the rest of it on emby? It's just MUCH easier to use the native app than to go into edge and then wander around a website and sign in and all that BS with the on screen kb popping up constantly etc.

Kinda how it's horrid to use emby through kodi vs the native app. It's just going backwards to get things to work. The native app really just needs its own player.

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Yep it's hard, but not doesn't from a Premiere License standpoint as it's about the platform, not the app used.

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  • 4 months later...
15 hours ago, Amouse666 said:

How can I authorize my xbox?

 

Hi there, do you have Emby Premiere?

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