DSUB cache model is superior to the EMBY download model

[xe` 42]

I was not sure where to post this but I thought it was important to post some honest, no drama, early usage, family feedback.

 

I recently started to look at how the Emby mobile client works when offline and from a usability standpoint it is quite inconvenient and ugly. Certainly my kids and elders struggle to use it.

 

My first real adventure into this was music. Currently we use airsonic server with DSUB client on our family mobile phones and tablets. DSUB looks old visually and it is not without its shortcomings but if we ignore feature parity its caching model is VASTLY superior to Emby.

 

In simple terms DSUB:

• asks you to choose a cache size (two actually if you have cheap SD card as well)
• caches stuff you listen to on the fly while online making best use of this cache disk space
• caches next tracks on the fly
• allows you a simple means to pre cache  i.e. press the cache on an album or playlist as you leave the house and you likely have it cached on free wifi before you make the car
• allows you to set permanent cache items that are not rolled out of the dynamic cache
• has granular settings for wifi vs mobile usage
• lots of power user configuration (probably too many)

 

but most importantly DSUB cache is presented seamlessly in the normal library and gui. There are no special views with limited content or different layouts you have to access and learn (teach kids) to see what they have downloaded.

 

You dont need to have detailed elder and kid family teaching sessions on how to manage downloads and mobile data.

 

Day to day you just use it and the client does its best to look and operate the same when mobile as it is when home.

 

If you wish to operate on cache only you just choose offline mode and the library shrinks so that it is structurally the same and visually identical but just smaller in content.

 

tl;dr Emby download model feels like a stand alone unfinished and featureless tool whereas DSUB cache model feels like a polished core feature that just works.

 

[ebr 14913]

Hi.  That's good feedback and that happens to be exactly where we're headed - for music anyway.  I don't think that model makes any sense for most video.

[xe` 42]

I was actually thinking about this as I was typing it. My initial thoughts were the same as you that it makes sense for music but not tv and movies but the more i thought about it the more I realised this may just not be true.

 

People consume TV now in the same way we traditionally consumed music e.g. track/ep 1 .... track/ep 2). Movies less so but it is not impossible that you may want to have for example Iron man 2 cached if you are actively watching Iron man 1

 

What about books... yup the same is true .. it is likely that you will want to have the next book in a series cached.

 

What about pictures... very much true etc etc etc

 

 

The only real difference in any of this are the costs in terms local cache space and bandwidth and thats when i realised...

 

Both of these values would always need to be configurable around sane defaults but also most importantly both of these are constantly getting larger and cheaper.

 

 

So I suggest that thinking even medium term that a tipping point is coming and the logic of caching is really just a game of massaging numbers to match general sane ever growing defaults with scope for power/edge users to finesse.

[aptalca 70]

I agree with the requested features with music. That's similar to how my google music client works. It caches everything I play, and things that I *might* play based on my activity and preferences, etc. It also lets me select caching limits such as total size and when to cache (plugged in, on wifi, etc.) Once the limits are set, the rest is automatic. I can enable "downloaded only" in the car and have great selection.

 

I also agree that (although not as high priority as music) this would be beneficial for tv and perhaps movies as well. I believe netflix has "smart cache" with their mobile apps where you can set the limits and it will cache the tv show episodes I'm in the middle of and the next ones and it's all managed automatically in the background.

[Jdiesel 1114]

Isn't this already in place for TV shows? Maybe not exactly as you described but when you choose to download a series you are able to select unwatched episodes only, the number of episodes to keep on the device, and to download new episodes automatically. This should allow you to always have new unwatched episodes on your device.

[xe` 42]

This is one of the reasons I posted because really we are not a million miles away but the devil is in the details.... or rather the devil is in the continuity.

 

In an ideal world the look and feel for using online and offline should be all identical and the methodology of one type of content caching should be the same as the others..... and above all it needs to be intuitive. My elders and my kids struggle with the basic premise of having two copies and where they are and stuff we take for granted.

 

Little things matter...

 

For example if you download an album it obliterates your download preview because its now lists tracks not the single album you cached.

 

If you select a movie in your local downloads view, long press and choose delete it wants to delete a file from your main library I assume permanently and not as would be more intuitve the downloaded version. In a cache model the word delete would not be used at all it would be "remove from cache" or even "uncache". This is a simpler more intuitive concept.

 

Only in some places can see any visual indication if a episode is cached. For example download a TV show then navigate to season view of that show. There is no way to know per ep what is cached. In the DSUB model you see very clearly what is cached and qucikly you "just know" at a glance.

 

 

I have lots of other ideas but I am in danger of feature overload. This now i recommend checking our DSUB or it sounds like google music too with fresh eyes and consider how to make a contiguous content agnostic version of this.