Plex Watch Together

[jspanitz 14]

This is why I've dumped Emby for the time being - they're not listening to the use base IMO.

[arrbee99 1704]

7 hours ago, DanielFrank said:

I don't see any good reason why this feature is not already existing. It has been suggested ever since 2015, and has already been made possible by other major platforms. Can we get an update whether this is going to be considered or not?

Jeez people, it hasn't even been a decade yet, whats the rush...

[adminExitium 281]

This probably needs to be merged with 

 & possibly 

too. 

[ebr 15605]

20 hours ago, adminExitium said:

This probably needs to be merged with 

No, that request is different as it is for multiple people all watching on the same device, not across different devices.

[bdjay 2]

I am a new Emby Premiere monthly subscriber, and this is the only feature that Emby does not have that has kept me from considering Emby over Plex! I'll give a like to the thread, but thought it may be valuable to know that this feature has stopped me pulling the trigger for a year at least. I've been a PlexPass subscriber since 2012, and even though I'm still planning to switch to Emby, as it aligns much better with what I want overall, I would love to see this feature. I have family all over the US, and watch parties help keep us connected.

Thanks!

Edited January 6, 2024 by bdjay

[BillOatman 570]

4 hours ago, bdjay said:

I am a new Emby Premiere monthly subscriber, and this is the only feature that Emby does not have that has kept me from considering Emby over Plex! I'll give a like to the thread, but thought it may be valuable to know that this feature has stopped me pulling the trigger for a year at least. I've been a PlexPass subscriber since 2012, and even though I'm still planning to switch to Emby, as it aligns much better with what I want overall, I would love to see this feature. I have family all over the US, and watch parties help keep us connected.

Thanks!

Yeah I hear ya,  my kids are spread out across the east coast as well and would love this.  I'm setting up a Jellyfin server for them now to use for that.

[bdjay 2]

3 hours ago, BillOatman said:

Yeah I hear ya,  my kids are spread out across the east coast as well and would love this.  I'm setting up a Jellyfin server for them now to use for that.

I like that Emby apps seem to be available for most things and that the overall look is more polished than Jellyfin. Honestly I really don't mind about polish, but my kids do, and my gf just wants things to work without any fuss. I've got all 3 running side by side at the moment, and Jellyfin is actually better than I was expecting. Emby would be a lock if it had the watch together feature. I'll play with both for the next month- Jellyfin meets my needs for now I may just run with them for a bit and wait and see if Emby implements this before grabbing a lifetime membership. It seems like such a small thing, but my family would miss being able to start/pause etc together. 

That said, I'm enjoying Emby a bunch too!

[FefeHern 1]

I concur with this request. Other services were good but their TV Client's never held up to Emby's. However they did have this feature which I miss sorely being in a long-distance relationship.

Integrate this feature, and I'll be a happy Emby Camer.

 

Note: It doesn't have to be a full on chat server. Just the ability to play, pause, skip to time, and sync properly

Edited January 14, 2024 by FefeHern
Explanining requirement

[rbjtech 4939]

On 07/01/2024 at 02:29, BillOatman said:

Yeah I hear ya,  my kids are spread out across the east coast as well and would love this.  I'm setting up a Jellyfin server for them now to use for that.

Hi @BillOatman

Given your experience with the API coding for Commecial Skipping s etc - I'm surprised you haven't dabbled with putting something together for this.

When @chefand I took a look at this - using the remote session control 'sort of' worked - yes it was admin only and yes it was very janky - but the concept of remote starting, pausing and stopping remote sessions worked just fine.     In short, get all the session ids's and then send control control to them ..  Unless JF has added client control into the code (unlikely) then I believe this session id control is how JF are doing it .. ?   I may dig up the testing we did ..

[BillOatman 570]

5 hours ago, rbjtech said:

Hi @BillOatman

Given your experience with the API coding for Commecial Skipping s etc - I'm surprised you haven't dabbled with putting something together for this.

When @chefand I took a look at this - using the remote session control 'sort of' worked - yes it was admin only and yes it was very janky - but the concept of remote starting, pausing and stopping remote sessions worked just fine.     In short, get all the session ids's and then send control control to them ..  Unless JF has added client control into the code (unlikely) then I believe this session id control is how JF are doing it .. ?   I may dig up the testing we did ..

I looked at their PR for that a while back and they had the control source in the main code, not a plugin so the control would be much finer than a plugin could do.  Similar to intro skip, plugin vs main code.  If someone outside of the main Emby team had access to the code, I suspect they could implement JF's change very quickly.  Being open source you can see exactly what they did. Then Team Emby could refine it later on if they wished. The main problem with "us" doing it now is getting the clients setup that wanted to "watch together".

Edited January 15, 2024 by BillOatman

[rbjtech 4939]

59 minutes ago, BillOatman said:

I looked at their PR for that a while back and they had the control source in the main code, not a plugin so the control would be much finer than a plugin could do.  Similar to intro skip, plugin vs main code.  If someone outside of the main Emby team had access to the code, I suspect they could implement JF's change very quickly.  Being open source you can see exactly what they did. Then Team Emby could refine it later on if they wished. The main problem with "us" doing it now is getting the clients setup that wanted to "watch together".

Thanks - I'm going to take a look - I'm no dev, but I'm just playing with the api and curl commands and got a barebones 'sync' play working - as you say, the hard part is getting people subscribed to the watch party, as currently my mock up just adds every session haha ...

Edited January 15, 2024 by rbjtech

[Mookdog 90]

Really hoping this can become a reality. I have both Plex and Emby and the only thing Plex has over emby is Watch Together. Emby handles and plays videos 100x better than Plex and 99% of the time I prefer Emby. But when I want to watch a movie with my daughter who lives 2400 miles away (She is in the US Navy) I want to be able to do it with emby bc Plex overall just sucks lol I will stop subbing for plex pass once this is implemented into Emby. I bought the lifetime sub to Emby quite a few years ago and the evolution of Emby has been incredible but at the end of the day its missing that one crucial thing that I am sure 50% of people want and that is "Watch Together" function

Ok Rant over

Thank u to all the emby devs out there for the incredible job u do and also keeping this great community alive

Mook

[MindBullet 69]

Hey there guys,

I would really, really love to see this too. I've always preferred Emby over Plex, but an essential feature of Plex indeed is Watch together. Hell, even Jellyfin has SyncPlay - and we are better than Jellyfin, aren't we?

The only reason some of my user's stay on my Plex server, that I run parallel to Emby, is Plex' Watch Together. It's essential for many people, which don't have the opportunity to watch together in persona - or maybe want to watch something together in the same home, but on different devices for convenience.

My question would be as well, why there hasn't been any statement or progress update regarding one of Emby's most desired featured (When I'm looking across the feature request threads). Would be very, very huge to have that on Emby as well

[mike3821 66]

Not sure why people want or even use this?

 

Can somebody give me an example of why?

[Lambtalk 44]

41 minutes ago, mike3821 said:

Not sure why people want or even use this?

 

Can somebody give me an example of why?

Did you read the last comment before yours? There's two examples right there

[mike3821 66]

On 28/01/2024 at 01:45, Mookdog said:

Really hoping this can become a reality. I have both Plex and Emby and the only thing Plex has over emby is Watch Together. Emby handles and plays videos 100x better than Plex and 99% of the time I prefer Emby. But when I want to watch a movie with my daughter who lives 2400 miles away (She is in the US Navy) I want to be able to do it with emby bc Plex overall just sucks lol I will stop subbing for plex pass once this is implemented into Emby. I bought the lifetime sub to Emby quite a few years ago and the evolution of Emby has been incredible but at the end of the day its missing that one crucial thing that I am sure 50% of people want and that is "Watch Together" function

Ok Rant over

Thank u to all the emby devs out there for the incredible job u do and also keeping this great community alive

Mook

When you’re watching together with somebody remote, do you sit on the phone with them or something when you watch together? I just don’t get it.

[Mookdog 90]

3 hours ago, mike3821 said:

When you’re watching together with somebody remote, do you sit on the phone with them or something when you watch together? I just don’t get it.

No u watch the movie together. It basically syncs up the movie so u are both seeing the same exact thing on 2 different screens halfway across the world if u want. I use it regulary with plex to watch movies with my daughter who is in the US Navy stationed 2400 miles away

[mike3821 66]

4 hours ago, Mookdog said:

No u watch the movie together. It basically syncs up the movie so u are both seeing the same exact thing on 2 different screens halfway across the world if u want. I use it regulary with plex to watch movies with my daughter who is in the US Navy stationed 2400 miles away

But why? Where does the human contact happen?

[DanielFrank 11]

1 hour ago, mike3821 said:

But why? Where does the human contact happen?

How is that even a relevant question in this thread? How about we stick to the topic?

This thread is becoming a kindergarten.

[evil_crab 23]

10 hours ago, mike3821 said:

When you’re watching together with somebody remote, do you sit on the phone with them or something when you watch together? I just don’t get it.

Me and my friends use Discord when we're watching something together.

[Meeko 34]

27 minutes ago, evil_crab said:

Me and my friends use Discord when we're watching something together.

Discord Quality without Serverboost is crap

[mike3821 66]

5 hours ago, DanielFrank said:

How is that even a relevant question in this thread? How about we stick to the topic?

This thread is becoming a kindergarten.

May be derailing the topic. Just trying to understand how the human contact piece plays a role in this…

[rbjtech 4939]

29 minutes ago, mike3821 said:

May be derailing the topic. Just trying to understand how the human contact piece plays a role in this…

I think it's a fair question.

Let me ask you this - do you ever sit around with your family and friends for a 'film night' ?

If you do - do you sit there in silence for 2hrs and say nothing to each other ?  

If the answer is yes, then your comments are fair enough - if you have conversations about parts of the film, maybe chat about it with your family next time you see them etc - then this is why it's good to 'watch together'.

It's also a good way to actually 'choose' a film - as with so many available, sometimes its actually nice for the film to be chosen for you - we are watching 'x' tonight - wanna join us ?

It's just a social thing but if you are not into that - no issues - you don't need 'watch party' ..

 

[mike3821 66]

29 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

I think it's a fair question.

Let me ask you this - do you ever sit around with your family and friends for a 'film night' ?

If you do - do you sit there in silence for 2hrs and say nothing to each other ?  

If the answer is yes, then your comments are fair enough - if you have conversations about parts of the film, maybe chat about it with your family next time you see them etc - then this is why it's good to 'watch together'.

It's also a good way to actually 'choose' a film - as with so many available, sometimes its actually nice for the film to be chosen for you - we are watching 'x' tonight - wanna join us ?

It's just a social thing but if you are not into that - no issues - you don't need 'watch party' ..

 

It’s strange to me unless you’re in the same room as the other people. 
 

How would you even speak to the other person? Because I do talk to other people some times when watching. 

[rbjtech 4939]

8 minutes ago, mike3821 said:

It’s strange to me unless you’re in the same room as the other people. 
 

How would you even speak to the other person? Because I do talk to other people some times when watching. 

Lots of ways - whatapp multi-calling etc.    

What I do find odd, is people watching people watching tv/films - now that IS odd I agree .. lol !