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Congrats on an amazing Emby product


vaise

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vaise

I don't think it is said enough as we all have our gripes/complaints when something is not right or does not work - but this really is a great product. 

I have been a mediabrowser / emby user for what seems like millions of years and the product today for me is near perfect.  I was discussing with the kids/wife the other day and they said they have nothing they can think of that will make it any better.  I sent out the same to the select few friends and family that access my system (securely via cloudflare and nginx) and they are also happy (except one but that is their connection stability). 

The latest series delete check is perfect, the green focus on the shield TV is something I didn't really know I needed until it was there.  The unification of the clients is fantastic, and even though we only have 4 roku's left in the house (I have given some away), the addition of @speechles to the team has really made the Roku's shine.  Very slowly my Roku's are being replaced by a name brand Android TV box (VodafoneTV here in Australia), which is the best bang/buck client here is Oz.  I still carry a Roku 4k stick around with me when on holiday for system access from hotels etc - at least I used to do that before we are not allowed to leave anymore!  We just don't have official Roku's here in Aus, so none of the other catch up TV apps can be installed so we lose out.

My move to Unraid and the Emby docker container a few years ago has also introduced major stability not just to Emby, but to much of my IT solutions at home - It runs 24/7 and never has outages, completely automated - meaning I spend more time in front of the TV than fixing / managing issues.  

The only Emby thing I am waiting on is the channel sorting and deletion for the TV guide and I may well then consider leaving the beta server release as I cant for the life of me imagine anything else I need. 

Well done all.

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arche

My biggest issue with Emby is as it becomes more stable and new features that will be added, I have to add more movies and tv shows. It's now become a daily routine to add something to Emby. So yeah, Thanks guys at Emby, my new addiction...

But all jokes aside, great job guys.

Edited by arche
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mark-in-dallas

I have been an Emby Premiere subscriber now for about 1 1/2 years and could not be happier, almost.  Emby Server is awesome and aside from Live TV channel management I can't really thing of anything more that could be improved.  The only things preventing me from dropping my Tivo subscription and using Emby for everything are the same 3 issues in the LG TV App  that have existed all along, they are:

1.  Skip functionality does not work for Live TV in the LG TV App.

2.  In the Guide when a currently airing program is clicked instead of bringing up a Record / Play popup window with program or episode description the program, as it does in a web browser, the program just starts playing and there is no way to view episode information for anything playing at the current time slot.

3.  When scrolling through channels a partial program description is overlaid across the bottom portion of the Guide which isn't really readable and obviously shouldn't be there.

If it weren't for these issues I would ditch Tivo completely and use Emby as my sole source for TV entertainment.

Edited by mark-in-dallas
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@vaise Danke. Thanks for the awesome post. Very happy you are happy. There is more good stuff coming for Roku. It isn't "there yet" as far as complete. It cannot and will never be complete... It always has something new that can be done or some new display technique that can be used. There is more than just I in team (there is more than me coding Roku for Emby). It is a team effort. The community also helps by finding bugs. Together we can build something. There is more good coming that should make the happiness factor on Roku increase significantly and the frustration decrease substantially. Make the app easier to use and more fun for everyone. That is coming. I know that is vague, doesn't give any information on what is changing, but it is an accurate statement. The Roku will be easier to use for everyone ages 3 to 133. You may want to check back on it occasionally to see where things changed. The Roku misses you. :P

Edited by speechles
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vaise
4 hours ago, speechles said:

 Danke. Thanks for the awesome post. Very happy you are happy. There is more good stuff coming for Roku. It isn't "there yet" as far as complete. It cannot and will never be complete... It always has something new that can be done or some new display technique that can be used. There is more than just I in team (there is more than me coding Roku for Emby). It is a team effort. The community also helps by finding bugs. Together we can build something. There is more good coming that should make the happiness factor on Roku increase significantly and the frustration decrease substantially. Make the app easier to use and more fun for everyone. That is coming. I know that is vague, doesn't give any information on what is changing, but it is an accurate statement. The Roku will be easier to use for everyone ages 3 to 133. You may want to check back on it occasionally to see where things changed. The Roku misses you.

Hi @speechles - just to clarify - there is nothing wrong with emby on the roku at all - nothing needed fixing, still in use in 3 bedrooms and a media room here, plus when travelling.

The issue is with the Roku company and Australia itself - it is still not authorised for sale here in Aus, as Telstra bought the license for it from Roku and make a hobbled 'TelstraTV' box which is a Roku 2 - I believe, then they added their own catchup apps and their own movie/TV purchase system and made it so you cannot access the roku apps themselves.  It is hobbled as I said.  I understand a few people in the 'olden' days used to sideload your own emby client (and maybe that still works) - but the TelstraTV box in no way compares the the Australian VodafoneTV box.

You cant buy an official Roku in Australia, hence any users here buy them from Overseas (i.e when I went on work trips to USA and UK etc), then I setup a VPN and Roku account in UK, then installed the apps from the UK......  What that means is no Australian Catchup TV channels - but I do get the UK catchup TV - which can be better (I actually have a roku and a VFTV in the bedroom for that reason - the Roku uses a VPN to the UK for their TV stuff).

The VFTV box however for $AUD 72 is a full un-hobbled androidTV, with full app stores, and even has an aerial if you wanted to connect that.  

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vaise
11 hours ago, mark-in-dallas said:

If it weren't for these issues I would ditch Tivo completely and use Emby as my sole source for TV entertainment.

I suspect those issues you have relate to the LG TV emby client.  You could add a different client to the TV and get around all that (Roku, ShieldTV, AndroidTV etc).

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mark-in-dallas
On 8/21/2020 at 7:18 PM, vaise said:

I suspect those issues you have relate to the LG TV emby client.  You could add a different client to the TV and get around all that (Roku, ShieldTV, AndroidTV etc).

I really liked the LG Client app, with the exception of the issues I mentioned, but I finally got irritated enough with it to try something different.  I first bought a Roku Premiere and gave that a shot but I really didn't like the interface, so I returned that and got a Mi Box S, and I can't say how happy I am that I did.

The Client for Android TV shines in every aspect!  I expected that it would as there are probably far more people with Android boxes or TV's than there are those with LG TV's and I suspect that more development time is probably devoted to Android than some of the other Clients available.

And with the Emby Client for Android TV there are several options available that didn't exist in the LG Client or Browser that I never knew I wanted, until they were there!

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The Roku will get there with all those same options that are in the Android TV app.

The challenge with Roku is the lack of any libraries you can repurpose. There is no javascript. There is no C. There is just brightscript. On top of brightscript is a rather cool XML scripting engine called scene graph. It uses similar extensions to programming video games. But there are limits. You are bound into the original interfaces Roku provides. Then using those you can extend them to provide more functionality. Then extend that interface again to provide even more. And stack upon these interfaces with components and build the bones of the application rather quickly. The XML provides access to the render thread. The brightscript runs in the render thread. So you can change what is within the XML using brightscript. Basically you extend again the component with brightscript. It makes it confusing at first because you have 3 levels of code. It is a lot like writing COBOL and you saw how those coders were recently in demand.

To code on Roku you have to get your hands dirty. You have to be ready to fail 100x and "get it" on the 101st try. Nothing comes easy. But eventually you learn the quirks and can work around them. That is until the next firmware update. Then all is back to square one and you must chase bugs that may appear in the app because the firmware changed.

It makes it fun because nothing easy is ever worth doing. You feel accomplished when things on Roku start to work as you imagined them. Then you go maybe this isn't as hard as every person says it is. But trust me. It isn't hard. It is difficult juggling because of all the inner dependencies and inner relationships on how they pass object references among themselves. It is juggling while balancing on a beam. At any time.. crash. 

But that is the fun of this. If you aren't having fun it isn't really worth doing unless you put your heart in it. Right? That is what we do. ;)

Edited by speechles
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mark-in-dallas
On 8/20/2020 at 5:15 PM, vaise said:

My move to Unraid and the Emby docker container a few years ago has also introduced major stability not just to Emby, but to much of my IT solutions at home - It runs 24/7 and never has outages, completely automated - meaning I spend more time in front of the TV than fixing / managing issues.  

The only Emby thing I am waiting on is the channel sorting and deletion for the TV guide and I may well then consider leaving the beta server release as I cant for the life of me imagine anything else I need. 

Well done all.

I built a box myself pretty much dedicated to just running Emby Server.  I went with Linux Mint though, because while I know Windows inside and out, I was pretty much a noob when it came to Linux, with the exception of having been running a CentOS web server for about 12 years and knowing my way around SSH a bit.    I've had the box up and running for about 6 months now and haven't experienced as much as a hiccup.

I have an IPTV service and for channel selection and mapping I use EPG for IPTV, which to me is well worth the $12 per year. 

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mark-in-dallas
2 minutes ago, speechles said:

The Roku will get there with all those same options that are in the Android TV app.

The challenge with Roku is the lack of any libraries you can repurpose. There is no javascript. There is no C. There is just brightscript. On top of brightscript is a rather cool XML scripting engine called scene graph. It uses similar extensions to programming video games. But there are limits. You are bound into the original interfaces Roku provides.

I wasn't trying to bash Roku at all, and I assumed that it was probably harder to code for Roku than other more open source Operating Systems.  I applaud you guys for all of your work and were I not as picky as I am the Roku Client would have been just fine, as I am sure that it is for most people.

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Gilgamesh_48
1 hour ago, mark-in-dallas said:

I wasn't trying to bash Roku at all, and I assumed that it was probably harder to code for Roku than other more open source Operating Systems.  I applaud you guys for all of your work and were I not as picky as I am the Roku Client would have been just fine, as I am sure that it is for most people.

This is why there are different boxes and operating systems, choice. I VERY much prefer the Roku Emby client over the Android client. To me Android, in general, and the Emby client just feels like, even though it is said to use a "lean back" interface, it was designed for a phone or tablet and then adapted to work on full sized screens. Android on TVs just feels clumsy.

What I find easy and good to use is not always what others find so. 

Again that is why we have choice and the choices are quite varied for Emby clients. I own several and I note, with some dismay, that the Emby interface on the Roku is gradually being dumbed down so in exceeds the Android by lesser and lesser amounts.

It is like current teaching methods where teachers have to teach to the dumbest kid in class. Trying to insure that "no one is left behind" only insures that almost everyone is held back and trying to make all interfaces the same insures that no interface is allowed to excel. 

I very much prefer the Roku but I can use the Android and I am sure there are others that feel exactly the opposite. I just hope the yoke that is placed on developers by the Android interface does not prevent developers on other platforms from pushing their interfaces to the limit.

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vaise

There is android (used on the cheap Chinese boxes and same as the phone) and there is the proper Android TV (ShieldTV, Mibox) and they are two very different things remember.  Android TV is dedicated and designed for TV use.

My ‘Old’ Nvidia ShieldTV from 2017 just had another update for its experience.  That’s 25 updates now and still so many out there.  I only have one and it’s on my main 4K TV.  I did buy ( years back) the 4K Roku Steaming stick does it, but it just could not play every 4K file I tried.  The Shield has played all since day 1.

If I have a spare $250 for every room, then I would replace all the roku’s, but at the end of the day, the roku does as admiral job in the other rooms.  Just not my lounge.  It also gets better and better over time.  And the interface for Emby is unified.  It’s just in Australia the roku’s are only for Emby, we have no other roku apps here for catch up TV , hence where they are let down here.  I have a few friends in the UK and their roku’s are much handier due to all the UK apps.  Same in the USA.  I have a friend in Singapore I told to buy Roku’s on his travels too, but no apps for singapore for roku either so they are just ‘Emby boxes’.  They even call the roku’s ‘Emby sticks’.  The kids in my house never complain about them and I have a roku in the media room too- but no 4K tv in the media room as yet......

 

 

 

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BAlGaInTl
On 8/20/2020 at 11:42 PM, arche said:

My biggest issue with Emby is as it becomes more stable and new features that will be added, I have to add more movies and tv shows. It's now become a daily routine to add something to Emby. So yeah, Thanks guys at Emby, my new addiction...

But all jokes aside, great job guys.

That's why my next addiction became automating that whole process.  :D

It's super simple for me and my users now.

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