Larger Art Work on Apple TV

[sross44 228]

Is there a way to have the option for larger artwork on the Apple TV? For example, when you're not using the CoverArt plugin, it shows 7 movies across the screen. When using the CoverArt plugin in goes to 6, but the images don't change in size so it's leaving a lot of dead space. I know this is just a visual thing, but it'd be nice to have consistency or have the control to make "small, medium, large" movie/tv show posters and then we can control how it looks. I love Emby and how it works (I'm coming from being a heavy Plex user) but these little things make a difference from a visual perspective and user experience. 

[corey 312]

I think it’s a great idea and another area where the web app exposes similar options that the tvOS app doesn’t have yet. We’ll get it on our backlog for consideration in a future release. 

[sross44 228]

2 minutes ago, corey said:

I think it’s a great idea and another area where the web app exposes similar options that the tvOS app doesn’t have yet. We’ll get it on our backlog for consideration in a future release. 

That's awesome. I know there's a lot of things that take priority over something like that, but it's the UX designer in me that focuses on experience and interaction as I play around with Emby more, that I figured it can't hurt to share thoughts! I appreciate everything you guys do!! 

[unisoft 272]

I agree, the Apple TV overall is nice, but I don't like the movies and tv libraries as lots of wasted space. The menu section to the left when viewing by genres looks like it allows too much length for titles of genres when they would usually be shorter.

The artwork size need to be bigger so you can see the detail on the covers (view on 55" screen 10 feet away) and reduce spacing and I'm sure another column of covers could be fitted in. It seems endless scrolling for users with large libraries at the moment.

[corey 312]

Thanks for the feedback @unisoft !

Quote

The menu section to the left when viewing by genres looks like it allows too much length for titles of genres when they would usually be shorter.

These are the out of the box views provided by tvOS so we don't have a ton of control over how big the menu to the left is. It is consistent with the other Apple apps that used this pattern though.

Quote

The artwork size need to be bigger so you can see the detail on the covers (view on 55" screen 10 feet away) and reduce spacing and I'm sure another column of covers could be fitted in. It seems endless scrolling for users with large libraries at the moment.

When we originally built the app we took inspiration from Apple on the sizing for the posters so it created a consistent experience. There isn't a significant amount of spacing between covers today so I would be a bit hesitant to reduce that as it would go against Apple Human Interface Guidelines most likely. Another thing to note is that if you look at Apple's Movies, Music and TV app they don't have a lot of grid-based views with vertical scrolling. So if we were going to increase the size of posters you would see less rows per screen so it would have to be taken into consideration as well. 

Either way we do want to keep improving the app so this feedback is being taken into consideration.

[sross44 228]

2 minutes ago, corey said:

When we originally built the app we took inspiration from Apple on the sizing for the posters so it created a consistent experience. There isn't a significant amount of spacing between covers today so I would be a bit hesitant to reduce that as it would go against Apple Human Interface Guidelines most likely. Another thing to note is that if you look at Apple's Movies, Music and TV app they don't have a lot of grid-based views with vertical scrolling. So if we were going to increase the size of posters you would see less rows per screen so it would have to be taken into consideration as well. 

Either way we do want to keep improving the app so this feedback is being taken into consideration.

@corey I understand the need to keep things consistent with the Apple Guidelines. There's a few examples in other apps of larger artwork filling some of the dead space and it still keeping things uniform across the board. I think for me, the bigger issue was when using CoverArt, that it goes from 7 posters across to only 6 and that leaves a lot of dead space between posters. I can take pics later if need be to show what I'm talking about. 

[corey 312]

39 minutes ago, sross44 said:

@corey I understand the need to keep things consistent with the Apple Guidelines. There's a few examples in other apps of larger artwork filling some of the dead space and it still keeping things uniform across the board. I think for me, the bigger issue was when using CoverArt, that it goes from 7 posters across to only 6 and that leaves a lot of dead space between posters. I can take pics later if need be to show what I'm talking about. 

If you want to share that, it would be great thanks @sross44

[sross44 228]

@corey here’s two photos the explain what’s happening. One with no treatments from cover art you can see there’s 7 movies listed across. As soon as you include any treatment, it switches to 6 and there’s a bunch of empty space. It’s just a bad look that it’s not consistent. 

I think 6 across with larger posters in this instance would be a much cleaner look consistently across the board. This way you could use cover art or not, it would stay the same and look clean without the empty space. 

[ebr 14903]

The six across is actually more consistent with the Apple apps on the device, no?

[sross44 228]

1 minute ago, ebr said:

The six across is actually more consistent with the Apple apps on the device, no?

It is more consistent with other Apple apps on the device. It's why I suggested it. But with the current size of the posters it leaves so much dead space on the screen it's hard to see details of the posters etc. It's why If you increase the size of the artwork to even match what you have on the Android TV apps such as the shield of the Fire TV, I think you'd have a much more consistent interface as well as something that falls more in line with the Apple ecosystem as well. Just my two cents. 

[Luke 37009]

I believe the Cover Art treatment might actually be responsible for the extra whitespace. It's applying it at the server level so it's really out of the app's control.

[sross44 228]

43 minutes ago, Luke said:

I believe the Cover Art treatment might actually be responsible for the extra whitespace. It's applying it at the server level so it's really out of the app's control.

That makes sense, but if there was 6 posters across (which falls in line more with Apple's ecosystem, as well as Emby's own typical display on other players) that were larger, it would mitigate the change with coverart or any other changes. It would make the Emby experience more uniform across all platforms which is a good thing IMO. 

[Luke 37009]

Yea I prefer 6 myself but we'll discuss this. Thanks for the feedback.

[sross44 228]

Any time. Love Emby as a whole.... and as I dive deeper in to the ecosystem on many platforms I'm noticing random things like that. I really appreciate all of you admins and coders listening to us and wanting to better the product! 

 

[Luke 37009]

Thanks for the feedback !

[vdatanet 1549]

If "Use original art aspect ratio" is checked, you get 7 posters across, on the other hand, if it's unchecked you get 6.

[sross44 228]

6 minutes ago, vdatanet said:

If "Use original art aspect ratio" is checked, you get 7 posters across, on the other hand, if it's unchecked you get 6.

I'm not in front of the Apple TV right now, but can you tell a noticeable difference in size when having 6 or 7 across the screen? Or about the same with just less whitespace?

Also, do we think it's an Apple TV thing or just an app thing that the artwork in the Apple TV app is smaller than in other apps, such as Roku, FireTV, etc. 

[vdatanet 1549]

12 minutes ago, sross44 said:

I'm not in front of the Apple TV right now, but can you tell a noticeable difference in size when having 6 or 7 across the screen? Or about the same with just less whitespace?

Also, do we think it's an Apple TV thing or just an app thing that the artwork in the Apple TV app is smaller than in other apps, such as Roku, FireTV, etc. 

 

 

When there are 6 posters, posters are wider. The same in the Android TV, but there are always 6 posters but with more spacing.

This is the Coverart treatment effect. B

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by vdatanet

[sross44 228]

@vdatanet do you prefer the smaller art work of the Apple set up or the larger artwork on the other emby apps? I know it's personal preference, just curious. I personally prefer the larger artwork of the other apps or even how plex looks on the apple tv. 

[vdatanet 1549]

21 minutes ago, sross44 said:

@vdatanet do you prefer the smaller art work of the Apple set up or the larger artwork on the other emby apps? I know it's personal preference, just curious. I personally prefer the larger artwork of the other apps or even how plex looks on the apple tv. 

I prefer bigger posters that’s not new August 2019, I just wanted to explain why coverart posters may be different

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by vdatanet

[sross44 228]

8 minutes ago, vdatanet said:

I prefer bigger posters that’s not new August 2019, I just wanted to explain why coverart posters may be different

 

I know you were explaining about CoverArt and I appreciate it. I checked and it did work for me too. Just was curious. Seems to be most people prefer the larger cover art as well. Hopefully it's something that could be implemented down the line but as you said it's not something that's important. The only thing I think that is important is having a consistent look across platforms (as much as possible). So if the posters are one size on one platform, be the same as much as possible on another. Brand consistency is huge for a lot of reasons. 

Edited September 15, 2020 by sross44