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What's the highlight of 2020 in terms of feature?


ChoromPotro
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ChoromPotro

So 2020 has come to a close and Plex has issued a year review which you can read here.

 

Jellyfin released their 10.7.0 rc1 (changelog here) which includes synchronized playback for music and overall polish to their web app. Also HDR tonemapping while transcode.

 

Both plex and Jellyfin has third party clients (mpv-shim) that works wonderful on desktop (specially Linux).

 

I am trying to think what is the best feature that Emby released in 2020 ? Downloading subtitle when playing something ? Some polish to android tv app? A new version of android app? I think there has been no feature where Emby implemented it first. HDR tonemapping was on Jellyfin first, Skip Intro was on plex first.

 

Am I missing something?

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More important Jellyfin get rid of xml and went on to an all database backend. A step emby will need to go too, for example to get per user playlist and proper collection rights managment, and will get harder the longer it is postponed.

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Same feeling here, no big feature released. Emby used to be the most actively developed one, but looks like after the split of jellyfin the pace has gone low. I’m using the coronas time to try others. Plex now also has Tidal support out of box, looking interesting to me 🙂

Edit: maybe a good idea if Emby’s team can share their plan in 2021?

Edited by somy
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Gilgamesh_48

I dislike saying this but 2020 was the least productive year of Emby's existence. 

Of course, from my point of view, there is very little that Emby needs that it does not have already. There are some tweaks and some expansions that Emby needs but no big feature and this has been true for the last year.

I do not see that there is anything "new" that Emby needs. It just needs some smoothing of some rough edges and a few little improvements. 

Right not Emby does what I need it to do and I do not see any need that is not filled that Emby needs to expand to fill. Except they could add the "Make the popcorn" function or the "Take the dog for a walk" function or the "Clean the house" function.

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10 minutes ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

Right not Emby does what I need it to do and I do not see any need that is not filled that Emby needs to expand to fill. Except they could add the "Make the popcorn" function or the "Take the dog for a walk" function or the "Clean the house" function.

That would require voice controls. Remember how adverse you were to those? If you would allow that your "Bring me a beer" bot would work. Your "Its cold in here can we get a little more heat" would work to turn up your thermostat. Your "Emby Home what is Next Up?" would work. And speaking of that.. the intent for that skill is "What is Next Up" and since next up is no more would that make the skill break? Yes.. Appears it does on the Beta server.

But the point is automation will require you speaking. It is the best UI and input method ever. You speak to it, it responds back, you respond to it, actions occur. The future will be less about what you hold in your hand and more about what you say. It eliminates the learning curve and navigation chores.

Remember the future waits for no man. Time is a weapon used to make the past irrelevant. The future is all that matters in the end. ^_^

Edited by speechles
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Gilgamesh_48
34 minutes ago, speechles said:

But the point is automation will require you speaking. It is the best UI and input method ever. You speak to it, it responds back, you respond to it, actions occur. The future will be less about what you hold in your hand and more about what you say. It eliminates the learning curve and navigation chores.

I do not see the necessity of "speaking" to get a few simple functions working. There could just be a drop down menu with the possibilities listed and two clicks and it happens. On a client it might take three or even four clicks to access the same functionality but it seems very doable. 

All that needs to happen is a few minor automation issues need to be solved and then the items added to the menus. Easy peasy. 

Of course there exists the minor issue of creating a robotic entity to actually perform the actions unless it could be something like the invisible functionality of a "Smart" house like S.A.R.A.H. on the Eureka TV show. She was never shown to actually do anything but things apparently got done. Maybe magic? Can Emby cast magic spells? 🤣👿😇👽

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vdatanet

These new Jellyfin features are great and they are part of my wish list for 2021.

Quote
  • New HDR thumbnails extraction functionality
  • New HDR Tone mapping functionality with Nvidia NVENC, AMD AMF and Intel VAAPI (additional configuration is required)
  • HEVC remuxing or transcoding over fMP4 on supported Apple devices (disabled by default)

 

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sooty234

HDR tone mapping should have happened, and didn't. That's a necessity, now. Disappointing. Emby is getting left behind. The HEVC remuxing issue hasn't even been addressed. These things are fundamental, and are being ignored.

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kanipek

I will agree with ALL of the above.

2020 has been a huge bummer overall including Emby.

As an end user Emby seems to have lacked any coherent path forward. What is the roadmap/list? You don't need to give expected/anticipated dates but come on clue us in.

Maybe the major accomplishment for Emby in 2020 can be considered the overall polishing/improvements to the various UI/apps? - Seriously that is an area that has been a focus. I don't agree with a lot of it but it has been a focus.

The word around the water cooler would lead me to believe 2021 should bring some of the features long requested. Let's hope so I can only stand the wait for a little while longer, there are other fish in the pond that deserve a look and I don't mean Plex or Jellyfin.

 

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ChoromPotro
3 hours ago, somy said:

Edit: maybe a good idea if Emby’s team can share their plan in 2021?

I am hearing for months that they are working on Live TV. They are still working on Live TV.

 

2 hours ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

There are some tweaks and some expansions that Emby needs but no big feature and this has been true for the last year.

You also do not feel like someone needs an SSD for metadata. Suffice to say, your viewpoints are not representative.

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I think there are items need further work in Emby, just point a few big ones:

1) ATV support isn't great, lots of videos not playable, they all play well with Infuse/MrMc

2) Photo section needs a face lift, the speed is slow and there is no timeline/map function. I still have photos displayed in wrong orientation. 

3) More integration to streaming services like Tidal, Spotify etc. Even TuneIn is good, the add-on works poorly at the moment

 

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1 hour ago, ChoromPotro said:

I am hearing for months that they are working on Live TV. They are still working on Live TV.

It's a huge undertaking and rewrite, accounting for over half the code in the backend. It's not just TV features but the use or not of using ffmpeg and other things that lighten the IO and make Emby faster in this regard. Even the way ffmpeg is used is different.  It's still in development and will be a bit longer as this isn't a plugin or simple replacement, but a major update. What was previously like maybe half a dozen setup screens for Live TV is now closer to 6 dozen, so you can really fine tune all kinds of things (if you want/need to) but can also use a wizard like setup similar to before to set things up in just a few screens.  It's a completely different beast.

47 minutes ago, somy said:

I think there are items need further work in Emby, just point a few big ones:

1) ATV support isn't great, lots of videos not playable, they all play well with Infuse/MrMc

2) Photo section needs a face lift, the speed is slow and there is no timeline/map function. I still have photos displayed in wrong orientation. 

3) More integration to streaming services like Tidal, Spotify etc. Even TuneIn is good, the add-on works poorly at the moment

1) Curious, what type of video are you having issues with playing on the ATV?  Got a link to a thread? Just personal opinion, but it's my favorite Emby client because it plays nearly  if not all streamable files I can throw at it.

2) Agreed, photo libs could use a revamp.  Music Libs just got revamped, Live TV in the works, some changes for other libs coming soon.

3) Emby doesn't have much in the way of present integration with other content providers, which isn't a surprise. This hasn't been a focus of Emby as those services have their own apps and if added to Emby would require credentials management for each user to make sure users not subscribed can't access the content they haven't subscribed to.  Using these different services is pretty easy on Android, but not as easy on say a Roku as it only supports running one app at  time.  But on Android ATV especially combined with Alexa or Google Home it's not needed at all as you can do all this with your voice.  <-- Stuff like this is likely more the future then trying to recreate other app functionality in Emby, IMHO.

Besides that if you already have limited UPSTREAM from your ISP and serve friends/family outside your home, do you really want more content they can already get directly from the source running through your server and using your Internet connection?

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vdatanet
3 minutes ago, cayars said:

1) Curious, what type of video are you having issues with playing on the ATV?  Got a link to a thread? Just personal opinion, but it's my favorite Emby client because it plays nearly  if not all streamable files I can throw at it.

I think he's talking about Apple TV = ATV = Android TV, ambiguous acronym

Edited by vdatanet
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Oh, then I redact what I said then. LOL
No personal experience with that Client at all but have heard similar things said.

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vdatanet
Just now, cayars said:

Oh, then I redact what I said then. LOL
No personal experience with that Client at all but have heard similar things said.

Apple TV native player has very limited support, but the MPV player can play a large number of formats, iy has improved a lot lately, but it is still far from the Android TV application. It only beats the Android TV app in a couple of ways, gapless audio playback and Live TV timeshift direct playing, Android TV app requires at least direct streaming for timeshift.

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2 minutes ago, cayars said:

Oh, then I redact what I said then. LOL
No personal experience with that Client at all but have heard similar things said.

Sorry I meant Apple TV - I think MrMc and Infuse does some magic of using native Apple player for all video types and it works great. Apple has made everything PQ related perfect, the only issue is the lack of bitstream of HD tracks.

To be honest, is live TV still relevant? I can't remember since when I watched my TV, even my kids now prefer YouTube than TV. I used to be a fan of MediaPortal and I recall they spent huge amount of time working on Live TV backend, many users moved to Kodi and Plex.

 

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1 minute ago, somy said:

I think MrMc and Infuse does some magic of using native Apple player for all video types

They aren't using the native player. That is their "magic" :) .

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vdatanet
1 minute ago, ebr said:

They aren't using the native player. That is their "magic" :) .

Emby also can use the MPV player but instead of having the "full magic" we only have the "half of the magic". 😀

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Ok, I think I misunderstood the technical details behind the magic 🙂

ATV is such a nice platform and Apple made very good effort to ensure PQ, would be nice to see good Emby support on ATV.

Kodi used to have some code from MrMc in their ATV branch (not sure if it's merged), and it can show how to implement it.

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Spaceboy
24 minutes ago, cayars said:

 is now closer to 6 dozen

are you serious? there are 72 setup screens for new live tv? it takes less than that to launch a space shuttle

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11 minutes ago, Spaceboy said:

are you serious? there are 72 setup screens for new live tv? it takes less than that to launch a space shuttle

"Setup Screen" was the wrong word to use.  Probably 6 to 8 true setup screens but then many configuration screens for all the things people have asked for over the years that is now incorporated.  As an example if you wanted to group channels there's a section for that.  If you want to "stack" channels from different tuners a section for that.  It's logical and surely not needed for simple installs but if you have the same channel from multiple tuner devices, want to combine them, group like channels, renumber your channels, auto or manual map channels different there are specific screens to handle this.  You also have some screens that show status.  The screens are there for a reason but you would never know there are that many unless you poke around changing things drastically to uncover them. The screens are dynamic in the sense that you won't see them unless doing a task that requires them.

When you add as many new features as has been added you need advanced configurations screens for them that are logical to use and not hidden away to cause support issues. The majority of users will use only a handful of screens similar to before (tuner setup, guide setup, channel mapping). Nothing to fear by the number at all.

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ChoromPotro

@cayarsof course I do not have the telemetry but I wonder if more people uses Live TV than other feature for it to warrant such an extensive rework? I am not complaining, just wondering.

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16 hours ago, vdatanet said:

These new Jellyfin features are great and they are part of my wish list for 2021.

  • New HDR thumbnails extraction functionality
  • New HDR Tone mapping functionality with Nvidia NVENC, AMD AMF and Intel VAAPI (additional configuration is required)

Wow those are massive additions I am very JELLY of, hehehe. HDR tonemapping support coming was mentioned earlier in the year but has disappeared since...

Also not jumping on adding a Watch Together feature quickly like Plex did was a huge wasted opportunity to attract new customers.

Edited by Xorp
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MBSki
2 hours ago, ChoromPotro said:

@cayarsof course I do not have the telemetry but I wonder if more people uses Live TV than other feature for it to warrant such an extensive rework? I am not complaining, just wondering.

Yea, I'm not sure about live TV, but I'm very interested in DVR. @cayars Do the improvements you're speaking of include DVR improvements? I've moved back to Plex for DVR since Emby doesn't have the ability to save recordings to specific libraries, record all games of a specific sports team, or skip ads. 

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