Unable to stream from 2 iPhones (and 1 Android)

[paulschofield 3]

Hi,

I've got Emby installed on an iPhone 11 and a Google Pixel 3a. My fiancee has it installed in her iPhone Xs Max.

None of these 3 phones can stream to Emby on my Apple TV or my Amazon Firestick ... unless my laptop running Emby server is also switched on at the time. This kind of defeats the purpose of being able to stream from the phone.

Given the number of devices involved and the fact we've tried it on 2 wifi networks in different properties, I'm wondering what's happening and how I can fix this. I've searched a lot already.

Can anyone please help?

[pwhodges 1533]

Where's your Emby server installed?

Paul

[gillmacca01 150]

The emby server needs to be running for the apps to communicate with it, otherwise you won't get the GUI of Emby. 

If you want to stream without going through Emby, you would need to use another app to select the file to play, but then things like the watch status would not be updated as Emby is not running

[pwhodges 1533]

Oops - I missed that the answer to my question was right there! 

Yes, the Emby server on your laptop provides the content and the clients use it.  That is the nature of streaming.  

The Emby clients on the phones are not providing a stream, they take a stream from the server.  They may also be used to control other clients, e.g. on Chromecast or some TVs, which in turn stream data from the server.  But of course the server can only serve when it is running.

It is possible to download content from the server into a phone client for watching without access to the server - but that content cannot be streamed out to another device via Emby.  You may be able to use screen mirroring I suppose if your setup enables it.

Paul

[paulschofield 3]

34 minutes ago, pwhodges said:

Oops - I missed that the answer to my question was right there! 

Yes, the Emby server on your laptop provides the content and the clients use it.  That is the nature of streaming.  

The Emby clients on the phones are not providing a stream, they take a stream from the server.  They may also be used to control other clients, e.g. on Chromecast or some TVs, which in turn stream data from the server.  But of course the server can only serve when it is running.

It is possible to download content from the server into a phone client for watching without access to the server - but that content cannot be streamed out to another device via Emby.  You may be able to use screen mirroring I suppose if your setup enables it.

Paul

Sorry, I don't this was as clear as I could have been.

 

I've synced content to my iPhone and want to stream this to the Emby app on my Firestick. For some reason I can only do that when my laptop with the server installed is switched on, even though I'm not streaming from the server, I'm streaming downloaded content from my iPhone.

[paulschofield 3]

1 hour ago, gillmacca01 said:

The emby server needs to be running for the apps to communicate with it, otherwise you won't get the GUI of Emby. 

If you want to stream without going through Emby, you would need to use another app to select the file to play, but then things like the watch status would not be updated as Emby is not running

Seeing as the stream icon sometimes appears in the top right corner, I took this to be a built in option.

So I can't use this to stream without another app installed? Do you recommend any?

[pwhodges 1533]

2 hours ago, paulschofield said:

even though I'm not streaming from the server, I'm streaming downloaded content from my iPhone.

Why do you think that's what's happening?

Paul

[paulschofield 3]

7 minutes ago, pwhodges said:

Why do you think that's what's happening?

Paul

It's what I'm trying to make happen really. I have content synced to my phone that I'd like to play on my TV without having to turn my laptop on.

When I can stream from the phone I'm connecting to my firestick using the Play on button, then controlling playback from my phone so it appears to be streaming from the phone.

[pwhodges 1533]

That's not what casting does, though.  If you use the phone, say, to play on the TV, the TV is still getting the content from the server even though the controls are on the phone.  You can see that by looking at the dashboard of the server while that playing is happening.  It may even be better that way - in the test I just did, the device I watched on could direct stream whereas my Android had to transcode.

You're simply asking for something that's not part of the feature set of the Emby clients.

But you may well be able to do roughly what you want using some form of screen mirroring (which on Android may require an app to be installed), as that doesn't use the client at all but is a completely separate mechanism.  I've successfully done that to watch a video stream that required a login which the TV had no way of providing, so I started it on the phone and mirrored the screen to see (and hear) it from the TV.

Paul

[paulschofield 3]

9 minutes ago, pwhodges said:

That's not what casting does, though.  If you use the phone, say, to play on the TV, the TV is still getting the content from the server even though the controls are on the phone.  You can see that by looking at the dashboard of the server while that playing is happening.  It may even be better that way - in the test I just did, the device I watched on could direct stream whereas my Android had to transcode.

You're simply asking for something that's not part of the feature set of the Emby clients.

But you may well be able to do roughly what you want using some form of screen mirroring (which on Android may require an app to be installed), as that doesn't use the client at all but is a completely separate mechanism.  I've successfully done that to watch a video stream that required a login which the TV had no way of providing, so I started it on the phone and mirrored the screen to see (and hear) it from the TV.

Paul

Thanks for clarifying, it looks like I've misunderstood.
So now I'll either have to find something that does what I need, or a way to do what I need to do but still using emby. I'll try the screen mirroring first as it'll mostly be the 2 iPhones doing the playing, and the firestick also has Apple TV installed so fingers crossed.

[Spaceboy 2494]

37 minutes ago, pwhodges said:

That's not what casting does, though.  If you use the phone, say, to play on the TV, the TV is still getting the content from the server even though the controls are on the phone.  You can see that by looking at the dashboard of the server while that playing is happening.  It may even be better that way - in the test I just did, the device I watched on could direct stream whereas my Android had to transcode.

You're simply asking for something that's not part of the feature set of the Emby clients.

But you may well be able to do roughly what you want using some form of screen mirroring (which on Android may require an app to be installed), as that doesn't use the client at all but is a completely separate mechanism.  I've successfully done that to watch a video stream that required a login which the TV had no way of providing, so I started it on the phone and mirrored the screen to see (and hear) it from the TV.

Paul

but he did say he had synced the media to his phone already

[pwhodges 1533]

But not to the TV/Firestick.

Paul

Edited January 15, 2021 by pwhodges

[Spaceboy 2494]

well, no. but i don't think its outside the realms of possibility to think that because you had downloaded some media to your phone, you should then be able to independently airplay it or cast it to a relevant receiver

[paulschofield 3]

4 hours ago, Spaceboy said:

well, no. but i don't think its outside the realms of possibility to think that because you had downloaded some media to your phone, you should then be able to independently airplay it or cast it to a relevant receiver

This is exactly what I want to do and I was able to do with Plex. Also when I was using an Android phone as my main phone I was able to stream to a TV and the streaming icon seems to be universal, so I assumed I could do the same on emby

[Luke 37115]

Quote

I've synced content to my iPhone and want to stream this to the Emby app on my Firestick.

Hi, we don't currently have this ability to stream downloaded content on a mobile device to another device. It's something we're interested in but we're not quite there yet.

[paulschofield 3]

6 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, we don't currently have this ability to stream downloaded content on a mobile device to another device. It's something we're interested in but we're not quite there yet.

Thanks, Luke