Webhooks Playback Event with Cinema Intro

[BillOatman 496]

Hi:  With Cinema Intro turned on when I played a movie I got the following webhook playback events in order

playback.start
playback.pause Note that I did not pause it
playback.stop
playback.scrobble
playback.start

Questions:
1) What are the pause and scrobble events for?
2) Is there a way to know that the first set of calls is for the intro?  I didn't see anything in the data.

@chef

I wonder if all these extra events is what was/is causing at least some of the issues we were seeing the the Philips Hue plugin.

[Luke 37022]

Quote

What are the pause and scrobble events for?

I'm not sure about pause. That could just be the player firing a pause event while media is changing or loading. Scrobble is when it becomes fully played as part of the watching process.

[BillOatman 496]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

I'm not sure about pause. That could just be the player firing a pause event while media is changing or loading. Scrobble is when it becomes fully played as part of the watching process.

Thanks.  But the 2nd question is the big one ...

2) Is there a way to know that the first set of calls is for the intro?  I didn't see anything in the data.

For things that deal with lights and other things based on a movie say starting, it would look not great if the lights lowered during the intro, raised partially at the end when it got the pause event, raised all the way when it got the stop event.  Then lowers the light again on the movie play event.

Worst case I suppose I could have people name their intro files with some marker text like "tHiSiSaInTrO" or something.  Obviously it would be immensely better to know its an intro by something in the payload.

[Luke 37022]

First set of what calls? Generally the answer is no. The client just sticks the intros at the front of it's now playing queue and then it gets played like any other video.

[BillOatman 496]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

First set of what calls? Generally the answer is no. The client just sticks the intros at the front of it's now playing queue and then it gets played like any other video.

My webhook endpoint,  the playback messages for the intro.  But you answered the question, thanks.

[Luke 37022]

There's no reason we couldn't add this information to make it available to you. It just would have to start with getting our apps to report it to the server.

[BillOatman 496]

16 hours ago, Luke said:

There's no reason we couldn't add this information to make it available to you. It just would have to start with getting our apps to report it to the server.

Thanks, probably not a bad thing to put on your list of things to do.  I suspect anything consuming the playback events would like that information available to avoid bouncing from state to state more frequently than necessary.  I'll put something in the feature request area.

[chef 3745]

I think the plugins check for the runtime of the media item, and they ignore playback if the runtime in under a certain amount of ticks....

And after looking at the code, those runtime ticks checks don't exists. They weren't added. 

Nice find. I'll add them to all the playbackstarted events.

 

[BillOatman 496]

Oh yeah forgot about that ...

private const long TicksPerMinute = 600000000;
private readonly long FiveMinutesTicks = TicksPerMinute * 5;

// A preroll (or intro) is defined as anything that is less than 5 minutes in duration
bool isPreroll = e.MediaInfo.RunTimeTicks < FiveMinutesTicks;

 

[JGWNet 1]

I would like to get this working for me as well.  I do have a successful automation setup with SEQUEmatic and IFTTT.  After setting up Cinema Intros, I am running into the same issues with lights turning on and off during the transitions between the videos.  Have you been able to remedy this?  If so, can you please share?

[BillOatman 496]

1 hour ago, JGWNet said:

I would like to get this working for me as well.  I do have a successful automation setup with SEQUEmatic and IFTTT.  After setting up Cinema Intros, I am running into the same issues with lights turning on and off during the transitions between the videos.  Have you been able to remedy this?  If so, can you please share?

For the prerolls you mean?  I use the code in my post above yours, basically it checks the length of what is going to be played and if it is less than 5 minutes the assumption is that it is a preroll so don't send any light commands.

[JGWNet 1]

Yes, thank you for the response.  I have not worked with coding on Emby.  Where exactly does the code get embedded.  And did this work for you?

[BillOatman 496]

4 hours ago, JGWNet said:

Yes, thank you for the response.  I have not worked with coding on Emby.  Where exactly does the code get embedded.  And did this work for you?

It's Emby plugin code, I assumed thats what you were working on.  Yes it does work.

[jwityshyn 2]

This is awesome work, but can you share how this was accomplished?  What dll file needs to be altered?  Where does the code need to be placed?  Do you have a tutorial?  I think you would solve the issues of many users that are stumped with this, including me.

[BillOatman 496]

25 minutes ago, jwityshyn said:

This is awesome work, but can you share how this was accomplished?  What dll file needs to be altered?  Where does the code need to be placed?  Do you have a tutorial?  I think you would solve the issues of many users that are stumped with this, including me.

I'm not understanding you at all,  but the code that I posted on April 1 is from the open source Emby plugin here.

I experimented with Emby webhooks once some time ago but didn't have much luck.  What you would do in a webhook solution to determine if a preroll is being played I really don't know for sure.  But if in the webhook handler you have access to how long the video is (plugins use MediaInfo.RunTimeTicks) you would not send commands to your lighting system if the length of the video is less than 5 minutes.  If you do not have that information I doubt you can tell as Emby thinks it is just a video to play, nothing special.

Hopefully this answers your question.

Edited January 26, 2022 by BillOatman

[jwityshyn 2]

I was hoping to find a solution for Webhooks with IFTTT and Alexa, but it looks like this is not an option with what you have.  Thanks anyway.

[BillOatman 496]

1 hour ago, jwityshyn said:

I was hoping to find a solution for Webhooks with IFTTT and Alexa, but it looks like this is not an option with what you have.  Thanks anyway.

If what you are trying to do is send a message to a IFTTT endpoint (API) when playback starts/stops/pauses, then I suggest you look at that plugin I referenced above.  It does exactly that, the only difference is instead of calling a IFTTT endpoint it calls a Philips Hue endpoint to run a scene (that sets various light levels).

 var sceneUrl = $"http://{config.BridgeIpAddress}/api/{config.UserToken}/groups/0/action";

It would mean pivoting from Emby webhooks to a plugin, but would probably end up being easier.