To complain about lacking TVnext progress

[Ronstang 293]

22 hours ago, softworkz said:

There is no "lack of smartness". Those prices are already just paying for those "35" relevant channels (more or less).

The "useless channels" are either there because they are even paying for getting included or because they have to be included due to contractual agreements for the "35 relevant channels". 

At the bottom line, even the opposite is true: If they would provide a package that would include only those "35 relevant channels", they would have to charge even more - not less. 

 

Either way bro Cable TV is dying because they are too expensive for what you get.  They keep raising the prices for garbage repetitive content that they think is worth more than it is actually worth.  The fact that people keep dropping them should tell them they have crested the equilibrium price for their product.  I don't want to pay for sports because I hate sports but I am forced to pay for junk I don't want.  They need to make a sports specific package for the people who actually want it and then you will see who will actually pay for what they want.

Edited September 9, 2025 by Ronstang

[softworkz 5066]

Please don't bro me!

But yes, those prices are insane without doubt.

[Ronstang 293]

8 minutes ago, softworkz said:

Please don't bro me!

Sorry, habit from church.

Well, I don't care why the prices are what they are I am done paying $225 a month for hundreds of channels when I use maybe 20 and less than 10 on a daily basis.  It is insane and changing doesn't even help.  I just checked out Xfinity and they are even worse crooks because they advertise $119 but by the time you add in fees, taxes and equipment they will be at or over $200 too for even less, only 185 channels.  The craziest part is they think two or three of the same channel from different time zones is somehow a discreet channel to get the total number.

I now get streaming TV for FREE from AT&T through our family phone plan and it integrates into emby for the $80 a year it costs for Channels DVR and I have had flawless recordings with no signal issue for 3 weeks.  So yes, screw you Optimum and the $2700/year you cost me, you have been replaced with better and higher quality service for $80!

[softworkz 5066]

1 hour ago, Ronstang said:

Sorry, habit from church.

Nevermind, it's youth slang in my country and I just can't hear it anymore  

1 hour ago, Ronstang said:

I now get streaming TV for FREE from AT&T through our family phone plan

Is this "TV Everywhere"? We'll have to see what we can do to integrate it directly - that's just a personal thought though, please don't take it as an announcement or commitment. 

[Ronstang 293]

3 hours ago, softworkz said:

Nevermind, it's youth slang in my country and I just can't hear it anymore  

Is this "TV Everywhere"? We'll have to see what we can do to integrate it directly - that's just a personal thought though, please don't take it as an announcement or commitment. 

What is your country?  I do love how the internet makes the world so small.  I lived in Europe when I was a child and I still have vivid memories of all the wonderful places I visited.

Yes, I am using "TV Everywhere" through Channels DVR because at the moment I know no other way to integrate it into emby.  Yes I could just record in Channels but I prefer to use emby because I have been doing it this way for over 5 years.

[softworkz 5066]

36 minutes ago, Ronstang said:

What is your country?  I do love how the internet makes the world so small.  I lived in Europe when I was a child and I still have vivid memories of all the wonderful places I visited.

Germany - that's no secret.  For us in Europe, the US TV market has always been hard to understand, because it's pretty much the opposite of what the US typically stand for - like free markets where the best offers win, etc.

While we - in Europe - can get thousands of channels via satellite, hundreds via cable and dozens via OTA, where roughly half of them is free in each case, it rather seems to be like very few "monopolists" are dictating the situation in the US...

[Ronstang 293]

Wie geht's, mein freund.  Most of my family is from Germany.  My dad is first generation German American and my mom is half 2nd generation German American.  I sure wish we had your type of TV here because here it really really sucks, complete garbage.

[softworkz 5066]

11 hours ago, Ronstang said:

Wie geht's, mein freund.  Most of my family is from Germany.  My dad is first generation German American and my mom is half 2nd generation German American.

11 hours ago, Ronstang said:

I sure wish we had your type of TV here because here it really really sucks, complete garbage.

We have a mix of public TV, private ad-funded TV and pay TV, all having their pros and cons, but it's the mix and freedom of choice which makes it great.

And all of them available through the various distribution forms (SAT, Cable, Terrestrial, IP TV).  IP TV or VOD aren't synonyms for illegal content, but just regular offerings. 
(while here on the site, we avoid the former word as much as possible - or add a small-size space like I did above, just to keep us away out from that area in searches)

 

[Ronstang 293]

1 hour ago, softworkz said:

IP TV or VOD aren't synonyms for illegal content, but just regular offerings. 

Is there a way for us here to get any of this legally with English content?  Unfortunately my German is very very rusty, in fact at this point it is mostly a archaeological dig. 

[softworkz 5066]

2 hours ago, Ronstang said:

Is there a way for us here to get any of this legally with English content?  Unfortunately my German is very very rusty, in fact at this point it is mostly a archaeological dig. 

I think the general problem is that original content is most-of-the-time produced in German and it gets dubbed only when it gets sold (and then by the licensees), so the German stations don't even have rights on the English audio tracks. There are some big and international productions which even get filmed in English and in these cases, English audio might be available.

Licensed non-original content is often geo-blocked due to licensing contracts. When you look at Stream Sources - there are lists with and without geo-blocked content.
I need to check back with them, whether it's possible to have lists for content with English audio...

[kikinjo 281]

On 9/7/2025 at 10:48 PM, softworkz said:

It has always been part of the strategy and is included as an integral part in all of the conceptual documents. 

It's just technically independent  

You two go get a room,  and leave us rest bitching about 5+ years of waiting for functional IP TV in emby.

Edited September 11, 2025 by softworkz

[softworkz 5066]

Just now, kikinjo said:

On 9/7/2025 at 10:48 PM, softworkz said:

It has always been part of the strategy and is included as an integral part in all of the conceptual documents. 

It's just technically independent  

You two go get a room,  and leave us rest bitching about 5+ years of waiting for functional IP TV in emby.

I think there has been enough bitching for the moment. Feel free to resume later, but for now I think, the message has been received. Let me share some gossip instead...  

You have no idea what an important role the WebStreams plugin is playing in the context of TVnext. Initially, it was meant to be integrated in TVnext, but hardly anybody was able to follow or visualize and imagine what I was talking about exactly, so for me, this had become...

The Hardest Sell

We've all learnt that there's nothing worse you can do than (actually or seemingly) taking away an existing feature in a new/updated version of a software application. 
And yet there was exactly one such kind of removal that was inevitable in the making of TVnext, which is - simply said - about dropped support for VOD streams as (fake) TV channels.

The below conversation is fictional but roughly resembles the average of the kind of conversations that I had with many people at that time - not just internally, but also with external people and with some of our beta participants as well:

Feature Removal?

softworkz: "Please be prepared that VOD streams are not supported and not handled by TVnext. TVnext is about live TV streams and also supports non-TV live streams but not playback of static files that are just disguised as live streams"

other: "What? You cannot do that! Users expect that to work, all other apps are doing it like that, you must not take this feature away!"

softworkz: "Yes, I'm fully aware about how people are reacting when they feel that a feature is taken away from them. That's why I have the following great plan:"

other: (already stopped listening)

softworkz: "The plan is to replace the lacking VOD playback feature with something that is so much better and nicer and unique and even unprecedented, that nobody will ever be missing it."

other: "No - people expect this to work like everywhere else."

softworkz: "What do you mean - what exactly are people expecting? That the first episode of series XYZ, season 1 is on channel 1456153 and the second on 1456154 while the first episode of the next season is on channel 1623214?"

other: "Yea, that's how it works everywhere."

softworkz: "But we are Emby - our mission is to present media content in the best possible way, enriched with all kinds of metadata - who would want to access series content via non-memorable, 6- to 10-digit channel ids without any other metadata than a short description and a single image - if at all? We can present this in a much better way!"

other: "Nah, people will freak out when they cannot do like that anymore, this won't be accepted"

softworkz: "But how can that be? This is so clearly inferior to everything else. This doesn't even allow having saved playback positions, neither any kind of 'watched' indications etc. There are no series and season entries for grouping - in sum: you get almost none of the features that Emby provides normally."

other: "All others are doing it the same way; people are used to it and expecting it to work like that."

softworkz: "Why should people prefer Emby then, when it doesn't do better than any of the other apps? And I still can't imagine how anybody would be seriously using it that way: How do you navigate a TV guide when it has 10k, 20k, or even more channel rows? And all of those rows (unless actual live tv) having a single 'program' that is repeating 24/7? When you want to play an episode or film, you search for a TV channel of that name? And when you have 50k TV channels due to that, how can you find an actual TV channel when you get so many search hits? And how is channel management supposed to work? When you want to bring a certain channel from the end to the middle, or from the middle to the start or end? You hold down your finger on the mouse button for several minutes when drag-drop sorting? For every single channel that you want to move?" 

other: "Sure it's not ideal, but that's how it has always worked, and people want that!"

softworkz: "Yes, but..."

other: "No, this must continue working!"

softworkz: "But the WebStreams concept is so cool - nobody else has that! I'm sure, people will love it. Anyway, TVnext cannot handle VOD - it's impossible unless we drop so many essential features that it's not even worth proceeding." 

other: "Hmm, well, err, but no...etc etc."

softworkz: (sigh)

 

WebStreams Plugin

After all those discussions, I had realized that I couldn't get that idea sold as such. The sole promise of providing something better in the end wasn't sufficiently convincing. Yet, there wasn't an alternative to dropping VOD from live tv either. At the same time, this had grown and become a really hot topic, putting the project on the edge, even though it had been explicitly documented and discussed early that this split between live and vod streams will need to happen.

The only way out that I had seen at this time was to turn the sole promise of "providing something so much better that nobody would ever complain about lacking VOD channels" into a reality - outside of TVnext, independent of TVnext and delivered even before TVnext.

That's how the WebStreams plugin came to life.

Some got convinced quickly, for others it still took a while, but as of now, I don't think that there's any remaining doubt that the WebStreams plugin is the way to go for handling VOD content in Emby - even though it's been a long way...

 

[Raptor6L 29]

Great share Softworkz!

[denz 501]

Now that 4.9 has been released when can we expect tvnext to be in beta channel for testing

[Armageus 78]

7 hours ago, denz said:

Now that 4.9 has been released when can we expect tvnext to be in beta channel for testing

32nd of Neverember 

[pwhodges 2012]

We've had "4.9, the beta releases", so next up is "4.9, the maintenance releases".

The next real beta won't start until the new stable release is actually stable - this is, understandably, the usual pattern.

Paul

[kikinjo 281]

Waiting for "stable" release to become "stable".

So emby, so monthy python.....

 

[pwhodges 2012]

To be fair, the people who run betas are a small proportion of their users, and the complexity of Emby and the range of its client devices mean that there are bound to be issues which only arise on release.  I know some users will see this as a weak excuse - but it's the real-world experience of many software developers.

Paul

[kikinjo 281]

2 hours ago, pwhodges said:

To be fair, the people who run betas are a small proportion of their users, and the complexity of Emby and the range of its client devices mean that there are bound to be issues which only arise on release.  I know some users will see this as a weak excuse - but it's the real-world experience of many software developers.

Paul

Yes it is weak excuse, at least we agree on that.

But, how long are we waiting for tv next, how many years ? There is no excuse for that one whatever you quote from "real world of software developers". I would not say a word about tvnext or live tv in emby if it was not a premiere feature that is paying option on subscription or yearly. Maybe that bunch of users that pay for feature that is basically broken for years is also small proportion ? I wouldn't bet.... Lets focus on promises, paying feature that is broken, and less on buzzwords and "real world experiences" that defends emby team that did not deliver.

Everybody, welcome pwhodges to emby team, on lawyer postion.

Edited October 9, 2025 by kikinjo

[CharlesF 36]

Only reason I paid for emby was live tv.  Only reason I left plex for emby was live tv. 

[arrbee99 1815]

Don't worry, it'll be really really good one day week month ...

[rdhardi 42]

1 hour ago, CharlesF said:

Only reason I paid for emby was live tv.

Same here! My husband paid for lifetime sub back in the day, specifically for Live TV for me...to coax me off our cable TV subscription. It took me several years, but I finally "cut the cord". It was good for years with the AndroidTV app on Shield Pro. Now that the TV app is apparently going away, I rarely use Emby for Live TV anymore. I've tried the Universal app, but side-loading apps on several TVs is exhausting...not to mention, IMO, it's just a mobile app that doesn't work well on big screen TVs.

Edited October 10, 2025 by rdhardi

[Luke 42077]

1 hour ago, rdhardi said:

Same here! My husband paid for lifetime sub back in the day, specifically for Live TV for me...to coax me off our cable TV subscription. It took me several years, but I finally "cut the cord". It was good for years with the AndroidTV app on Shield Pro. Now that the TV app is apparently going away, I rarely use Emby for Live TV anymore. I've tried the Universal app, but side-loading apps on several TVs is exhausting...not to mention, IMO, it's just a mobile app that doesn't work well on big screen TVs.

Hi, the app is in the store for TV devices. There is no sideloading required anymore.

[Dibbes 514]

6 hours ago, arrbee99 said:

Don't worry, it'll be really really good one day week month ...

You forgot year, decade and possibly century... 

[arrbee99 1815]

or within my lifetime, or indeed the lifetime of the Aldabra Giant Tortoise ETD 250 years.