FireTV not activated on Premiere

[thelanranger 11]

I recently had my media collection go down due to upgrades and while I have been restoring I thought I would watch some content from a friends server. When I got on my FireTV everything loads normally but I'm unable to play any content from my friends server. It simply says "You must purchase the app". I already have emby premiere and everything is working perfectly fine. Why can't I watch content from a remote server?

[GrimReaper 4739]

8 minutes ago, thelanranger said:

Why can't I watch content from a remote server

Your friend likely doesn''t have Premiere subscription, i.e. you're not connected to a Premiere server, in which case for full playback one-off app unlock is required. 

[ebr 16169]

Hi.  Yes, Premiere is associated with a server and you are no longer connecting to your server.

[thelanranger 11]

But my server is still up and on the same network as the FireTV. What does that have to do with viewing his server? Shouldn't he be using his licenses for his devices and I be using my licenses for my devices? Why am I using his licenses? That doesn't make any sense.

[thelanranger 11]

4 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

Your friend likely doesn''t have Premiere subscription, i.e. you're not connected to a Premiere server, in which case for full playback one-off app unlock is required. 

So, then I have to not only buy premiere but I'd have to license each device individually as well to watch remote servers?

[GrimReaper 4739]

5 hours ago, thelanranger said:

So, then I have to not only buy premiere but I'd have to license each device individually as well to watch remote servers?

I have a feeling that maybe you're misunderstanding what Premiere subscription does. Emby Premiere is attached to your server(s) by entering a key and all Premiere features (one of which is full playback for client apps) are tied to this key, not any particular "account". So, whoever (either you or someone else) connects to your server will enjoy full array of features Premiere brings. And vice-versa, when you're connecting to other, someone else's server, you'd be utilising that server's Premiere features, and no unlock would be necessary - or not, if it's not a Premiere server, in which case app unlock is required for full playback. Either way, connecting to other servers from any client app has nothing to do with your Premiere subscription. Hope this helps. 

https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001173099-emby-premiere-feature-matrix

 

 

[ebr 16169]

11 hours ago, thelanranger said:

So, then I have to not only buy premiere but I'd have to license each device individually as well to watch remote servers?

Hi.  We are a personal media server system for your own content so, if you are trying to access someone else's server, then you are dealing with their license.

From the perspective of a personal server system, it makes much more sense for you - the server owner - to control the access and licenses instead of forcing your family to purchase their own licenses.

[thelanranger 11]

The reason I find this super confusing is because my friend does not buy premiere (obviously based upon what you're saying) but he is able to do everything I do. We use the same devices/hardware and do all the same things. I've been paying $5 a month vs just activating my couple devices essentially as a means to support this product. It doesn't really make any sense to me that if I 'bought it' that it would work sometimes and not other times.

I understand what you're saying, it's just a stupid way to manage the licensing and confusing. If I'm paying you a monthly fee to use emby then I should be able to use whatever I want on my devices. If you're giving 'bonus features' like x number of family can use it for free then that's cool and all but 90% of the premiere features are utterly useless from my perspective and it really pissed me off when all I wanted to do was sit down and watch some TV and it asked me to pay you when I've been paying you $5 a month for years.

[ebr 16169]

10 hours ago, thelanranger said:

if I 'bought it' that it would work sometimes and not other times.

Hi. It isn't sometimes and not other times.  What you are purchasing is a license for a server and you can use that server always.

10 hours ago, thelanranger said:

If I'm paying you a monthly fee to use emby then I should be able to use whatever I want on my devices

Again, you can on the server that you licensed.  We license servers, not individual users.  The other guys work the other way around because what they really want is to capture and sell to your users.  We don't work that way.  Your users are your users.

Thanks for the support.

[thelanranger 11]

They why would you even show me those remote servers as an option to play? I can't play them. Effectively it is cheaper for me to pay you $5 for this firetv than to pay you $100 for the server. If everyone licensed their device then they would never have a problem playing anything but if we pay for premiere then everyone will still get prompted to buy another license for every device that they have no power to purchase premiere for. It doesn't make any sense.

If I purchased then I shouldn't get a "you didn't purchase" message that I either can't resolve or that would make me regret my previous purchase. Both of these things happened.

[TMCsw 248]

1 hour ago, thelanranger said:

They why would you even show me those remote servers as an option to play?

So I can see all remote EMBY players?

please tell me how...?

[Luke 42077]

18 minutes ago, TMCsw said:

So I can see all remote EMBY players?

please tell me how...?

Hi, what exactly are you trying to do?

[pwhodges 2012]

7 hours ago, thelanranger said:

They why would you even show me those remote servers as an option to play?

Because Premiere is a server feature.  When you connect to a server other than your own, your client is seeing the presence or absence of that feature on the server it is connected to, and the fact that your own server has premiere is not visible to it.

You want a feature that lets you play media from any server that you have a login for - that feature exists, and is the one-time $5 payment to unlock the client.

Paul

[ebr 16169]

12 hours ago, thelanranger said:

They why would you even show me those remote servers as an option to play?

Hi.  The only remote servers you will see as options are ones you have connected to or been linked to via Connect.

Again, we are designed as a personal media server - which means you should be connecting to your own server.  If you connect to someone else's then you are using their system.

[thelanranger 11]

So, in summary, stop paying for premiere and pay for the client once. Got it.

[pwhodges 2012]

If you are using no premiere features in your server - the most obvious being Live TV and hardware transcoding.

Paul

[TMCsw 248]

20 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, what exactly are you trying to do?

Sorry, that was meant as sarcasm..

[thelanranger 11]

5 hours ago, pwhodges said:

If you are using no premiere features in your server - the most obvious being Live TV and hardware transcoding.

Paul

The only premiere feature I'm using is activation of devices. Considering that I've now spend more than a lifetime cost in monthly fees I could have permanently activated every device that I have ever come in contact with for use with an infinite number of emby servers. Instead, I have gotten less than $10 worth of apparent value since I'd need to now spend ANOTHER $10 to watch my friends server if I have another media outage (or if I just felt like watching something off his machine). 

Seems pretty ridiculous. Might be time to move on to some other product.

[Spaceboy 2573]

tbh i don't understand the thought process of anyone who chooses monthly over lifetime. but thats always the case with subscriptions these days

[thelanranger 11]

7 hours ago, Spaceboy said:

tbh i don't understand the thought process of anyone who chooses monthly over lifetime. but thats always the case with subscriptions these days

My thought process was that I was previously screwed by Plex when I purchased the lifetime. I dropped a large sum on their product based upon some minor feature (like client apps) with the promise of several other features that were in the works (like client apps for my windows phone, xbox, offline files, etc) and none of the promises were ever fulfilled. So, I moved here.

The idea is that $5 a month is relatively trivial but if the developers get used to receiving it from a certain number of people then they'll have to fulfill their promises and listen to the demands of those who are paying them. Emby has generally done a far superior job of correcting problems and not implementing pointless features that no one asks for in lieu of those which have been in the pipeline. I consider the $5 a month motivation and reward to the developers for their hard work and leverage for the users to have a vote in how the product evolves over time.

Once I paid you a lump sum for an "as-is" product then any changes after that point are out of your control. If you get bug fixes and they work, great. If a feature that you use ceases to be supported because of said bug fixes then, sorry for ya, use the old version that you paid for. At least I have that $5 to leverage (and presumably the $5 of x number of other users) to get that feature back.

In that vein, it seems like the motivations of the devs are such that they don't really want my monthly $5 but would rather just have a crisp $5 bill, one time, 2-3 years ago. That is where I was going with this thread. I understand how the licensing *works* I'm just saying that it's stupid, confusing, and you should change it. It's not motivational to the user to purchase. It does not reward me to give you money as such.

[ebr 16169]

14 minutes ago, thelanranger said:

I understand how the licensing *works* I'm just saying that it's stupid, confusing, and you should change it. It's not motivational to the user to purchase. It does not reward me to give you money as such.

Hi.  Our model is designed not to charge the end users but, rather, the server owner who is running their own personal media server.  The other guys are more interested in capturing all of the users (for many reasons) whereas we are putting the control of a server's users in the hands of the server operator.

So, basically, if your friend wanted to allow you free access to their server, then they would purchase Premiere - or ask you to purchase the client if all that is needed is normal playback.  That control is in the hands of the owner of the server you are accessing instead of us.

That is the main difference.  Your users are your users, not ours.

Thanks for the support.

[Spaceboy 2573]

1 hour ago, thelanranger said:

My thought process was that I was previously screwed by Plex when I purchased the lifetime. I dropped a large sum on their product based upon some minor feature (like client apps) with the promise of several other features that were in the works (like client apps for my windows phone, xbox, offline files, etc) and none of the promises were ever fulfilled. So, I moved here.

The idea is that $5 a month is relatively trivial but if the developers get used to receiving it from a certain number of people then they'll have to fulfill their promises and listen to the demands of those who are paying them. Emby has generally done a far superior job of correcting problems and not implementing pointless features that no one asks for in lieu of those which have been in the pipeline. I consider the $5 a month motivation and reward to the developers for their hard work and leverage for the users to have a vote in how the product evolves over time.

Once I paid you a lump sum for an "as-is" product then any changes after that point are out of your control. If you get bug fixes and they work, great. If a feature that you use ceases to be supported because of said bug fixes then, sorry for ya, use the old version that you paid for. At least I have that $5 to leverage (and presumably the $5 of x number of other users) to get that feature back.

In that vein, it seems like the motivations of the devs are such that they don't really want my monthly $5 but would rather just have a crisp $5 bill, one time, 2-3 years ago. That is where I was going with this thread. I understand how the licensing *works* I'm just saying that it's stupid, confusing, and you should change it. It's not motivational to the user to purchase. It does not reward me to give you money as such.

its odd that you describe $5 a month as relatively trivial amount of money but the cost of a plex lifetime pass ($120 now) as a large sum. Thats quite a narrow range of financial values you have there. or exaggeration. not sure which.

i also think you're kidding yourself if you think you arent using any server premiere features. hence the whole argument is a fallacy. but you know how to find out.

[thelanranger 11]

On 5/6/2023 at 10:41 AM, ebr said:

Hi.  Our model is designed not to charge the end users but, rather, the server owner who is running their own personal media server.  The other guys are more interested in capturing all of the users (for many reasons) whereas we are putting the control of a server's users in the hands of the server operator.

So, basically, if your friend wanted to allow you free access to their server, then they would purchase Premiere - or ask you to purchase the client if all that is needed is normal playback.  That control is in the hands of the owner of the server you are accessing instead of us.

That is the main difference.  Your users are your users, not ours.

Thanks for the support.

But that is exactly what you're doing in this scenario. Trying to charge me as an end user. The only problem is that you've already charged me as a server owner. You're trying to double dip. 

And from the reverse standpoint, if my friend (who only bought the client license and not premium) wanted to access my server (or 10 of my servers) and I had also not purchased premium, his experience would never change. He can happily use every device that he paid $5 for without ever seeing a screen telling him that something doesn't work. How would you expect me to explain to my friend that "he needs to buy premiere" when he can watch everything on his end, everything on my end, and everything on 10 other servers and it all works but I (who paid for premiere) can only watch my own, single server? 

And to top it off, he's paid $5 and I paid $5 A MONTH!

On 5/6/2023 at 12:06 PM, Spaceboy said:

its odd that you describe $5 a month as relatively trivial amount of money but the cost of a plex lifetime pass ($120 now) as a large sum. Thats quite a narrow range of financial values you have there. or exaggeration. not sure which.

i also think you're kidding yourself if you think you arent using any server premiere features. hence the whole argument is a fallacy. but you know how to find out.

 

On 5/6/2023 at 12:06 PM, Spaceboy said:

its odd that you describe $5 a month as relatively trivial amount of money but the cost of a plex lifetime pass ($120 now) as a large sum. Thats quite a narrow range of financial values you have there. or exaggeration. not sure which.

i also think you're kidding yourself if you think you arent using any server premiere features. hence the whole argument is a fallacy. but you know how to find out.

So...$5 a month is 24 months to get to $120. Both plex and emby claim that their "lifetime pass" is good for the current version. So, presumably, you could be made to pay that $120 again if they move from version 4 to 5. This has happened with plex before (and some other "lifetime" software I have used). It's not a massive savings. 

My bigger gripe is that I'm shelling out for the premium so that the firetv app actually functions. I couldn't tell you what other premium features I'm using...best I can tell, zero. I don't use offline media, I don't use DVR, I don't use TV, I don't use "Free Apps", I have completely disabled Transcoding on purpose because it makes 4k not work properly on my slow server (in fact, I was just about to gripe about the transcoding of audio on older files getting worse and worse over time too but that's a separate issue), I have no smart devices or any of that other stuff, I just got a car with android auto and I tried that but that's so horrid I just listen to the radio still or play with the app itself on the phone. SOOO, no, I don't use ANY features of premiere other than the actual activation of the stupid app. 

And now that you just made me do that math and look it all up, the structure seems to be that they want $5 a month from you anyway because you only get 25 devices for your "$120 lifetime activation" and then you have to pay more money. 

So, in retrospect, I probably should have just activated individual devices as I went and then I would end up with 25, permanently activated devices for $5 each and get 50x the value from them.

[pwhodges 2012]

The information was available to you all along, as is the possibility of paying the $5 one more time (per device/app store) and dropping Premiere.  No one at Emby is making you do anything you don't want to.

Paul

[ebr 16169]

12 hours ago, thelanranger said:

You're trying to double dip. 

Hi.  Again, we are designed as a personal media server system.  So a given user accessing multiple servers is not our primary design but it is certainly possible - the control is just in the server owner's hands instead of ours.

12 hours ago, thelanranger said:

and emby claim that their "lifetime pass" is good for the current version

This is incorrect.  From What Emby Premiere Membership Options are there?

Quote

You can purchase a Premiere membership in one of three intervals:

• Monthly - This will be a recurring monthly subscription that will charge to whichever payment method you choose each month and keep your Premiere status as long as these charges are current.
• Yearly - This is a Premiere membership that will be good for one year from the date of purchase. It will not automatically renew so you will need to re-purchase it at the end of that one year.
• Lifetime - This membership will be valid for the entire life of the Emby product.