new to emby have questions

[tiger23 0]

I recently switched to emby trying to find something better than plex. A little background on my setup  The files i use through emby are stored on my laptops hard drive. Will eventually probably change that tot he external drive and maybe in the future have them on a server thing independent of the computer (advice on those would be appreciated). I have a firestick connected to my roku tv. Everything i watch is based off of that firestick. I downloaded the emby app for the windows computer and for the firestick. Now my questions:

1. I thought the emby app was free, but yesterday when i tried to watch some videos, it said i needed to unlock it for around $5 or get emby premier. Is this correct or is something wrong?

2. What is the advantages of emby premier? I seen where it said it could download stuff. All the stuff i watch through emby is already file on the hard drive, but i am wondering if that means i can download from streaming services (for example, something on discovery plus)? 

3/ Is it possible for emby to connect to files on google drive? Right now that is where all my video files are (had a string of hard drive and computer crashes)

4. And finally, is it possible to play an entire folder's files back to back without having to select each one? Like i have a folder of favorite commercials. I would like to have it just play all of those back to back without having to hit play for each one.

. If you know of another app like plex or emby that would do the last two things, let me know.

[Abobader 3464]

Hello tiger23,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[ebr 16185]

Hi and welcome.

1) Some things are free and others aren't.  We have an entire company building, maintaining and supporting all the server platforms and apps.  More information on what is free or not can be found here: Emby Premiere Feature Matrix.

2) Premiere includes all the apps listed in that matrix and then other features such as offline downloading in our mobile apps.  This means you could download something from your Emby library on your phone and then watch it on a plane or in the woods, etc. Emby Premiere

3) Yes this is possible using something like rclone to mount the cloud drive as a local volume.  Be aware, however, that some features could have large performance ramifications in this type of setup.  Basically anything that needs to read the entire file like thumbnail generation.

4) This is also possible.  There is a play all button on most screens.  In the Fire app, it is to the right of the grid of posters.

[darkassassin07 652]

Embys Web app (ie connecting to your server with a web browser) is free to use. Many of the installable client apps however require emby premier to use, though some clients can be unlocked directly with a one time purchase (only works for that specific app, non-transferable).

 

You can see the details of which clients can access what features here:

https://emby.media/support/articles/Premiere-Feature-Matrix.html

 

Emby is currently unable to play/load media from google drive or any other cloud storage directly as far as I'm aware. You'd have to use a seprate tool to mount it like a local drive.

 

Where it refers to downloading media, they are talkng about downloading media from your server directly to the client app so it can then be played without a connection to your server. Good for traveling where you know you'll be offline for a bit, but want to have something to watch.

 

For playing several files back to back; you can create either a collection or a playlist in emby, then play that list instead of the individual items. Either right click, or long press on the item, then select 'add to collection'. That can then be searched for by name, or found in the 'collections' library.

Edited June 1, 2023 by darkassassin07