Universal Android app vs. AndroidTV app

[ZLuckyTraveler 0]

Comparing how the UI looks and feels, also the app setup for Emby Android vs Android TV on the Shield TV is like night and day difference!

Why hasn't this been updated to the cleaner more modern UI?

[CBers 7450]

6 minutes ago, ZLuckyTraveler said:

Comparing how the UI looks and feels, also the app setup for Emby Android vs Android TV on the Shield TV is like night and day difference!

Why hasn't this been updated to the cleaner more modern UI?

There hasn't been any development of the Android TV (ATV) app for a while, save for bug fixes, as the Emby development team are trying to sunset the ATV app, in favour of the Universal Android app, but this has been on-going for around 4 years so far.

What is it that you feel needs updating in the ATV app please?

Which modern UI?
 

[ZLuckyTraveler 0]

Here''s just a few things off the top of my head, without giving anything too overly in depth or digging into it too much, as this is just from 5 minutes of using the Android App on my shield for the first time when setting it up and a doing a quick browse.

- App startup & login (Much cleaner and easier setup, and quicker)
- App Settings (Lots of options available and not nearly as limiting - there's lot more that could be said here, but it's fairly obvious)
- Home Screen (No more limited number of Next Up Displayed)
- Media Details & Context Menus (Seriously a huge improvement)
- Much Snappier and Quicker Responses (Overall App Performance + No crashes/lagging)
- Trakt Management Built-In (Finally!)

Overall much cleaner UI that is more pleasing to the eye and easier to use. The ATV app literally feels like an app from early 2000's. It would honestly be better to just replace the ATV app with the Android app, unless it could just be cloned over, rather than trying to nit-pick at each thing, because there are just too many differences to name and what "feels" to be updated. It should just be the same as the Android App in my opinion.

It's seriously a huge difference, as I said before it's Night & Day!

Edited October 16, 2024 by ZLuckyTraveler

[gillmacca01 211]

Sorry to jump in here, but would like to just double check which version should I be installing on the Shield.

On google play, i see, Emby for Android TV & Emby for Android

[CBers 7450]

10 minutes ago, ZLuckyTraveler said:

Here''s just a few things off the top of my head, without giving anything too overly in depth or digging into it too much, as this is just from 5 minutes of using the Android App on my shield for the first time when setting it up and a doing a quick browse.

- App startup & login (Much cleaner and easier setup, and quicker)
- App Settings (Lots of options available and not nearly as limiting - there's lot more that could be said here, but it's fairly obvious)
- Home Screen (No more limited number of Next Up Displayed)
- Media Details & Context Menus (Seriously a huge improvement)
- Much Snappier and Quicker Responses (Overall App Performance + No crashes/lagging)
- Trakt Management Built-In (Finally!)

Overall much cleaner UI that is more pleasing to the eye and easier to use. The ATV app literally feels like an app from early 2000's. It would honestly be better to just replace the ATV app with the Android app, unless it could just be cloned over, rather than trying to nit-pick at each thing, because there are just too many differences to name and "feel" like it needs updating. It should just be the same as the Android App in my opinion.

It's seriously a huge difference, as I said before it's a Night & Day!

Personally I prefer the ATV app to the newer Universal Android app, but each to their own.

There's a 100+ page discussion thread here, which discusses the differences between the 2 apps.
 

[CBers 7450]

7 minutes ago, gillmacca01 said:

Sorry to jump in here, but would like to just double check which version should I be installing on the Shield.

On google play, i see, Emby for Android TV & Emby for Android

Whichever you feel more comfortable with, as both will work.
 

[ebr 16169]

7 hours ago, ZLuckyTraveler said:

It should just be the same as the Android App in my opinion.

It doesn't need to be.  You just use the standard Android app and you have everything you want, right?

[Sammy 790]

9 hours ago, CBers said:

Personally I prefer the ATV app to the newer Universal Android app, but each to their own.

There's a 100+ page discussion thread here, which discusses the differences between the 2 apps.
 

I've just started using the Universal Android app on my TV's as it now is very polished IMHO.

[CBers 7450]

13 hours ago, Sammy said:

I've just started using the Universal Android app on my TV's as it now is very polished IMHO.

It still doesn't remux unsupported audio though, which is a show-stopper for me.

The ATV app has done this for many years, so don't understand why the Universal app doesn't do it.
 

[neik 873]

14 hours ago, Sammy said:

I've just started using the Universal Android app on my TV's as it now is very polished IMHO.

Same, it's my daily driver on the Shield for more than a year now.
Had sort of a bumpy start but meanwhile it plays everything I through at it.

Edit: Not saying that it's perfect though, still needs polishing here and there, also feature-wise like skipping back and forth in LiveTV environment.

Edited October 17, 2024 by neik

[rbjtech 5282]

24 minutes ago, neik said:

Same, it's my daily driver on the Shield for more than a year now.
Had sort of a bumpy start but meanwhile it plays everything I through at it.

Edit: Not saying that it's perfect though, still needs polishing here and there, also feature-wise like skipping back and forth in LiveTV environment.

Do you have an HDR TV attached to the Shield ?

One of my (many..) pet hates about the Android App is the OSD is STILL after all these years super bright - and it has zero reason to be.    The main menu selection etc all now appear to be much less bright/grey - so that's now ok - but the OSD is just a 'yuk..' from me - totally distracting and unnecessary. 

Lots of other 'AV Enthusiast' functions missing of course, but the main comparison list has all those listed. 

[ZLuckyTraveler 0]

17 hours ago, ebr said:

It doesn't need to be.  You just use the standard Android app and you have everything you want, right?

Not really, because there is no App Unlock and I’m not the server owner, I’m stuck with using the ATV app. 

Edited October 17, 2024 by ZLuckyTraveler

[neik 873]

2 hours ago, rbjtech said:

Do you have an HDR TV attached to the Shield ?

One of my (many..) pet hates about the Android App is the OSD is STILL after all these years super bright - and it has zero reason to be.    The main menu selection etc all now appear to be much less bright/grey - so that's now ok - but the OSD is just a 'yuk..' from me - totally distracting and unnecessary. 

Lots of other 'AV Enthusiast' functions missing of course, but the main comparison list has all those listed. 

I have and agree on that, hence my edit part refering to the required polishing.
That's no show stopper for me though, as most of the times the OSD is just opened when I pause the movie/show.

[Sammy 790]

4 hours ago, CBers said:

It still doesn't remux unsupported audio though, which is a show-stopper for me.

The ATV app has done this for many years, so don't understand why the Universal app doesn't do it.
 

What unsupported audio are you referring to?

Atmos or dts-x?

I'm using it on a 75" TCL851g via the TV's native Google TV app fed to a Denon AVR 760h. Both support these audio formats but playback stutters and stalls. I think it is either related to these audio formats as other playback works fine or related to the content being 90 mpbs Dolby Vision and the TV cannot handle the bit rate but the specs for the processor state they can.

Anyhow, lest we drift off topic I'll start another thread when I can gather the necessary logs to post.

Back to the regularly scheduled programming.

[Sammy 790]

3 hours ago, neik said:

Same, it's my daily driver on the Shield for more than a year now.
Had sort of a bumpy start but meanwhile it plays everything I through at it.

Edit: Not saying that it's perfect though, still needs polishing here and there, also feature-wise like skipping back and forth in LiveTV environment.

I actually just installed it recently. Charter Spectrum priced me out on using CableCARD tuners so I now subscribe to YTTV and Frndly for less money and use their apps for LiveTV. Unfortunate but necessary.

I like it because the interface is more streamlined and modern and there's theme videos not and never to be found in the ATV app.

[CBers 7450]

2 hours ago, Sammy said:

What unsupported audio are you referring to?

Anything that is better quality that AC3.

The ATV app forces the server to remux DTS, DTS-X, Atmos etc to AC3 so that my Sonos Beam will play it.

The Universal Android app just downmixes it to PCM, resulting in a poor UX.

It's logged here as number 29, so has been known about for a couple of years at least, but still no progress.
 

Edited October 17, 2024 by CBers

[Sammy 790]

3 hours ago, CBers said:

Anything that is better quality that AC3.

The ATV app forces the server to remux DTS, DTS-X, Atmos etc to AC3 so that my Sonos Beam will play it.

The Universal Android app just downmixes it to PCM, resulting in a poor UX.

It's logged here as number 29, so has been known about for a couple of years at least, but still no progress.
 

So if the playback stream supports the audio format this is not an issue?

[neik 873]

1 hour ago, Sammy said:

So if the playback stream supports the audio format this is not an issue?

It is not, I play everything up to TrueHD Atmos and DTS:X using ET for Android.

[Sammy 790]

34 minutes ago, neik said:

It is not, I play everything up to TrueHD Atmos and DTS:X using ET for Android.

What player are you using?

[neik 873]

Latest Shield Pro with latest Android updates.

[CBers 7450]

14 hours ago, Sammy said:

So if the playback stream supports the audio format this is not an issue?

My Sonos Beam only supports audio upto AC3 (Dolby Digital), so with the ATV app, it forces the server to remux all higher quality audio tracks to AC3, which has worked for years.

The Universal Android app doesn't have this functionality, so it downmixes it to PCM (stereo), creating a bad UX.
 

[yocker 1247]

1 hour ago, tollgate said:

I find that if I play a movie with DTS audio in the android app, it doesn't actually play at all. Only way I have found to play such a movie is to force a transcode on the video which then forces the audio to transcode into a playable format. As you say, the ATV app does this automatically and transcodes just the audio..

Sorry if this is not an option for you.
You can get a program like Tdarr, Unmanic or Fileflows to automatic reencode to another format or add another audio track with a format your equipment is compatible with.

I have Fileflows running and every time a video is added to the server Fileflows will add a EAC3 track (if there isn't one already) to the file for compatibility with most TVs.
It also removes subtitles that might give problems.
Easy and painless to setup and makes almost all TVs work with everything on my server.

[tollgate 8]

12 hours ago, yocker said:

Sorry if this is not an option for you.
You can get a program like Tdarr, Unmanic or Fileflows to automatic reencode to another format or add another audio track with a format your equipment is compatible with.

I have Fileflows running and every time a video is added to the server Fileflows will add a EAC3 track (if there isn't one already) to the file for compatibility with most TVs.
It also removes subtitles that might give problems.
Easy and painless to setup and makes almost all TVs work with everything on my server.

Thanks for the tip.

[tollgate 8]

10 hours ago, seanbuff said:

I'm pretty sure the Android app now has an option to automatically convert unsupported audio just like the ATV app.

Which version are you using?

Android 3.4.36

Android TV 2.2.23g

[seanbuff 1313]

13 minutes ago, tollgate said:

Android 3.4.36

Cool, so the option was added in 3.4.43, see the Release Notes:
 

Quote

3.4.43 -02/28/2025

• Add convert unsupported audio option

Currently, the only way to install that version is to side-load it.

You can find the latest Release Notes and link to .apk file here:
https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/95467-emby-for-android-release-notes/