Issues with new Emby for Windows

[saj 14]

 

 

As a long time Theater user, I have been looking forward to the new replacement app for a long time. I am now using version 2.222.2.0. I believe that is the latest. Obviously a lot of work has gone into the new app. I think it might be a good idea to separate all the old Theater threads from the new Emby for Windows ones in the forum. It would be nice to be able to easily isolate what issues are being reported in the new product

I am having some issues that were not in Theater.

1) I have tried hard but cannot see an option to select an external player now. Is that not going to be available?

2) If one is using a mouse, this doesn't much matter, but I use keyboard controls on my programmable remote, and I don't think the new app makes good choices about positioning the cursor on various screens. It often seems to leave the cursor at the beginning of the screen, making getting to the desired selections less than ideal. For instance, on the Home page, I would like the cursor to position to my first media library upon entry. Starting at the top is just clumsy and inconvenient. on the TV Recordings page, it would be nice for the cursor to position to the first listed show. When a TV recording is deleted, the window that appears has a cancel and delete option but the cursor is not placed on either of the buttons. This is one area where Theater was better. The ideal would be if we could choose initial positions, but that seems unlikely, so just more sensible defaults would be good.

3) On the TV recording page, that I use a lot, I am frequently having the screen become unresponsive to keyboard commands. This happens when I am navigating the screen. It looks like maybe focus is being lost somehow. I have to either leave and restart the screen or use a mouse to wake it up.

Thanks for considering these issues.

[Luke 42077]

Quote

1) I have tried hard but cannot see an option to select an external player now. Is that not going to be available?

Hi, yes it is planned for future updates to the app.

[Luke 42077]

Quote

2) If one is using a mouse, this doesn't much matter, but I use keyboard controls on my programmable remote, and I don't think the new app makes good choices about positioning the cursor on various screens. It often seems to leave the cursor at the beginning of the screen, making getting to the desired selections less than ideal. For instance, on the Home page, I would like the cursor to position to my first media library upon entry. Starting at the top is just clumsy and inconvenient. on the TV Recordings page, it would be nice for the cursor to position to the first listed show. When a TV recording is deleted, the window that appears has a cancel and delete option but the cursor is not placed on either of the buttons. This is one area where Theater was better. The ideal would be if we could choose initial positions, but that seems unlikely, so just more sensible defaults would be good.

Hi, did you enable TV display mode in the app settings?

[lorac 118]

TV display mode makes the UI look like the old ET. 

Auto looks much nicer. 

[saj 14]

Luke & lorac,

Thank you so much for pointing out that new option. I missed it because I was focusing more on the options under Emby Windows, and I just missed that new option in the first settings section. It might make sense to offer that option under the Display item in the Emby Windows section, but regardless I am MUCH happier now that I have that setting turned on. Thanks again, and I look forward to the return of the external player option.

[saj 14]

To lorac,

I am not resistant to change and would be more than willing to fully try out the Auto option if it would position the cursor more in line with what Theater did. I also like the Theater Home Page display option that displays an image associated with the current item selection. It's a nice clean look, but of course, everyone has different style tastes. I just don't think I could live with the current Auto cursor positioning. It makes keyboard control navigation much less convenient.

Thanks again for the extremely fast feedback.

 

[lorac 118]

The cursor issue is annoying I agree. 

The auto look is just so much nicer than the TV mode. Hopefully it can be fixed at some point. 

[softworkz 5066]

On 3/29/2025 at 5:21 PM, saj said:

1) I have tried hard but cannot see an option to select an external player now. Is that not going to be available?

2) If one is using a mouse, this doesn't much matter, but I use keyboard controls on my programmable remote, and I don't think the new app makes good choices about positioning the cursor on various screens. It often seems to leave the cursor at the beginning of the screen, making getting to the desired selections less than ideal. For instance, on the Home page, I would like the cursor to position to my first media library upon entry. Starting at the top is just clumsy and inconvenient. on the TV Recordings page, it would be nice for the cursor to position to the first listed show. When a TV recording is deleted, the window that appears has a cancel and delete option but the cursor is not placed on either of the buttons. This is one area where Theater was better. The ideal would be if we could choose initial positions, but that seems unlikely, so just more sensible defaults would be good.

3) On the TV recording page, that I use a lot, I am frequently having the screen become unresponsive to keyboard commands. This happens when I am navigating the screen. It looks like maybe focus is being lost somehow. I have to either leave and restart the screen or use a mouse to wake it up.

 

I've been advocating to improve keybooard navigation for a long time and I hope we will soon be able improve that - rather than always deferring it to TV mode only.

[scottpro 10]

Let me add a few more issues with the new ET 2.222.2.0 release.

1. The mpv player no longer loads the mpv.conf file or scripts from the %APPDATA% or MPV_HOME (Environment variable) locations.  This one is pretty important to me because I have custom shaders and custom scripts (masking control, anamorphic scaling, projector profiles, processor settings, ...).
2. ET 2.222.2.0 now installs into the WindowsApp folder which is locked down security wise which makes it very difficult to replace the mpv.dll with a custom one with TrueHD fixes.  Perhaps that dll could be installed in the user APPDATA folder.
3. The "Run at Startup" option is gone.  Not as important because you can add it to the Startup in Task Manager.
4. There were comments about not being able to set ET into Fullscreen, but this can be accomplished by playing a movie and selecting the Fullscreen icon "[  ]" which will then put ET into persistent fullscreen.  Would be cool if there was an option to make ET run fullscreen at startup.

I really want to use this new release because it's native C# code based instead of using Electron, but the first two items are show stoppers for me.

[softworkz 5066]

2 hours ago, scottpro said:

The mpv player no longer loads the mpv.conf file or scripts from the %APPDATA% or MPV_HOME (Environment variable) locations.  This one is pretty important to me because I have custom shaders and custom scripts (masking control, anamorphic scaling, projector profiles, processor settings, ...).

mpv.conf files are not supported and this will not change. The old ET was "dumb" regarding mpv - it didn't do much more than start, stop and skip and didn't actively manage MPV options.

In the new app, that's very different and mpv properties are dynamically adjusted depending on a number of factors and depending on its own options, which are mapping pretty directly to mpv properties, but are also managed in a way that invalid configurations are avoided. The new app even monitors its window placement and adjust properties dynamically when moved from one display to another.

In this situation, there is no place for additional options set from a configuration file. It's somewhat like: You cannot have two chefs cooking the same meal together when they are blind and each one doesn't know what the other is doing.

 

2 hours ago, scottpro said:

ET 2.222.2.0 now installs into the WindowsApp folder which is locked down security wise which makes it very difficult to replace the mpv.dll with a custom one with TrueHD fixes.  Perhaps that dll could be installed in the user APPDATA folder.

That's the standard app layout for Windows Store apps and they are not allowed to load libraries from arbitrary locations. You can grant yourself write permissions either for the Emby app folder or for the WindowsApp folder. You just need to take ownership first. Windows won't revert that.

 

2 hours ago, scottpro said:

The "Run at Startup" option is gone.  Not as important because you can add it to the Startup in Task Manager.

The procedure is also described in the FAQ

 

2 hours ago, scottpro said:

There were comments about not being able to set ET into Fullscreen, but this can be accomplished by playing a movie and selecting the Fullscreen icon "[  ]" which will then put ET into persistent fullscreen.

.There are three ways to get into full-screen:

• Double-Click somewhere in the top 10% area of the window content
• The full-screen buttons is always visible at the right top (unless display mode is set to TV)
• Press F11 key

 

2 hours ago, scottpro said:

Would be cool if there was an option to make ET run fullscreen at startup.

It remembers the state. If you close it full-screen, it will open in full-.screen on next run.

Edited April 6, 2025 by softworkz

[softworkz 5066]

22 minutes ago, softworkz said:

mpv.conf files are not supported and this will not change.

Forgot to mention: What we do though - also different from the previous app - is to expose mpv features that are requested by users and provide value for at least a small share of users.

One such example is the "Dynamic Fit" aspect ratio option. It's better than all the autocrop scripts that are flying around (the original request was for autocrop).
An option for custom shader configuration has been under consideration but not further explored so far, due to lack of interest.

 

2 hours ago, scottpro said:

This one is pretty important to me because I have custom shaders

What's your specific use case for custom shaders? Which shaders do you want to get loaded in which specific cases?

 

2 hours ago, scottpro said:

masking control, anamorphic scaling

Please check out "Dynamic Fit" aspect ratio option.

 

2 hours ago, scottpro said:

projector profiles, processor settings,

Could you please elaborate to which specific mpv.conf settings this would relate to?

 

Thanks

Edited April 6, 2025 by softworkz

[scottpro 10]

@softworkzThanks for the reply.

First, let me describe my theater setup so you have a better idea of what I am doing.

• A JVC projector (DLA-NZ8) with a Panamorph lense DCR-XM2 (1.35x vertical compression) and a 2.4:1 (125") constant height variable masking screen (2.40 to 1.77, 0-100% in 1% increments).
• A PC with a RTX-3090 which is my media player and processor.  I basically took all the cool features from madVR, Kaleidescape and others and implemented them into mpv.
• A dedicated Home Assistant server for the home theater for lighting scenes and other automations which mpv communicates with.
• Audio setup: 7.4.4 

8 hours ago, softworkz said:

That's the standard app layout for Windows Store apps and they are not allowed to load libraries from arbitrary locations. You can grant yourself write permissions either for the Emby app folder or for the WindowsApp folder. You just need to take ownership first. Windows won't revert that.

That's is true for most Windows folders that are owned by the System but the WindowsApp folder has extra security.  Just taking ownership doesn't give you rights to modify the files in those folders.  Taking ownership was the first thing I tried along with "Disabling Inheritance" and "Replace all child objects" with my ownership.  The only solution is to boot Windows into Safe Mode and modify the files or boot with a USB Live Linux and access the files as needed.

8 hours ago, softworkz said:

Forgot to mention: What we do though - also different from the previous app - is to expose mpv features that are requested by users and provide value for at least a small share of users.

One such example is the "Dynamic Fit" aspect ratio option. It's better than all the autocrop scripts that are flying around (the original request was for autocrop).
An option for custom shader configuration has been under consideration but not further explored so far, due to lack of interest.

I have custom shaders for NLS scaling (both horizontal and vertical, like madVR) and custom tone-mapping based on video params.  In my mpv.conf file I set all the video options to not scale the video or change the aspect ratio (keep native size and aspect).  I do all that in custom scripts at startup of the movie that applies the appropriate scale and shaders as needed.  My library has additional meta-data that the mpv player reads to make these adjustments (like resolution, cropping params, ...).

The Lua scripts basically provide all the automation for my theater as well as setting up mpv.

Examples:

1. A HDR 3840x1600 (2.40:1) movie is upscaled to anamorphic resolution, 3840x2160, tone-mapping params are set based on the movies FALL and screen calibrated Nits, no masking is applied, the projector profile is set to SDR-BT2020 (calibrated).  I also setup the video display to the correct refresh rate and HDR if needed (Gemini Man 60Hz).  The audio processor is also setup with optional settings like BEQ for movie specific Bass EQ or setting different decoders like Auro3D for 2 channel content.  Also, lighting is controlled as well with movie events; start, stop, play, pause, credit roll, end credit teasers (Kaleidescape inspired).  I know Emby has Webhooks for the basic events but I wanted more control.
2. A HDR 3840x2160 (1.77:1, 16:9) movie is scaled to anamorphic resolution 2844x2160 and masking (100%) is applied.
3. A SDR 1920x1080 movie are upscaled to 4K along with the anamorphic scaling and masking.  No tone mapping is applied and the project is set to SDR-BT709.
4. The NLS scaler shader is used when a movie is within a threshold of 2:4 aspect, like 2.35 and can be stretched to full scope.  The other usage of NLS is with multi-aspect movies and stretching the non-widescreen sequences can minimize the black bars (madVR inspired).

I also handle movies with IMAX multi-aspects like Interstellar.  I wrote a mpv C-plugin that gets loaded and monitors the frame timestamp (updates about 1000x per frame).  My meta-data for my movies also contain aspect change sequence points.  So I can scale the movie dynamically without the needed of a brute force black bar detection.  Even madVR can't handle some movies with difficult changes or has slow reactions.

Example aspects meta-data from Interstellar:

{
    "aspects": [
        { "index": 0, "width": 3840, "height": 1600, "offset-x": 0, "offset-y": 0 },
        { "index": 1, "width": 3840, "height": 2160, "offset-x": 0, "offset-y": 0 }
    ],
    "sequence": [
        {"time": "00:00:00.000", "index": 0},
        {"time": "00:01:28.338", "index": 1},
        {"time": "00:01:48.025", "index": 0},
        {"time": "00:03:04.768", "index": 1},
        {"time": "00:03:11.400", "index": 0},
        {"time": "00:03:14.277", "index": 1},
        {"time": "00:03:17.572", "index": 0},
        {"time": "00:06:29.973", "index": 1},
        {"time": "00:08:43.356", "index": 0},
        {"time": "00:13:57.170", "index": 1},
		...
	]
}

I know this was a huge dump of info but I hope you can see my years of effort into my theater come to a stop when the flexibility of mpv is removed from a really great movie ecosystem like Emby Theater/Server.  Perhaps a more DIY friendly version of ET could be released which opens up the true potential of the system.

[softworkz 5066]

9 minutes ago, scottpro said:

That's is true for most Windows folders that are owned by the System but the WindowsApp folder has extra security.  Just taking ownership doesn't give you rights to modify the files in those folders.  Taking ownership was the first thing I tried along with "Disabling Inheritance" and "Replace all child objects" with my ownership.  The only solution is to boot Windows into Safe Mode and modify the files or boot with a USB Live Linux and access the files as needed.

No, that's not needed. But I just remembered that there's one more thing required:  

You need to switch off "Tamper Protection":

 

And another thing to prevent "tamper protection" from switching back on after a few minutes. I can send you my group policy settings for this.

Not having access to any parts of the file system is not acceptable (barriers are ok and reasonable, though), that's why I always take ownership with a certain account when TrustedInstaller thinks I shouldn't have access.

[scottpro 10]

Yeah, I tried that as well.  No go.

Plus, this one

Edited April 7, 2025 by scottpro

[softworkz 5066]

  I have it in that state for a long time

 

4 minutes ago, scottpro said:

Yeah, I tried that as well.  No go.

Watch it whether it goes back on after a few minutes, then it will revert the ownership .

 

 

[softworkz 5066]

 

These are the policies I have reg2.zip

With these in place - after a reboot - you should be able to switch of Tamper Protection without it self-enabling again.

 

For this key: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Advanced Threat Protection\Task

..you might need to take ownership and give yourself permissions first.

[softworkz 5066]

1 hour ago, scottpro said:

First, let me describe my theater setup so you have a better idea of what I am doing.

• A JVC projector (DLA-NZ8) with a Panamorph lense DCR-XM2 (1.35x vertical compression) and a 2.4:1 (125") constant height variable masking screen (2.40 to 1.77, 0-100% in 1% increments).
• A PC with a RTX-3090 which is my media player and processor.  I basically took all the cool features from madVR, Kaleidescape and others and implemented them into mpv.
• A dedicated Home Assistant server for the home theater for lighting scenes and other automations which mpv communicates with.
• Audio setup: 7.4.4 

Well, that's an awesome lineup - nice!

1 hour ago, scottpro said:

I have custom shaders for NLS scaling (both horizontal and vertical, like madVR)

What's the exact purpose? Preparing for the anamorphic projection?

 

1 hour ago, scottpro said:

and custom tone-mapping based on video params. 

That will probably not work like you expect because the Emby Windows app - even in full-screen mode is still rendering video via SwapChain to desktop composition (DWM), it doesn't render in exclusive mode.

Please also see my comments here on that subject: https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/137641-an-option-to-use-3dlut-in-new-emby-for-windows

 

 

1 hour ago, scottpro said:

In my mpv.conf file I set all the video options to not scale the video or change the aspect ratio (keep native size and aspect).  I do all that in custom scripts at startup of the movie that applies the appropriate scale and shaders as needed.  My library has additional meta-data that the mpv player reads to make these adjustments (like resolution, cropping params, ...).

The Lua scripts basically provide all the automation for my theater as well as setting up mpv.

Okay, understood. You've basically done your own player implementation using the Lua script interface. 

Emby Windows does the same, just that it does so with native API calls, but the principle is the same. So I don't think I need to further explain why this cannot be allowed. It's like as when there was another guy who had done something similar like you but with different goals, diferent hardware and different preferences.

What would happen if the scripts from both would be loaded? => chaos, everything broken 

 

Some have tried to portray the absence of mpv.conf in the Windows app as an evil move, but they need to understand what would practically happen when we would enabled it:

If it would be enabled, the conf file would be loaded first, and then the Emby player implementation does it's work. Let's say for example: the mpv.conf sets 8 options to certain values and then comes the Emby implementation and it might set different values for 3 of the properties set by mpv.conf and 4 other properties that mpv.conf doesn't set. What's the chances that this would result in something at least helf-way workable? => very low

In the end, the mpv.conf doesn't get the result it is aiming at, neither does the Emby implementation. Most of the time, this will only end up in a nonsense (or even non-working) configuration. 
There can be only one capitain on a boat - for good reasons.
For ET Desktop, this was only working because there wasn't any capitain on the Emby side of things.

 

What you are describing goes way beyond something like a few conditional options. It's more like a custom player implementation. 

Technically, the player implementations in the new app model are implemented via a plugin model on the C# side - but that's just an internal implementation detail, not a public API. Maybe we can open up those interfaces to allow custom player implementations, but that's just by theory, there are no current plans for doing so.

Anyway, I'll keep thinking about your use case!

 

[scottpro 10]

This is actually a low priority item since mpv is not able to execute my scripts or configurations with this release of ET.  Since you are still looking into external video players perhaps mpv could be treated as a external player with user options but still employ the overlay graphics and UI controls.

[softworkz 5066]

Do you know what the "External Player" feature actually is?

It's just executing a command line to launch a player with the file path as a parameter. There's nothing like graphics or UI integration. It starts another (player) app and then you're on your own (no more Emby UI) and you can be glad when there's even a way for returning back to Emby later without using a keyboard or mouse.

(that's why I'm really surprised to see quite a number of requests for it...)

 

 

[scottpro 10]

5 minutes ago, softworkz said:

Well, that's an awesome lineup - nice!

What's the exact purpose? Preparing for the anamorphic projection?

 

That will probably not work like you expect because the Emby Windows app - even in full-screen mode is still rendering video via SwapChain to desktop composition (DWM), it doesn't render in exclusive mode.

Please also see my comments here on that subject: https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/137641-an-option-to-use-3dlut-in-new-emby-for-windows

 

 

Okay, understood. You've basically done your own player implementation using the Lua script interface. 

Emby Windows does the same, just that it does so with native API calls, but the principle is the same. So I don't think I need to further explain why this cannot be allowed. It's like as when there was another guy who had done something similar like you but with different goals, diferent hardware and different preferences.

What would happen if the scripts from both would be loaded? => chaos, everything broken 

 

Some have tried to portray the absence of mpv.conf in the Windows app as an evil move, but they need to understand what would practically happen when we would enabled it:

If it would be enabled, the conf file would be loaded first, and then the Emby player implementation does it's work. Let's say for example: the mpv.conf sets 8 options to certain values and then comes the Emby implementation and it might set different values for 3 of the properties set by mpv.conf and 4 other properties that mpv.conf doesn't set. What's the chances that this would result in something at least helf-way workable? => very low

In the end, the mpv.conf doesn't get the result it is aiming at, neither does the Emby implementation. Most of the time, this will only end up in a nonsense (or even non-working) configuration. 
There can be only one capitain on a boat - for good reasons.
For ET Desktop, this was only working because there wasn't any capitain on the Emby side of things.

 

What you are describing goes way beyond something like a few conditional options. It's more like a custom player implementation. 

Technically, the player implementations in the new app model are implemented via a plugin model on the C# side - but that's just an internal implementation detail, not a public API. Maybe we can open up those interfaces to allow custom player implementations, but that's just by theory, there are no current plans for doing so.

Anyway, I'll keep thinking about your use case!

 

Exactly.  ET would need a option in the video/audio settings to use a external conf setup thus bypassing ET's mpv options.  An all or nothing option, no mixing.  It's nice that ET has wrapped a lot of the player options into a user friendly UI, but that is for the average user who just wants to "Set it and Forget it" (gotta luv Ronco).  Myself, I want to exploit the players ability to fit my theater needs and mpv w/libplacebo is very powerful.

If you check my profile you can see I've been a software developer for many decades.  Writing graphics engines for multiple platforms, so I'm well aware of the D3D render pipeline.  I literally want to surpass madVR using mpv/libplacebo so no one will never need to use an external player.

[scottpro 10]

8 minutes ago, softworkz said:

Do you know what the "External Player" feature actually is?

It's just executing a command line to launch a player with the file path as a parameter. There's nothing like graphics or UI integration. It starts another (player) app and then you're on your own (no more Emby UI) and you can be glad when there's even a way for returning back to Emby later without using a keyboard or mouse.

(that's why I'm really surprised to see quite a number of requests for it...)

 

 

Yes, I'm aware of how the external player works.  In fact I used to use MPC-BE with madVR and eventually switched over to the internal mpv player.  What I'm suggesting is to not actually launch and external mpv.exe instance but to use the mpv.dll with no ET options passed to it, so it still gets the UI and controls from ET.

[yzxvw 15]

On 4/6/2025 at 9:59 PM, softworkz said:

Forgot to mention: What we do though - also different from the previous app - is to expose mpv features that are requested by users and provide value for at least a small share of users.

One such example is the "Dynamic Fit" aspect ratio option. It's better than all the autocrop scripts that are flying around (the original request was for autocrop).
An option for custom shader configuration has been under consideration but not further explored so far, due to lack of interest.

 

What's your specific use case for custom shaders? Which shaders do you want to get loaded in which specific cases?

 

Please check out "Dynamic Fit" aspect ratio option.

 

Could you please elaborate to which specific mpv.conf settings this would relate to?

 

Thanks

Hi, i would like to request 2 options

1. sub-font

mpv can't choose correct font for Chinese srt with default setting, so it has to be writen in the conf file

related thread: 

 

 

2.  stretch-image-subs-to-screen

Need set this option to yes to play cropped video with SUP subtitles correctly. I think this is discussed before in android tv app thread, its very important for many users. 

Edited April 16, 2025 by yzxvw