Using Emby for All

[sundevil67 28]

I still dream about the day when I can use Emby MacOS Server as the center of my entire media world, for everything it is capable of doing - Live TV/guide, TV, DVR, VOD, music, photos, podcasts, on & on. I (and a handful of users) want to access this content from all of my devices, without relying on any other apps on my TV, like one for IPTV, or a VLC player, cloud DVR, etc. After several years now, I have yet to reach a place where it is all working consistently...While it is still useful to me in several ways, I feel like I am too often exiting out of Emby after something just doesn't work & I don't have the patience to fiddle with it, so I just launch my IPTV provider's far inferior app, VLC, or switching inputs from my TV to my computer & using a keyboard from my couch (something I really hate doing).

I know you can't troubleshoot anything specific without info, logs, etc., but I'm just posing the general question to reach some folks who are having more success, perhaps with a different server platform (I use MacOS & a Mac Mini) or hardware, or some secret sauce.

 

[pwhodges 2012]

The secret sauce for me is careful troubleshooting, using the logs, and either reporting actual faults or discovering some setting which is crucial for me.

Paul

[sundevil67 28]

On 5/18/2025 at 12:46 PM, pwhodges said:

The secret sauce for me is careful troubleshooting, using the logs, and either reporting actual faults or discovering some setting which is crucial for me.

Paul

Yeah, that's the road I've been on since the beginning.. It's nice that I have pictures up there, despite not being able to set up something that keeps them recent or makes them anywhere close to searchable & organized. It's nice that I can watch my movie collection when I'm away from home, but so much more doesn't work properly, and so little of the time I find myself using Emby less and less when another much less capable app can do the same thing without malfunctioning, but much more reliably, and just doing without some things like a DVR.

I think I'm just frustrated with myself for spending too much time at this and every other screen because of what it's done to my eyes & my back. I don't mean to dump on emby; maybe it's just for the tinkerers & hobbyists... lately I just feel like I'd be much happier with my photo albums & a Tivo. 

[pwhodges 2012]

Looking at your other activity here, it seems to me that you are putting a lot of effort into live TV.  This is admittedly a weak area for Emby at present, but it may be that the rewritten TV system that will be introduced in the next beta round will make a big difference to you.  You've also mentioned books, which Emby has only minimal support for (I haven't bothered to try it yet, even).  Maybe your expectations are just too different from Emby's main aims at present

Paul

Edited May 20, 2025 by pwhodges

[sundevil67 28]

6 hours ago, pwhodges said:

Looking at your other activity here, it seems to me that you are putting a lot of effort into live TV.  This is admittedly a weak area for Emby at present, but it may be that the rewritten TV system that will be introduced in the next beta round will make a big difference to you.  You've also mentioned books, which Emby has only minimal support for (I haven't bothered to try it yet, even).  Maybe your expectations are just too different from Emby's main aims at present

Paul

What has taken up the majority of my effort for a while now has been trying to find & tinkering with solutions for:

(1) generating STRM files from my provider's m3u files and keeping them synchronized so I can use Emby to watch VOD content without manual intervention

(2) the first reason I installed Emby - a photo storage platform I could share with family & friends since I don't do social media

Emby does offer a basic solution for #2, but it leaves a lot to be desired in that like #1, it requires a lot of manual management to keep it up to date. These are what I guess you could call non-native "fringe features" important to me, but without much demand. The ability for others to contribute & extend Emby's functionality, is one of its primary advantages over similar platforms, and #1 is being worked on by one very generous user with those interested helping with Q/A. I am just publicly shaming myself for spending so much time participating in this when I've lost my job and have much more important things I should be doing.

I kinda got trapped by #2 in that my users love the idea, but the photos/videos get stale & have too many duplicates because I don't have time or technical expertise to cobble together a script that'd automatically copy new photos over to the server. It's that kinda open-source environment that also makes it a lot less user friendly, and this ability to have multiple users, which is awesome and unique on its face, but I stopped even telling people about it because they can't register & access the content on their own. Just about every one who's tried wind up failing & give up. 

It's the DVR that's causing the biggest headache these days, as there are a bunch of shows I want to watch that must be watched that way. It makes me miss my VCR. The guide often just fails to stay up to date, and now recording doesn't work at all. At least it used to just start/end at the wrong times, cutting off shows at the end. I don't care much about the ability to watch live TV.

Maintaining a library of audio books & podcasts is in the "nice to have" list, and just part of the ambitious attempt to bring all of my media into one place.

The idea of a cross-platform app with all of these pieces in place, and at a reasonable price may have inflated my expectations, and not being able to get it to work right 100% annoys me. Maybe it shouldn't, and I'm acting like eBay users that expect Amazon-level customer service & get annoyed when an individual can't provide it. 

[Luke 42077]

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