Optional or permanent change to media player ui behavior and design

[Megumin 5]

Hello,

I should have made this post long ago, but these things have finally annoyed me to the point that I had to make it.

I would like to preface that I haven't use the tvOS app yet, and I'm expecting it to behave in the same way as the android and android tv apps. 

 

Changes for Android, Android TV and tvOS:

The play/pause media button / physical button shouldn't bring up the UI when I pause the video.
This prevents me from seeing subtitles and content.
If i wanted to bring up the UI i can just click the select button (the button that you use to navigate), or the arrow up or down button.

The media player UI on Android has been changed for the worse compared to Android TV in this one regard:
When you skip forward or backward, the whole UI shows up compared to just the seek bar.
In my opinion either prevent it from showing up or change it back to how it used to look.

In payback settings add a media player UI timeout setting, so that we can control the time it takes for the UI to disappear after the video starts playing/skipping, beginning from 0s. 

All of these changes can be added to payback settings.

 

Windows and macOS:

Using Space bar for play/pause shouldn't bring up the UI, similar to the above you can use the "enter/return" key or arrow keys if you wanted to see the UI.
When skipping the ui shouldn't appear at all, since you have arrow keys and mouse to do that, and unlike with the Android, Android TV, tvOS you can't get rid of the UI by clicking the back button.

Just like with the Android, Android TV and tvOS you can add all these changes in the playback settings.

 

I'm expecting this to be changed quickly since most of these changes should be a one line of code, except of the seeker UI overhaul for skipping in the Android app.

 

[Luke 42077]

Hi, we’ll go over these. Thanks.

[crusher11 1101]

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/89802-emby-for-android-match-androidtv-app/

[Megumin 5]

Just wanted to let you know that I just got an Apple TV, and that It's worse then Android experience.

The Apple TV app has a long delay when you try to remove the UI that pops up when you pause the video.

So updating the app with the changes that I listed is very important, since for me this is unusable.

I just noticed another UI issue on Apple TV, 

when you hover over the "played" button and click it, there's no indication that a change has been made until you stop hovering over it.

Edited October 26, 2025 by Megumin

[howllor 26]

16 minutes ago, Megumin said:

Just wanted to let you know that I just got an Apple TV, and that It's worse then Android experience.

The Apple TV app has a long delay when you try to remove the UI that pops up when you pause the video.

So updating the app with the changes that I listed is very important, since for me this is unusable.

I just noticed another UI issue on Apple TV, 

when you hover over the "played" button and click it, there's no indication that a change has been made until you stop hovering over it.

I'd try Infuse and see if that works better for you as a client. I'm on android so I haven't tried it myself but from what I've seen of it it looks nicer than emby 

[Megumin 5]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I tried it but even though it's better, it still displays the UI when the video is paused.

I'll try and see if there are any other apps that don't display UI when paused.

[Megumin 5]

Any updates about this being implemented soon?