Migrating to Emby, UI\Server\App Issues and Observations

[randomevents 38]

So I've been using various products over the past 15 or so years to consume media (Zoom Player, MPC, VLC, Kodi\XBMC, Kodi\XBMC with MySQL backend, Subsonic, Plex, SageTV, MythTv, my own coded servers and players). Over that time I've gone from a binder full of CDs with xvid files to a ~130TB server in my server room that spans almost a hundred years of entertainment; from just me, to guests, to a semi tech illiterate wife (had to learn to make everything easier), to serving friends and finally a kid. I've helped maintain and upgrade skins for Kodi, wrote a program (PlexSentry) to log users, stop transcoding, concurrent logins and too many syncs for Plex, blah, blah blah.

 

TL;DR I've have experience with a lot of usage scenarios.

 

So two months or so ago I decided to migrate away from Plex (lifetime pass) to Emby (lifetime pass), and started usability testing the server and apps. I have three years of data showing me everything my users have been doing and how they're doing it, so I had some good ideas on what to look for. The issues and observations below are the ways I think could enhance Emby's various parts for the better. Partially because it'd be nice to finally use a system without falling back to using Kodi as a playback device for TVs.

 

Looking at my past usuage, I'd have to say that Plex's web app is hands down better than Emby's, but it wouldn't take much for Emby to get to that level and beyond. For mobile audio, DSub on android (I still have a subsonic (lifetime) just for this) is the one to beat. Beating Kodi is harder, but it looks like the Emby team is going to give it a go.

 

I made a tool to export all the watched statuses from Plex to Emby, it modifies the database and is extremely unpolished, but if anyone wants it, I'll send it over.

I'm also making a new version of PlexSentry based on nodejs, if anyone has ideas of what I should be tracking (that I might not have thought of), input would be helpful.

 

Anyway, yesterday I finally migrated all my users and three years of watched status over, and the below is my take. For those that have been testing my changes to Theater's Refresh Rate handling, the last version was the beginning of the framework to make some of items I listed a reality.

 

Emby Theatre

• Change aspect ratio options
  • option to start video at default ratio or forced ratio
  • while playing options (cycling option available in mpv)
• Starting Item from Show->Seasons->Episode List doesn't resume if stopped and played from that location
  • Seems like Show->Seasons->Episode List should take you to Show->Seasons->Episode List->Episode or provide an entry point ot get there?
• Stereo Upmix available as an option for video in addition to audio
• Onscreen Previous\Track doesn't have same behaviour as media\combo keys
• Shutdown\Sleep should be optional items (kids and accidents!)
• When selecting items on the dashboard\hub, there shouldn't be a delay to show information in the footer.
• When lowering volume to zero doesn't mute, just loops back to 100%
• Going right from the last dashboard\hub header should take you back to first dashboard\hub header
• The All Films entry point is a no go for large libraries
• Music Visualization
  • A basic but nifty version is now in ffmpeg and supported by mpv, mostly requires a change to the novideo option currently used.

Emby Web (Desktop View)

I've done some surveying to figure out why people don't like Emby and what it keeps coming back to is how amateurish the web app appears. Which is unfortunate because how much stronger the server is behind it than other offerings. This would be a great example of looking at what the competition has done and improving on it.

• There's a real lack of information density (i.e. everything is too big)
  • Why is everything so large for the web app? Is it a concession to people that don't have Premier?
  • CSS example of higher density is below, a good size example for all poster cards would be the users cards in the server settings.
• Too much clicking to get to what you want
  • Adding a option to always show the sidebar (ala manage server mode), would by and by solve the clicking around issue. Can't be solved with user provided css? Should have custom css for scrollbars if implemented
• The options overlay delay is really unexpected and doesn't have much point?
• Display profiles aren't switching over when changing users
• No (or limited) screen refreshes!
  • When landing at the home screen for whatever scenario, it should refresh.
• Infinite scroll to replace pages

Mobile Apps

• Onscreen controls are too small on tablets (wife and her tiny fingers pointed this out)
• Same information density issues with the tablets as with the web app
• Display profiles aren't switching over when changing users
• Downloads \syncs
  • A home screen adjustable option like all the other blades instead of defaulting to the top of the list
  • Another level should break out downloads by users instead of combining them all in one pool
  • Setting a cache size for automatic caching of audio.

Overall Audio

• Track Previous - Skip back to previous track in first X seconds of song, else skip to beginning of current track. If first track always go back to start of track
• Instant mixes filling the queue for Recently Played and Frequently Played is unexpected.
  • Add option for next item behaviour?
  • Add Recently or Frequently Played Albums

Server

• Be useful to add the device IP address when making calls to the Sessions API endpoint
• Option to add a time limit on how long subtitles are searched for.
• More options (theme, sound effects, backdrop,  etc) should follow the user from device to device, falling back to the default when the device doesn't support it
  • For the love of all there is, seasonal themes should not be enabled by default
• Transcode throttling (removed but option is still in UI) should be reenabled, right now I'm sitting on three years of user data that shows that users are more likely to leave their sessions and come back to them instead of watching them in one sitting.
  • I've had success with media projects in the past by either transcoding 10% ahead or a minimum # of minutes.
• Virtual Libraries​
  • An issue with large libraries, some of the workarounds in other systems don't work here, it can be as simple assigning a folder to a virtual library (Films\Crime). Folder view sort of covers this but you lose functionality. It's more a reversal of the combining Films options.
    • Actually a simpler and maybe better option to implement would be able to show a combined view in addition to the original libraries.

Premier Licensing

• Show how Premier device slots are being consumed.

Other than that, nothing but the best of luck in figuring this out. This is a complicated issue that people are griping about, but not stopping to consider why it is like it is. What I find ridiculous is that it wasn't even that long ago, that whatever I paid for a Emby lifetime pass would have been for a version. The last couple of years I've been paying ~2k for a wowza license, and looking at Emby's api, I could have been using that instead. Plex and the new era's app pricing model isn't great, but it does help that now people have become used to paying for subscriptions.

 

CSS Example

/*#indexPage, #itemListPage, #photosPage, .itemListContent, .pageTabContent, .libraryPage {background-color: #171b31;}
.itemDetailPage, #videoOsdPage { background-color: transparent!important; }
.cardFooter{background-color: rgb(64, 64, 64);}
*/

.cardContent-shadow {
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 0 0 rgba(0,0,0,0)!important;
    box-shadow: 0 0 0 0 rgba(0,0,0,0)!important;
}

.sectionTitleContainer, .verticalSection { margin-bottom: 0em!important; background-color: transparent!important;}
@[member="Media"] (min-width: 1700px) and (orientation: landscape) { 
.overflowPortraitCard, .overflowSquareCard { width: 8.6vw!important;}
}
@[member="Media"] all and (orientation: landscape) and (min-width:1700px) {
    .overflowBackdropCard { width: 12vw!important;}
    .overflowPortraitCard,.overflowSquareCard { width: 8.6vw!important;} 
}

@[member="Media"] (min-width: 2000px) and (orientation: landscape) { 
.overflowPortraitCard, .overflowSquareCard { width: 7.6vw!important;}
}

@[member="Media"] all and (orientation: landscape) and (min-width:2000px) {
    .overflowBackdropCard { width: 11.5vw!important;}
    .overflowPortraitCard,.overflowSquareCard { width: 7.6vw!important;} 
}

.cardBox.cardBox-bottompadded { margin-bottom: 1em!important;}

@[member="Media"] (min-width: 1920px) {.squareCard { width: 7.6vw!important; }}
@[member="Media"] (min-width: 1600px) {.squareCard { width: 7.6vw!important; }}
@[member="Media"] (min-width: 1400px) {.squareCard { width: 7.6vw!important; }}

@[member="Media"] (min-width: 1600px) {.backdropCard{ width: 14%!important;}}
@[member="Media"] (min-width: 2500px) {.backdropCard { width: 14%!important;}}

h2 { font-size: 1.20em!important;}

@[member="Media"] (min-width: 1600px) {.portraitCard { width: 8%!important; }}
@[member="Media"] (min-width: 2100px) {.portraitCard { width: 7%!important; }}
@[member="Media"] (min-width: 2200px) {.portraitCard { width: 7%!important; }}

.guideChannelName {
  max-width:90% !important}

.backgroundContainer.withBackdrop {
    background: linear-gradient(to right, rgba(0, 0, 0, .75), rgba(0, 0, 0, .75), rgba(0, 0, 0, .75)) !important;
}

Edited November 18, 2017 by randomevents

[Guest asrequested]

 

Emby Theatre

 

• Stereo Upmix available as an option for video in addition to audio

 

For this, I'd suggest AC3Encoding as a better option.

af=lavcac3enc=yes:640:2

Anyone able to use upmix would have a surround sound setup. So they would have a receiver that can process the audio.. AC3encode won't turn stereo into 5.1 or 7.1, it'll just make stereo AC3, which the receiver will then process it to all the channels, available. I have an Atmos receiver, and the the Atmos processing can only be applied in one mode on the receiver. It can't process uncompressed stereo (MP3, AAC etc is converted to PCM on playback) to Atmos, but if it's AC3, it will. I have many old movies/videos that have never been published in AC3. So this feature is highly desirable, for me

[Luke 42083]

What options overlay delay?

[Luke 42083]

display profiles not changing is resolved for the next release, thanks.

[Luke 42083]

In terms of the UI being too big, what exact resolution are you looking at?

[CBers 7451]

In terms of the UI being too big, what exact resolution are you looking at?

In the Plex Web Client, there is a resize option to make images bigger/smaller as required.

[randomevents 38]

For this, I'd suggest AC3Encoding as a better option.

af=lavcac3enc=yes:640:2

Anyone able to use upmix would have a surround sound setup. So they would have a receiver that can process the audio.. AC3encode won't turn stereo into 5.1 or 7.1, it'll just make stereo AC3, which the receiver will then process it to all the channels, available. I have an Atmos receiver, and the the Atmos processing can only be applied in one mode on the receiver. It can't process uncompressed stereo (MP3, AAC etc is converted to PCM on playback) to Atmos, but if it's AC3, it will. I have many old movies/videos that have never been published in AC3. So this feature is highly desirable, for me

 

Doofus, we're old school. More people are buying sound bars that don't necessarily have that logic than there are people buying stand alone receivers these days. Hell, I'd say that most people have their receivers tucked away and aren't switching between modes like they should for different content (or leaving it on the defaults).

[randomevents 38]

What options overlay delay?

 

When one runs their mouse over poster, the overlay that pops up with play, watched, etc.. It takes a before it rises into view. That behavior (but not as severe) is in Theatre as well, with the info that populates in the footer.

[Luke 42083]

It's by design, otherwise as you move the mouse around the overlays will be sliding up and down all over the place and it's very distracting.

[Guest asrequested]

Doofus, we're old school. More people are buying sound bars that don't necessarily have that logic than there are people buying stand alone receivers these days. Hell, I'd say that most people have their receivers tucked away and aren't switching between modes like they should for different content (or leaving it on the defaults).

Lol.. Yeah, it's probably why I'm the only one who seems to care

 

It's all good. It actually works exactly how I want it, with it in my conf.

 

So if you're talking sound bar, wouldn't downmix be what you'd want?

[randomevents 38]

In terms of the UI being too big, what exact resolution are you looking at?

 

I'm testing on a 1920x1080, 1920x1200, and a 2560x1400. I haven't made any modifications to art height just width, so the aspect ratio is the same. I also took care of the spacing gutters between the blades.

 

Default Settings (Poster)

Home Screen -: 1920 8 across, 2560 8 across

Movie Library -: 1920 10 across, 2560 12 across

 

Modified Settings (Poster)

Home Screen -: 1920 11 across, 2560 12.5 across

Movie Library -: 1920 12 across, 2560 14 across

 

My home screen posters can go smaller, the tumbnails are a good size thou. Between the 1920 and 2560, I'm still tweaking for the right size so that even when it scales to a larger monitor it still looks okay, but this is the general idea.

Edited November 18, 2017 by randomevents

[randomevents 38]

Lol.. Yeah, it's probably why I'm the only one who seems to care

 

It's all good. It actually works exactly how I want it, with it in my conf.

 

So if you're talking sound bar, wouldn't downmix be what you'd want?

 

They come in 5.1 and 7.1 now old timer.

[Guest asrequested]

They come in 5.1 and 7.1 now old timer.

Lol... I prefer to fill the room

[Luke 42083]

I think that is really just a matter of taste, and until we have settings in the UI then all we can really do is agree to disagree. If you check out the netflix web app, they posters, headings and buttons are all even larger, and I don't really have a problem with that either, although I'm not going to make the sizes in the emby web app quite that large.

[randomevents 38]

I'd argue that Netflix's web app UI is designed to be a ten foot interface as they historically had issues getting apps on various operating systems because of DRM. That's not an issue that Emby has.

 

Netflix also manages to deal with the large library issue by putting their content into a lot of different buckets. So the ease of going over a large collection isn't hampered by the UI sizing, a luxury that Emby doesn't currently have.

Edited November 19, 2017 by randomevents

[randomevents 38]

The best way to describe the issues with the web app and tablet UIs is they're not sized for the desktop or within arm's reach usage but from across the room. The sizing used in the management side is closer to where the media side should be.

 

At bare minimum we could use the method used at tv.emby.media (tv, tablet, desktop) to change the css rules. The method that Plex uses (the zoom slider) might not be a good fit here because of the mix of thumbnail and poster sized assets. 

Edited November 19, 2017 by randomevents