Still confused by the Emby Premiere Warnings

[adrianwi 279]

One of the biggest things that held me back moving from Plex to emby in 2017 was the way Premiere licenses work.  I bit the bullet on a lifetime pass, and for the last 18 months have never had a problem, other than sometimes seeing a warning message about 'hav(ing) a Lifetime Emby Premiere plan but your device usage is close to the limit.'

 

Much of the time I got the message saying I was well within my usage (or similar) and the green icon, so when emby announced the increase from 15 users to 25 users I fully expected I'd seen the back of the 'close to the limit' message.  I haven't added any users for several months, and I don't think any of them have been using different devices over the last month or so, so I was quite surprised to see this message again today.

 

It just doesn't make any sense and the current behaviour along with the general reaction from the emby team when this is brought up makes me think they aren't been as open about how this actually works as they should/could.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm loving emby more than ever at the minute, and since the version 4.x upgrade things have been running better than ever.  Startup times on my aTV are quicker than ever, along with switching users.  Everything is super snappy and all the devices I use, and I'm even getting some useful stats about how my friends and family are using things with the Playback Reporting plugin.

 

I just wish the way Premiere worked was open and transparent, and it was clear which devices and users were using what licences.  I thought the updated Devices section was a stepping stone toward that, but it doesn't seem to have been.

[ebr 16187]

Hi.  The warning is accurate and if you've never had a problem then you should continue to not have any.

 

Depending on exactly when you signed up for Premiere we may have been grandfathering you into a larger limit than you thought previously.

 

We have explained in other topics the reasons why there is no further detail available in your server at this time.  It is mostly due to security and privacy concerns since your server is not authenticated with where this information would need to come from.  We could potentially design something to address that, but we simply have chosen to spend our development time on true features of the system instead so far.

 

Thanks.

[adrianwi 279]

Thanks for your reply!  I'm working on that basis that I've not had a problem so far, so hopefully won't moving forward, but it would be nice to know how many more of my friends and family could use my emby server without me hitting that problem.

 

Out of interest, what happens when the device limit is reached.  I'm assuming there is some kind of red warning but what happens when this point is reached.  Will users start to get messages saying they cannot connect as the server has reached a device limit?

 

It's all so woolly and really shouldn't be when people are paying for a service.  

[neik 873]

It's all so woolly and really shouldn't be when people are paying for a service.

This!

 

I just had look at it and I'm seeing an orange button as well although I'm far away from the 25 devices limit as on the server I only see about 15 devices and not all of them use Premiere features.

 

I'm wondering when does it change from Green to orange?

[ebr 16187]

Out of interest, what happens when the device limit is reached.  I'm assuming there is some kind of red warning but what happens when this point is reached.  Will users start to get messages saying they cannot connect as the server has reached a device limit?

 

The limit only applies to Premiere features.  Therefore, connections will not be refused (unless the app you are using requires Premiere just for access).  Instead, Premiere features will be and a message telling the user it is an over limit problem and to contact their admin will be displayed.

 

 

I just had look at it and I'm seeing an orange button as well although I'm far away from the 25 devices limit as on the server I only see about 15 devices and not all of them use Premiere features.

 

Yep - there was a problem with the status check not having been updated for the new limit.  This only affected the dashboard reporting and not the limit itself but it should be cleared up now.

 

Thanks.

[neik 873]

Yep - there was a problem with the status check not having been updated for the new limit. This only affected the dashboard reporting and not the limit itself but it should be cleared up now.

 

Thanks.

Confirm, it's green again.

Thanks ebr. :-)

[DevoteeOfEmby 4]

Hi guys. I see this is an old thread. But I don't see that this question has been answered.  I am testing at least 20 different SBCs with Emby to see what can handle it, and sometimes even on one board I end up plugging in the key two or three times to test the theater software.   Is this how many times you have installed it and tested it, or how many devices are currently in use?  It still says I am well within my limit, but I have no idea if that will change.  I am pretty sure I got the emby life subscription many years ago but I have no idea what email I even used back then.  Recently got it again.

[GrimReaper 4748]

2 hours ago, DevoteeOfEmby said:

I am testing at least 20 different SBCs with Emby to see what can handle it, and sometimes even on one board I end up plugging in the key two or three times to test the theater software.   Is this how many times you have installed it and tested it, or how many devices are currently in use?

It is the number of devices using Premiere features on the same key (and they drop off te list after about a week) - you can enter same key as many times and in as many servers as you like, and device number is cumulative. 

https://emby.media/support/articles/Premiere-Limits.html

[DevoteeOfEmby 4]

Oh that's great thanks.  It's funny because the book I am writing will give people the ability to actually start a side gig setting up media servers for people using cheap pis, and  before I saw the limit message I was thinking that people would just use their key for their customers.   And now having tested Jellyfin head to head, there is no comparison. Emby lifetime cost is much less than paying for much more computer to be used as a server for Jellyfin.  The Jellyfin client forces the server to call ffmpeg to play mkv files, which grinds most low cost SBCs to a halt. Emby runs find with 3 streams on an Rpi3, OpiPC and many other cheap boards.  Considering Plex (cough cough) is the other alternative, Emby wins hands down.

[Carlo 4561]

Emby team works hard on each client to support as many container formats and codecs as possible. The more formats, codecs and streams natively supported the less the need to involve ffmpeg.

I'm glad you tested each product enough to see these kinds of differences!

Carlo