This. I like Emby, but the Now Playing screen for music is really not very good.
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Thing about it is that they respond to basically every thread that gets posted. I posted a thread on there about their theater desktop program and the UI, and they responded within a day, and then in 4 minutes after my 2nd reply. I’d hope to believe that they’d actually take feedback like this into account, which I’d assume they do based on the fact that they removed telemetry in 4.0. I haven’t been running Emby long enough to see if they update the theater program with my suggestions, but I guess time will tell.
EDIT: I’d also assume that they put a lot of their manpower into the 4.0 “recode” for quite a few months, which probably slowed down their release schedule. Now that it’s out, it looks like they’re back to normal releases.
EDIT 2: I’d like to clarify that it’s really only the music UI on Plex that is far ahead. I don’t have an issue with Emby’s TV or Movie UIs on any of the platforms.
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Case in point.
Android: Left is Emby. Right is Plex.
I have already mentioned this to the Emby devs, and Luke said it’s been on his to-do list for a while now.
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If you allow it via Access Control. You can pick and choose what users have access to Live TV and what users have access to set DVR recordings. So you could if you want allow access to both for every user you have regardless of their location.
It supports Cable, OTA and IPTV “tuners” which can be mixed anyway you like into one Grid. I use all three at the same time with multiple “tuners” of each type. Supports multiple EPG sources (I’ve got 5) as well. Besides native support of tuners it also supports NextPVR, MediaPortal, DVBLink, DVBViewer, ServerWMC, TVHeadEnd, TVMosiac & Vu+ plugins.
Full Grid/EPG is available in all clients as well.
Ah, didn’t know it was on his to-do list. That’s good to hear. Look forward to what they bring forward.
I’m kind of amazed at how openly transparent @elan has been answering questions in this here thread. I’m not in a position to judge whether or not things have always been like this, but my general impression is that there are a LOT of dev posts in this forum.
It’s always easy to complain and make demands, but people seem to forget that the PLEX user base is humongous and that the support/dev team can only respond to so many comments, feature requests and bug reports. Never mind getting around to implementing or fixing them all. Sometimes we as users seem to forget what it is we have here.
Yes, mistakes may have been made and I personally have also enjoyed the old UI more than its new iteration, but it’s still a minor inconvenience in the larger scheme of things. I - and everyone else using my server - have been able to easily view media nonetheless. I feel like this has been blown way out of proportion.
I’ve been a long time PLEX user, first for free, then as a PLEX pass subscriber - for several years paying annually and most recently as a lifetime pass owner - and though it may seem like I’ve spent a lot of money on PLEX, it’s actually laughably little considering the value I’ve been getting and am still getting out of this; it’s truly immeasurable.
I’d like to say a big thank you for all the work you’ve put into PMS and the multitude of media players you support - coding, prototyping, designing and fixing all of these different devices and platforms over the years must’ve been a huge undertaking and more often than not a equally large PITA. Thank you! To think that PLEX is basically free to use is not only mind boggling but also heart warming. Some of us really do appreciate and see what you’ve done.
Again, thank you! One love 
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Thanks for the info…
I’ve been with Plex from almost the start… I had checked out Emby back then but it just wasn’t were I needed it to be. So Plex was the choice
Got the Plex Pass back in the beginning because it was something I really liked to use, figured it was a way to show the DEV’s that as a user I care and supported them.
So when they announced that they were going to do Live TV and DVR. I was for the DVR part mainly.
They put out the first beta and I went out got the necessary hardware 2 HDhomerun tuners, a system to test it on and away we went. What I really wanted was the DVR so that we could schedule shows no matter where we were, and then be able to watch them.
I didn’t realize that I was going to be the cord in the cord cutting that they pushed.
But now it looks like Plex has given up on completing this feature. About a year ago I put the equipment on a shelf waiting to see where Plex is heading.
Guess I’ll setup that equipment again and install Emby 4.0 and see where that takes me.
If that works out then I’ll look at converting over the media, that’s depending on what my users think.
Thanks again…
@elan can you elaborate on this? I’m curious as to what the Google Assistant / Home APIs don’t have the the Alexa APIs do. Some people have hacked together Google Home support for Plex and it seems to work OK (acknowledging the fact that you can’t ship “hacked together” officially).
Curious what you’re trying to show with these two images?
Both have roughly the same feature on screen. One shows the current playlist and one doesn’t is really the only difference I see.
How the actual playback in both? How long does it take to find media, to play it. How long after you click play before they both start etc??
This is one exception that I prefer the Plex UI. I like the larger, fitted album art, the larger, easier to press buttons (I’ve always felt Emby’s buttons on mobile were too small).
In Plex, the buttons are centered. I also don’t like that the playlist appears to be always visible and scroll-able below.
Thanks for that. I was just wondering what you like or didn’t.
This. All of it.
Emby’s UI for music/audiobooks is not as polished, especially for all of these reasons. I could reiterate with my own feelings but what it comes down to are exactly these points.
Especially the point about album art. When I listen to audiobooks—which I do all the time—I like to have beautiful cover art to look at. It’s one of the several reasons why I don’t like the Audible app very much. In Emby the album art is tiny, with all this wasted real estate that could be used for it.
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The new Plex player UI for Android music is even better. And the new features make it my go to audio player.
It also has a visualizer and some other cool new features.
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There’s no disagreement here, Plex for music is generally better, especially with the UI. My point is more that Emby compared to Plex when it comes to Movie and TV playback, Emby takes the lead IMO. I haven’t had any major bugs or buffering during playback with Emby, whereas with Plex, my Xbox One has had an issue for a very long time where it just randomly buffers indefinitely during a stream, until you restart the stream (until it happens again).
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@ghoste Agreed! With the little I’ve played around with Emby, it is super fast… especially with server 4.x.x.x
The Plex alpha build of the server is definitely faster than the officially available build, but still not as fast as Emby.
It’s just CES fallout or whatever you want to call it. Making changes to the interface just isn’t as newsworthy, even tho we’re making good progress on it internally (using a super early alpha every night over here).
Really, really appreciate your kind words. Posted this link into our Slack so employees can read. We do all work super hard on this, and regardless if we get everything right all the time, we do put our hearts and souls into this. Thank you so much 
Playback on device.
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@elan, I remember you saying you were going to have a select few users join your Slack for feedback purposes. I’m just curious to know if you did that yet, or for how long you are going to be doing it, and whether or not you find it’s been helpful to your process.
I would gladly pay you Tuesday, for a screenshot today.
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I have to agree. I always stayed well away from Plex when it came to music.
But thanks to the Android mobile app and Plexamp on my desktop, music is fast becoming my favourite part of Plex.
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