Emby has a beautiful UI, great playback, and no “Server too slow” crap.
Nor can my TV. Nor can my AVR. Nor can most peoples’ eyes at typical viewing distances. Nor can most servers when transcoding is necessary.
Lack of 4K shouldn’t equate lack of Plex client support. RasPi used to be a core supported platform. It’s still listed on the main download page. Its neglect is a mark of shame on Plex that should be remedied.
I agree! I have been very happy with my RPi but got really worried (and annoyed) when it got stuck on the 1.something version. Fortunately someone tipped me about the “nightlies” directory and I found an early 2.x version that worked flawlessly. Then the nightly builds of RPi stopped as well and then you get really worried. Now the nightlies are back and they work really well.
Personally I am really interested in getting Tidal on my RPi but since I don’t know if that ever will happen I have started looking into the Apple TV 4K after the recommendations in this thread.
I did look into the Apple TV 4K when it came but at that time I couldn’t there was a lot of discussions of problems in the forum and it seemed like it had been abandoned by Plex. Right now it looks more promising and since have some Apple stuff in the household it could make sense.
And, yes, there are alternatives to Plex but so far they all come short one way or another. They may be brilliant but they are not Plex and I like Plex and I want to continue to like Plex…
That’s not the way it works. It’s 15 clients using PREMIERE features. A premiere license is required for live tv for example. A rough comparison would be if the client connected to Plex didn’t use a Plex Pass feature then it wouldn’t be a premiere license either, roughly speaking. You can easily support dozens and dozens of users with multiple devices in Emby but only 15 using the premier features. You also have the option of flat out purchasing the mobile apps for $5ish to get all features without using one of these licenses.
People often complain about this license that have never tried or used it first hand. Hardly anyone hits any license restriction in normal family use. There is also a grace period and warning vs not allowing the client connection. If absolutely needed you can upgrade to the 45 premiere license for a monthly or one-time lifetime fee of $99. No normal family would ever need more than that! They have options up to 1000 counts for businesses.
You should not assume you know how it works without trying it. See above. In your case you would likely be way under the 15 device limit.
Lifetime is lifetime, not version specific. Emby just rolled out version 4.0 and this sort of blows a whole in your theory. It’s also clearly stated on their site and forums.
I really like the UI navigation and don’t find it convoluted at all. Admin settings are exactly where I’d expect them to be.
The only UI I’d say that isn’t as polished is maybe the Web UI. The Android TV client is a thing of beauty and is second to none IMHO. It’s the flagship client and is just finishing up a major “refresh” of the UI and functionality. This is going to be ported to other clients as well which is why they’ve put so much time into it. You can do things like choose horizontal vs vertical grids, change poster sizes (small, medium, large), layout the home screen and select options and ordering of your hubs, etc. Best of all it will direct play everything if possible and has different sane options for local and remote use. It can be deployed on a remote computer and will straight up work without having to change bitrates. By default the server sets the limits so client users don’t need to screw with settings to avoid trascoding, etc…
True, Scraping is against the TOS. However that doesn’t mean YOU can’t still make use of scraped data you personally acquire. Emby makes this easy as you can offline write data to an NFO (or XML) file which Emby will read and load data from. That allows anyone to use Python, Perl, C++, C# or any other dev package they are familar with to acquire meta-data any way they see fit for personal use and have it easily imported into Emby without interfacing with Emby itself.
Again users does not a license take. See above.
I’ve heard that line before about running the media server on a PC so that could be connected to the TV. Last thing I’d want is my servers sitting any where near my TV. I’d go nuts from the sound of the HDDs spinning or the fans kicking in. Yuck. 
I’d highly doubt you will find anywhere near 1% of PCs or PIs connected to TVs vs dedicated client devices like Roku. From having seen usage matrix reports from multiple companies I’d go as far as to say it’s nothing more than a statistical blip in the the numbers, hardly worth counting. You could discard the standalone devices and these wouldn’t even hardly register compared to smart app use on TVs these days. This just isn’t a popular way to view media on a TV these days.
You could possibly argue the PC could be used to cast to the TV via chromecast or other method but that’s not the same as being hooked up to the TV and driven by a remote. “Casting” is a HTPC killer in it’s own right.
Interestingly.
The ATV4K is the only Plex client I have ever used and initially thought, wow this is really awesome.
Then Apple went and disabled HD Audio passthru. So sadly I don’t own one anymore.
Funny you mention Smart TV’s. Though anyone who has used a Smart TV app with Plex, without also having the benefit of using something like a Shield, Roku Ultra, ATV 4K etc… to compare to, they will probably be happy enough. Despite the fact that they really are slow.
BUT…
In my latest adventures in Emby, I decided to take a look at the equivalent TV app on my 2017 LG TV. What I really didn’t expect was to be using it almost full time. It must all down to implementation because it’s fast, very fast. After the original imaging caching is done on install they stick.
Turn on the TV from a cold start and my 2000+ movies all have their images loaded however fast I scroll through from top to bottom. Loading time for Playback start also matches the Shield with Plex (or Emby.)
The bottom line is unless I’m on a high octane movie day with HDR/Atmos/TrueHD/DTS-X, I have very little reason to touch anything except my TV remote. If I am watching that type of media well I only ever use MrMC on the Shield. I find Emby on the Shield sucks just as much as Plex on the Shield. (I guess I just have a hatred for horizontal menus).
Smart TV’s are getting faster and more capable and sure, so too are the Smart boxes, but there comes a time when even the slowest device will be powerful/fast enough for what it needs to achieve.
So going back to the implementation, I guess Emby just decided to work on the best performance possible, not needing to work within the Plex dev’s restraints of working to a flawed template (the UI) as the primary concern. Right now I’m excited for e-ARC when it becomes mainstream because in Embyland Smart TV’s really are smart and I will be done.
As a side note, I have been using the (faster) Emby 4 through the betas. I just didn’t really see it.
However a week or so ago my server had its biannual reinstall. Since then it’s very very fast.
I too hate horizontal menus and content. In Emby on the Shield you can have a menu on the left as well as the horizontal menu up top. It’s really not bad horizontal up top IMHO. However, I just can’t tolerate horizontal grids of content. On Android TV (Emby) you can choose to use horizontal or vertical. Been in the beta for quite a while and really makes the app feel completely different using it that way.
I’ve got around 13 thousand movies and would prefer to pull my own teeth with pliers before I’d use a horizontal grid/content layout for viewing them. It’s just to painful for me to use that way.
I don’t mind horizontal “hubs” of content because the content is limited like “Next Up”, “What’s New” but couldn’t stand to see all movies listed that way.
Haha. It’s too early and not enough coffee for me.
I actually meant to say I hate vertical menus. Hence why I really struggle to feel the love for the Shield.
In Plex or Emby I’m stuck with it. So that’s why I just have to use either MrMC or cast from a tablet.
EDIT.
And I just found out I can disable it totally in Emby. 
Yea, no problem doing this on Android TV. You’re referring to the pop out left menu correct?
If you’re not running the beta, stop what you’re doing and get it pronto!
Yes and yep already on the beta.
It’s already disabled. So I take it, that’s a fairly new option? I’m sure it wasn’t there last time I had Emby on the Shield.
New option to this beta cycle.
Was always on by default in the beginning. Then was removed. Not it’s configurable so either group of users can set it/use it if they want. 
Clients with options? Wonder if it will ever catch on. 
Anyway at last it’s great to have an option on the Shield.
I’m still fascinated though why the Emby smart TV app is so damn fast.
I won’t analyse it though. Shield or LG TV as long as it’s Emby’s client it works and works very well.
I believe that’s an HTML5 app that uses the Theater design. It’s a common code base that runs on many platforms. That allows the devs to spend more time on it since it’s not really one platform but many. So any improvements are seen on everything from web to PS4 to other smart TVs, etc. Only certain portions are specific to the hardware as a specific Smart TV could support different codecs vs a web browser, etc…
So yea, it’s just well established/tested code that’s optimized really well for display purposes.
but the emby apps seem to be crap from what I hear (and even worse than the plex apps).
From my experience of actually using the Emby app on the AppleTV 4K it’s very good & remarkably similar to the beta Plex client. Not sure who is original & who the copycat.
Don’t know where you heard that but you should try them yourself first hand and then comment. I find they just work with little fiddling and no goofy network not fast enough errors we get in the Plex apps for a couple of years. Playback also starts a lot quicker as well from my experience.
Some apps are better then others. Not a fan of the older clients like xbox for example (either platform). Roku is more or less a wash as both are limited by the platform.
Android TV is the flagship on Emby and I’m not really sure what to consider the flagship Plex client these days. In Emby the other apps will take the lead from Android TV while Plex is sort of all over the place in UI design right now. I’m really curious how the new UI will work when they get rid of the type first menu system.
Again I also wonder where you heard that.
I first tried Emby 3 years ago and the clients, although less of them were far better than anything Plex offered. It’s the whole reason why many started drifting over to Emby in the first place.
They drifted despite the fact that the server side was a very long way behind Emby. I’m talking about 18 months ago here.
Nowadays Plex doesn’t even have that going for it. Their new beta testing server is probably about as fast as Emby v3 was. Only Emby is on V4. That’s probably at least 30% faster than V3. Don’t even start me on the fact that you can manage your server from the mobile app.
Going back to the clients, Plex aim for a universal UI has taken so many backwards steps it’s untrue. Generally they are as far apart now as ever. Small mercy for those who havent been infected the new super improved flawed UI.
That’s always been Embys strong point.
Whether you load up your Android mobile, the web app, or your smart tv app they look identical. Each with an option of half a dozen colour schemes.
None of those themes are anything as abysmal as Plex chosen client colour schemes.
Don’t get me wrong, I really can’t be bothered porting all my users over to Emby at the moment.
But for my personal viewing I have had a great couple of days on only Emby clients, without a single false error message regarding my network speed.
There are a number of differences between the apps on each platform between Plex and Emby and there are “some” areas where the Plex apps are better BUT, in the big picture, Emby goes well ahead on points. In fact the one app, Roku, where Plex was well ahead has changed and the Emby app is just as good as Plex’s on the Roku no matter if you compare the older Plex app or the new one. In many ways Emby is better and they are clearly better on the Android platform.
I continue to have one Plex server running on my Shield TV but that is only used for audiobooks and I use Emby for everything else now. I have even gone so far as to completely uninstall Plex from my primary server system so now it not only does not run there it does not even take up any space.
Right now, across the board, Emby is better than Plex except for audiobooks in everything from apps to server for my usage.
To add to that, Emby is still true to their mission statement: YOUR content anywhere.
Plex? Their latest newsletter says it all where their priorities lie now. Featured:
- Tidal
- Live TV
- Web Shows
- Podcasts
Yeah, not even any mention of your media at all!
I’d pretty much agree with everything @Elijah_Baley just said. Audiobooks in Emby is essentially just a music library with a different name. Unfortunately there are really good music meta-data providers and not so good audio book meta-providers. The secret to using Emby for audio books is making sure every file is tagged properly (just like a music file). That’s half the battle, but the clients need to handle things a bit different then music as well (right now they don’t). For example in music you probably wouldn’t want to resume a song half way through if you stopped playing it, but with audio book you would want to resume mid chapter/book. Emby needs a bit of love in this department. It’s on the list.
To be straight forward, Plex has one really great feature that Emby does not. Far more important to the non-geek and that is setting up the server itself for remote access with SSL. Plex handles this beautifully with it’s “dynamic DDNS naming” and SSL certs. Emby has nothing similar built in. With Emby you need to setup your own DDNS or register a domain name, get an SSL cert, likely convert it’s format, then manually add this info into Emby. It’s not hard if you have web server experience but could be a daunting experience for the first time setting up DNS, working with certs, etc.
Because this is a manual process in Emby it does allow you to setup Emby behind nginx and/or CloudFlare for added protection very easily but again it takes know-how to do that. Plex scores big time for point and click setup of remote access with secured connections. Plex can also provide a tunnelled connection for those admins setting up a Plex server behind carrier grade NAT as well although it’s limited to 1 Mb or 2 Mb (Plex pass) tunnels. In Emby you can do similar using a public VPN provider that offers port forwarding.
Those of course aren’t clients features but worth noting to be completely fair.
