For anyone who has been using Emby: Have you found any situation where you’ve needed to do the “Plex Dance” in Emby? I haven’t, but I haven’t spent a ton of time with Emby yet. I’m wondering if Emby is plagued by the same faults that Plex has in refreshing metadata.
@beckfield said:
For anyone who has been using Emby: Have you found any situation where you’ve needed to do the “Plex Dance” in Emby? I haven’t, but I haven’t spent a ton of time with Emby yet. I’m wondering if Emby is plagued by the same faults that Plex has in refreshing metadata.
Can you be a little more specific. I did refresh the metadata a couple of times but just because I wasn’t patient enough. I haven’t set up my music library yet but I can test it out if you give me specifics.
cheers
Do any of the Staff or Volunteer Support ranks have a link to the Emby Version of The Plex Dance in their signature, or are there 40 messages a day explaining how to do it when hapless users show up, hair yanked out, cross-eyed and bleeding when they can’t get a bundle updated?
No?
Hmmmm. They must have squashed that bug early on.
@Heciruam said:
@beckfield said:
For anyone who has been using Emby: Have you found any situation where you’ve needed to do the “Plex Dance” in Emby? I haven’t, but I haven’t spent a ton of time with Emby yet. I’m wondering if Emby is plagued by the same faults that Plex has in refreshing metadata.Can you be a little more specific. I did refresh the metadata a couple of times but just because I wasn’t patient enough. I haven’t set up my music library yet but I can test it out if you give me specifics.
cheers
Here’s one of the many paths that show the problem:
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1405876/#Comment_1405876
how 'bout another path that’s not locked up behind a pay wall?
@beckfield said:
@Heciruam said:
@beckfield said:
For anyone who has been using Emby: Have you found any situation where you’ve needed to do the “Plex Dance” in Emby? I haven’t, but I haven’t spent a ton of time with Emby yet. I’m wondering if Emby is plagued by the same faults that Plex has in refreshing metadata.Can you be a little more specific. I did refresh the metadata a couple of times but just because I wasn’t patient enough. I haven’t set up my music library yet but I can test it out if you give me specifics.
cheers
Here’s one of the many paths that show the problem:
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1405876/#Comment_1405876
So for movies and tvshows you don’t have to do something like “PLEX dance”. I handle all my media “tagging” through mediaelch. So I create the nfo files and the posters before hand and save them in the same folder the movie/show is in.
I don’t let Emby create the .nfo files for the media since I already have the workflow with mediaelch but they have a powerfull metadata manager build right in that will do the same thing.
When you fresh a movie library in Emby you have 3 choices:
-replace all metadata
-search for missing metadata
-scan for new or updated files
There seems to be no need to move the files out of the folder then clear the trash, put the files back in and rescan it.
I don’t think I had to do the PLEX dance with PLEX for movies or tv either (where I had to move the files out and back in). But it drove me nuts in the music library. I haven’t gotten to scan music into EMBY since it’s so customizable out of the box and I’m still playing around with merged libraries, external players and other stuff.
I might start doing music next week so I will check back and report if there is any trouble that forces one to do certain “dance moves” XD
When you create the library you can also choose if embedded titles should be used or not if there is no other data available:
I hope that makes things clearer.
@GoneWithTheWind said:
@beckfield said:
@GoneWithTheWind said:
@beckfield said:
For anyone who has been using Emby: Have you found any situation where you’ve needed to do the “Plex Dance” in Emby? I haven’t, but I haven’t spent a ton of time with Emby yet. I’m wondering if Emby is plagued by the same faults that Plex has in refreshing metadata.Can you be a little more specific. I did refresh the metadata a couple of times but just because I wasn’t patient enough. I haven’t set up my music library yet but I can test it out if you give me specifics.
cheers
Here’s one of the many paths that show the problem:
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1405876/#Comment_1405876So for movies and tvshows you don’t have to do something like “PLEX dance”. I handle all my media “tagging” through mediaelch. So I create the nfo files and the posters before hand and save them in the same folder the movie/show is in.
I don’t let Emby create the .nfo files for the media since I already have the workflow with mediaelch but they have a powerfull metadata manager build right in that will do the same thing.When you fresh a movie library in Emby you have 3 choices:
-replace all metadata
-search for missing metadata
-scan for new or updated filesThere seems to be no need to move the files out of the folder then clear the trash, put the files back in and rescan it.
I don’t think I had to do the PLEX dance with PLEX for movies or tv either (where I had to move the files out and back in). But it drove me nuts in the music library. I haven’t gotten to scan music into EMBY since it’s so customizable out of the box and I’m still playing around with merged libraries, external players and other stuff.
I might start doing music next week so I will check back and report if there is any trouble that forces one to do certain “dance moves” XDWhen you create the library you can also choose if embedded titles should be used or not if there is no other data available:
I hope that makes things clearer.
Thanks. I have already set up Emby and Plex to use embedded metadata. That was easy enough. I’m simply wondering if Emby’s metadata refresh functions have the same flaws that Plex’s do. The Plex Dance is a workaround for a number of bugs in Plex, where their metadata refresh function doesn’t work the way it is supposed to. It should never be necessary (and it can be data destructive), and if Emby does not suffer the same problem, it will inform my decision of whether to move to Emby.
@beckfield said:
@GoneWithTheWind said:
@beckfield said:
@GoneWithTheWind said:
@beckfield said:
For anyone who has been using Emby: Have you found any situation where you’ve needed to do the “Plex Dance” in Emby? I haven’t, but I haven’t spent a ton of time with Emby yet. I’m wondering if Emby is plagued by the same faults that Plex has in refreshing metadata.Can you be a little more specific. I did refresh the metadata a couple of times but just because I wasn’t patient enough. I haven’t set up my music library yet but I can test it out if you give me specifics.
cheers
Here’s one of the many paths that show the problem:
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1405876/#Comment_1405876So for movies and tvshows you don’t have to do something like “PLEX dance”. I handle all my media “tagging” through mediaelch. So I create the nfo files and the posters before hand and save them in the same folder the movie/show is in.
I don’t let Emby create the .nfo files for the media since I already have the workflow with mediaelch but they have a powerfull metadata manager build right in that will do the same thing.When you fresh a movie library in Emby you have 3 choices:
-replace all metadata
-search for missing metadata
-scan for new or updated filesThere seems to be no need to move the files out of the folder then clear the trash, put the files back in and rescan it.
I don’t think I had to do the PLEX dance with PLEX for movies or tv either (where I had to move the files out and back in). But it drove me nuts in the music library. I haven’t gotten to scan music into EMBY since it’s so customizable out of the box and I’m still playing around with merged libraries, external players and other stuff.
I might start doing music next week so I will check back and report if there is any trouble that forces one to do certain “dance moves” XDWhen you create the library you can also choose if embedded titles should be used or not if there is no other data available:
I hope that makes things clearer.
Thanks. I have already set up Emby and Plex to use embedded metadata. That was easy enough. I’m simply wondering if Emby’s metadata refresh functions have the same flaws that Plex’s do. The Plex Dance is a workaround for a number of bugs in Plex, where their metadata refresh function doesn’t work the way it is supposed to. It should never be necessary (and it can be data destructive), and if Emby does not suffer the same problem, it will inform my decision of whether to move to Emby.
I haven’t had to do the Emby dance so far in over a year, no.
The only hard time I’ve had in integrating both platforms with my library is extras - Emby doesn’t work well with Plex’s naming scheme and thinks those files are also independant movies.
Just as an additional to the questions/answers about needing the “Dance” in Emby. I have seen no, that is absolutely no, mention of anything even remotely analogous to the “dance” anywhere in Emby’s forums.
To add a bit I do not use Emby for music at all and I never used Plex for that either. I also do not use “extras” of any kind.
I have not even touched my Plex system in the last week or two and I am using Emby extensively and I have found no real flaws.
BTW: I do not really know exactly why BUT there are very few of the “repetitive” questions that are seen on these Plex forums and almost no questions go unresponded to within a short time and I have seen only a few that were unanswered in equally a short time. The unanswered questions are usually of the type where either a bug was uncovered or a feature that is needed is suggested or whatever the question was about is beyond the scope of the program.
I have never seen a more responsive team of developers than I have seen with Emby. It is very impressive how they handle their board.
But there could be problems lurking that I have not seen but it is so much more pleasant dealing with Emby than it has been dealing with Plex for the last few years.
The only thing I wish is that Emby supported the Shield as a sever. My PC is just a little under powered to act both as a file server and my Emby server. I may decide soon to purchase a higher powered PC just for Emby. I know that is an expense I would not need with Plex but, for me, expense is not the driving concern about my media consumption. At least I will not need additional storage any time soon as my current PC/server has over 9TB free.
Sure you don’t see a lot of duplicate questions in their forums because only 5 people are posting there 
There are several ways in which Emby’s UI is inferior. Such issues have to do with missing features in Emby, which are (perhaps) offset by existing bugs in Plex. Whether you find Emby to be a suitable replacement for Plex seems more to whether having the features Emby is missing are worth the bugs you get in Plex.
Thus far, Plex is still a better choice for chapterized audiobooks, as well as for accessing specific locally-synced content on mobile. But Plex also has a broken progress bar for synced content on Android, as well as still having that damned News thing on top of the sidebar.
Frankly, the problems I experience with Emby almost wholly stem from my extensive mobile use. Outside of that, there’s not really a reason to stick with Plex if you don’t use it for mobile sync. Yes, Emby’s “Book” content type is lacking, but the alternative is to use the “Music” type for audiobooks in Emby, which is already what I do with Plex and has identical drawbacks.
@Coxeroni said:
Sure you don’t see a lot of duplicate questions in their forums because only 5 people are posting there
You, sir, have no idea what you are talking about. While there are fewer Emby users than Plex there are at most times 100s (usually well over 300) of people reading the Emby forums and many post as needed. It is just that the need to post is less and the responses are much better. Also it seems that the Emby forums are easier to search and find things on but that has nothing to do with Emby itself just a different forum software.
@chyron8472 said:
Frankly, the problems I experience with Emby almost wholly stem from my extensive mobile use. Outside of that, there’s not really a reason to stick with Plex if you don’t use it for mobile sync. Yes, Emby’s “Book” content type is lacking, but the alternative is to use the “Music” type for audiobooks, which is already what I do with Plex.
Unless I just missed it - Movie Extras weren’t handled - at all - in Emby and that’s a deal breaker. I never investigated the matter or asked a single question and it’s quite possible a totally acceptable method exists, but upon throwing my Vintage Science Fiction Library at Emby, wherein every movie trailer and extra I can find for any A, B, or C grade title between the years of 1940 and 1975 exists in abundance - I was not impressed - and that’s an understatement.
Do you mean streaming movie extras or local movie extras?
I have ripped DVD/BD extras and multiple versions of films added as extras (eg. fanedits), and so long as they are organized in a folder structure akin to Plex’s, Emby picks them up just fine. If you have them organized inline as Filmname/NameOfExtra-featurette.m4v then no it won’t work. It has to be Filmname/featurettes/NameOfExtra.m4v
But then I mentioned this problem to Emby, and Luke quickly said they’d look into adding support for inline extras. They already have inline support for trailers; just not anything else. He said adding further inline support for other types of extras should be easy.
@chyron8472 said:
Do you mean streaming movie extras or local movie extras?
Streaming Movie Extras - in the way Plex provides ****ty movie trailers - is a joke.
Oh I have local extras - out the proverbial ying yang. In Folders, like:
Movie Name (YEAR)/
…Movie Name (YEAR).xxx
…Creature From the Black Lagoon Trailer-trailer.xxx
…Creature Bloopers-behindthescenes.xxx
…Creature Makeup-behindthescenes.xxx
…John Agar - Man, Myth, B Movie Giant-interview.xxx
Emby picked them up just fine - then threw them into a giant disjointed pile scattered throughout the library presentation and I was like: ‘oops… that didn’t work…’
In fact, I feel the comparison between Emby and Plex, (outside of Emby’s obviously superior dev support staff), is somewhat akin to Yahztee’s Zero Punctuation comparison between Portal and Portal 2. He said the video game Portal is like a small yet yummy bowl of cherries which leaves you wanting more; while Portal 2 is an equally yummy bowl of twice as many cherries…which are then covered in sawdust. It’s a matter of how much of Plex’s sawdust you’re willing to withstand in order to enjoy having a few more cherries than Emby offers.
Warning: language
@chyron8472 said:
In fact, I feel the comparison between Emby and Plex, (outside of Emby’s obviously superior dev support staff), is somewhat akin to Yahztee’s Zero Punctuation comparison between Portal and Portal 2. He said the video game Portal is like a small yet yummy bowl of cherries which leaves you wanting more; while Portal 2 is an equally yummy bowl of twice as many cherries…which are then covered in sawdust. It’s a matter of how much of Plex’s sawdust you’re willing to withstand in order to enjoy having a few more cherries than Emby offers.
On the other hand, Emby has a couple of “cherries” that Plex doesn’t - full-blown Collections, for a major one.
Also, when playing music tracks, if I hit Stop in the middle of a track, it fades out, rather than just cutting off. That’s a pretty minor perk, of course, but it’s a very nice touch.
@JuiceWSA said:
@chyron8472 said:
Do you mean streaming movie extras or local movie extras?Streaming Movie Extras - in the way Plex provides ****ty movie trailers - is a joke.
Oh I have local extras - out the proverbial ying yang. In Folders, like:
Movie Name (YEAR)/
…Movie Name (YEAR).xxx
…Creature From the Black Lagoon Trailer-trailer.xxx
…Creature Bloopers-behindthescenes.xxx
…Creature Makeup-behindthescenes.xxx
…John Agar - Man, Myth, B Movie Giant-interview.xxxEmby picked them up just fine - then threw them into a giant disjointed pile scattered throughout the library presentation and I was like: ‘oops… that didn’t work…’
Yes. No, you currently need non-trailer extras to be put in subfolders rather than “inline”. I put in a feature request for inline extras, since I had the same exact problem, and they said they’d look into it.
@chyron8472 said:
see also: Movie Naming · MediaBrowser/Wiki Wiki · GitHub
Cool. That’s something I can do… eventually.
Following the package instructions isn’t a problem - if I know what they are.
Thanks
@Elijah_Baley said:
@Coxeroni said:
Sure you don’t see a lot of duplicate questions in their forums because only 5 people are posting thereYou, sir, have no idea what you are talking about. While there are fewer Emby users than Plex there are at most times 100s (usually well over 300) of people reading the Emby forums and many post as needed. It is just that the need to post is less and the responses are much better. Also it seems that the Emby forums are easier to search and find things on but that has nothing to do with Emby itself just a different forum software.
I was being provocative. I have no idea how many people are browsing (and posting) in here but I assume it to be some more than over there.
And there is enough to report or ask with Emby. To me it seems they still have a mostly “old” userbase which exactly knows what the software does. And then there are the Plex converts who might have a question of two. But yes, they are answered swiftly and properly. Can’t deny that.
