Kodi Community Forum

Hey all,

I'd like to share some pretty awesome work being done by a group called Emby (formerly Media Browser) that might be interesting to those people looking for a way to sync their media library or have a server/client setup using Kodi as a frontend.

Before I get too far, I would like to note that there is a previous discussion about media browser in this forum, but I thought that it would be nice to have one that focused on the integration of Emby with Kodi:
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...light=emby

Anyway, for those of you who don't know, Emby is a server/client style media player that is build open source. The server side is built to run on several different devices, including windows, linux, and several NAS options. Once installed everything is configured via a web interface.

From the web interface, you can build the library, edit metadata & images, & even play directly from the library.

Once the server is setup, then we can start configuring Kodi to work with it. Some of the dev's over at emby have been working with others to build a add-on for Kodi that integrates Emby server into Kodi.
http://emby.media/community/index.php?/forum/99-kodi/

Unlike a UPNP style option, Emby for Kodi integrates media directly into the Kodi library. This allows the user to browse their library, as if it were directly looking at the media.

Using the Emby server ensures that watched statuses & video progress is synced between different Kodi devices.

The Emby for Kodi add-on has configuration options that will affect how the media is accessed by kodi. The biggest one is "Play from HTTP instead of SMB". When this option is turned off, Kodi will use emby to find the path whatever media you choose to play and then it will read the file directly. If "Play from HTTP instead of SMB" is selected, Kodi will read a transcoded stream from the Emby server. In additional another option is displayed; "Video Quality". This option allows the user to set the transcode data rate that will be requested of the Emby server. The "Video Quality" setting can be set as high as 1000 Mbps and as low as 664 Kbps, with a default value of 100 Mbps. Regardless of the setting chosen, if transcoding is used, the Emby server can be set to adjust the transcode rate based on network performance (similar to Netflix).

One feature of Emby that has not yet been addressed with the Emby for Kodi add-on is its ability to handle live tv. Currently Emby can use a number of backends that are also supported by Kodi, but recently they have developed their own PVR server that is integrated into Emby. It is my hopes that someday this PVR functionality will be able to be connected to Kodi, similar to other backends, through the Emby for Kodi add-on, but since it is still new, it hasn't been done yet.


Ultimately, I think that Emby fills a very unique role that some users may be interested in. It provides a strong server backend to the highly customizable kodi frontend. Since it is an open-source project, I would like to try to promote a greater level of cooperation between the two projects, in the hopes that both can work together to help fill the gaps in the other and create an even better integration between the two.


I've updated the Kodi Wiki to include a page for Emby for Kodi.

http://kodi.wiki/view/Add-on:Emby_for_Kodi

Thanks. Updated to latest version last night. Maybe look into how server wmc passes the direct upnp stream from the hdhr for live tv if and when it gets added to the kodi plugin.

Just adding that I've been using this addon for a couple months now and love it. It is a huge improvement over the old one that forced you to use a customized skin to make it look like normal Kodi libraries. No you can use this with any Kodi skin, no customization required.

The two programs really do work quite well together providing a feature rich backend of Emby, with the super customization and addon-on capabilities of Kodi.

Also, since its usually one of the first questions, yes this is similar to Plex. You could use the PleXBMC addon, but that is like the old Emby one that requires a customized skin. My personal preference is that I like Emby better, and like Kodi enjoy that it is open source and filled with very passionate helpful developers.

Please be aware, that this is not in the official kodi repo due to violations of the guidelines. It may corrupt your kodi database (but thats not a big problem when your head data is on emby)

That being said, the server itself is unfortunately much more demanding then plex hardware wise. I really hope the native release of c# for linux can change that some day.

The rule is there for a good reason - addons that modify the database *when Kodi is creating the database* could corrupt it and cause bad things to happen.

Emby for Kodi completely takes over the database, so no native Kodi db stuff is used at all. This is still viewed as a violation (which is fine) but there is no real 'corruption' issue since Emby IS the owner of the database.

There are many, many users and this has not been a problem - but it is important to understand that you must switch to Emby owning your DB to use it and your original DB will be erased. Once your DB in in Emby, the addon can recreate the local Kodi DB in a matter of minutes.

As for the server overhead vs. Plex - only the web portion is in C# - all the heavy lifting is done with ffmpeg/sql. Native C# would be nice for low-end NAS - but in general this should not be an issue.

xnappo

Haven't checked the code, but I would think if it breaks it will break with the user upgrading the kodi version. Not sure how they handle schema changes, if they don't see them coming (just a thought experiment).

I guessed that that was the reason for mono stealing all my CPU power.

(2015-09-05, 17:34)Razze Wrote: [ -> ]Haven't checked the code, but I would think if it breaks it will break with the user upgrading the kodi version. Not sure how they handle schema changes, if they don't see them coming (just a thought experiment).

I guessed that that was the reason for mono stealing all my CPU power.

Of courze we have to follow the Kodi developers changes to the db. We have six devs on just this addon and that hasn't been a problem. We do only support released versons of Kodi officially, but usually have unofficial support for betas fairly quickly.

six devs and none even reports the issues you had with JSON-RPC or maybe even try to fix them? Rather just hack around in the kodi database...

We are working on documenting the issues.

We aren't really hacking the Kodi database, more creating a Kodi compatible database.

xnappo

(2015-09-05, 17:51)Martijn Wrote: [ -> ]six devs and none even reports the issues you had with JSON-RPC or maybe even try to fix them? Rather just hack around in the kodi database...

One dev, reported multiple problems, tried to fix a lot, yet tons of time lost due to general problem about external dev also reported multiple times
You can't blame people to try to circumvent a broken process. (No need to answer, this is not the place, there's other thread I've opened about that, but I can't let such message without answering).

A quick question - is there (or is there planned to be) a server for the Western Digital My Cloud series of NAS boxes?

They have Plex and MySQL available, but looking in the Emby site they aren't (yet) supported. Would it be possible in the future, or aren't they powerful and/or popular enough bits of kit to be possible?

Definitely best to ask over in the Emby Server forums - the server devs most likely won't see this post..

I couldn't see a suitable forum there to ask. Where would you suggest?

I'd probably ask in the general section: http://emby.media/community/index.php?/f...iscussion/

Emby user here too !
Rocks as backend