Emby has finally allowed me to centralize my music distribution

[3db]

I took another step forward with this and decided to try and centralize my music distribution for three of my systems. I moved from having 3 USB drives, one per system controlled through a ROKU per system to distributing music via my laptop to all 3 systems. What prevented me from centralizing before was finding a suitable interface that retained my folder organization/genre catagorization with artwork. Plex didn't do the folder view at all as I tried this last year. I'm using Emby running on my laptop, tablets, phones, and Roku to access my music. Here's what the interface looks like on the display running through a ROKU;

 

[3db]

Here's the interface from my iphone and tablet

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Cool, but the critical question is, why did you choose the second most popular media server?
I get that Plex isn't (fully) free, but so isn't Emby. Typically people look for Plex (cheaper) alternatives, steer toward Jellyfin

 

[highfigh]

Here's the interface from my iphone and tablet

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I just replaced my Spectrum router with a Linksys because I wanted to stop paying for the one that doesn't allow me to log in with my computer, it didn't have a USB port and it was a PITA to set up smart light dimmers, outlets, etc- it requires their app if I want to change the SSID and that's about all they allow- I needed to turn off the 5GHz band because a lot of smart devices don't work with it. I connected my old Seagate external HD and immediately was able to choose from Files, Music, Videos and whatever else was on it, all in neat little folders.

I haven't had much desire to search for something that can be navigated from my living room/TV and I have never been interested in recording an endless supply of tapes, save my LPs to digital (that's going to happen after I buy a phono preamp- my MusicCast doesn't have one) or spend the time making files for genres, etc, this looks interesting.

 

[3db]

Cool, but the critical question is, why did you choose the second most popular media server?
I get that Plex isn't (fully) free, but so isn't Emby. Typically people look for Plex (cheaper) alternatives, steer toward Jellyfin

Cool, but the critical question is, why did you choose the second most popular media server?
I get that Plex isn't (fully) free, but so isn't Emby. Typically people look for Plex (cheaper) alternatives, steer toward Jellyfin

I mentioned this in my first post.
What prevented me from centralizing before was finding a suitable interface that retained my folder organization/genre catagorization with artwork. Plex would not do this.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I mentioned this in my first post.
What prevented me from centralizing before was finding a suitable interface that retained my folder organization/genre catagorization with artwork. Plex would not do this.

I see. Fair enough. I rely on plex sources for 99.99% of movies and TV shows to get the artwork, and it does the job well. I can see your point regarding music artwork and general music metadata which is quite painful to organize in Plex. Plex still doesn't show folder artwork in the folder view, which I rarely use and only for music.

 

[3db]

I see. Fair enough. I rely on plex sources for 99.99% of movies and TV shows to get the artwork, and it does the job well. I can see your point regarding music artwork and general music metadata which is quite painful to organize in Plex. Plex still doesn't show folder artwork in the folder view, which I rarely use and only for music.

I'm using the free version of Emby. I dont need the bell and whistles for my music.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I'm using the free version of Emby. I dont need the bell and whistles for my music.

I don't know about you, but I extensively use PlexAmp with CarPlay in my car. Plex Pass is required to use PlexAmp similar goes for Emby. Not to mention many Emby clients are locked behind a paywall.
Another Emby premier feature that might be helpful to you is CovertArt Plugin.

Emby Premiere Feature Matrix

Server/All AppsFree Premiere Browse Media ✔ ✔ Library Organization and Metadata Gathering ✔ ✔ Users and user management ✔ ✔ Parental Controls ✔ ✔ Emby Connect (simplified remote login) ✔ ✔ In...

support.emby.media

Lastly, and this is very subjective and in my opinion: Emby's screenshot you posted looks much worse than Plex.

 

[Hobbit]

I took another step forward with this and decided to try and centralize my music distribution for three of my systems. I moved from having 3 USB drives, one per system controlled through a ROKU per system to distributing music via my laptop to all 3 systems. What prevented me from centralizing before was finding a suitable interface that retained my folder organization/genre catagorization with artwork. Plex didn't do the folder view at all as I tried this last year. I'm using Emby running on my laptop, tablets, phones, and Roku to access my music. Here's what the interface looks like on the display running through a ROKU;

View attachment 59293View attachment 59294View attachment 59295View attachment 59296View attachment 59297View attachment 59298

I use Plex. It frustrated me too that I couldn't use my folders/organization. But it was still the best solution I found. However, they changed that a while ago and you can now use your own folders and play everything within a folder. All my music in on my desktop in the office. Backed up too..

Thanks for sharing. I have to look into EMBY. Looks like it may do more than Plex, for music. Plex has branched into the Pluto world - live TV and On-demand of mostly older movies and shows.

 

[3db]

Emby does what I want it too and its interface for music is better than Plex. Its also free unless you want to upgrade which I don't. I have no need or desire to stream my music outside my home so that is also a moot point.

 

[3db]

I decided to rebuild my media library and accidently wiped out all the data on that USB drive. Lucky for me, I had two other USB drives that I kept current and did a restore. It took just over 24 hours for that to complete. These last two days were spent cleaning erroneous entries I made while tagging the digital files. I still have another 3 days or more of work to put into it to get where I want it to be. As a former unix administrator, I decided to use the command tool using robocopy to just copy over any files I've changed to the back up USB drive. Saves me a ****-ton of time.

It was a rough night for me last night. I woke up around 3:30am to go to the bathroom (yes I made it there LOL ) but as soon as layed back down, images of my late wife going through cancer treatment and her pain wouldnt stop flooding my mind so I got up and worked until 5 am cleaning up some tags on my music files. I was finally tired enough to go back to bed. I took a snap shot of an incremental data backup to my 2nd USB drive of just how much data I changed.

 

[3db]

I've been busy toiling away on my new labour of love, my emby music library server application. I cleaned up all genres with respect to albums and album artists EXCEPT for classical. I'm starting that today and its going be the hardest to figure out. My blues genre was a mess but I did get it straightened out. Here are some updated pics.

Library view listed under My Media

Selecting Music library and then clicking on albums.

The next 4 are views of Album Artist, Genres, Songs, and Folders

I have a lot of blues artists in compilation albums but I dont have any dedicated albums by them. I used the term "Various Blues" under the Album Artist tag and the results worked really well as shown below.

Selecting the folder above this brings this view below

and if I select "Show All" to the right and above the CHESS PIECES folder, it lists all albums with Various Blues as my Album Artist

 

[3db]

I've been busy putting about 7.5 hours fixing my classical collection to make it look respectable with Emby. I even found some duplicate files!!

I have another week left I estimate. My last single artist to work on is Mozart and then various classical mixes.

My classical catalog so far..

Each selection above has albums attached to it. As an example, here's what I have under Beethoven

 

[adk highlander]

Have you ever thought about Roon? I know it is a pay service but their new ARC application allows you to play music from anywhere to your remote device. It is not for movies though so that could be a deal breaker.

 

[3db]

I finished cleaning up my music files and Emby looks really good now.

 

[flippo]

I'm trying emby on my android phone and Ican see my NAS but I Can't get it to load library at all. What am i missing?

 

[panteragstk]

I'm trying emby on my android phone and Ican see my NAS but I Can't get it to load library at all. What am i missing?

Do you have Emby running on your NAS? Your phone has to have a back end to connect to.

 

[3db]

Do you have Emby running on your NAS? Your phone has to have a back end to connect to.

I told him roughly the same over at AudioKarma. The phone cannot act as a server as it doesnt have direct access to the disks. A cell phone is not meant for client server applications, more accurately not server applications.