Do more with your server
You’ve set up your media, added live and recorded TV capabilities, now discover what else Emby can do for you…
“Emby provides a number of ways to add an extra layer of organisation to your media”
You’ve got your media named and organised, and your Emby server is up and running. You’ve discovered how to access it on just about any network device, plus – if the idea appeals – integrated live TV and DVR capabilities into it. Now the basics are in place, what else is there to do? Quite a lot as it happens – read on for a guide to some of Emby’s best added extras.
Sign up for Emby Connect
When you set up your media server, you’ll be prompted to link your server to an Emby Connect account. This enables you to easily access your server (or servers) through a single signon. The beauty of Emby Connect over similar services like Plex is that it’s completely optional – if you’d rather keep your server private, you can skip this step.
You can add an Emby Connect account at any time by going to https://app.emby.media and following the prompts. Once done, browse to the Manage Server section and select Users in the left-hand panel. Click on your user profile and enter your Emby Connect username or email address into the relevant box. Emby will fire an email over to you with a verification link – once clicked, your server is linked to your Emby Connect account. See the ‘Access media on the go’ section ( right) for one of many good reasons for doing so.
Multiple users
Emby enables you to set up different user accounts for different people in your household. Click + next to users. First, enter your user’s name, then untick ‘Enable access to all libraries’ if you want to give them limited access to your media and then click Save.
Once set up, use the Profile tab to link them to an Emby Connected account if necessary, and restrict what control and access they have to your server. The Access tab enables you to not only restrict access by library, but also limit their access to specific devices. Parental Control makes it possible to set a maximum age rating such as GB-PG for that user, and block unrated content by type (and tags). Click Access Schedule and you can limit their access by day and time too. Finally, Password enables them to protect their account.
Once set up, users can log into Emby through the web or on a supported device and get a customised view of your server’s content. If they click their user photo and choose Settings they can then tweak personal preferences such as what the home screen displays, playback settings and more. You can also set up special guest access too, emailing an invite to other users with Emby Connect accounts and giving them access to one or more of your libraries.
Access media on the go
You don’t need to be connected to your local network to access your Emby hosted media – you can configure it to stream over the internet, too. It pays to have a fast connection at home – ideally fibre with a minimum 5Mbps upload speed – and don’t forget that streaming will quickly burn through any capped broadband allowance.
If your router has UPNP switched on then Emby should work over the internet with no additional configuration; otherwise, you’ll need to manually configure port forwarding and assign a static IP address to your server PC. The settings you need to look at – and tweak – can be found under Advanced>Hosting in the Manage Server section of Emby.
There are two ways to access your server remotely: first, through your Emby Connect account (log on to the account through your remote app) for watching media on the road, or log in at app.emby.media through any remote (and obviously secure) web browser to administer your server remotely.
If you’d rather not use Emby Connect, then you’ll need to manually input your server’s public IP address (the one
assigned to you by your ISP). This can change, so if you have a dynamic DNS host set up with the likes of no-ip.com, enter that into the External WAN Address field under Advanced>Hosting, giving you the ability to remotely configure your server via hostname.ddns.net:8096.
If you’re worried about remote streaming crippling your internet connection, click Playback>Streaming tab and enter a streaming bit rate limit in Mbps – we’d say 80 per cent of your total upload rate. There’s no option to disable Emby’s remote streaming capabilities – if you want to lock your server behind your network, you’ll need to disable uPNP on your router and close off port 8096 to outside access.
Collections, favourites, playlists
As your media library grows, it can get difficult staying on top of your media. Thankfully, Emby offers a number of unique ways in which you can add an extra layer of organisation to your media. For example, you can group your movies and TV shows into ‘collections’, allowing you to group related titles such as the Star Trek series together. Simply browse to each movie or show in turn, click the More button and choose ‘Add to collection’, then either create from scratch or assign it to an existing one. If the idea appeals, but the effort doesn’t, let the Auto Box Set plugin (see the box) take the strain – sadly it’ll only handle your movies, but at least it’s a start.
You can also favourite items, too. Just roll your mouse over an item in one of your libraries and click the heart button to add it to the Favourites, which you can access from the home screen (for all your favourites) or via a specific library (which only shows favourites from that library).
If you’ve got a burgeoning music collection you’ll be glad to know Emby also supports playlists – which work exactly as they do elsewhere, allowing you to create your own mix CDs without requiring any physical media. Add individual tracks, albums or entire artists by clicking the more button next to the appropriate item and choosing ‘Add to Playlist’.
Add subtitles
Why go to the trouble of embedding subtitles into your media when Emby can download subtitles for you? Head to the Subtitles section of the Manage Settings dashboard to get started. It’s all pretty straightforward – select whether to download for movies, TV or both, choose your languages and then tweak some settings. One thing you’ll need to do is register an OpenSubtitles account – a link to the website is provided, and note any requests to become a VIP are optional; just click Cancel followed by Register, then confirm your registration by email before entering your details into Emby to complete the link.
Tweak scheduled tasks
Last, but not least, Emby creates various scheduled tasks to perform various actions such as scanning for new library items. Select Scheduled Tasks under Expert to see what tasks it’s performing – you can run them manually from here or click the task to view and amend its current settings.