Jellyfin TV Client "Zidoo-Edition" beta11 released!

Quick UI request, for if/when you get to those changes. Would you consider an option to hide the tiles, and ratings that display under the posters in the Latest Movies/Latest TV sections of the home screen?

Nearly all movie poster images contain the name of the move in the image. IMO, it's pretty redundant, and cluttered looking to have the name of the movie repeated right under the poster. And if the name is longer than poster is wide, the name is truncated and looks even uglier. Media players that decide they should scroll longer names are especially offensive to my eyes

Thanks for all your hard work and considering my request. On that topic, I'd be willing to throw a no-strings, no expectations, donation your way to show my appreciation for you work. You ever think about using buymeacoffee or ko-fi?

 

That one guy has a real attitude over there…
Would do the same in your shoes!

 

Guess you are lucky, since that's exactly what i'm working on atm. You will be able to pick your card "Info Style" on a per library-view and per home-row basis.
You will be able to pick from various info display options "none, icon only, overlay, overlay + icon, text under, text under mini (only 1 line)".
You will also be able to pick the row-size and how many row's should be visible on screen on once,.

I also try to get a new "fullscreen" vertical grid mode working, so the status-info area will also get some extra settings and fading options.
Still testing various options and layouts, on what looks best and is easy to understand as a option.

PS: The parental-rating option is also already gone/replaced. I try to follow the web-client on what/how to display card info's, since those make more sense to me.

 

Early morning thoughts while I'm up, after taking the new puppy out to do his business. Sorry about the long list. Just things for consideration, most of the items would be preferable as toggles, so people can modify to their particular tastes.

1) Excited that you are working on the caching/loading of images. I have backgrounds turned off now, as they take to long to load, IMO. The previous background is often shown before the new one loads.

2) Any way we can cache the posters on the wall before you navigate to that next couple rows? Seems like you could grab the images for the next X items in the array ahead of time, to avoid some of the delay in displaying them.

3) Per area, backdrop display options. I'd like to have the background displayed on the details page, but not show up behind the posterwall, for instance.

4) Any chance we can get a toggle to hide the "XXXXXX is direct playing" message as files begin playing? I think that is useful for testing/confirmation that something is direct playing vs transcoding, etc. but not needed after you are comfortable your setup is working.

5) You made mention of showing the clear logo displaying before the movie plays, that would be great to have a on a toggle too.

6) My preference is that there is zero visible indicators that the movie is loading, between movie selection and when it plays.

7) Can we get a toggle on the cast and crew? At the very least could the cast and crew show the primary cast vs the guest actors? Seeing the guest actors, sometimes acts as a spoiler of sorts for an episode. Oh Benedict Wong, or Charlie Cox is in this episode of She-Hulk - looks like the Sorcerer Supreme or Daredevil shows up in this episode. I try my best to avoid spoilers before watching things.

8) On the topic of Spoilers - can we get a show plot toggle? If the watched status of a TV episode is false, then hide the plot - or show the generic description of the TV series itself.

9) It would be great if there was a way to change the "select buttons" behavior, when on the initial TV episode list. Could we get a toggle to play the episode highlighted, vs going into that episodes details. Too many clicks to watch show, IMO. Yes, you can hit the play button vs select, but it breaks up the flow. Plus, per the item above this, I'm an anti-spoilers guy, so I intentionally don't read the episode details for things I haven't seen.

If you can't tell I'm a less is more aesthetic guy Thanks for thinking about these suggestions.

 

1. Did actually already work on a couple improvement's regarding backgrounds. I also noticed that they take too long to load.
2. Sure, will try to add preloading those.
   
3. I have plan's to add a "extended" info-row option to the grid layouts, basically the details-view information but with a horizontal row with the items. This layout is very common in most media-center skins. Than, since we have much more visible background i will add backdrop options and can add options for other views. Yet atm i did already overextend myself with too many changes and i get visible glitches all over the place, hence why the current beta takes so long, so i need to limit which new changes i work on.
4. Already done and moved into a "Developer" option setting, while turned off by default.
5. I mean we have to display something or you just get the new Zidoo player black-screen with loading dots "...."
   • the issue is that the zidoo player does not adapt the "title text" contrast so on a white backdrop you may get white text, which looked just bad
   • the new way is to just display the clear-art if available and no text at all, so it always looks fine
   • the new clear-art is also displayed if you pause the playback, similar to what the native Jellyfin player overlay does
6. As noted this would result in a black screen until the playback starts, which i don't think is preferred by most users?
7. Can add this to my long to-do, but not sure Jellyfin distinguishes between main/support cast.
8. Is possible, will add to to-do....
9. I don't understand this one can you explain this more? Which buttons in what view?
   • you can just hit "play" on the home/grid cards and it will play the next unwatched episode

 

Wonderful news/ideas on many items and thank you for working on them. I understand some must be prioritized and some might just not work out with Jellyfin, your schedule, etc. A few replies -

5 and 6. Understood your points. I guess I'm used to the "loading dots" already and it feels like they are less intrusive\bright than a fairly large, usually VERY colorful and vibrant logo on a black background. Any chance you can have an option to change it's opacity via a user configurable % so it is less in your face? I could then make it 100% to turn it off I watch on a projector, 9' wide screen, in a fully blacked out room, so the logo on black will be a bit jarring before the movie plays. I'd prefer to just let the movie be the first light emanating after I hit play, not the app saying "look at what I can do" by tossing a logo on the screen.

Of the three options displayed in Zidoo HT4 currently you have "loading video" when clear logo is turned off, "...." when clear logo is turned on, but no logo has been downloaded yet, and "bright colorful logo" when the logo has been downloaded. My personal preference is the subtle grey "...." indicators. Please see screenshots for reference.



7. It definitely can show guest stars when you drill down on the individual episode level of navigation. It doesn't do it for all series/episodes, so I'm at a loss for why. I'm guessing because it was able to find guest star meta data for this particular episode? Besides the lack of consistency, it would be great if the no spoilers toggle, hid cast/guest stars and chapters.




8. This one is more about how navigation works in Jellyfin - 99% of the time you are using are using up/down/left/right/select keys on a remote to interact with the app. Except when you want to play a video by selecting it's thumbnail, you get taken to a details page, where you have to press select on the play icon. for Movies this is pretty straightforward and feels normal because of the lack of nested screens required to get to that play button.

But on TV shows, where you have multiple seasons and episodes within those seasons, it starts to feel like you are constantly clicking select to finally play what you want. It would be great if there was a toggle that allowed a different behavior when pressing select on a thumbnail - don't open the details page - just play the currently selected file. I get that this one is more of a paradigm on how Jellyfin navigation works, and that customization could be pretty hairy to unpack. I also know you can always press the play key to bypass that navigation drill down, but it's not intuitive to other members of the household and newbies. If this one is a head scratcher/ and too difficult then I 100% understand ignoring this request I realize I'm being especially anal on this one

Again thanks for your consideration of my suggestions. Love the work you are doing, and seriously find a way for me to send you a donation. You deserve it!

 

Than something is broken on your setup or you force the "legacy" API?
The default for the "new" API is a blurred backdrop, not a black screen?

So the new default is a blurred background + centered clearArt logo, instead of the background + text.

I mean that's exactly why you can just press play on any image and it will play? I usually just press play on the home row images, either for resume or latest. If i have to go into the grid views, again i never really drill down into the details unless i want some more info's on the series/season itself.

Remapping "select" to "play" makes no sense, how you get to the details page now?
If its about visibility, the new focus option has a center icon option, that will show a "play" icon if the item can be played.

Here are examples on how this can look, with different "Info Styles" and "Focus Styles", all can be individually setup.

PS: Layouts are not final, still working on sizes + text/background contrast. Also the focus border hides the resume bar for some "Info Styles".

 

Hello to all,

Is there a changelog to see the improvements with each new release?

 

https://github.com/Andy2244/jellyfin-androidtv-zidoo/releases

 

Thanks andy

 

I think the clear logo being shown as the video loads is one of the better features of the Zidoo.

 

I would love to try Jellyfin but there's no server for my NAS or Android and those are my two always on devices. My only option might be to install Kodi on my Shield then run the Jellyfin addon. I moved away from Kodi and SQL server because although it worked, it was more complicated than it should be. I've tried Emby which works well, but you have to pay for the Android client and the Plex client is just a little too basic at the moment.

 

the play/select thing is admittedly a preference of mine and goes against the nested nature of how emby/Jellyfin/kodi present episodes vs what I like in HT4 (for TV shows.)

HT4 updates the details for each episode as you cursor between them, so you can mash the select button to play the episode. where Jellyfin requires you to select each episode to see the details. This means Jellyfin navigation requires more clicks to see info and select/play an episode. - IF you want to use only the navigation and select keys on the remote. As you state you can just press play on poster/thumbnail to play the episode. I’ll stop fighting the tide and get used to that behavior, as it’s part of how the app is designed. We can cross this one off list

On the blurred backgrounds, I have turned off backgrounds so I won’t see the blurred background while the movie loads. I turn them off because:

1) I prefer a less visually cluttered display. I like posters on a stark black background, they pop better.

2) I find that the ever changing backgrounds are visually distracting while navigating The poster walls to select a movie/show.

3) many of backgrounds selected by the scrapers are the same or similar images as the poster selected, which is redundant visually

4) text overlays like movie plots, depending on the background image used, get “lost in the image”

5) IF I liked backgrounds, they take too long to load anyway.

sometimes a background can look good when displayed, but it’s often a crapshoot, IMO. So instead of thinking “that combo looks like crap”, I just choose to not display them.

 

The loading background has nothing to-do with how the client handles "Backdrops" per selected item and there is no setting for "loading backgrounds".
So either you use the old "legacy API" which has no "loading background" image support or you have no "Backdrop" flagged images for the movie/series you play.

 

I'm confused, as I see an option to "show backdrops" in the latest beta client you have made available. Deselecting the option prevents backdrops from appearing throughout the app. Selecting it show backdrops. This toggle also impacts the blurred backdrop of the loading screen. A few pics to show the option in the client, and one instance of its impact on showing backdrops in the app.

 

It can't impact the loading screen, since as noted this option is not checked when handing the loading backdrop to the zidoo player. So not sure what you are seeing?

The loading screen is the screen with the title text in the middle, after you hit play. Maybe you see the old transition screen from the client background? Than again this backdrop is not blurred and has no title text.

Anyway there will be some new backdrop options and the new loading screen will use the clear-art logo if available.

 

Thanks for the info and looking forward to the new loading screen with clear-art.

 

No, i have never tried Jellyfin before so i will need to set this up as well. Any help with simple instructions on how to do that would be much appreciated.

 

https://jellyfin.org/ They have docs a plenty. Youtube also has many videos of installs, tips, etc.

 

It turns out that there is a native Jellyfin Server for my Synology nAS but it's not documented anywhere and I only came across it while playing about with Emby plugins