[Feature]: Admin Playback Mirror via API

[mophawka]

💡 Feature Description

Add an Admin Playback Mirror module to WSD that allows an authorized admin to mirror a user’s current playback session directly in-browser.

This feature provides a secure way to observe real-time user playback, useful for diagnostics, education environments, helpdesk monitoring, or multi-user household oversight.

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📈 Motivation and Context

While WSD can track sessions, it currently lacks the ability to visually mirror what a user is watching. This is especially useful for:

• 🔍 Troubleshooting playback issues
• 👨‍🏫 Educational and compliance monitoring
• 🛠️ Support team diagnostics
• 🏡 Family/parental oversight tools

Inspired by workflows found nowhere else but WSD if not Luke'd, this feature makes user session playback observable from a read-only view without interfering with playback or session state.

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🛠️ Suggested Implementation (if known)

Example Flow

1. Detect Active Session

GET /emby/Sessions?activeWithinSeconds=120
X-Emby-Token: {AdminToken}

→ Parse:

• NowPlayingItem.Id
• NowPlayingItem.MediaSources[0].Id
• PlayState.PositionTicks

2. Generate Playback URL

GET /emby/Videos/{ItemId}/master.m3u8
  ?MediaSourceId={MediaSourceId}
  &DeviceId=admin-mirror-{unique}
  &StartTimeTicks={PositionTicks}
  &Token={AdminToken}

3. Embed Playback

• Stream result in <video> element using native or hls.js player

Minimal Player Example

<video id="v" controls autoplay></video>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/hls.js@latest"></script>
<script>
  const m3u8 = "https://server/emby/Videos/{ItemId}/master.m3u8"
             + "?MediaSourceId={MediaSourceId}"
             + "&DeviceId=admin-window"
             + "&StartTimeTicks={PositionTicks}"
             + "&Token={AdminToken}";
  const video = document.getElementById('v');
  if (video.canPlayType('application/vnd.apple.mpegurl')) video.src = m3u8;
  else if (Hls.isSupported()) { const hls = new Hls(); hls.loadSource(m3u8); hls.attachMedia(video); }
</script>

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🖼️ Visuals or References (optional)

• Mirroring via Emby’s undocumented endpoints currently works but is not officially supported
• Admin-facing “Viewer Window” could show playback state, device metadata, etc.
• Works well alongside Watch Statistics and Signal-based Alerts FRs

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🔗 Related Issues or Discussions

• Connects with FRs for:
  • [Feature]: WSD Enhanced User Dashboard #3
  • [Feature]: Add Signal-based SMS notification support to WSD using signal-cli #6
  • [Feature]: Watch Time Leaderboards #5
  • [Feature]: Enrich "Device Info" Section of What's Streaming Dashboard #4

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🧩 Additional Notes

• 🛡️ Security

  • Playback URLs must be token-gated
  • Only admin tokens allowed
  • Consider short-lived signed URLs or time-bound tokens

• 🔁 Session Sync

  • Poll session data periodically to refresh position / stream
  • Optionally display desync alert if stream lags behind session state

• 🧰 Debugging

  • Allow admin to copy stream metadata (codec, bitrate, etc AKA Nerd Stats)
  • Combine with stream performance graphs for diagnosis

Postscript: Since these features are entirely out of scope of QuickBox, and the very generous addition of WSD, they should be considered advanced and placed behind a paywall.

[mophawka]