Once Emby has the audiobook functionality I need (and realistically I only need a resume feature—which Plex only ever partially implemented), I will have no incentive to return to Plex. As it is, I keep paying attention to this debacle because at this point I still need both software to fulfill my usage, since Plex has both a crappy UI and is rife with bugs and instabilities.
@elan while you’re at it can you please add the ability to deselect audio codecs in each client, my soundbar cannot handle DTS and it needs transcoding to AC3, but because the player blindly passes through the audio all I get is silence.
At least one of the players has this ability, but it’s missing from the android TV version.
Do a search for playbar on the forum to see how many people have been so frustrated with this problem for years. This should be easy and trivial to add and would solve so many problems.
And just before I asked constructively what can be improved on the design. All I got is "I want this to be differently implemented because for me xy, since I do have that, I want it to work differently. Completly ignoring that for most users this functionality as it is, is better.
Android Users have celebrated the new design… Karl you are as technically correct as this statement.
Truth is I like it, you dislike it and I don’t want them to change it so you like it and I dislike it.
But trying to have an imaginary mob behind you - to feel justified, with a few People that share the same opinion and call it “the userbase/ Android Users”, you are better than this.
Yeah, then we have People crying again. See plugins, even the cloud got People out with pitchforks. They also call themselves the userbase and how Plex treats “it’s people”.
Truth is most are happy they refocus on their core. (sync finally actually sync’s all songs…)
Everyone
Honestly if you can’t understand the logic in making something better for all and that YOU and I are not the userbase/the one person that has to be satisfied, then I can’t really help you.
Are you talking about Android or Android TV?
Android TV hasn’t gotten the new UI yet.
I think it says a lot about the software developers and the management that caused CLIENT APP to have such a big impacts on company’s earning and could potentially kill the company that had such big fanatic supporters.
Client app development should be the least worry for a company to survive.
I do not hate the new UI but I hate the net effect of the ongoing changes. All I care is pleasant media viewing experience, that means less clicks, faster loading pages of app, Original Quality playback, and accessing my media or separate my media/server the way I want it. I think many people will agree that PLEX is moving to the opposite direction than what I said above.
The more changes, PLEX needs more clicks, confuse user with UI, confused the server separation, slow browsing, slow loading movie detail page, artificial limitation (removing plugin support) and many many unnecessary transcoding that could be resolved easily by using MPV or other open source software.
Whether company like PLEX can win this struggle by forcing what they think the best for customers, or paid customers jump ship and kill the company slowly we can only wait and see.
I run other apps, but PLEX is still my main app because deep down I still believe someday PLEX will listen to us and care to fix what we need the most, not what the think the best for us.
People starts voting with their wallet so I hope next software updates will focus on fixing the current customers pains, bugs, and confusion rather than adding new stuff.
Heck, I think a lot of people will be happy is PLEX focus for a year to fix all bugs for many various platform they support.
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HGTV all apps have/had issue with validation. I have been in contact with HGTV staff since the time all of their Android TV apps stop working with authentication problem , that users can’t login to their TV subscription. At that same time HGTV PLEX plugin didn’t work because of similar issue
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Do you work for Plex? If you don’t, you’re right, you can’t help me.
For the record, I just don’t want to type it all down AGAIN because it’s been beaten to death, and Plex doesn’t care.
Here are just two of those threads for you to read.
And I haven’t seen many people praise News or Podcasts or Web Shows. Sure, some people probably like it, but the vast majority doesn’t. Again, already been discussed in a hundred threads. Most people would sacrifice that for a different UI.
As you may see. the second link out of 2 you send, even the first poster calls the UI pretty, but full of bugs.
Bugs they are fixing, have been for 6 months.
Nope
Have you seen me praising it? At what Point have I said that I stand behind every decision Plex makes?
I don’t need tide, news, podcast or Webshows. To be fair here, I have not seen a lot of People praising that stuff. But I am a sucker for automated subtitles, gapeless, working sync etc.
You get 155 votes for a new design on Android, which is maybe the most used Client of all. After a major change to the Client software, which resulted in a lot of bugs at start. Honestly, that’s not much…
But hey, whatever, hope you have a great weekend. By the end of it we both want the best possible product, even if we don’t agree on everything.
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Not quite… After the UI update there was a huge outcry as well. The ratings in the Google store were almost unanimously one star for months on end.
I know you asked in this thread for constructive criticism, but many are tired of repeating it because it fell on completely deaf ears at the time.
Now that Roku might have opened Plex’s eyes as to the shortcomings of the new design, all we can hope for at this point is that they will reconsider the Android design as well.
By saying “we have users crying again” you are not helping Plex. Users crying in huge quantities indicates something is fundamentally wrong.
Elan had finally admitted it himself, so why would you take it upon yourself to ensure all of us that the app is perfectly fine?
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Show me where he admited that the Android Design sucks. I really want to see it, because I don’t think so.
Absolutly, we had that with Roku and it will help all of us. But a MINORITY, that tries to use a wave for their own purpose by mixing their own Issues into that wave and call themselves the People…
… Both are fundamentally different. Nothing looks the same.
So am I, I ll leave it at one last comment.
4.4 is the score it has on the Android app. If you take a look at it for 5 minutes the People who give less than 4 stars are complaining about bugs. Not about design. If you do a new design there is always People who want the old thing back. Just accept that it’s great for most of People, even if it may not be for you. My condolences, but don’t damn the rest of us.
You’re putting words in my mouth mate 
I didn’t say elan said the Android UI sucks, he admitted that Plex shot itself in the limbs lately by not listening enough. Not quite the same thing.
And lastly, we have to agree to disagree on the statement that it is “great for most people”, because that is as blanket a statement as (by your own words) an imaginary mob that you claim “we” have created.
The ball is in Plex’s court either way, so I agree on a peace out here 
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Plugins break all the time due to sources (websites, or APIs) changing or being pulled offline. Some plugins are kept up to date by the community, others are not if interest is lost. Plugins are not created by Plex and have not ever been part of Plex Pass. I don’t know why PBS isn’t working, but I created a new version for CBS, info is over here.
To be honest from the PMS side, My concerns are minimal and pointed more to the Trans-coder duration and Port forwarding. There are some things to be addressed, but has been great with the improvements since 15-16.
But the server side is only a portion of the the product.
The Roku app was IMO the most stable PMP on the market. As I use Plex as my entire ecosystem for all of the places were I consume media “home, work, and away”, I have utilized HD home-run from both the plug-in and the live tv DVR function. The Live tv stream would last as long as the link was available. (Hrs, days even) The entire family was happy.
In some ways, they have become numb to constant drop of the live tv function. I however am not. I knew what I had and know that on the PMP side it is not up to par from Plex in OCT.
One of the things I see as that could be improved upon are simply create the sub channels for new features and overall user feed back on the Plexpass version “Beta”. Provide the Plexpass “Release” access that may provide proven and tested features, and then the the public version for “Free” access to the Plex platform.
I have been advocating for Plex since I discovered it as it solved all of my dilemmas.
- Ever expanding media library
- Single media Ecosystrem
- A mature Scalable solution to WMC
- Remote access to media
- Almost bullet proof media libraries.
While other products can provide more, Plex was able hit the sweet spot where all fell short. IMO Plex became the WMC we deserved but never got.
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That’s what I thought about Plex until they shot themselves in the foot
Emby is so, so much better. And the support is a million times more responsive
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This.
I asked them a question on Christmas Eve day with the following caveat
As it is Christmas eve I am not expecting a fast reply to this…I’m just curious if this is a bug or I’m missing something obvious
They not only replied within 30 minutes but also went through trying to repo the issue and I had a workaround in about an hour of my posting.
Note that I honestly still like the Plex client (mostly b/c I’m on the old pre-5.x iOS client) but the quick, polite and engaging support from Emby is refreshing and can make up for some of the current short comings (communication is a wonderful thing 
).
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I’ll pass it along to the team, I’m used to clients having the audio codec selection UI (ever since OSXBMC, actually).
Thanks for believing in us, not planning on letting you down 
Really appreciate your rational and calm take on things!
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Thank you @elan , it’s something that should be there because if it’s in one client it should be in them all, it’s incredibly useful and in my case (and as I said if you search the forum you’ll find a lot of people trying to find a solution for this!)
I bought a lifetime Plex Pass just before Christmas, we have 3 players in our house and it’s a big hit, I hope that this is a new chapter in Plex where the people who use it Day in and day out are listened to and you listen to them when they tell you what works and what doesn’t.
As a software developer myself, I’ve been in the situation where I’ve said “it works that way because it makes sense to me”, I’ve now come around to the fact that often the customer is right and that it’s easier to take on board their suggestions than to fight them.
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I heard from the Android team that generally we rely on device capabilities and programatic detection:
we detect audio capabilities via various APIs. Something must be incorrectly advising us of DTS support. If the user provided logs after app startup, it should be logged. It’s either gonna be via HDMI negotiations or MediaCodec
Any chance you could pass over logs? If device(s) are lying, that would certainly imply the need for an override
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@elan I can do this tomorrow.
The shield is connected via HDMI to a Sony TV which in turn is connected to the playbar via optical. Afaik optical is one way from the TV, so I’m sure that the TV is telling the shield over HMDI that it accepts anything, obviously when it gets sent from the tv to the playbar over the optical it’s a different matter, the playbar just remains silent as it can’t cope with the DTS stream.
Honestly, you’d make my year and a lot of other users years happy with a audio codec selection screen in the shield app (and all other clients for people using other boxes)
(I’m sure if the optical output wasn’t being used then the TV would correctly tell the shield what codecs are in use, but when the optical is in play the TV has no idea what codecs are supported, so just passes it downstream)
But the shield itself does know that certain codecs can’t be used over optical and only available via HDMI. The software has to check this however.
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