How do you do?
I’m writing to provide some feedback on my experience with the new desktop app which is soon to replace the plex media player in the following years.
Thank you for developing Plex. It is an amazing experience to expand and share my local media files through streaming. I’ve been a stronger supporter and advocate for Plex, introducing it to all of my friends.
My home theater set up includes a PC connected to my 4k TV and a surround sound system. While I don’t routinely use the “TV mode” to navigate through the interface, I do use the “passthrough” function of the plex media player, so that my receiver is handling the audio decoding. I have made comparisons in the past and discovered that this yields better results, since my receiver supports DTS-MA and Dolby Atmos, and that the receiver is, you know, specifically designed to handle audio decoding. I find it interesting, however, that the “passthrough” setting can only be enabled while in TV mode. After toggling them on, however, I don’t need to remain in TV mode for it to work. That works fine for the old plex media player.
Recently, I installed the new Plex app in preparation for the transition from the old plex media player (PMP) to this new one. The issue I have encountered, is that without the “TV mode”, I cannot activate audio passthrough now. As such the movies rely on the Plex app itself to do audio decoding, which is subpar. DTS-MA for example only decodes to 5.1 instead of 7.1 which is what I have at home. When I play the movie using the old PMP, it uses the passthrough and my receiver handles it perfectly.
In addition, the new Plex app also has some scaling issues on a 4K TV as many people have already pointed out. The texts are tiny on the screen.
I have no objection of moving on from traditional PC to TV home theater setup to cross-platform streaming, but the problem is that in the process, we shouldn’t need to sacrifice our experience. Currently there is no streaming device capable of performing audio passthrough of all the audio formats. The only option is a PC to receiver setup. Personally I don’t use the TV mode often, but I wish the passthrough setting can be introduced to the new Plex app.
Sorry for this long post, but I tried to put some thoughts into this constructive feedback and hope it is helpful in some ways for your future endeavor. Thank you.
The new app looks pretty much like a fork without TV mode. So it should be possible to set the passthrough via config file. Haven’t tested or checked. Just a thought.
are you talking about the plexmediaplayer.conf file? from what i can the new app didn’t install this file?
i installed the new app last night and have been playing around with it, didn’t get a chance to check audio passthrough (which i need), are we saying that it’s not enabled with the new app?
also, is there a way to launch plex in fullscreen mode, as opposed to having it launch in windowed or max mode? the app doesn’t seem to remember last state in terms of windows layout - if f11 to fullscreen and use alt/f4 to close plex, it won’t re-launch in fullscreen.
also, are there any plans to add the fullscreen icon back when in windowed mode? it only appears in fullscreen mode.
I hope they reconsider. Without the 10-foot user interface, without 5.1 pass-through audio, without the remote control … then it’s time to use other applications.
I AM getting surround channel separation, but can confirm it’s PCM only, and when compared to Direct Play passthrough via PMP, does sound noticeably worse.
EXACT Same concern here… Please add that option in the new plex app
I was about to get a lifetime subscription for each member of my family but without audio Passthrough… i’ll reconsider
EXACTLY, i cant see any use for plex without any of those features. I need HTPC mode, i need pass through and most definitely i need remote control functionality…
