It certainly feels like borderline anti-competitive behaviour on Google’s part.
I wonder if this could be gotten around if Plex (Pass) was able to host a cloud database (metadata) of our server content that could then act as a service?
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i was thinking something similar, hopefully it doesn’t come down to something like this but also hopefully this is doable.
I realise there was another feature request around integrating with the GTV UI which was closed due to lack of functionality from Google.
So I have just opened a new feature request regarding what I feel is the core of the integration, which is to have Plex shown as a Google Search Service.
FEATURE REQUEST: Integrate with Google Search ‘Service’ results (Google TV precursor)
Edit: Well that didn’t take long to get shut down, despite being a unique and targeted request. Disappointing.
As @anon18523487 said above, this looks similar to the lack of Google Home integration. So Plex needs to do a better overall job of integrating with cloud services.
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This has nothing to do with Plex. Google does not allow a method to search or interact with a local Plex Media Server. Plex could create an online catalog of every movie, tv show, and song ever made, but that still wouldn’t allow Google to see your PMS and play anything.
So what we appear to be saying is that Google has not provided any API that allows some third party “cloud provider” to integrate their library with the Google TV search interface. Of course Plex could be a “cloud provider”, they just need your account and password and the “cloud server” will just become your home plex server.
Is seems unlike Google not to provide such an API, but maybe if we try to put enough pressure on them, they will consider it. To anyone at Plex who talked to Google, did they say they would never provide such an API, or any way for some third-party cloud providers not in their list of providers to optionally integrate? I find that strange.
BTW :I seriosly doubt they are getting paid by the providers to integrate content, it is not in the Google ehos to do that. They integrate with Prime, and I seriously doubt Amazon is paying them anything.
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They are an advertising company, and they generally make money by selling your information through personalized advertising. The end customer is the product which is being sold as targeted advertising. What they really want to know is what you are watching, because it helps them decide how to sell advertising, and missing a whole group of things you watch (e.g. through Plex) will ultimately harm their targeting. I can see why they want to control the search and collect everything you search for and watch, but they are usually fairly open about allowing other vendors to integrate in to this platform because it gives them more information that they can use to sell advertising. This is what I meant by “it is not in their ethos”, they usually don’t make money by charging vendors to integrate, they make money by collecting the information and using it to sell advertising.
Make no mistake, Google is in it for the money, but this is just not usually how they make it, and closing avenues off to some third parties would ultimately harm their advertising revenue (because it would be less accurate); this is why I doubt they are charging, but if you have information to the contrary, then I guess they just changed their whole business model.
I agree with this statement, as it reflects similarly in the Google Search results experience.
Well, yes it is, and done so using built-in Plex Remote Access functionality.
But that’s not what is important. What I speculate is important is that the metadata for the content is in the cloud so it maybe could be indexed as a Plex Google service. Then in the GTV UI when browsing the metadata, it then points to and plays the content from our local source.
This is what I would like Plex to investigate further. How can Plex connect our local content, to cloud metadata so that it is available as a Google Service?
I realise that the former Plex Cloud had issues and was shutdown. Maybe it needs to be revived in a limited capacity so it can act as a cloud source?
And sure, this is only on one Google TV device now. But we also know that it is coming to all Android TV’s and devices in the future. So the choice will become greatly limited in the future.
I’m hoping that Plex are exploring all options, and talking with Google.
Me too. I’m sure there is some way to solve this technically, either by providing a cloud proxy which re-directs to local content, or by allowing each person’s individual Plex server to be its own cloud server which returns results to the search. Having not seen the API, I don’t know which (if any) works best. It all starts with Google providing an API for the vendor to do this, and if we are to believe previous statements, it seems that one might not exist. I really hope that’s not true, Plex is an incredibly popular service, and Google would do well not to ignore its needs. On the flip side, as you say, this launcher will eventually take over ATV completely, so Plex should start thinking about how they integrate with it, and pressuring Google if needed.
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Neither of these are possible. Google just hasn’t provided a way to talk to anything locally, period.
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That’s a pity. I don’t suppose you have considered the following:
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Plex provides a well-known web location that is the cloud server that Google is looking for
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The search results from the Plex server are user sensitive, they require an account name (e.g. a google account which links with a Plex account), and they return results specific to that account
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The well-known plex cloud server that returns the results, either does it from meta-data that it has collected from that account’s local server (less desirable), or it forwards the request on to the account’s local server and asks for the results back directly from the user’s Plex server at home.
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Results are returned from what appears to Google to be a well-known cloud server, but unknown to goole, they are actually results which are specific to that user.
Only one suggestion, but I’m sure there is a way of providing a single well-known cloud location to Google, and then hiding the specifics of how it gets individualized results from the search request.
I write software for a living, and I know there is always a solution, but sometimes it just requires more code that you are willing to write to make it worth it. In this case, it is probably worth it in the long-run, regardless of how much code it requires.
Not possible.
What you describe is basically what Alexa does and why that’s able to work. Google hasn’t made Google Home work that way.
Apparently the Google TV launcher is planning to support Sling. This service has an almost identical problem in that it may have different things that it can provide to different users based on what they recorded to their DVR. I can see how they got YouTube TV working, they own these servers, but not in this case. I wonder how they will manage to get this to work with Sling? One has to believe there is a way to do it; I expect Sling is not going to provide Google with direct access to all its users DVR information. There are a number of services apart from Plex which provide a different result based on the account being used, I have to believe that this problem can be solved, and that Google already know it will become an issue, surely they have indicated that they will do something about it and/or help Plex out here.
Is that Sling’s DVR service or their streaming service, i.e. Sling TV? Sling TV yes, since that’s just another online provider. They would face the same problems as PMS for locally DVR’d content.
Edit - You can already watch Sling TV on Google devices so adding it to Google TV is not a stretch.
Right, they would, which is exactly my point. I don’t know if they really plan to surface all the DVRd content from Sling, but if they didn’t, Sling would not be an equal with YouTube TV on this platform; If I were running Sling, I would be complaining too, if that were the case. There are enough of these services that Google needs to accomodate for it, and I’m sure they know that.
Right, we don’t, but at the rate the new Chromecasts are selling, and with how hard Google are pushing them, and knowing Google, I expect that this launcher will be on the majority of Android TV devices within a year or two.
Of course there are other launchers, but I haven’t seen any that incorporate a search platform and automatically surface things to watch.
Bottom line is that Plex need to be in negotiation with Google to get this resolved. It is in Google’s interest to help third party vendors incorporate in to their search engine, and usually, they are fairly accomodating with this, especially when the app is very popular (like Plex). I would not expect Google to play hardball here, but stranger things have happened. I’m sure people at Plex are already working with Google, but I suspect they can’t publish that on a post here.
Interesting question, but I don’t think Google suddenly grew a conscience overnight. Their primary concern is that they know what you watched so they can use it for data-mining to sell targeted advertising. If I watch 50% of my TV through Plex, then they just lost half my information.
cord-cutting and recording and watching FTA broadcasts is a legitimate and rapidly growing segment of the market, and Plex is at the forefront of that. I’m pretty sure Google don’t want to ignore that; and if you happen to have a few illegal copies of video material it’s not really their concern.
Exactly. My prime reason for using Plex is to watch my legally purchased CD/DVD’s which I store in sleeved disc containers in a cupboard, and so I can record FTA TV (as a recent Pass member). I don’t live in a ‘cord-cutting’ country.
Half of the FTA stations where I live were on-board as a GTV service upon launch, so they are already doing a great job of offering many ‘catch up’ TV recommendations in the new UI. The only subs service I use is Netflix.
@ballfam Your 50% mark is pretty much spot on with my personal Plex experience. I’m sure Google were slurping that data up with the older Channels feature. And now they have nothing from me. I’m more than happy to provide the data, so long as there is value in return.
This is definitely a problem that Google needs to solve, and it is not restricted to Plex. My Sling TV example, might be a good one, but I have found another very major and current issue. None of the Google TV searches or suggestions ever surface anything I subscribe to through Amazon Prime TV. Prime has several subscription options, but again, they are account specific. As an example, I subscribe to BritBox through Prime, and nothing on BritBox ever shows up in any of the Google TV searches, no matter how hard I try, even a direct search for a specific show name will not show Prime as an option if the show is watched through an optional subscription.
Plex devs; I think you can use this as more ammunition to force Google to help solve this issue. Prime is second only to Netflix in popularity as a streaming service, and not showing any subscriptions is a major deal. The list of services which have this general problem is long, and it needs to be solved, please Plex devs, get onto Google about this and get it fixed.
Wow…even worse; I have spotted another issue. None of the information about what was watched from any Netflix profile other than the main profile shows up in any of the suggestions or other things surfaced in the launcher (e.g. “Continue Watching”). Basically, because Google is only going to some well-known cloud location to retrieve the information, rather than asking the backgrounded app, it cannot see anything that was watched on Netflix in any profile other than the main account profile. Again, another piece of account specific information which is missed. I like it this way, I have no interest in getting suggestions based on what my kids watched, but yet again, it is that same fundamental flaw in the new search which Google needs to fix.
To be clear we are looking into getting our online catalogue of free movies/TV on there like Netflix, etc.
This is not the same as a users personal Plex Media Server which as mentioned above is not possible to integrate into that Google TV feature.
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