Makes sense, but not what I’m interested in. I never watch any add-supported services where I can’t skip the ads. Might be a good idea to take a poll on this, but I suspect most Plex users want to see their own stuff in these results.
As mentioned, it is a Google problem, but it is one that needs to get solved for several reasons, and I’m pretty sure it is in Plex’s interest to pressure Google into providing a solution that works.
A tiny company such as ours can’t pressure Google into anything.
Sad truth of capitalism 
You should at least create an enhancement request as a developer; if enough developers request it, it will get done.
Maybe I shouldn’t post this, but here goes nothing. The new Chromecast with Google TV is brilliant IMHO. Instead of rows of icons, it puts the content that people might be interested in out there on the top layer. The source is a secondary consideration (perhaps as it should be). I think that the ability for Google’s recommendation engine to understand our personal collections is problematic. I don’t want Google recommending me things because it lives on my server. That is a privacy concern. On the other hand, I would love for Google to be able to search a local API to see if the content is available in Plex as a source. The Library section would be another great place for a Plex carousel for something like On Deck. I know that this is something that is not currently available, but I hope that is a feature they are willing to implement. Perhaps we all can bang our heads collectively at one of Google’s support pages/forums and request the feature. It will never happen unless we ask. I am sure people at Google use Plex, too! 
@pluxology, I’ll support @saskwatch’s argument here: I have over 3500 movies on my server, I wish I could recall what I have automatically downloaded. Furthermore, even if I remembered, I’d wish to be able to select Plex as a source (like Netflix or Prime Video) when considering a suggestion. Today, I look at the suggestion, have to wonder whether I have it on Plex, go to Plex, search it, and launch it. It means also that Google does not know I watched the movie unlike when I select, say, Netflix. Given proper prior authorization (plex token), a search and a deep link should be possible. Having said that, it sounds (from prior reading in this thread) like it is Google’s decision rather than Plex’s.
Surely not. I started building my media database almost 20 years ago. At time, ripping from VCR to VCD was still a thing… I cannot remember what I have, neither can my wife. And scrolling through thousands of movies to decide what to watch is never fun…
On the same side of this argument, then Google doesn’t need the newly released Google TV UI because there is the Google Play Movies app, the Netflix app, the Disney+ app, etc.
But back to the point of this thread, and without recovering what has already been said.
GTV is a new way to discover content (through recommendations and Google Assistant) without relying on memory or apps.
It is about removing friction in the user experience.
As an example, my local FTA providers have apps which I have never used. But their content is now starting to surface in the new GTV recommendations alongside the Netflix results. Whilst the amount of content I have access to hasn’t changed, the visibility of the content certainly has increased.
Inversely, this decreases my Plex content visibility, as I will be less likely to open the Plex app in favour of the frictionless and surfaced GTV recommendations. And, with the added blow of also not being able to use Google Home/Assistant search. All this can’t be good for Plex’s (Pass) business. It is in their best interest to find some kind of solution, if they can.
It feels like Plex is standing at a precipice. Just like music labels are aggregated through streaming services and tracks surfaced through playlists recommendeds, GTV is taking a similar approach for an aggregated viewing experience.
I love Plex, but I am not tied to it. It is clear that we need to put pressure on Google to have this opened to local content apps like Plex, and I have been hitting up (@)googlenest over on Twitter DM. Whilst it may be impossible now, it doesn’t mean this is the case in the future.
I feel I’ve now said all I need to in this thread. I hope the above helps Plex better understand how customers like myself are currently thinking, and why this is so important.
I just put mine in "app only " mode so I don’t see any suggestions at all.
I wonder if there’s the possibility for third party tools/launchers replicating the UI to do this.
Something along the lines of https://github.com/home-assistant/core or if it’s a third party launcher replicating the UI that can check tautulli
The For You tab is great for browsing when you aren’t sure what to watch. Having Plex included in it would be great.
Doesn’t sound like it’s possible though which is a shame.
I’d love that on mine. I just bought two Chromecast with Google TVs and looking to buy two more for Xmas gifts. I’d love Plex to show there and not just Netflix.
hi, i dont have a google tv ‘yet’ , but after readind this thread, is there not an plex app yet for “google tv” newest stick? so we still need to use the cast function like on chromecast? or what is this issue all about?
A plex app exists and works just fine. The issue here is the new Chromecast’s homescreen has a “For You” tab that pulls shows/movies from various sources to present to you. As of now, it can’t pull any information from a Plex server.
The “For You” tab only works for online services (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc). In the future I suppose Plex will provide their online content there, but not your local movies/series. That will never happen because of a limitation of Google.
Lots of info in this thread, and a bunch of other dev’s like me that were curious (e.g. @ballfam that gave some implementation ideas). I was curious myself so spent some time looking at the doc, I hope this summary helps everyone seeing the limitations.
The new Google TV launcher uses the same concept as the Google Assistant: they are based on what they call Media Actions. High level, services have to expose a list of media that’s available through them, with details about availability/access requirements etc… That list is not request-based (i.e. when the user searches). It’s polled by Google periodically, and they are the ones crunching the numbers on their side and caching it to know what to show to people.
Now, when it comes to limitations for what we’re asking for here:
Google hasn’t made this widely available (yet). They currently manually curate the list of providers and work with them for each integration.
They have a concept of entitlements, which is what providers can use to signify that a given item needs a subscription, or needs a specific tier of subscription. While this is free-form and someone could possibly piggy-back on this to have per-user lists, this does not hide the content from a user without a subscription. It’s what they use to redirect you to the sign-up page for the given provider if you want to see a given movie/show.
The only concept that can be used to filter content from users is the geographic area. For each item, the provider returns the geographic areas it’s eligible for, and if the user is there, Google shows it, otherwise it’s hidden. Again, the matching is done on Google’s side, so no opportunity to even hack this around to use user names as regions for example.
The data is updated every 6 hours. This doesn’t cause any issue for providers, as you can add items that only start showing in the future, but this would mean that a new movie added to your server would take 6 hours to show on the “For you” page.
In the end, it all makes sense, because Google wants to have some control and curate what they show, And providers like this, because with minimal work, by just saying they have a given Movie, Google is the one which will show a link to them along with other providers.
Unfortunately, this means that even if the Plex devs wanted to do something, the features are not available in what Google provides, at least as of today. Even if Plex was open-source, none of us could do it because of the missing features on the Google side.
So I guess I’m confused here. The shield TV, which I thought was running on basically almost the same system that the Chromecast with Google TV is running on, can do the thing where you search with the assistant and it searches all of your apps including Plex.
So am I correct in assuming that this ability is something that Nvidia went one step further with when they made their custom version of Android for the shield?
If that’s true then all I have to say is Google sucks.
Nvidia does do their own customizations, and provides functionality over and above basic google or android tv.
The shield hardware is also way above and beyond other gtv hardware.
That’s just a couple reasons why the shield has a price premium over and above other streaming devices.
I have multiple shields, and the ccwgtv, and I hate the new gtv ui.
Thankfully the shield has not been infected with it, so far.
My personal opinion of course.
No it’s nothing to do with Nvidia’s customisations. Essentially there are two systems when it comes to Android TV integrations. The first is one is when the apps provide data directly to the device. This is what the Shield and other Android TV devices use. This enables things like integration with the “Watch Next” row, custom app rows on the home screen and integration into search results on the TV. The apps simply tell Android TV what content they can provide and there is no involvement from an external web service.
The other integration type is integrating with Google directly, not through apps. This is the method used on the Google TV skin. Essentially a content provider supplies their entire catalogue to Google directly, so that it can appear in search results on the Google website, and then in recommendation and searches on Google TV. This means it’s impossible for Plex to integrate with the Google TV, outside of their free movies and TV offering, as there is no way to tell Google about the various different catalogues that each user has (plus the obvious privacy concerns of either Plex or Google knowing what content is in your library). Basically this level of integration is geared exclusively towards streaming services, not services that allow you to have your own local content.
Exactly what I’ve been saying.
So basically you’re saying the chromecast with Google tv COULD work the better way, but it doesn’t because google are a bunch of controlling dickwads.
I didn’t really buy the excuse that it was because the Chromecast with Google tv had inferior hardware because it has no issue streaming my gaming pc via steam link, and I have to imagine that is more hardware intensive than a backend system that searches my local plex library.
