When I open Plex Media Player on my HTPC I now receive a popup notification about “The Future of Plex on the Desktop” which recommends me to get “Plex for Windows.” Which in and of itself is confusing, because I’m running PMP on Windows. and it’s telling me to get Plex for Windows…
What’s the difference? I’ve read these articles, can’t tell what’s the difference, and have some concerns.
The last link says the new Plex player is “ending support for HTPCs as a platform.”
This is concerning because I run Plex Media Server on a HTPC solely for the Over The Air Live TV features. The whole reason I got Plex was for the DVR functionality. The announcement in the last link makes it sound like support for this feature will end…
Why don’t you just install Plex for Windows and see for yourself? It is just a different application than PMP and both can run in parallel (or at least being installed in parallel).
Yes PMP does not receive new feature but is still maintened in terms of bug fixing if I am correct since there was a ■■■■ storm in this very forum when the end of PMP was announced.
Here is PMP - receiving updates, new features, just as if nothing ever happened:
the only problem: - Plex is so mad at PMP for not dying quietly - they won’t allow it in the house with Plex for Whatever.
The Difference is that PMP has a TV View so you don’t have to use these to work it on your TV from across the room:
Plex wanted badly to get rid of it - thinking the small number of users Internal Logistics revealed are using it - would just vanish and Plex could go on about the bidness of delivering sub-par clients to an ever-increasing number of Advertising Absorbers. They even thought sending upper management into the chaos-factory to sell Shield’s was going to work - until it only made things worse.
Internal Logistics had the numbers right in that the group using PMP was small.
Internal Logistics didn’t reveal PMP users were gonna burn this forum to the ground and keep rescuers from coming in to pick up the bodies.
Plex caved in - wise if they wanted a public forum back:
^^that’s like War and Peace - the extended version - save reading it for a rainy day.
Yes - I use both PMP and Plex for Whatever.
PMP opens on the TV - cause it’s a Home Theater app.
PfW opens on the desktop - cause it’s a Desktop Player.
I’m still confused about the real difference. Maybe it’s because my HTPC is directly connected to my TV via HDMI cable, and also is a “desktop” computer (because I needed a “desktop” computer for the TV tuner card). So if I had trouble viewing the small app fonts, I’d just tell Windows to change the scaling…
Strange thing about the PMP version. The download file says 2.53, but PMP itself says Version 4.26.1.
I guess technically I don’t need PMP or PfW. I could just use the Plex Server for viewing on my TV which is directly connected to my desktop HTPC…
Plexweb will Direct Play almost nothing. <—it runs in your browser.
Plex for Whatever and PMP will Direct Play almost
everything. <–they don’t run in your browser. <—they are Player Apps.
I have my TV connected to the server machine via an HMDI cable.
I’d be a FOOL to drag Plexweb to the TV to transcode everything when I can drag either player app to the TV and Direct Play everything.
PMP is a very powerful player app with powerful and enhanced features available ONLY while in TV View Mode. <—the mode designed to work better on your TV - without some of these:
Plex for Whatever was Plex’s Dream app - they thought they’d sneak in 'cause nobody wanted a HTPC app with TV View Mode any more… WRONG!
If you don’t think you need TV View Mode on the TV, you do, you just don’t know it - or you have some Plex-Nocs-9000s sitting on the end table - the rest of those noisy HTPC users do need TV View Mode and they’ll be back in force if anything ever threatens that view mode again.
