Does the stated reason for the closure of the “Add TV Everywhere” feature request mean Plex plans to stop supporting cable tuners in the DVR since it is basically the same type of thing?
It’s just referring to the integration of 3rd party providers / services (as per the statement in the initial closure). This isn’t related to DVR – watching and recording live TV via a supported tuner.
A cable service is a 3rd party provider, and there are basically three types now based on how they distribute the live TV.
- Closed network (coax or fiber optic) cable service
- Internet cable service
- Satellite dish cable service
Channels DVR has proven it is technically possible to support the first two distribution methods in their DVR system.
Plex closing the “Add TV Everywhere” request implies they are definitely not going to be adding the second method, so what is the reasoning for only ever supporting the first method or even keeping the first method, and lagging behind the competition?
I’m not arguing a case… just giving the feedback given by Plex in closing this.
BTW – this comment has now also been included in the Please Read: Before submitting a feature Suggestion note.
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Yeah, it was closed because it was just a blind clean-up of all the various “can you add this service” requests. Which is par for the course with Plex, as they simply like to respond to things like “Google won’t let us do it” for google home integration, “Or we totally called tv everywhere people and they didn’t respond”
Other programs do both of these things, and do it well with far less resources.
The threads were closed to prevent “that they generally just become toxic with false beliefs and accusations about what we can or cannot do”
Meanwhile, what do they expect us to do? We have to come to the conclusion that It’s either that there isn’t a revenue stream potential like Tidal, Crackle or Arcade. Or they simply don’t care to do anything that’s slightly more complicated than plugging into someone’s API.
There isn’t a “TV Everywhere” public face to send an email to, whom exactly did they reach out to? It’s going to be the only way to access these channels in the future, and they very system the cable companies pointed at as the universal platform to have the FCC allow them to kill cablecard.
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Disgraceful that Plex closed all threads related to content providers after @elan was caught name-calling instead of rationally providing a reason for why the integration wasn’t going to happen. (Hint: they weren’t going to get a piece of the pie, like I’m sure they do with Tidal. That’s still around??)
It has nothing to do with not getting a piece of the pie. Integrations require a ton of work to create and maintain, assuming the provider even wants to work with us or return our calls. Let’s not assume everything is a conspiracy.
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They don’t get a piece of privately hosted movies, privately hosted TV shows, privately hosted photos, privately hosted music, or privately hosted DVR even though they provide the backbone for the service. Seems kind of ignorant to assume that the reason they nixed this is because they weren’t getting a piece of it. I’d imagine the barriers caused by the providers themselves are a much larger obstacle then you realize, that doesn’t present enough of an upside to redirect resources from other projects that they have. Things like x265 transcoding, audio book support, better support for multiple cuts of films, better subtitle support, etc. The list goes on and on of things that affect the core functionality of Plex. Not to mention the likely hellscape of legal BS they would face in trying to implement something like this.
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I’m just wondering how long it will be until we can’t buy cable channel tuners anymore, especially one that will work with Plex on a NAS. With Silicon Dust canceling development on their new cable tuner it seems like the only option soon will be to rely on the cable company’s TV Everywhere service for any access outside of their proprietary DVR box.
And to the main question, how is integrating with cable channel tuner hardware easier than TV Everywhere? Is it because TV Everywhere is more like reverse engineering while the hardware manufacturers provide third party integration resources?
You could have said as much in this thread. Qobuz integration with Plex (similar to Tidal)
I don’t really understand how the people in that toxic thread couldn’t see that it would likely be a MASSIVE conflict of interest to integrate Qobuz when Plex already had integration and very likely an agreement with Tidal. Also thank for sharing that post to clarify what you meant when you said
I feel like he would have been justified in saying much worse after someone claimed and encouraged others to review bomb Plex because their whiny entitled self didn’t get what they wanted.
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To be pedantic I’d say it was more like a conflict of priorities in terms of already having (what we consider to be) an excellent streaming service (quality, catalog, geographic reach), so we’d rather spend the time improving and fixing issues with that integration rather than do another one entirely (even assuming they’d talk to us).
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