Are there plans to make the Enhanced Video Player available to users without Plex Pass any time in the future? I have several users who purchased Apple TVs due to the functionality of this new player but they only get the benefit of it when logged into my primary account, which is far from ideal.
The new Enhanced Player is still a beta feature and as such, only Plex Pass members get access to this feature. It will eventually be taken out of beta, but we have no timetable for when that might happen. It could happen tomorrow, or it could happen next year.
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I have Plex Pass, but my main admin account (the one with Plex Pass) is NEVER used for watching TV, etc. – it’s only used for administration.
Because of this, I can’t effectively use the “Enhanced Video Player”, even though I’m paying for it.
The “Enhanced Video Player” should be allowed if the user has Plex Pass, or if the user is connected to a Plex Pass enabled server – just like is allowed with sync. There is no way in hell I’m going to, nor should I be required to, purchase Plex Pass for everyone in my house!
As it is now, without the “Enhanced Video Player”, I can’t play-back live TV on our Apple TV using family member user accounts without stuttering.
It will be made available to all users eventually.
Sure, but in the meantime, things I’m paying for, like Live TV, are not working correctly for me on all devices, since they depend on the enhanced video player to work correctly.
True but…
…Is NOT a normal usage scenario. Sorry but you have created your own issue.
I’m not being snarky and for sure that is one of the few things that Emby has dealt with better than Plex sadly.
I absolutely understand the approach you want to take, but as you discovered it can’t really be done in Plex.
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It is PERFECTLY normal usage when you have a family. The administrator account has more access than you’d generally want to give every one. Except for this single feature, using other accounts for the rest of the family has worked as expected.
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I was going to say “but not in Plex’ eyes”
However the more I think about this, is a solution not to…
Have your PlexPass admin account create home users for all the family including yourself?
I have no idea if you currently do use separate accounts for each family member or you simply have the admin account and a single viewing account.
I just switched users on my AppleTV and it still uses MPV (the enhanced player) regardless of the user having a PlexPass. If they are part of your Plex “Home” PlexPass doesn’t matter.
Honestly I have no idea why this didn’t occur to me last night.
I personally do use my PlexPass admin account for viewing. But if I didn’t want to I could just…
Create myself a secondary account.
Add that account to Plex Home.
Sign in on the ATV4K with the primary account.
Switch user to the secondary account.
To ensure no one uses the admin account for viewing PIN protect it.
I originally had my family set up this way but the enhanced player decided to turn itself off for my father and the option to turn it back on was gated by PlexPass. The only way to engage the enhanced player again was to sign into my admin account. It seems like this player is proven enough to move out of beta.
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Yeah actually I see what you mean.
I can only take your word that it turned itself off but turning it off manually I can reproduce what you say.
If I sign in with my admin email/pass then select a different account from the list, I am able to turn on the “Enhanced Player”. However, family members will often sign out of Plex entirely, and I don’t want to give them the admin credentials to be able to sign back in when I’m not around, which isn’t an unusual occurrence for me. (If you sign back in with a non-admin email/pass, you are no longer able to use the enhanced player.)
“Managed Users” have a similar problem, requiring being signed in with the admin account, but additionally don’t seem to work while traveling.
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Handing out admin credentials is not great OPSEC. This would all be a non-issue if the enhanced player was not considered a beta feature. We also wouldn’t see different behavior when signing in with admin or non-admin account. With how successful this player has been, I do not see why keeping it in beta is necessary.
I’m know I’m preaching to the choir, but I agree.
That said, if for some reason Plex wants to keep this a PlexPass feature, it, like any other PlexPass feature, needs to be usable by non-PlexPass users logged in to a PlexPass server – without having to hand out admin credentials.
Not all Plex Pass features are available to users without a Plex Pass when they’re in a home. The Enhanced player will become the “normal” player at some point in the future, hopefully not too far away!
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Family configurations should NOT be treated as second class citizens, with non-primary accounts not seeing full features – yet Plex has done this over and over again. (LiveTV, DVR, etc.)
Please re-think your approach on this. I will not be purchasing Plex Pass for every family member, nor should I be expected to. I would sooner start donating development time to Jellyfin.
I wouldn’t say they’re treated as “second class citizens”. Most Plex Pass features are available to Home users, however the Enhanced Player is an experimental feature, and we don’t generally make experimental features available to Home users. Both Live TV & DVR are available to Plex Home users, so I’m not sure what you’re referring to there.
Initially, LiveTV and DVR recording management were not available to any user but the admin user – just like being able to watch LiveTV without glitches on AppleTV currently isn’t available to anyone but the admin account because the Enhanced Player is blocked for them.
This delayed release for non-admin accounts makes it impossible for me to effectively use any of these features when they’re first released, since I never use my main admin account for anything but administration.
So, yes, I would say that families are treated as second class citizens.
You’re right that it wasn’t initially available to Home users, however we’d publicly stated that was something we were working towards, and there’s more involved than just ticking a box to make it available. Some features are available to Home users as soon as it’s released (such as volume levelling and Sweet Fades for music in the mobile apps), it really depends on what’s involved with that feature.
Of course, but as a software developer myself, I know that it isn’t all that difficult. It’s just a matter of priorities – and “Home” users seem to be a lower priority – aka: second class citizen.
As a software developer, you should know people not familiar with the architecture or code saying “It can’t be that hard” rarely reflects what it’s actually like 
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