When you have so many movie buffs using the same server, it would be great to have more options when using Watch Together. Here are some examples of features that would be helpful to enhance the experience with friends or large groups. This would be great choice for Plex Pass servers.
Have more then one server admin that can start sessions or allow users that share common server to start their own session without being friends. Alternative Edit: Have “Add Friend” button next to Invite when user select Watch Together.
Allow the host to limit controls of other users pause/start playback or skips/scrub, to prevent accidental button press or start of the session.
Scheduling of sessions with notification to the selected parties when a session will start. Based on local time for the user or count down timer.
Additional analytics on users during a session in the Dashboard for bandwidth connection quality, to see who causing buffering time skip for other users.
Remove the video quality selection in the settings tab and leave it just in the player for fixed bit rate/direct play or automatically adjust while keeping user preferences for other playback. I’ve had to tell so many friends to go into settings to change from default 720p 2mbits to something else. Alternative Edit:Default All Clients to Max Internet Streaming - #3 by GaMEChld
These are just few issues I’m seeing with new comers to Plex eco system and not familiar with all the features.
Not to disagree with your requests, just small comments on a few of them.
Any friends can already initiate Watch Together sessions with each other. No admin required.
What would the additional analytics be?
If you’re the server admin, it might be worth setting a lower Remote Access → Limit remote stream bitrate on the server before starting a large Watch Together party.
Maybe I should go into more detail on the matter, I might be missing something
Any friends can already initiate Watch Together sessions with each other. No admin required.
From my understanding they can only do this if they are friends using the account manager and know their user name or email of the person. I’m speaking more of common users on the same server, without the need for everyone to friend each other outside the common server.
What would the additional analytics be?
If someone doesn’t have correct quality settings they buffer lot more causing backwards skipping of the content being played. It would be helpful to know which user is causing that. A buffer graph or percentages to see if they are keeping up or not.
If you’re the server admin, it might be worth setting a lower Remote Access → Limit remote stream bitrate on the server before starting a large Watch Together party.
I already have that set, more of new users that aren’t aware of all setting menus in Plex. They try change quality in the player, but hit a road block because player is defaulted to 720p 2mbits. It would go along the lines of this post. Which also causes lot of transcoding on my end.
These are some of the reasons I’m on the forum today. As far as limiting control for playback options, the session creator could have the option to allow guests to start the stream and/or allow controlling the playback during the stream, but it either defaults to only the creator having control, or the server owner can set the default behavior in the server settings.
Scheduling watch together sessions would be amazing. Maybe even adding an option to disable playback of the title that the scheduled session is for, to prevent guests from starting on their own.
For the analytics for who is causing the looping, buffering, etc this would be amazing. I just had a session today where my family and I watched something and it kept looping and the only way I could figure out where the problem was coming from was to have them each leave the party one at a time. Needless to say, that definitely causes a less than ideal experience. Something that allows the server owner to see where the problem is coming from would be great, and maybe even allow the session to stop trying to sync with that person so that the other guests aren’t also stuck in a looping video.
As noted in our previous announcement, our existing Watch Together functionality will not be included in our new experience apps on launch, which are currently in preview and will be released broadly in the future.
As such, we’re closing related feature suggestions in order to give back those votes, so that you can vote for something else.
We do not preclude the possibility of offering similar functionality again in the future, as we also noted in our announcement. Should that happen, then feature suggestions like this one and others would certainly be considered during that development.
A new suggestion related to adding Watch Together to our new experience apps has already been raised and you’re welcome to comment or vote on that suggestion.
