Hi. Discover is available on my Samsung Plex TV App. However linking to other apps like (Netflex, Amazon, Hulu, etc.) is not working. When do you expect linking to work for external apps. I want to utilize the Discover Source and Universal Watchlist features, but without the external linking working to other apps both features are very limited.
Robert
That’s most likely a limitation of the TV App Ecosystem unfortunately. I haven’t used Samsung’s Tizen TV OS in a long time, but I assume it is a lot like LG’s WebOS since they were always pretty similar. I know the WebOS TVs have no ability to open other apps because they can’t even have a second app open in the background to do an update. This is a limitation of the OS, most Built-in TV OSs have low resources designed to be just enough to run the apps, so they usually lack things like this. On the LG app & the Vizio App it actually tells you when you go to Discover that the ability to open apps is not available. Does your Samsung TV say that Linking is not possible or does it fail to do it? If Samsung’s doesn’t say that Linking is not possible they may offer some support for it, but because of the limitations with the OS it may never work well, that’s a limitation Plex can do nothing to fix. But if that’s the case they may be trying to get it to work as best they can.
Plex Discover seems like an interesting idea. I think the bigger problem for me is that that I must sift through the hundreds (thousands?) of poor movies to find something that would be worthy of my time (looking at you Netflix). I would love the ability to search for movies that have certain IMDB ratings in certain genres . . . . For example, on my existing streaming services that I can watch through my current subscription (no rent or buy options), show me all movies (or series) with an IMDB rating of 8 or greater, crime drama. I guess a better “search” feature is really what I’d like to see.
This truly cool feature does not show up when accessing Plex thru an Amazon Fire Stick 4K. It does work acessing Plex thru my TCL Roku TV, but the only stuff that shows up are movies offered by Plex. I’d also like to see it handle separate watchlists on the same service (i.e. 2 watchlists on Netflix or Prime, etc.).
But that would no longer be a Watchlist. I would love to be able to make multiple collections that include things from other services, especially if I can set my own covers & metadata for them, then I’d just use my Vudu copies of Harry Potter instead of the Bluray rips because I could organize them & make the covers match. But I think that’s beyond what a Watchlist makes sense to handle.
I know the version for Chromecast w/ Google TV has it, & I think they are both under the same Plex for Android umbrella, so it should be there. I had to sign up for the Beta program to get the Beta version to fix a subtitle issue but it was there before that. Amazon’s App Store is different, so it’s possible their deployment is delayed as well. 1st see if there is an update for your Client App on your Firestick. If there isn’t you may have to either sideload it or sign up for the Beta or just wait until Amazon updates it.
That would be good even for within your server, you can filter a library, but you can’t search that filter, & they don’t stack so you can’t do more than 1 filter at a time so you couldn’t find Crime Dramas from Paramount or Crime Dramas from 1995. It’s either Crime Dramas OR Paramount, OR 1995 no & available. With the integration with streaming services if Plex were to get a good Search set up that alone would be a game changer, I know people who would install Plex JUST for that even if they never used it for anything else.
Hello,
The discover feature is a nice idea, but from what I can see it is still very US centric. I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but it would be good to be able to select the region where the different services you enable are from. Netflix in the US does not offer the same services in other countries, and vice-versa. The same is true for pretty much every streaming provider.
Thanks!
It’s supposed to be Region specific. It definitely was when it 1st came out, but you selected your country & it listed the available services from that country. There was a whole discussion or feature suggestion about letting us choose from multiple regions like if someone was in the UK & had BBC but had a US Netflix account or stuff like that. I saw they didn’t give the option to choose when someone pointed it out in one of the threads, but I was pretty sure the conversation led to the conclusion that it was determined by where your IP address was located, if you’re receiving only US results maybe when you set it up you were using a VPN with a US exit node or something? I’d suggest making sure your IP is in the country you want with ipleak.net from your server & then try re-setting it up
When using the search function it would find programs on discovery despite being able to find them on the discovery website
The Discovery Website? Are you talking about Discovery Channel? Do you mean “it would NOT find them despite being able to find them on the website” or “it would find them despite NOT being able to find them on the website”?
Here we are, a month later (i just received the next Plex newsletter after the one i originally read about this feature). Still no update of the app available on Amazon. What gives? Surely no separate build is required, it’s the same app as on the Google app store. And even if there were minor changes required to work with Amazon’s paid app system instead of Google’s, it shouldn’t take this long?
Why is the app delayed so long? It wasn’t too long ago that Plex provided weekly (yes, EVERY week!) updates to the app on the Amazon app store.
Incorrect.
Purely due to Amazon’s refusal to allow “deep linking” from one app to another. Which is desirable for the Discover feature.
I think the meaning was that the app CAN work on one if it works on the other as they use the same system from a software backend thing. As evident by the end of the thought
Acknowledging that there may be a platform issue preventing it from being allowed in the store. & supposing there shouldn’t be anything taking long for it be implemented.
Thank you for pointing out that Amazon Requires apps to not try to open other apps to be in the store, that I believe clarifies the reason it is taking so long.
As a workaround you could get the using APKcombo or similar services that let you download the apk from the Play Store, & sideload it on your Firestick. Though if they restrict App Linking there’s a good chance those links won’t work properly. Also note that you won’t get updates so when the feature finally comes out for FireStick to reinstall it from the Amazon store. & note that sideloading apps in not illegal, so long as you get the APK link from the play store its not dangerous, it’s not piracy, & most importantly it doesn’t require any “jailbreaking” or anything like that, just some clicks in settings to turn it on. Either that or wait
EDIT: You can also download the apk for the Android version & download it From Plex I can’t find one for Android TV, but that link comes from the Android TV Beta App’s Changes text
How about including PBS Passport as a searchable streaming service? I searched for all creatures great and small 2020 and found it for sale on various services but PBS Passport did not appear.
Excellent suggestions to sideload the app… However, i’ve tried this before. Unless you have a PlexPass, you’ll have to pay to use the app a second time. That’s where i’m stuck. I paid for it through the Amazon app store, and i’m using it on my phone and my Firestick. The Firestick is the reason i originally went with the Amazon app store. I’ve tried downloading the Google Play version, which has the new features, but then it says i have to pay to get full playback from my server. It doesn’t know i’ve already purchased that in the Amazon version of the app.
So my options are to pay for this access all over again, or wait some indeterminate amount of time. With no feedback even from an official Plex person, this is getting frustrating.
Yeah, that does limit your options. I think you can’t do the Beta version without a Plex Pass either, though I’m not 100% certain on that. I have a couple Firesticks, but I got fed up with Amazon when I learned they were using as much as 5GB of data when not turned on for a whole day. That was the last straw for me & I got a hacky Android TV box that worked better. Then the new Chromecast came out & I love those. But since this particular feature & it’s issues are so big I feel Plex has stopped working on anything else while it sorts out all the problems so I expect you should get it soon… Just can’t say when
Looks like this was due to a problem with the way TVNZ is doing their app. Basically I went to settings > TVNZ OnDemand > Open By Default > Add Link > www.tvnz.co.nz. The deeplinks work properly now.
Hello! I love the Watchlist, but I am not able to watch the movies or TV shows i added from my own Plex Library. I only see the option to “Remove from Watchlist” or “Watch from these Locations”, but I do not see any Play button to watch if from my own plex server (the one selected add to watch list from) I tried to turn off other sources to look for the content and they are all showing unchecked, so I am not sure how to launch something directly from my Watchlist i have created without going to the search bar and entering the name of the title again and picking the title in my own plex server. Honestly I have no interest in seeing the other options for paid subscription on my menu, but would love to see if there is a solution for this without going to the search bar again. It kind of defeats the purpose of the Watchlist in the first place.
Make sure your own library is using the current-generation Plex agents (e.g. Plex Movie, Plex TV series). If you do and select items still don’t Show, make sure to refresh the library metadata.
Using the web interface for Plex Media Server on my W10 PC - not seeing Discover anywhere and there is no “Streaming Services” option in Settings. I’m the admin and only user. Tried exiting and restarting, as well as signing out and back in.
I was able to use the Discover feature on the Plex app for Roku, which uses the same account, although any time I tried playing something from one of my streaming services it told me I could not play it and directed me to watch the show on the original service.
This isn’t a server feature. To use it in Plex Web you still need to use the hosted web app (https://app.plex.tv/desktop); the version bundled with your server does not yet have this functionality.
