Getting Ready for Plex Nine

I just learned about the upcoming (?) Plex Nine only a couple of days ago. I use and really like Plex, but I don’t keep up with the whole thing so closely, so it was a nice surprise for me.



I was wondering if things will be so different that I should maybe take a break from tweaking my library at the moment. I know that Nine will make it easier to organize films and metadata, so I guess I shouldn’t work too hard on editing information that I’ve gotten behind on (like around 50 films), unless it really is going to be quite a while until the new version is out. Could there be any opinions on this?



I also wanted to know if existing skins will work just as well with the new Plex. Are there some beta testers who are working on Nine skins as I type? I really adore my Alaska skin, so if I can still use that, or an updated version, that will be very good!



Thanks for all the help, if anyone feels up to it. Please pardon the borderline technically-inept and someone who’s not yet quite up to snuff on the [exciting] new Plex.

The library is what’s undergone the most changes in Plex/Nine. The two versions aren’t compatible - you’ll need to re-scan your movies when the new release is out. However, metadata editing won’t be available in the first release (0.9.0), except for customising posters/artwork. Editing all metadata fields will be available in 0.9.1, so if full customisation is important to you, you may want to wait.



As for the skin, we’ve been working with the skin developers to help them update their skins for Plex/Nine, but unfortunately nobody is actively maintaining Alaska any more. Unless somebody new decides to take it on, it won’t work with 0.9.




Wait, we can't edit movie titles? I certainly hope we can. Did anyone else notice the backlash on boxee? Keep it OhNiner hidden until this feature is available please, simply so people don't abandon plex.

If the dev team releases a public alpha, why does it have to be feature-complete? Just like when the 0.5 series turned into the 0.7-series and then 0.8-series you will always have the possibility to use the previous version (0.8.5 will not be the last update of the 0.8-series). 0.9.0 will miss quite a few things that are needed to have a complete experience, but none of the things are crucial for the masses, and definitely not as it is regarded as a public alpha.

from my experience, it simply is not as important to be able to edit movie titles. in my case this only matters for content that cannot be found and scanned properly e.g. home movies and content that’s simply not well known enough to have an entry in thetvdb.com etc.

usually plex will decide to make its own thumb and leave the synopsis blank. (which is correct)



you may only have a problem when plex finds an incorrect match for content like this and you’re stuck with incorrect info. this has happened on two documentaries so far. and believe you me, I have done some rigorous library scanning lately :wink:



so in short, this is not such a dealbreaker as you make it out to be I think.

Yes, I think the issue is that it’s hard to understand how much better the scanning and matching part has gotten better between 0.8.5 and 0.9.0.

So my advice is, just wait with the judgement until you have tried the first public alpha :slight_smile:

@hrcolb0: As I said, we plan on introducing full metadata editing in 0.9.1. There are tons of new features we want to bring to the 0.9 series that won’t be available in the first version, but come on - people are already irritated enough by the delays to the release; I think the backlash would be far worse if we delayed it even further. I also said that if metadata editing is important to you, you don’t have to upgrade, but we’re certainly not going to hold the release back any longer than we need to.

Another thing that helps in Nine is that if imdb lists alternate titles, Plex uses the ones that is closest to the filename. So, while in Plex/Eight, I had Kataude mashin gâru and Die unendliche Geschichte in my library (until I edited the titles), now they automatically get the titles The Machine Girl and The Neverending Story.



It makes having the ability to manually edit the title less of an urgent necessity.

Thank you all for the comprehensive replies. I’ll continue to edit the basic filenames for my movies so that they can be identified more easily. I’m still really looking forward to Plex 9 – I shouldn’t have any issues having the new version on my Mac alongside the version I have now, right? I imagine it would be like having any other two separate pieces of software on my computer.



It’s a shame about Alaska. It seems to be the cleanest and most minimal skin that I’ve tried. I’m always up for trying others though.

I know that I have 4 sets of movies: Bond, Harry Potter, Star Wars, and LoTR. I want these sets listed by year. If they are to sit in the larger Library (which is what I prefer, similar to how they do now) then I title them Bond I: XXXXX, Bond II: XXX, etc. That way they are listed by date within a larger group listed by name.



I understand that this may be a minor or unused feature to some. It has no link to how good or bad the scrapers are. It has to do with implied no loss of function. When stepping up to a new milestone, one expects that functions that worked properly would not be discarded. If there is a new way to achieve the same output, then so be it. Drop the old in favor of the new. But if the new cannot provide the same function as the old one, why discard?



I can get the old source code. Give me access to the new and I will be “Plex developer solely in charge of making name editible”.



I have proposed a different way (I think) to working with EyeTV, that I think is fairly easy compared to the old way.

I have proposed making the skin I use (PlexTV) available for 0.9

I have raised my hand saying I will figure out a way to get name editing to work.



I also slammed out 4 admittedly halfassed, but still usable, plugins that (0.6 versions) should play video well enough to at least be listed in the wiki, and extremely useful to me.



What else do I need to propose for alpha access to get working on these?

And Jam,



I do totally appreciate the work you guys are doing. You have made me able to convince the wife to drop cable. I cannot thank the whole team enough for that. But my frustration lies in creative contraception. I feel like the outlet for my creativity I want to work on the most is out there, other people are working on it, why can’t I? I am semi intelligent after all. I think I could give an interesting battle between me and any shepherding dog out there.

This is exactly why we’ll continue to offer two versions of Plex - the “stable” 0.8 series, and the “unstable” 0.9 series. Functionality has not been discarded - as I’ve said twice already in this thread, it’s planned, but hasn’t made the 0.9.0 release :slight_smile: The library is now a brand new system - none of the Plex/Eight code relating to library management exists in Plex/Nine. As such, it’ll take a few releases before 0.9 can offer all features the 0.8.x library did, which is why initial versions will carry the “alpha” tag, moving to “beta” when the feature set is comparable to the older version. However, for the features that are there, it already performs far better than the old library did, and resolves some major issues that cause problems for users every day but weren’t fixable without major architectural changes. There are also several new features that were simple to add/enable once the new architecture was in place.



Adding metadata editing isn’t really a “one guy” job either :slight_smile: The library is no longer the huge monolithic beast it was in Plex/Eight - it’s divided into several “layers”, many of which contain a lot of separate components, with different developers working on different parts. Providing support for editing the data, marking which data is user-entered (and thus shouldn’t be overwritten by new data coming in from online sources) and persisting it correctly requires changes on at least four different layers of the system. There isn’t even a single developer on the core team who could implement the feature on their own :wink: Some of the work has already been done, but it’s incomplete and won’t be exposed to the user in the first release. We already know how we want it to work, and how it’ll be implemented, but it’s a far more complex task than it sounds.

So this has been discussed before, but I’ll like to ask again (hope you don’t mind :slight_smile: ):



How will local metadata be treated in Plex/9? I.e. local fanart, local thumnails, local nfo-files.



At the moment, I rely on local metadata exclusively, because it gives me more control of what is being displayed. For instance, I prefer posters from sources which Plex doesn’t scrape from (www.getvideoartwork.com), and I like to pick my own fanart from the many available versions on e.g. themoviedb. And just as I like having cover.jpg adjacent to my music albums, I prefer to have these metadata adjacent to my movies (same goes for subtitles, which I embed in M4V files and store as separate srt-files). And for the text-metadata I use .nfo files, which I “prescrape” (using XBMC Media Companion, sorry) - that allows me to modify the nfo files, e.g. the titles or the plot, to fit my needs. For example, I add to the beginning of the plot text on which of my multiple external harddrives I store a specific movie. It is not that I don’t trust Plex to scrape my metadata - it is just a way of future proofing my library (and the incompatibilities you mention between the libraries in Plex 8 and 9 suggest that this is a good strategy).



So is it possible to use local metadata with the metadata agents in Plex/Nine? How can one write such an agent, if it is not already included?



Thanks :slight_smile:




I am pretty sure I could handle it. I have a lot of free time. But whatever. When it comes our I'll either add it or eyetv. See you then



Use of local posters, fanart and nfo files will not be available in the initial public release but local posters and fanart will be available soon after.


All I'm saying is that I don't think my changes are impossible. I think I'm smart, not like people say. I have a masters thesis that had 6600 lines of fortran77 code that was a particle tracer that 8 years later is still state if the art. Pretty sure j can handle four layers. But since the developer list is closed for 0.9, I'll get eyetv working once 9 is released. I'll post screenshots of it working, and then not release it. At least then I can feel like a plex developer.

Insinuating that you’re somehow entitled to being a developer because you think you’re good at code is not much better than me insisting that I should be the prime minister here because I’m all nice and stuff. I’ve zero reason to question whether or not you have actual skills, but to get opportunities and power you usually have to prove yourself not just with field appropriate skills, but with people skills. The Plex developers are probably quite proficient at what they do, but it appears that people are also chosen for the job because they are people one would enjoy working with.



:: eyeroll ::

hrcolb0: What do you hope to achieve with comments like that? If you really want to feel like a Plex Developer, use two years of your free time to work on developing software that people all over the world love to use while putting up with unnecessary comments like yours while trying to continue to be polite to a small percentage of users that seem to display an extreme lack of patience. Nothing that Jam said was insulting or otherwise rude. We believe you if you say you’re a capable coder. In this case it doesn’t really matter since Plex Media Server is closed source. Elan and the developers have a specific vision and goals for PMS. Without sounding rude and hostile, at this point your only option is to be patient like the rest of the world is doing.



This ends now or I close the thread. We’ve had enough flaming threads recently and I don’t have the appetite for another one.



and you're modest also :rolleyes: