How do you feel about the discontinuation of podcast support?

General Discussions Plex Features
42

While I can understand why Plex may need to prioritise & spotted Podcasts getting more & more flakey as time went on I’m disappointed for 2 main reasons:

  1. This seems the end of the original Plex dream of all your media content in one place, across everywhere. As podcasts are a key part of my regular media consumption.

  2. Just how shorter notice we’ve been given of this! The first time I knew about this was a Plex email today on Sat 9th April, saying Podcasts will be gone on Fri 15th April!
    So less than a week’s notice, while I’m already away on holiday :unamused:

Surely 1-2 months would have been MUCH more reasonable notice of any major functionality removal?

8 Likes
43

At this point I have to wonder how long it will be before we see a similar announcement of discontinuation of support for locally-hosted movies and TV shows…

2 Likes
44

I looked at it when it was first added but it didn’t interest me.

45

This is absolutely the end game for Plex. They just want to insert themselves into the streaming pipeline, they don’t give the slightest sh*t about your personal media.

2 Likes
46

Will podcasts still function within PlexAmp since that’s a separate branch and different purpose? I never used podcasts in Plex but did like the function in PlexAmp.

47

It’s disappointing and I think it goes against Plex’s plans to be the ‘central hub’ for all of our media. Better podcasts functionality (and support for audiobooks…) could have been an integral part of Plexamp.

5 Likes
48

I only linked to the announcement. I didn’t write it. I’m not Plex.

49

I hate this, I have all my podcasts organized to my preference on Plex as it was my one stop media player.

Is this being discontinued because you couldn’t determine a way to monetize it? >:(

6 Likes
50

  • Whatever code they had to import various external feeds wasn’t working correctly and broke as soon as they had revamped the Podcasts feature. We sat around for a year to get nothing but a few whispers but hardly any evidence that anything was on the horizon to rectify the error messages we received for feeds that didn’t want to import.

  • Plex had numerous attempts to fix the downloading mechanisms within the Plex app and no matter how much they tried, they couldn’t get it to work correctly. Scheduled downloading wasn’t always working properly, then there were requests by the community to add or have better downloading management and it’s my guess that implementation of those requests were hard to do.

  • Various factors like speed adjustments, 10 sec skip/rewind controls were added but not customizable to users liking.

  • Then there was the fact that if we wanted a podcast to be featured or added to the depository there was no other way but to add it manually to our own accounts, instead of having it automatically added to the podcast aggregator that’s done on the backend.

“We hope to add a more formal podcast submission process in the future, but one isn’t currently available, sorry.”

Yeah? And that day won’t be coming anytime soon.

PlexAmp was the savior that I had hoped would help fix podcasts but I suppose the implementation of it within PlexAmp would cause nuance, but from what was said by Elan, is that he had hoped to merge some of the powerful mechanisms that were in PlexAmp into the Plex app. I personally was really looking forward to having the download mechanism that’s in PlexAmp be brought into the Plex app so we could have a better Podcast experience.

I have no clue what went on behind close doors but it’s very irritating to know 2 to 3 years went to waste on revamping stuff only for it to not work, duck tape, then nothing.

3 Likes
51

Hugely disappointing as a long time user, despite the problems. This decision renders Plex on my phone useless in a twice daily use, to at maybe once per week or even not at all.

Sad that as a Plex Pass user functions disappear despite having subscribed for a one-stop-shop.

2 Likes
52

You say that like if having Plexamp was a bad thing. Music is a huge part of the reasons I use Plex. I use Plexamp literally everyday. It’s an outstanding product, and in my opinion the best music player there is.

I really think Plexamp is one of Plex’s best features. If there’s one reason to be a Plex Pass owner, it’s this.

5 Likes
53

With over 100 employees and the FACT they can’t even support the bare minimum with all their supported devices then I welcome the discontinuation of all the 3rd party crap in favor of PAID FOR FEATURES AKA Live TV & DVR et al.

@elan Plz and thx

1 Like
54

I happen to love Plexamp and use it every single day and I am happy it is a feature that just works.

55

Careful what you say, Live TV and DVR are hardly core offerings, despite what users may think :wink:

2 Likes
56

It’s a major annoyance. Would prefer that support/development be deprecated rather than removing the feature outright.

2 Likes
58

I was actually using this service from Plex. I was happy I could add podcasts that were not in the service already. I thought it fix with the objective of Plex to have all your media in one place, but I guess they did not see it the same way.

3 Likes
59

Meh, not a big one for me personally. I’d prefer Plex and Roku provide a fix for my Roku ultras turning everything orange.

60

Orange in what way?

61

Never used it, but I can understand people that do use it

1 Like
62

Not trying to hijak…