Why is it that Plex “client” (Player) apps can’t play PLEX MEDIA compatible with their “Plex client devices”?
Why can’t Plex offer the target client app the option to play the media using a device compatible client app that can play it?
I can understand that Plex cannot provide a player for all clients available out there, yet Plex says they can???
Really turns off a lot of new Plex customers, like me…
The most annoying of all is that after purchasing a PlexPass for PMS DVR and failing to play/stream/sync device supported mp4 H.264/AC-3 TV recordings from the Plex DVR BETA to my Apple iPad Pro, which is more than capable of playing them natively, I’m not sure what the Plex iOS Player wants, or if I even want to use a “Plex Player”.
Because of the lack of Plex support I spent over 16 hours researching this trying to figure out how Plex Clients work and realized I really don’t want to be a Plex Programmer. I just want to play my media!
I have other players on the iPadPro that are MORE THAN CAPABLE. Like I said, was suckered into Plex DVR.
I installed a hacked Plex iOS client profile to play my files and it’s working for me now, so let me know what you want me to try if you need more info. If you’re the iOS developer you really need to check out the specs for the devices you support.
I cannot promise fast response as it’s working for me now and I don’t have time to play with a Beta I didn’t sign up for, I really don’t want to play with anything in the setup since it’s working. I just can’t believe I’m the only one in the Universe that has this issue…
(I’m not an Apple person so the exact specifics on that platform I cannot vouch for, this is more of a generic statement for your enlightenment purely)
The Plex client, on many devices (afaik), doesn’t have their own player to play the media in question. They utilize the native player that comes with the device. This can render confusion since you might try [me exaggerating to make a point here] VLC on Windows and then play the same file in Plex Web and wonder WTH is going on? Why isn’t the file playing as it does in VLC? Well, the Plex Web client is limited by what the browser supports. VLC isn’t. It has their own setup of codecs etc. But it is the same device (a PC). The same applies on say for instance the Xbox One where the internal Bluray app has support for more than 3rd party apps such as Plex, and this isn’t Plex’s “fault” - they are limited due to Microsoft’s implementation.
So in short, often when Plex is limited by stuff it is most likely due to what the native app report to Plex that it can handle. An MP4 H264 AC3 file should work on most products - but little things like AC3 could case a audio transcode on some, the H264 level could be too high (many comes with 4.1 and should be set at 4.0 to ensure it works on as many devices as possible), the bitrate could be over 20Mbit and the app “shouldn’t” be able to handle it but you have the latest and greatest iPad which can due to an increase in cache…
So, it isn’t as easy as saying “This app that only does one thing, and that is to play media files on my [device], and brings their own codecs etc [to the device], is much better than Plex!”. It is a much more complex reality than that and I have only touched the most obvious points.
