Go look closely at the App Store listings. They have pushed PMS all the way to the bottom as an afterthought. It’s literally a bullet point that (paraphrased) says, oh yeah and you can manage your personal media too.
They have been slowly moving their AVOD to the forefront for a while now and it’s becoming much more obvious this is going to be their focused income stream. PMS isn’t making enough money anymore and it hasn’t for a while. Hence the recent price increases and restructuring.
There will be plenty of people that use plex for AVOD and that’s great for them, but it’s not for us and we’re getting pushed out whether they admit it now or not.
Yes - I see what you mean now - sorry for the confusion. Is this only happening on movies that you have separate/multiple editions for? I’m not seeing anything like that on my Roku TVs - nothing stylized or different - just a plain font text of what I named my movies (but I think I only have one or two movies with alternate/multiple editions and I haven’t found any of those to test yet).
It might take a while. When the iOS app updated it took a bit for the server to download the logos. They’re also only visible on clients updated to the new experience. I’m with a lot of people though, I don’t want them a there’s currently no way to turn them off. Plex has put in a LOT of dev hours for things absolutely nobody asked for instead of addressing the laundry list of issues that have been reported. It’s truly baffling.
It is baffling indeed. No way to change things back. That and the fact the media server is not the priority. As you stated… the media server is listed on the Plex website as an afterthought now. The CEO making it clear in the interview that ad supported services are here to stay. Streaming services are the future of Plex. Emby does seem like a promising replacement. I’m still looking into it though.
Nothing to apologize for. You’re good. But keep an eye out for your apps to update on your platform. That’s when you may changes. Not to mention the UI overhaul which many are not happy about. If you haven’t seen the change yet, you will.
I am just going through the process of migrating to Emby. It is certainly not as “out the box, it just works” as plex, which will put off a lot of people but sticking with it, I have now got it to a point where I’m confident I can open it up to family members to just join and watch.
Each software has made compromises for their vision of usability/accessibility & privacy and it’s for the user to decide what they want as one cannot have both. A good example of this is secure remote connections & user accounts. For plex, I sign up to their website, get everybody to create an account as well and everyone can easily connect with plex link. Usability is very high, but I’ve had to sacrifice my privacy by signing up and having all my connections run through their servers. Emby on the other hand, to create the same seamless, encrypted experience, I’ve had to create a sub-domain and use a reverse proxy, which means privacy is high but usability is poor, but now everyone only connects through my systems.
If you are in the camp of just wanting to have your own media server content, sadly Plex does not meet that brief anymore with their current direction. Even though you can turn off all their AVOD and social media features, it has to be explained to every member because it’s opt out, not opt in.
The updated plex apps are poor user experiences now, which was the final push I needed to try something new.
All the apps on my Roku TVs have been updated and I’ve suffered through the nonsense of trying to deal with the crappy new interface and get it back as close as possible to how it worked before, but for some reason I’m not seeing this business of forcing different, stylized titles anywhere. (Maybe because I’m running an older version of PMS on my serving NAS? I’m dreading the day they’ll force me to update that one.)
I’m using English and still not seeing the stylized/graphic titles. Weird. Also, for some reason there seem to be a whole lot more actors whose pictures do not appear in the cast row now than there were before the UI update - I wonder what that’s all about.
I think you are correct here. So I do agree, the media server is not the primary focus these days. Or at least it seems that way as priorities tend to rapidly shift with Plex. But Plex is still a media server company make no mistake. The day Plex decides to remove the personal media/media server aspect, it will be a bankrupt company within a year or two. Plex is definitely still popular because it’s a media server. The streaming stuff and free content is kind of like a bonus add on the way I look at it. And if it keeps the lights on at Plex and I can turn that stuff off, makes no difference to me.
Loooong term lifetime user here as well since 2010-2012. I completely understand where you’re coming from and even built Emby and Jellyfin servers in the past when I was upset with the direction of Plex. But Emby and Jellyfin IMO are still way behind Plex and I had to come back for my own sanity. I think Plex are just trying to make sure they can continue to generate income for the long haul. As long as the media server stays in the ecosystem, priority or not I’m fine as long as they don’t cripple it and remove functionality.
I can understand your perspective. Thanks for sharing. But from where I stand… much of the functionality… as a media server ( along with player apps) have already been crippled. The New UI has made things a lot less intuitive with more nested menus. People have to click a lot more to find their libraries and are not even sure how to arrange libraries. So that’s crippled. They are using forced graphic titles for movies instead of the titles users have typed in their servers. So that’s crippled. Every video streaming service and online options are opt-out and not opt-in. This clutterss the UI from the jump. Not to mention privacy concerns for some people. So that’s crippled. The media servers is not gone. People get that. You may not see any of things crippling the function of the media server and players. Then that’s great for Plex users as yourself. However, I do… view this as crippling the media server and apps. As do many others…
Plex was my first choice years ago, too. You may not like Emby and Jellyfin, but others seem to like those 2 options. In this same thread you’ll find a user who is liking Emby a whole lot. Others have mentioning these new changes were what they needed to make the change. I don’t mind doing the work. I rather have more control over how my media is being presented. This thread was not created for people to go back and forth to see if Plex is better than the options. This thread was originally created for people who are already fed up with the direction of Plex…to discuss alternatives to Plex. So if you like the current direction, are ok with what Plex is doing. Great. But from the push back in the forums, there are many who are not. Alternatives should be discussed. Again, glad Plex works for you.
Oh I’m with you here regarding players. Plex has for a long time been very poor with its player apps. Which is why I don’t use or recommend a single native plex client for any real playback. I’m using Infuse on Apple TV 4K, or I’m using Plex Mod for Kodi on Ugoos AM6B+. Nvidia Shield is the only other device I would even consider using the native Plex apps on as far as playback goes. I had several Roku Ultras years back, an Xbox Series X console, and playback was always hindered somehow on those apps. So I don’t recommend Roku, Consoles or most streamers for Plex if you want rock solid playback.
Not saying I like the current direction, but if these actions allow Plex to keep the lights on and kind of guarantees Plex will be around for a very long time, as a lifetime pass user I am happy.
I would much rather have some opt-out features added that I won’t use and have to turn off, or deal with a few UI updates that aren’t particularly my favorite, vs Plex shutting down and losing my server completely and decades of curated media.
