As much as I would like to say yes, I must say no.
I do not think it is right now.
It could be if Plex would take some steps into adding some features into the PMS itself.
Some of my suggestions:
The channels are huge misfire. As the idea was excellent the official channels suck. They are slow (I have a fast Interenet cable connection Spotify is fast, browsing WWW is fast, etc.).
What I would like to see is official weather and air pollution channels, official TuneIn http://tunein.com/ and Spotify (internet radio) channels and official world and local news channel, support for DVB-T (I know there is support for DVB-T but I can not spend money for new equipment right now) and that’s it. I can let go support for DVB-T but no weather, TuneIn, Spotify, News?
I do not need channel for movie trailers, I can turn on the trailers in my own library (good feature, but I do not use it) . I have to mention the channels are not user friendly and GUI is ugly.
Most of all I still use all the time OpenPHT over Plex Media Player (even the latter is very nice GUI) because it is easier to navigate. OpenPHT works every time, PMP sometimes can’t find the server (it is on the same machine)…
Basically using my mac mini is shuffleing between OpenPHT, Spotify, Firefox and Logitech Media Server and player (radio)…
I wish I could listen to radio, Spotify, check news & weather (local and international) using my Plex clients in the morning with my coffee cup in my hand. Right now I can not.
I am aware of unofficial channel plugins, however when new PMS is out they usually are broke.
They are most of the time written by one person in spare time. Big thanks for them.
The problem with unofficial plugins is that sometime they work, sometimes they do not. Sometimes everyting works, sometimes most of things work, but few do not.
That could be fixed with official Plex channels, that would be updated every PMS update. Stability and good usability (GUI).
The most important thing is that channels section is outdated, does not do what is supposed to, it is slow and ugly, not user friendly, also not well supported. The usability is very low. The channels variety is also low. Searching inside channel is a disaster. Youtube channel is not working well. I prefere to take iPad. Etc. Etc.
Basically what I was trying to say, that if channels would be updated, and Plex would provide official channels for internet radio, weather, air pollution, news, spotify, youtube, it would much improve overall value of the system. Plex should change GUI of channels, as for now it is terrible and not user friendly.
I have to agree with the OP that the channels need to looked out ASAP and add-ons need to given a high priority now, just using Plex as a personal media server is a real waste and to me its really starting to fall behind Kodi and others now. Even the Audio side to plex is poor, everything seems to be towards the Video side.
I know the Plex team say “things in the pipeline” but with every update I don’t see anything different to the last release, its no more stable than before, doesn’t offer anything new and still looks and feels the same.
Kodi does have a lot of add-ons provided by 3rd party’s and Plex should take some time to work on that here now, a better dedicated section for them, more support from the Dev team might help too.
Well, plex is going right direction with DVR Beta, however on macOS it supports one ethernet dualTuner and one (!) USB DVB-T tuner. Not enough. I am using EyeTV and Terratec T5, I wish I could use everything in plex.
No internet radio channel/support is huge mistake. Radio stations like SOMA FM or local national internet radio streams are my basics.
The GUI system on channels is hard for user and ugly. It is also very user unfriendly.
Installing alternative channels/plugins and updating them is painfull for regular user.
So basically:
It is 2017 and still no official and working news, internet radio (also tuneIn), youtube, netflix, spotify, weather (and so on) channels for plex.
@Przemo said:
Well, plex is going right direction with DVR Beta, however on macOS it supports one ethernet dualTuner and one (!) USB DVB-T tuner. Not enough. I am using EyeTV and Terratec T5, I wish I could use everything in plex.
No internet radio channel/support is huge mistake. Radio stations like SOMA FM or local national internet radio streams are my basics.
The GUI system on channels is hard for user and ugly. It is also very user unfriendly.
Installing alternative channels/plugins and updating them is painfull for regular user.
So basically:
It is 2017 and still no official and working news, internet radio (also tuneIn), youtube, netflix, spotify, weather (and so on) channels for plex.
You sound like you would happier using Kodi with Plexkodiconnect. Check it out.
I for one do not want any of this… I would in-fact view it as ‘bloatware’. What I want from Plex is to play my files, and play them well, display them on lots of devices with ‘nice’ and intuitive GUI’s.
Amazing how peoples opinions differ… I have no need at all for youtube or a pollution/weather channel (!!!) and personally would rather see better support for my current music, videos and photos/making the whole thing more stable.
Jack-of-all-trades, master of none springs to mind… not one I would view as a ‘great’ product.
I have no desire for Plex to include added functionality that I already have access to. Every device (Sony Opera, Sony Android, nvidia shield, Roku, Android phone) I use has access to weather apps, Tunein, YouTube, MLBTV, etc… Why would I want Plex to provide these things?
