I’m another loyal Plex user… late to the discussion. I was shocked to read that Plex is abandoning their original customer base as they are. BOOO.
Question: What is the outlook for playing dolby atmos or other fancy codecs in Plex (after PMP dies)? What about direct play video? Are high fidelity folks just SOL?
I’ve always stuck with Plex, even with its obvious flaws for audio playback. I even subscribed to Plex Tidal to show my support for high fidelity playback in Plex. Because it did right by home theater people… BUT… This might be the end, for me.
The Shield is basically the only option right now. Which I say as my personal Shield has gone unresponsive 3 times since the 8.0 upgrade, and doesn’t always come back up after a refresh rate change.
Just been playing with the new Plex application and it makes a good replacement for the Metro app. Just wanted to throw something into the pot.
It’s “almost” there as an HTPC client and I reckon it would be relatively easy for Plex to knock the rough edges off if they were so inclined.
It needs “maximise app on launch” (you can maximise the video playback when playing video but not the interface on launch) - though “Borderless Gaming” does work around this.
It needs cursor navigation and support of Windows multimedia keys. This would be useful not only for MCE remotes but also for those of us with media keys on our keyboards. In the meantime you can use a mobile device (e.g. iPhone) and fling content at the Plex player. Works reasonably well but not as elegant as being able to use a genuine HTPC MCE remote or Harmony.
the Zoom video options have disappeared so I’m stuck with black bars left and right on my 21:9 widescreen monitor for 16:9 content.
I too hope that Plex reconsider HTPC 10ft interface as a use case - heck, I even use the remote when leaning back at my desk, not only in the living room.
In the mean time I’ll hope the client on my Xbox One continues to work (without fling functionality which I believe is a MS restriction - it’s annoying not being able to see how far through playback I am from my phone
I am a longtime time Plex Pass user who has brought several people to the plex world. I have set up numerous HTPCs due to their flexibility and continue to support friends and family alike.
This decision is a non-starter and a slap in the face.
To anyone lurking, please voice your opinion openly. The 10’ interface must live on.
This is nothing because the PMP is still live and supported until 30 January 2020 so what we’re seeing now comes from a fraction of the users who heard the news. Wait until February 2020 when PMP support ends, that will be another wave. The main one.
The problem with the Shield is its in a constant flux of break and fix update cycle. As you stated, refresh rate switching breaking output signal is one issue. The other is HD audio passthrough sporadically drops out. Both are listed as known issues by Nvidia on its support forum and they are investigating it. VC-1 decoder regression has been resolved with the second 8.0 hotfix.
The Shield is the only device that can do everything all around but its not a perfect device. Its only true advantage for now is that it can play 4K HDR10 HEVC natively to a 4K HDR10 display and bitstream the HD audio streams. However Emby, Kodi and Plex are held hostage by how stable Nvidia can keep the platform. Shield Experience 8.0 has so many regressions. I am hoping when PMP is EOL by Plex that its moved to Plex Labs so that the Phoenix can rise up from the ashes…Phoenix Media Player!
I get the feeling many users believe Plex is going to arbitrarily disable PMP after the EOL date. The truth of the matter is that date will simply be the last day you can expect development and an update to PMP from Plex. I agree with you that it will continue to function for some while afterwards. It only becomes defunct once something drastic occurs that requires Plex to change something at plex.tv or PMS code in a future version update. Just because Plex is going to EOL PMP does not mean I will stop using it myself. I only use Infuse/Plex on tvOS or Emby/Plex on the Shield Pro to play 4K HEVC HDR10 content, otherwise embedded PMP is used for everything else. I don’t see this changing for me until I have to. There are a few avenues I am going to start investigating with other community members to see what we can build.
Thanks - I guess I need to abandon my “cup half full” view.
Hadn’t gotten that far in my testing - so yes, a definite step backwards. It’s even more disappointing in that I was just trying Plex for Xbox One (hadn’t used it in a while) and the navigation works as you expect and they do appear to have partially fixed the “flinging” issue - it used to do nothing, now just a bit laggy. I had thought developing for Xbox and PC was “similar” so hope maybe some code sharing might improve the new Plex app.
Since they’ve just demonstrated that they’re willing to remove basic features (some of which are even required for a smooth video playback), I think it’s justified to lose any trust in the developers, or at least the decision making process of… whoever makes these decisions.
That’s my biggest worry - a change that will make it impossible to log into your Plex account through an old version of the server. Right now I’ve disabled the Plex update service on Windows and PMP is set to “ask for update” so I’m OK with sticking to the current version of both the server and the PMP… as long as I can log in.
That said, I honestly can’t think of any reason why the login process would be deprecated in old server version, assuming it doesn’t do anything than just a quick check if the user has a Plex Pass, but again, based on what just happened, I have a very hard time trusting them and it wouldn’t surprise me if they did this at some point. I’d love to be proven wrong.
Sometimes a PMS login update could happen for an unexpected reason, like a discovered security vulnerability. But honestly, I expect it to work for a while. Isn’t OpenPHT basically dead but still functional?
I’m not sure why we’re treating Direct Play as exclusive to a TV mode app. The Apple TV and SHIELD and Roku apps have excellent support for Direct Play. Plus I hope your users don’t play HDR content because that never played direct with the TV mode app, right?
