Just curious what does your htpc do with PMP currently that couldn’t be replicated with an Android TV box or something similar? As stated previously I kinda feel like this is only effecting users with unique setups, high fidelity audio, or specific desires. Just curious what your use case is.
Fairly certain Plex will not do this.
That really isn’t a useful question. Of course he could buy a ShieldTV or AppleTV or Roku or whatever. But he wants his current config to continue working. That isn’t unreasonable.
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Right, not saying he should do so. Im more just curious what the desire outside of I already have it is? I left PMP for Android since it just worked and kids made troubleshooting random key mappings and things not worth it plus wife approval.
I personally agree, I run ShieldTVs everywhere, but some people chose a different path and their setups are being broken today.
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Poking around in the new app a bit, looks like it is no longer using mpv. So all the audio bit streaming to my receiver are broken again.
I could never get that to work on the Shield or Apple TV (I own both btw). I’d still take PMP over both of them any day. (I only bough them to check out if they would work well as a lighter plex client, they do not. (Talking about TrueHD (although that sometimes works on Shield), Atmos (Never got it to work on shield), …
But plex is been slowly pushing me away for a while now, that’s OK though not all relations ships last. This is probably the final bit that pushes me out the door. I had a good run with it being an early adapter.
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My biggest complaint is audio related. PMP will passthrough lossless audio, such as TrueHD DTS MasterHD, Atmos and DTS-X, so I get audio that is full quality when watching a movie. Most streaming boxes require the audio to be transcoded to a format the device supports. In a dedicated home theater, transcoded audio is an absolute deal breaker.
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I need AR control. I know I’m fringe of a fringe, but I need something to display content on my 2.35:1 projector screen. My movies are encoded in either 1920x816 or 3840x1606. Plex does just what I need right now. Works on my PJ and htpc, upstairs Nvidia shield, iPhones, kindles, iPad etc. just keep supporting my danged htpc!!! Or add AR control to other devices and I’ll use a shield on my PJ.
The Plex Kodi addon will passthrough audio also but again, it doesn’t look like they’re going to maintain that either.
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My main concern is the number of Plex palyers that can play TrueHD or DTS-HA MA has now diminished to exactly one device… And the Shield is 3 years old… If the new rumored Shield does not support those audio codecs, there is no longer a Plex solution that can play these audio codecs without transcoding, and I’m pretty sure you loose Atmos and DTS:X when transcoding.
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Lol, same thoughts…
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Yep. This is a very reasonable concern. My Shield has been constantly underwhelming (my wife always switches back to the Roku remote at the first opportunity), and it’s now the only option with full sound and video support.
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Well first of all, buying such a box would cost me money. Money I shouldn’t need to spend when everything is currently working.
Secondly is codec support. My server isn’t that strong, and as such I try to avoid transcoding. This will be harder with a Roku etc.
Thirdly, to get proper 5.1 sound I need an optical output. Many streaming boxes doesn’t have that. I even bought a special sound card for my htpc to be able to output optical.
So, as I said, not sure how to even solve this situation now, except hoping that PMP continues working for many years.
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Very disappointed to see that TV mode is no longer being supported. Why did they think that this was a good decision to make?
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Well it doesn’t have full video support, it does not support Dolby Vision or HDR10+ (unless an update came out that I missed [I don’t have a DV TV])
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Wife also hates shield remote. Really need to grab a harmony or something, but monies.
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Adding my voice. Killing the dedicated HTPC app is an insult to everyone who’s supported this platform. I use it primarily for high-end direct stream playback with HD audio streams, which you can’t get from the vast majority of streaming devices. I see no need to spend more money on hardware for an inferior experience. I’ll be migrating to Emby and cancelling my Plex Pass once the family is used to it.
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To clarify more on my earlier point, it is not the ‘interface’ I have issues with. The TV mode is great for a remote, but I use a small BT keyboard with trackpad anyway. It’s the player support and specifically audio.
If they have an ‘advanced’ option were you could tell it to play using MPV and to pass in my own config file, I’d be OK with that. No need for them from their end to configure MPV, just feed it the correct URL to play and call it a day.
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I mean, I assume they looked at their metrics and saw almost nobody was using it.
Shield remote is indeed terrible. I use a harmony hub.
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Yep you’re right, I forgot that. Good catch. But unless you’re using that feature, you basically got told by Plex today that you need to spend $150 on a dated device (new version coming before PMP support ends though!) to get the features you already currently have. I can certainly appreciate the frustration.
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