Oh, so they finally have support for that, and how long until one of their updates breaks it?
Those boxes may work great for you and others, but we are telling you they don’t fit our workflows and do not want to add them to our main rigs.
Are you going to give me $2000 for a new receiver so that I am able to integrate a shield into my setup? And then supply the hardware/software necessary to prevent the thing from spying on me?
Others will need to upgrade their networks to handle 4K streaming as currently they are running PMS and PMP on the same PC as their HTPC setup. Gonna help them with that also?
And how long until you abandon the whole local nature of Plex? You’re so eager to suggest devices that require an always on internet connection for spying, another FU to your loyal userbase coming?
Regardless, that is the condescending and arrogant position you are coming from here. You are telling people how they want to consume media and we don’t appreciate it. Just because those streaming boxes you love so much work for you doesn’t mean they do what we want them to. You continue to ignore all the arguments on those points and at the same time are giving a big fat middle finger to the loyal userbase that got you where you are today.
If you read the full thread there, Roku claims it should work, yet end users still reporting that the Roku is only streaming the lossy DTS core. Additionally, Roku stated in that same thread that the support is limited to DTS-MA (should it work at all). TrueHD doesn’t work.
“TrueHD is not part of or associated with DTS. It was developed by Dolby. And there is currently no native support for TrueHD in the Roku itself.”
Again, this is a very poor solution, and with this gut punch you’re delivering, you’re leaving people like myself with a single streaming option, (Nvidia Shield) as the only device that can do audio passthrough of DTS-MA, DTS-X, TrueHD and Atmos. It’s really insulting to hear (and I’m paraphrasing here): “If you want to keep these features you rely on and like so much, you need to replace your perfectly functional HTPC with the only device left that we support that contains these features.” As I’ve stated before, I am not going to replace my perfectly functional hardware, and if I did, I would switch to another platform at the same time. I’m just about through with Plex and these garbage decisions that are alienating your long time user base.
HTPC user here, have been since the beginning. Personally I’ll be sticking with my current setup. I’m on version 1.3.12 of PMP, which must be at least two or three years old, and I never upgraded because each subsequent verison has been consistently abysmal. I’ve dabbled with the smart device versions - Samsung TV, Roku, Firestick etc, and the UI and UX on each of those was very limited and utterly terrible. And if a future version of the Plex server software cuts off support for the old PMP client, I’ll roll back my server version and disable all future updates. What else do I really need Plex to do at this point?
I use OpenPHT exclusively on my HTPC, which has both PMS and clients on it. PC is getting on a bit now and needs updating but just about to invest in a large (and expensive) 4K TV and I’m told we’re no longer supporting you using it as a playback device. Never liked PMP tbh as it lost audio sync very quickly and have never been able to cure it. I was hoping for Plex to link with MadVR for 10 bit 4K support but can kiss that goodbye now.
I think a point also being missed here is that the number of people I’ve brought across to Plex just using their old, dusty ‘no longer used’ laptop or PC is huge. Countless mates are sliding old laptops/desktops behind their TV cabinets and adding a logitech remote to create an entry level home theatre setup.
Sure, they might opt for a shield or Mi Box later on down the track (normally when the old machine dies) but it’s a painless first step into the world of Plex that gets you the new users.
I don’t see why the new app cannot have a ‘TV’ mode like the PMP. The layout and content seem fine we just need a full screen, larger UI and a way to navigate using a remote.
Plex, do we have to remind you that the customer is always right?
This is my situation as well. I use Plex Media Player with an old Core 2 duo laptop to play videos that have HEVC encoding. Most other inexpensive clients require transcoding, which results in worse video quality and taxes my plex server. I also like it because I have some customizations. Since the client runs on a regular Linux PC I can push a single button in a remote control web app to turn on my projector via an Arduino IR blaster and also connect to my bluetooth headphones.
Thankfully since I control the system with the Plex mobile app, the new client I wrote should also fulfill this need. But I feel like the ability to direct play HEVC files on Linux should not require custom application development.
This is all part of the transition. When you start alienating your vision as a company you start loosing everyone who is passionate. Employees that stand behind what Plex is doing no longer want to work for Plex just as much as customers don’t want to stand behind Plex. The fact that there are so many comments on this thread mean there actually ARE currently Plex users that are passionate. The millions of users that keep getting held up as the shining example are the ones that don’t actually care enough to leave a comment – they are either content with whatever crap gets thrown at them or they have no loyalty to Plex and can easily move somewhere else.
Playing devils advocate…Plex are actually observing that as they say they have metrics to show that the overwhelming majority of their users are not HTPC users. If their metrics are correct, their approach is valid.
I’m one of those ancient HTPC users but I recognise that most people I know are now using streaming devices such as the Shield, not a HTPC.
I’ve dumped PMP already and using Kodi as the player.
Plex has burnt me on the liftetime passes for the future. After Dropbox alienated Linux I moved over to pCloud and was tempted to buy the liftetime subscription they are offering but it was my experience with Plex that told me to buy the annual pass. The problem with liftetime is that, despite you supporting them in their early days, the company has absolutely no loyalty to you even if you have loyalty to them. This is likely why Plex ignores people with “Plex Pass” next to their name in these threads (or they just don’t carry any weight) because they don’t see “Loyal customer” but rather “We already have their money”.
It’s pretty simple. This is the equivalent of slowly pulling the band aid off. All of this is going away in the future but they want to slowly nudge people in the direction that they want them to go. If they just killed everything that we are using this thread would be 100x larger but if they boil the frog they hope that they can end up controlling their customers.
This is my thinking and actually has been for a while but my concern is that plex.tv is integrated and important for functionality. While continuing to use older versions should work in theory it’s highly possible that Plex will intentionally break the protocols used so that we can’t continue to use old versions. This is also not to mention those that use apps on platforms that you really can’t do anything about stopping updates… Plex might continue to work fine on the server and clients you can freeze but if you also use Roku and it updates you’re pretty much stuck.
Metrics aside, I’d like to quote from the past in hopes everyone can pause and humbly appreciate the things we’ve done together:
Focus on building a great community around what you are doing. Our users have helped build Plex, no question. Without our community, Plex would be less successful and less fun. Who wants that?
Be as hands on in as many things as possible. Our developers all engage regularly with users to resolve issues. Not one of us is above engaging on customer support and satisfaction issues. It is not possible to help everyone all of the time, but pretending that you are above it doesn’t get you any closer to the heart of issues and resolving them.
I always try to find the silver lining, to give the benefit of doubt whenever something like this happens.
But then I stumbled upon this answer from a Plex employee, and I don’t know if anybody at Plex still really cares about what they are doing.
I was thinking today, using device count metrics for this is likely flawed.
I have my PC running plex media player, this is my living room tv and the one I care about the most, the one I use the most.
I also have 2 Roku’s, and 4 ios devices, so I probably look like 6 streaming devices to 1 PMP, but the PMP is the only one I care about. The rest are just used for casual watching in other rooms or on the go.
That might fall into the category of:
Way too much disposable income.
I think Plex would rather you buy Shields for everyone in this thread, but I will donate the one you buy for me to someone else. A Shield will never darken my door - guaranteed.
Not even cares, but KNOWS what they’re doing. I also can’t get over this post - how can a dev who works on this not know what refresh rate switching and buffering does and why not having it could be a problem?
Might happen when they will announce that nVidia acquires Plex.
I have already two of those as well as Apple TV. They stuck around only because they have a native Spotify app which the ATV doesn’t.
I use the ATV for Netflix and Prime Video (because on the Shield there is no system-wide automatic refresh rate switch) and PMP as my main playback device in my home theater.
PMP allows me to style subs the way I need (for example when I use external subs on content which has hard subs), I can change the offset of subs during playback, and the refresh rate switch works, unlike on the Shield where it’s a gamble.
On the other hand, the ATV has trouble with high-bitrate remuxes.
So PMP is still the best solution for me.
