You summed up my feelings exactly but I can remain quiet no more. I love my Plex! and my HTPC! I feel let down and abandoned. Shame on you Elan and company for telling us Plex users (Plex Pass and Lifetime member that I am) to buy more hardware of which there is only one that I am aware of that will pass through HD audio and has no Logitech remote support. Shame on you for taking away the best of Plex features and benefits for a cheap streaming model only. Shame on you for taking this easier road to stream in order to prop yourself up to corporations in order to shop your company(this last is my own opinion of which I have no knowledge. Just my conspiracy theory) but having been in the corporate world all my professional life this is what it smells like(and I am 61 years old). Shame on you for quoting invalid stats and using them to make your point of justification to completely remove what made Plex different and outstanding in the field of media organization and display. Elan, you quoted a stat of millions of Plex users, well, a lot of those users are multiples accessing one server like mine having 3 distinct users in different towns using 8 different devices. I believe there are tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands that have Plex and Home Theaters using an amp or receiver that can use most all the HD audio formats (which I believe makes the whole movie experience awesome!). Shame on you thinking that users donât care about having a remote to control everything in my home theater. Really! I would rather use a mouse? You got to be kidding me! Everyone in my house finds using a Logitech Harmony is so easy that we use it for everything including Roku etc. Lastly, Plex seems to want to play in the same sandbox as every other media company out there. They all want a piece of the streaming pie and all want a part of our monthly media budget. I believe Plex will get lost in this proverbial sandbox and buried. Now I am having to find alternatives and we will have to leave Plex, all of us. P.S. Did I mention that I want my HD audio??? Unbelievable!
Iâm not sure I follow your logic here.
- The vast majority of people playing video on a desktop were using PMP in desktop mode or in a browser (> 95%).
- For the sake of comparison, people spent over twenty times more hours playing video on a Roku than on PMP in tv mode.
So giving all those people using Plex on the desktop a great experience (Direct Play of most formats, offline access) seemed like something theyâd appreciate. Thatâs the raison dâĂȘtre for a desktop app in general.
Well said!
@elan Maybe you can clear something up for me. Iâll admit I do get great video streaming performance on my Roku/Xbox/Samsung Blu-ray Player compared to the past. But something that has always bothered me about the players is why are some of them missing the smooth animation like how the sidebar nav slides out on PMP? or when you move the highlighted selection to the next tile, it does the little zoom in? It feel so clunky without them!
I know itâs a superficial thing most wont care about, but as a designer/web dev it infuriates me and makes it feel like I am using a potato. The Samsung app doesât have them, even my Xbox One which should have way more than enough resources for smooth animations/transitions. Somehow even my arm powered roku seems to be smoother despite having a fraction of the CPU/GPU power of an xbox one.
Every time I open up PMP itâs so damn smooth which is what Iâll miss the most (maybe is because of the SSD). I would be happier with these streaming devices if they had the same snappy and smooth experience as PMP. But forgive me if I donât want to run out and specifically buy a Apple TV or Sheild just for smooth UI (especially since I already have too many devices ATM).
Could you be any more condescending?
So what?
Still doesnât justify completely removing it, as most people in this thread have just spent the last 5 days trying to point out!
As many others on here have also pointed out, I myself have 10 users using my PMS, one of which uses PMP, which is the only player I use whilst at home.
So thatâs 20% of my user base - including me - that use PMP, both in TV mode. Not great numbers you might think!
But the reality is, if I choose to leave Plex because of this, then my 10 users go with.
That would have been a fair enough statement, however have you actually even tried that app for yourself? Have you not seen the sheer amount of complaints about how bad it is? It was a rush job, filled with problems and glitches and should not have been released yet!
So you havenât currently given anyone a great experience!
EDIT: Oh, and have you seen the comments section of your blog post recently? 500+ comments of disappointed unimpressed users!
I need to add my disappointment to the list. I run my media server on the same Windows PC that I have connected to my TV. I use a Harmony remote and it completely navigates everything I need. I also have, scattered throughout the house, Fire TV Sticks, Chromecasts, PS3s, and PS4s, all that can also use Plex. Iâve used other devices as well, over the years, but those are the ones that are still around. It is the PC that is the powerhouse. It is pretty much perfect as it is. I use the Harmony remote to turn on the TV, set the audio/video properly, and then press a single button to launch Plex. I canât replicate that anywhere else. Even if I could, I use that same remote to, with a single button press, launch Steam (also in TV mode) to pick a game to play with either the Keyboard/Mouse I have tucked aside or the controller designated for that system. I also, with a single button press, can access a full web browser and use my HTPC as a (surprise) PC. Nothing replaces an HTPC which is, above all else, a PC. Killing the TV interface wonât end my use of Plex (at least not today), but it will severely inconvenience me and my family. I know there are other issues with the new app too, stripping features that PMP had, but I hope that those will, in time, be implemented again. I just canât believe the commitment to killing the TV interface because a $30 stick is supposed to somehow replace my full high-end PC and setup and not lag or buffer or crash (all of which have happened to me with every app I use, and even if it isnât Plex lagging, itâs the FIre stick, or the multitudes of menus I need to jump through on the PS4, or some other interface issue because I canât just be a single click from a desktop on anything else). Nothing else works as well as the PC. Iâve tried a lot. Nothing else works as well as the PC. Please, reconsider this move.
Again with the stuff we didnât ask for. Never on a desktop am I ever going to need to sync/download my content. My network is always online and not subject to limits or overages.
My desktop is my top end device connected to my high-end home theater setup. It is the device I prefer to watch movies and higher quality tv on. I may not always get to use it due to my busy schedule and for lower quality stuff Iâm fine watching in bed on my phone or whatever but that in no way decreases the importance of my htpc. Your numbers donât tell you this story.
How many of the all in one PMS/PMP HTPC setups are isolated and not allowed to report back usage stats? Skewing your numbers even more.
How many people throw up stuff to fall asleep to where quality doesnât matter. Again skewing your numbers.
On my laptop quality isnât the primary concern and it wont ever be connected to a high end setup. The web browser is fine here. And transcoding is acceptable here. Sync/download serves zero purpose again.
And all the users that run the server component on the same PC that is connected to their TV. In what universe is sync/download useful to them?
You are completely out of touch with your users and how we want to consume media.
I run PMS and PMP on our main HTPC and download/sync is very useful.
I have now uninstalled PMP and replaced it with Kodi but download/sync obviously still gets used via PMS.
You use download/sync from your PMS to other clients yes, but how would PMP having that feature benefit you when it is on the same device as your PMS? All your media is already local.
It isnât currently there in PMP, is that actually something you wanted Plex to bring to the desktop?
- For the sake of comparison, people spent over twenty times more hours playing video on a Roku than on PMP in tv mode.
youâve referenced numbers a lot in this thread, which is great, there are numbers. for the sake of transparency though, can you share your data with us? iâd really like to understand them - this may also provide more clarity into why youâre making the choices you are as an organization.
Just bought Plex Lifetime, very disappointed and looking for refund at this point. Plex was supposed to be the all in one solution, not just for mobile players. At this point, many people will go to alternate platforms (of which there are many) and will begin to fragment the Plex user base, turning Plex to just another media streamer platform. Please bring back TV mode.
Have my home theater being installed in 2 daysâŠand was planning on the Plex TV interface to drive my experience. WTF Plex? Iâve been a Plexpass subscriber for 6+ years and your biggest evangelist but this is a stupid move. At least keep it as a legacy option for those of us who rely on it.
My issue with this is, you took this statistic that most users of the desktop apps are just using it in desktop mode. And randomly decided that controlling the desktop app from a keyboard wasnât necessary. But in reality something so basic should be present at the vary least, even if there is no difference between desktop mode and Tv mode.
I go camping a lot, and We have a TV in the trailer. I have been looking to get a NUC to use with it and copy a couple of movies to an external drive with a PMS/PMP HTPC sort of setup while offline. Now I see itâs not going to work the way I expected it to work because you randomly decided to kill the feature that would make it work. Which is TV Mode (or using a keyboard to control Plex). The prospect of finding another way to do what I want without having to teach my wife to use a mouse to use plex does not thrill me
I have a friend with PMS running on a sinology NAS, it doesnât have the transcoding capabilities my PMS with a Xeon CPU and NVidia quattro hardware encoding capabilities my server has. He uses PMP because it doesnât require his NAS to try and transcode everything he has.
I do have two rokuâs on my home tvâs one wired one wireless, the wired can directly play everything I have when there are no subtitles, the wireless has to transcode, running a network line to it is not on option (probably the case for most people). But Rokuâs donât have a sync option, nor the space to sync my 20GB to 50GB mkv files, so that wonât work either
tldr: Yay download/sync of media to Plex desktop app, boo canât use the most basic input on the computer.
Do you have any stats of how many setups are not allowed to report home? I believe most active server users have disabled this functionality since your awful decision regarding the privacy policy.
We all know you can pick up some stats that justifies your point. It is meaningless when weâre not able to see the whole sample space. You could be saying anything⊠I would like to see the data.
I also donât follow your point how a play time comparison between two different clients justifies your decision to remove support? Does that mean that if a certain client reaches a threshold, support will be dropped? Which one is next? Playstation? Its playtime average must be bad compared to a Roku device (since the app is barely functioning).
I could make up some fun conclusions using your data. Looking forward to it!
I would caution you against moving to Emby - even as a less-capable version of Plex, itâs already treating its userbase the same way @elan and crew are. Jellyfin has a long way to go, but is an open-source project, so at least if it disappears overnight, we all have a copy of the source code.
I loved my Roku Ultra until you guys (caved to their bullying? still unclear how the Roku update was so horribly bungled). Now, I know that I canât trust ANY streaming device, because you donât own the streaming device - youâre just leasing it from Roku.
But, I suppose that argument doesnât mean anything to you, based on the way youâve behaved in the past 12 months.
I suggested something similar to this a few hours ago and you would have thought I killed a bunch of puppies.
I donât have any personal accounts to share but I know that Emby is certainly now organized the same as Plex is and the possibility of the Plex ordeal reoccuring is there. Iâm really hoping Jellyfin can mature quickly⊠The project certainly has the right idea and is where I feel safest jumping to.
The other problem here is that PMP works just like it should on HiDPI monitors with Windows, but the new Plex replacement app does not work right (everything is too small). Maybe that is just Beta growing pains, but they must not be testing their app development on hardware like a Microsoft Surface.
I know this is already a long thread but I also wanted to add my voice.
Iâve been using Plex for years now and bought a Lifetime Pass in 2013. I started out with Plex Home Theatre and traversed the whole âvalley of tearsâ that was PMP at the beginning, always seeing the potential though, at first with a raspberry pi, now running on a very potent NUC.
My topmost priority for a media player was quality and customization and PMP could deliver. Not as good as PHT at first, but it got there. Display mode switching, the abilty to customize audio delays, audio pass-through, TV Mode and remote control support have been key features Iâve been using since the day they where supported.
All of this is gone now with the new Plex for Windows App. Itâs pretty much just a standalone browser that shows Plex Web. Apart from displaying sheer ignorance, the plex teams seems to have completely lost touch with its high end user base. Iâm already desperately looking for alternatives, but honestly, there are none. Iâm hoping that PMP will work just long enough for a competitor to catch up and as soon as that happens, Iâm gone.
