Latest Blog Post Speaks Volumes

General Discussions
1

The latest blog post announcement of the new Roku Plex app I believe speaks volumes about the direction and focus of the Plex Development Team. I had been anxiously awaiting news of what they had been working on that it had been so long since we heard anything but I was supremely disappointed by this announcement.

I use 2 Roku’s myself so I am in the group of people who will “in theory” (I haven’t tried the new app yet) benefit from this update. However as a long time PlexPass subscriber, I’m supremely disappointed with the narrow focus the Plex team has, and that apparently is on the apps alone. I’m amazed at the lack of attention to the server side control features. It’s almost as if the Plex team is not aware that it is the Plex Media SERVER that drives this whole engine and without a configurable server, the apps that you and your friends/family use won’t work well no matter how many “updates and fixes” are released for them.

A feature such as bandwidth control (both globally per stream and per user) is paramount to having a working server for all users. What good are all these updated app features if your remote users constantly have terrible viewing experiences due to a single user hogging up all your available upstream bandwidth? I have users who have been completely turned off by Plex and will never use it again because a single user was streaming at 20Mbps and thus not a single reasonable quality setting for them would work.

To the Plex team, I BEG that you pay more attention to the needs of those of us who actually drive the Plex experience to the millions of people using the apps. I know the apps are your money makers but giving a shared user who’s downloaded the app the ability to cripple the network of the user who has shared that content is flat out ridiculous and I’m just flabbergasted that this is not the #1 concern of the Plex team.

In all honesty, if I wasn’t already a lifetime PlexPass subscriber I’d probably be dropping Plex at this point because I would not be paying a company to put the controls to my network in the hands of a user just because they downloaded their app. But since you’ve already taken my money, all I can do is sit here and wait…and wait…and wait some more for something that doesn’t appear to be anywhere on the Horizon.

End or rant/common sense post.

2

It was leaked in 0.15.6 that server side controls are coming. I kick people off my server who don’t respect my rules. You should do the same. While I agree it’s not your fault that the user has been turned off, they should probably understand how the current implementation works.

3

@danjames92 said:
It was leaked in 0.15.6 that server side controls are coming. I kick people off my server who don’t respect my rules. You should do the same. While I agree it’s not your fault that the user has been turned off, they should probably understand how the current implementation works.

Link to this confirmed leak?

4

@IamSpartacus said:

@danjames92 said:
It was leaked in 0.15.6 that server side controls are coming. I kick people off my server who don’t respect my rules. You should do the same. While I agree it’s not your fault that the user has been turned off, they should probably understand how the current implementation works.

Link to this confirmed leak?

I don’t have a link. It was widely reported in various threads and the devs acknowledged it wasn’t supposed to be there, yet.

5

TL;DR When you consider the next major feature of PMS is probably user bandwidth controls those aren’t going to work without Plex having a high degree of control over the players. Roku being arguably one of the most popular this needed to come out first so there’s really no reason to get angry.

Long post. I’ve been developing this theory for a month or two.

I think you’re approaching the significance of this update from the wrong point of view. I completely understand your frustration and where it is coming from but I think with a bit imagination we can use this update to get excited about the server update we know is coming soon. There have been a number of recent developments including this one that lead me to believe the next major server update is going to include a complete upgrade to the streaming and transcoding stack.

Firstly know that I have no inside information. Everything I’m going to talk about I’ve come up with on my own just by watching what’s going on around here, digging through the feature requests to see what the big hitters are, and watching patterns in how the staff have moved around.

I’m predicting that the 09.17.xx release of Plex is going to include server-side controls for shared users and adaptive bit-rate on the client-side. I’m completely convinced we’re getting server-side controls and only have a general theory we’ll get adaptive bit-rate. These two features fit quite nicely together. The server controls will allow the admins to better control bandwidth and making a smarter client capable of adaptive bitrate would allow the client stream to ebb and flow according to the demands placed on the network. Today if there were server side controls they could take one of two forms. You would either set a per-user cap or you could set a total server cap for shared users that the clients would dynamically share. I think we’re going to get the latter due to the setting that leaked.

If we do get that setting the current client scenario would look something like this. User A starts streaming a movie and the server allocates the max allowed bandwidth. User B starts a TV show and the server devotes half the bandwidth to that transcode and restarts User A on the new bit-rate. User A’s client stops the stream and picks up the new stream where the old one left off. This is jarring and will cause a huge number of complaints. If the clients were capable of adaptive bit-rate they would be able to not only smoothly transition between stream changes but also tell the server what they could currently handle based on their network conditions i.e. a mobile device with a terrible connection.

How does this relate whatsoever to today’s post? The Roku is arguably one of the most popular Plex clients. Without building a custom player to support the client/server protocol for the new streaming controls the Roku would be unable to use the new feature set thereby alienating a huge portion of the user-base as well as admins with Roku shares. If anything this blog post reinforces that something major is in the works such that a complete custom Roku player was needed. Yes the blog post makes a great set of points for why it should exist but to undergo that effort without something big coming seems odd, especially considering the dry spell in server updates.

As far as staffing goes I’ve noticed a bunch of new faces on client applications lately and some of the “old” faces have moved to PMP and also moved to PMS. PMS hasn’t had a giant major feature that would require significant man-power since arguably the music launch, maybe optimized media. This suggests they’ve staffed up for a major change. I’m not privy to how the code looks but I’m going to guess audio book support or comic book support wouldn’t require the level of resourcing it seems they’ve added to the project. To me, and this is only my opinion, it points to something brand new being created and again I would argue this is adaptive bit-rate and server-side bandwidth controls. This isn’t a simple thing to implement and what I’ve seen would suggest a project this size is underway.

The release name is basically a gimme. The NAS deprecation announcement says it’s happening in 09.17.xx. Frankly you don’t do that unless it’s a major release. A NAS would struggle with quickly switching transcode sessions and the models getting the ax are fairly underpowered.

Again this is all conjecture, assumption, and speculation. I’ve taken a ton of liberties in coming up with this theory and I fully expect to be wrong. But what’s the fun in not guessing :slight_smile:

6

Well it was incredibly informative and I think perfectly fair to assume given the info we have, thanks!

7

@IamSpartacus said:
Link to this confirmed leak?

https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/199774/0-9-15-0-uhm-guys-see-if-you-see-what-i-see/p1#top

8

@vanstinator said:
TL;DR When you consider the next major feature of PMS is probably user bandwidth controls those aren’t going to work without Plex having a high degree of control over the players. Roku being arguably one of the most popular this needed to come out first so there’s really no reason to get angry.

Long post. I’ve been developing this theory for a month or two.

I think you’re approaching the significance of this update from the wrong point of view. I completely understand your frustration and where it is coming from but I think with a bit imagination we can use this update to get excited about the server update we know is coming soon. There have been a number of recent developments including this one that lead me to believe the next major server update is going to include a complete upgrade to the streaming and transcoding stack.

Firstly know that I have no inside information. Everything I’m going to talk about I’ve come up with on my own just by watching what’s going on around here, digging through the feature requests to see what the big hitters are, and watching patterns in how the staff have moved around.

I’m predicting that the 09.17.xx release of Plex is going to include server-side controls for shared users and adaptive bit-rate on the client-side. I’m completely convinced we’re getting server-side controls and only have a general theory we’ll get adaptive bit-rate. These two features fit quite nicely together. The server controls will allow the admins to better control bandwidth and making a smarter client capable of adaptive bitrate would allow the client stream to ebb and flow according to the demands placed on the network. Today if there were server side controls they could take one of two forms. You would either set a per-user cap or you could set a total server cap for shared users that the clients would dynamically share. I think we’re going to get the latter due to the setting that leaked.

If we do get that setting the current client scenario would look something like this. User A starts streaming a movie and the server allocates the max allowed bandwidth. User B starts a TV show and the server devotes half the bandwidth to that transcode and restarts User A on the new bit-rate. User A’s client stops the stream and picks up the new stream where the old one left off. This is jarring and will cause a huge number of complaints. If the clients were capable of adaptive bit-rate they would be able to not only smoothly transition between stream changes but also tell the server what they could currently handle based on their network conditions i.e. a mobile device with a terrible connection.

How does this relate whatsoever to today’s post? The Roku is arguably one of the most popular Plex clients. Without building a custom player to support the client/server protocol for the new streaming controls the Roku would be unable to use the new feature set thereby alienating a huge portion of the user-base as well as admins with Roku shares. If anything this blog post reinforces that something major is in the works such that a complete custom Roku player was needed. Yes the blog post makes a great set of points for why it should exist but to undergo that effort without something big coming seems odd, especially considering the dry spell in server updates.

As far as staffing goes I’ve noticed a bunch of new faces on client applications lately and some of the “old” faces have moved to PMP and also moved to PMS. PMS hasn’t had a giant major feature that would require significant man-power since arguably the music launch, maybe optimized media. This suggests they’ve staffed up for a major change. I’m not privy to how the code looks but I’m going to guess audio book support or comic book support wouldn’t require the level of resourcing it seems they’ve added to the project. To me, and this is only my opinion, it points to something brand new being created and again I would argue this is adaptive bit-rate and server-side bandwidth controls. This isn’t a simple thing to implement and what I’ve seen would suggest a project this size is underway.

The release name is basically a gimme. The NAS deprecation announcement says it’s happening in 09.17.xx. Frankly you don’t do that unless it’s a major release. A NAS would struggle with quickly switching transcode sessions and the models getting the ax are fairly underpowered.

Again this is all conjecture, assumption, and speculation. I’ve taken a ton of liberties in coming up with this theory and I fully expect to be wrong. But what’s the fun in not guessing :slight_smile:

Thank you for this insight. I’m hoping you are right and that something big is around the corner but I won’t be convinced until something official is announced because the Server side features have been ignored for far too long.

@OttoKerner said:

@IamSpartacus said:
Link to this confirmed leak?

https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/199774/0-9-15-0-uhm-guys-see-if-you-see-what-i-see/p1#top

Thanks for the link. If that’s the only setting we get I’ll be supremely disappointed as it is no where near granular enough to make much of an impact for most people.

9

@IamSpartacus said:
Thanks for the link. If that’s the only setting we get I’ll be supremely disappointed as it is no where near granular enough to make much of an impact for most people.

Just read though the first page of the thread. There is more being hinted at.

10

@OttoKerner said:

@IamSpartacus said:
Thanks for the link. If that’s the only setting we get I’ll be supremely disappointed as it is no where near granular enough to make much of an impact for most people.

Just read though the first page of the thread. There is more being hinted at.

Not by anyone of any consequence. One developer just mentions that the leaked setting is a placeholder for future work. Other than that it’s just users hoping for what we are going to get which is no more valuable then what’s in the long Feature Request thread about this.

11

My wife thinks of me being of consequence. Or at least, there are definitely consequences when I’m out drinking with friends too late.

12

@elan said:
My wife thinks of me being of consequence. Or at least, there are definitely consequences when I’m out drinking with friends too late.

Lol @elan you definitely are of consequence. Unfortunately you were being very coy in that thread as per usual :stuck_out_tongue:

13

Idk I enjoy trading witty banter with him. When he emerges from the fog of development these days it’s always exciting.

14

Always happy to chat with you guys :slight_smile: