PMP : Significantly limited functionality. New product and very few enhancements coming through.
PHT : Good client but no longer seeing any enhancements/upgrades.
OpenPHT : Excellent client but only informal support/upgrades, best efforts, unofficial.
What gives guys? Is there a plan here? What’s the future for 10-foot UI on a TV?
PMP: The announced replacement for PHT. Still in Preview state, so not yet complete. That’s why it is only available to Plex Pass users.
PHT: Discontinued product, so yeah, no longer being developed.
OpenPHT: Not an official Plex product, and not developed by Plex personnel.
I think that is the complaint, though. There is no current mainstream client for typical users or users wanting a stable release. Killing off the main client without having a full replacement ready was jarring. PHT does “work” still but has some limitations due to enhancements on the server side. I am sure there were reasons to discontinue PHT, but I think the transition between PHT and PMP should have been available.
I agree, Plex has a bad habit of rolling things out prematurely.
@beckfield said:
I agree, Plex has a bad habit of rolling things out prematurely.
So Plex has a case of “premature escalation?”
I have the same beef… I have been with plex since damn near the beginning and no money was changing hands… You had a server backend that worked and a front end that worked and got equal development time
Fast forward and now you are collecting $150 bucks a pop and here is what you get…
The OFFICIAL and ONLY supported front end is basically a beta… For what … More than a year… And it sucks… Raspex and openpht flat out work better…
There are so many feature functions not working or not on parity with 3rd party efforts I am not even going into here… But suffice to say that you no longer offer a front end that works… Free or Plex Pass.
Now, the back end
First and foremost… The forced upgrading and inability to download version specific releases is BS… When you guys dick up a release which seems to be every other one… There is no official way to go back and download a previous version. That needs to be fixed… So that we can at least go back to a version that works.
The UI for the back end is a patchwork of settings scattered in far too many different places… For example thumbnail settings are in about 3 different places and they never seem to work right… And as for feedback as to what is going on with the back end… Plexpy is far superior… If I want to figure out why I am not getting a good transocode the first thing I do is fire up plexpy and hit the more info button for the current playing streams… Where I can see if it’s direct or transcode, the rate of transcode as a percent of realtime, and resolution, and buffer length… IE I get detailed info from a 3rd party program on what is going on under the hood… All I get from your backend playing now is transcoded or direct… Pretty poor after almost a decade of development. The back end really should have much better metrics on processor, network, dropped packets, overall health and statistics info… Really shouldn’t be too hard. If I ran my plex in a Ubuntu. Would just use netdata … That is an awesome monitoring app… Overkill even for what needs to be presented but the server backend needs SOMETHING…
Scrapers and agents is a mess… When they work they don’t work for Long and when I get it to pull metadata, rotten tomatoes goes down, when I get that working, something else breaks… It’s a mess and there are far too many settings in far too many places to be considered well thought out code.
The new DVR is I suppose another commercial partnership that works great for you but the customers get shafted… No support for the earlier generations of 1 and 2 antenna HDHomeruns is just another way for silicon image to sell more hardware… While 3rd parties seem to have this working… So is it not working for tech reasons or just that your agreement with the mfg to sell more stuff won’t let you…
You guys need to sit down and plan things out… Right now too many things moving sideways… And nothing is fully baked… And we are now now paying you money to delvelop your products is ass backwards … It’s not bad enough to that many of us here have helped get this thing moving but now the most dedicated and paying customers get very little in the way of fully functioning software… I didn’t care so much when things were free that the development method of throwing ■■■■ at the wall to see what sticks was the deal… But paying customers deserve better.
After upgrading to pass… I am still using my old clients since they work better and more reliably especially on the pi… And the DVR doesn’t work for my hardware… The pre 1.0 release server encoders worked better… Etc…
I hope you guys enjoy your new bank vault home theater that you probably waste far too much time in and should get back to designing and coding software that works…
I didn’t want this to be a bit of the rant that it turned into… Again I have been here a while… And I really want plex to be best in class… And I am not trying to be a slammer… But frustrations are running high around here and perhaps some are too polite to tell it like it is… I just hope this is taken constructively so that the product may improve moving forward…
Thanks for listening … No offense intended really…
@beckfield said:
I agree, Plex has a bad habit of rolling things out prematurely.
I love Plex but you would have to be really stubborn and a bit foolish to disagree with that statement. It’s a perpetual beta product. I still love it because of what it should be, but not always for what it is.
@dragonmel said:
I have the same beef… I have been with plex since damn near the beginning and no money was changing hands… You had a server backend that worked and a front end that worked and got equal development timeFast forward and now you are collecting $150 bucks a pop and here is what you get…
The OFFICIAL and ONLY supported front end is basically a beta… For what … More than a year… And it sucks… Raspex and openpht flat out work better…
There are so many feature functions not working or not on parity with 3rd party efforts I am not even going into here… But suffice to say that you no longer offer a front end that works… Free or Plex Pass.
Now, the back end
First and foremost… The forced upgrading and inability to download version specific releases is BS… When you guys dick up a release which seems to be every other one… There is no official way to go back and download a previous version. That needs to be fixed… So that we can at least go back to a version that works.
The UI for the back end is a patchwork of settings scattered in far too many different places… For example thumbnail settings are in about 3 different places and they never seem to work right… And as for feedback as to what is going on with the back end… Plexpy is far superior… If I want to figure out why I am not getting a good transocode the first thing I do is fire up plexpy and hit the more info button for the current playing streams… Where I can see if it’s direct or transcode, the rate of transcode as a percent of realtime, and resolution, and buffer length… IE I get detailed info from a 3rd party program on what is going on under the hood… All I get from your backend playing now is transcoded or direct… Pretty poor after almost a decade of development. The back end really should have much better metrics on processor, network, dropped packets, overall health and statistics info… Really shouldn’t be too hard. If I ran my plex in a Ubuntu. Would just use netdata … That is an awesome monitoring app… Overkill even for what needs to be presented but the server backend needs SOMETHING…
Scrapers and agents is a mess… When they work they don’t work for Long and when I get it to pull metadata, rotten tomatoes goes down, when I get that working, something else breaks… It’s a mess and there are far too many settings in far too many places to be considered well thought out code.
The new DVR is I suppose another commercial partnership that works great for you but the customers get shafted… No support for the earlier generations of 1 and 2 antenna HDHomeruns is just another way for silicon image to sell more hardware… While 3rd parties seem to have this working… So is it not working for tech reasons or just that your agreement with the mfg to sell more stuff won’t let you…
You guys need to sit down and plan things out… Right now too many things moving sideways… And nothing is fully baked… And we are now now paying you money to delvelop your products is ass backwards … It’s not bad enough to that many of us here have helped get this thing moving but now the most dedicated and paying customers get very little in the way of fully functioning software… I didn’t care so much when things were free that the development method of throwing **** at the wall to see what sticks was the deal… But paying customers deserve better.
After upgrading to pass… I am still using my old clients since they work better and more reliably especially on the pi… And the DVR doesn’t work for my hardware… The pre 1.0 release server encoders worked better… Etc…
I hope you guys enjoy your new bank vault home theater that you probably waste far too much time in and should get back to designing and coding software that works…
I didn’t want this to be a bit of the rant that it turned into… Again I have been here a while… And I really want plex to be best in class… And I am not trying to be a slammer… But frustrations are running high around here and perhaps some are too polite to tell it like it is… I just hope this is taken constructively so that the product may improve moving forward…
Thanks for listening … No offense intended really…
I think a lot of people agree. Sometimes the desire to earn more subscription revenue through promotion rather than fixing the core features really gets companies. Plex is certainly in this boat. I like that they are thinking of new ways to expand the program but it feels like it is perpetually in beta and never really quite polished off. I also agree with others that they tend to release features in a beta format that are really in an alpha stage. I don’t always agree with the “we need paid subscribers to test this to give us feedback to make it better”. I usually determine that is a cop-out argument for “we really wanted to excite people into subscriptions”. I feel that the next steps are to polish off the known road map items and then get feedback a bit later. I’d rather wait and have seen a slightly more developed DVR feature than what is currently on display. But hey, that’s just my opinion and I’m entitled to it.
I would be happier if we were back 5 years ago when we had a home theater client that worked well with a backend that equally worked fine.
@dragonmel said:
I would be happier if we were back 5 years ago when we had a home theater client that worked well with a backend that equally worked fine.
Really? Are you sure you remember how much Plex has changed in the last 5 years? But I agree - what PlexPy does, Plex should be able to do.
What I want badly these days is to be able to get some basic realtime server statistics in the iOS (e. mobile) app. I shouldn’t have to launch PlexPy in a mobile browser and check one of my server statistics apps to get some sense of what’s going on.
@Elijah_Baley said:
@beckfield said:
I agree, Plex has a bad habit of rolling things out prematurely.So Plex has a case of “premature escalation?”
Good one!
Just a reminder, one big thing has changed with Plex, Inc, and that is the addition of investors. I have to believe that is what has led what many of us perceive as scope creep. It has brought good things with it as well, but I believe that is when (or maybe a few months prior to that announcement) I really started having some serious heartburn over features and stability.
@drinehart said:
Just a reminder, one big thing has changed with Plex, Inc, and that is the addition of investors.
Got any further details on that or where we can find more information on that front?
@deepseth said:
@drinehart said:
Just a reminder, one big thing has changed with Plex, Inc, and that is the addition of investors.Got any further details on that or where we can find more information on that front?
Investor info is on the plex.tv site
@drinehart said:
Just a reminder, one big thing has changed with Plex, Inc, and that is the addition of investors. I have to believe that is what has led what many of us perceive as scope creep. It has brought good things with it as well, but I believe that is when (or maybe a few months prior to that announcement) I really started having some serious heartburn over features and stability.
I would think the desire would be too have a product that has broader appeal than to those who frequent this message board. I’d think that the plex cloud product would especially be aimed at that, and we may see it combined with the ability to purchase content for the plex cloud.
A much bigger market is that for people who don’t want to maintain any kind of server, likely will use clients that don’t use Plex Home Theater or Plex Media Player (thus the neglect of these), will buy their content (partnering with amazon may be part of that), maybe add some personal photos and music, and finally would like to perhaps like to integrate content form other streaming platforms through plex to have it all in “one place”. Ripping disks or otherwise rolling your own medial isn’t something most people do.
In short that may explain some grumpiness on the is board, and this direction is likely be pushed hard by investors who want growth. My opinion.
Honestly I am really happy with the Windows App, however my main server is using Windows 7 so even direct connected to the TV I am disappointed with just PMP. This isnt really plex’s fault since Windows 7 isnt app compatible.
@hthighway said:
@deepseth said:
@drinehart said:
Just a reminder, one big thing has changed with Plex, Inc, and that is the addition of investors.Got any further details on that or where we can find more information on that front?
Investor info is on the plex.tv site
So “We appreciate all of the support we get from our world-class group of investors, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.”
Anything else?
@deepseth said:
@hthighway said:
@deepseth said:
@drinehart said:
Just a reminder, one big thing has changed with Plex, Inc, and that is the addition of investors.Got any further details on that or where we can find more information on that front?
Investor info is on the plex.tv site
So “We appreciate all of the support we get from our world-class group of investors, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.”
Anything else?
Yes, see this link: http://bfy.tw/85eP
This is a cycle. Frustration builds, people get more and more annoyed, eventually Plex staff appear apologetically, promise to be more communicative in future, keep it up for a week then disappear again when the fuss has died down.
It’s very predictable. Not telling customers what is going on is both a) patently stupid and b) a core Plex philosophy. Totally used to it now though.
No actual answers or feedback from Plex on the original question here yet. Maybe this thread should have been on the Plex facebook page, seems you get better responses there.
