I just tried out Plex Discover since it sounded nice to get everything in one location. Unfortunately I found something that would make me immediately disable it. The setup was great, it let me pick the streaming services we use or want to use (those we already subscribe to, and more importantly with kids, those that are ad free).
Then I looked through some content and ran some searches, and found that there were shows and movies showing up in the results that were not from the services I selected. I donāt want to see anything there that I canāt watch with the streaming services I selected. That defeats the whole purpose of telling Plex what services youāre willing to use. I hope this is a bug and not an intentional āfeatureā to get people to buy and spend more.
Hoping also a BETA thingā¦ The Search functionality is searching ALL those services, even with none selected. Cannot seem to find a way to turn this off, client or server side.
In their documentation this is presented as a feature so you can find your content even if itās not on a service you are using but should have your preferred services (and local server) listed first in the results.
Ya, I thought it was awesome as well, but then was really disappointed. They explained it as āno more jumping between your subscribed appsā but itās more like āadvertising services you donāt haveā.
Would be great if it was only services that you subscribed to, or selected.
I was also really disappointed that there was not more energy put into separating free streaming & ad-supported streaming. The āFreeā services they say are sometimes ad-supported. Other times they are truly free. I would love to be able to have results show up that are non-ad-supported but want to cut out all the sites that use ads. I know the knowledge network is free & not ad-supported. āHope for Wildlifeā is one of the shows there. If you want to see it on prime, you need a subscription but also an extra āpackā on top of the subscription. In Plex when you find it, it does not give you any viewing options. I even selected the knowledge network as one of my preferred networks.
Overall very disappointing. But I have had real issues with the way Plex deals with movies and TV libraries. For example, they always separate them, so if I want to find everything written by Shakespeare, while, I can only select his stuff in one of the two librariesā¦ not what I really want to see. And if I want to see all the science fiction, I need to select science fiction from movies or TVā¦ Again not what I want. I guess the same somewhat odd decisions on delivering content are coming to this new feature. Too bad.
Getting same thing here and hate it. Also searching for shows I know are on Netflix and they are showing up for Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play and Vudu. All something I would have to purchase. Ex. Search āThe Vampire Diariesā which is definitely on Netflix and it doesnāt show up as available. Hoping this is just Beta kinks that need to be worked out. Otherwise, kind of defeats the purpose of linking your subscription services.
Same here. I only want to see content for the services Iāve chosen. Especially if Iām being shown content for services Iāll never be getting because I donāt live in the country those services are available in.
In one of the other threads asking about a ādisableā option, a couple of Plex employees said that showing the other services was an intentional decision. Selecting āyourā streaming services just puts those higher in your search and Discovery lists.
Itās a terrible decision, but they donāt seem to care.
Edit: Surprise, surprise. In another thread in response to:
Elan said: AFAIK this will be in an upcoming update.
ZakMckracken, if thereās one thing Iāve learned in the short time Iāve been using Plex itās that thereās a lot they donāt seem to care about when it comes to user satisfaction.
Whilst I am generally of the opinion that I do NOT want to see anything in searches that I cannot access, i.e. from services to which I donāt subscribe, I can understand that some users may like this.
So it seems another config option is required that allows INclusion or EXclusion of search results not from subscribed services.
UKenGB, I agree, INclusion or EXclusion would be great. And even if wanted to see results from services Iām not subscribed to, I do not want to see results for services Iāll never subscribe to because they arenāt available in my country.
I just hope that as itās a beta release, they are working on further refinements and maybe weāll eventually see such developments.
However I have to say it is unusual for a company to push its beta software out to all users, without even asking and I would also suggest that they need to listen to their customers about this feature as it seems many are VERY unhappy with this feature and if not careful, Plex will lose business over it.
