The new video player on Android TV no longer displays the text overlay in the upper left corner when showing the play pause etc. You can get the info, but it requires navigating menus.
Can we please not remove such a useful feature? Being able to tap a button and see that the player is or isn’t transcoding and why without having to navigate multiple screens on top of my playing content is super useful.
In general, the new player hides many of the buttons in a “more” like menu button, which adds clicks to get to the task. This is a massive regression in UI/UX.
Edit: To add some clarity, this is the “new” player (the button layout in the player is completely different) and app version 7.25.0.14185 (222dfa44).
Can you confirm you still have this enabled in the settings?
I’ve just double checked on my Android TV… and while it took a moment until the playback was running for 3-4 seconds, the playback info showed up consistently from then.
Check that you have enable the “new” video player. When I started plex today, I was invited to try it, but it was clear in the pop up message that it will eventually be the player for everyone.
The new player changes the UI a lot, but the main thing that I noticed is that they moved almost all the buttons into a “sandwhich” menu so you have to first click that button before all the others show. The playback info is in its own menu item rather than the overlay. And when you open it, it blocks most of the screen, rather than the minimalist overlay in the “regular” player. The way it works in the new player reminds me of the “stats for nerds” experience in the YouTube app (with less information). There is no simple always showing overlay anymore.
I confirmed I still have it enabled, and even tried toggling it on and off, so the setting is completely ignored in the new interface.
Obviously, I can go back to the old player for now, but since this new player will eventually become standard, I wanted to flag this up ASAP and hopefully convince the Plex devs that removal of this feature is a massive detriment to the user experience.
I have the new player (exo player v2) enabled… however I just noticed I’m still on 7.24.3 (shoutout to “staged rollouts” ).
Are you experiencing this behavior with the newly released version 7.25.0?
I’ll post pictures when I have a chance. Firstly though, mine does not look like yours even when I enable it from cog. But secondly, my complaint and issue IS that you have to use a cog menu. I just want the overlay to ALWAYS show when I hit a button, like it did before. I always want to be sure of whether playback is direct, transcode, and why. That simple bit of info used to always show. Can we please not take that feature away?
I just checked, and there is no “Nerd Settings” in my cog menu. Only “Go to Episode”, “Playback Settings”, “Playback Info”, and “Add to Playlist”. “Playback Info” gets me most of the information I’m looking for, but it isn’t an overlay that I can toggle on, it’s a menu that I have to navigate to every time I play something if I want to check.
Once you enable it, does it stay on across media item plays (persistent)? And does it disappear with the rest of the UI until I press a button? If so, it’s a bit busy, but I would be happy.
Agree with @adayforgotten, it would be nice to bring back the original information overlay. I like the new player, but getting to the information requires much more work.
Original Player: Click button on remote, see information on screen regarding direct play / direct stream / transcode.
New Player:
click button to pull up on-screen controls.
move to and select gear on left side of screen
click back button to get to intermediate screen
scroll down to, then select, Playback Info
see desired information on-screen.
The new player is available in v7.25.x. Enabled via Plex client settings → Advanced. Based on earlier posts, it is not available in 7.24.x or earlier versions.
I do not see the Nerd Settings as shown by @dan-the-man.
Jumping on this bring back the information overlay. If it is a case of just enabling the nerd setting feature for everyone then push that out. The new UI while slick looking has moved things like audio streams and captions to sub-menus that take extra time to find and change. That is definitely a step backward for usability.
New player is all around bad and most concerns do not seem to be addressed but the new player keeps being periodically re-enabled. Very sneaky and disingenuous.
My Nvidia Shield reverted back to the new player today, guess there was an update. If the new player was given the option of displaying the information overlay then I’d start using it. Until then, I’m using the old player.
The new version of the information overlay (called Nerd Settings) is much more detailed. You can access it in the player in the overflow menu, down the bottom. If it’s not already publicly available, it should be soon
).
