What’s the point of obscuring music libraries in the Roku app?
They are removing Music and Photos from the “New Experience”
Music and Photos: We have built dedicated music and photo applications that are companions to the Plex app. Plexamp and Plex Photos are where access to music and photo libraries will live moving forward. As such, music and photos access will no longer be available within the regular Plex application when it gets updated to the new experience. Both companion apps are still in active development and can expect updates soon.
Good luck,
Chris
Well, I just checked the Roku channel store and there is no plexamp app there. So this doesn’t seem to apply for the Roku platform. Does Plex intend to obscure music from the “new experience” app on Roku (if simply because it’s a unified code base, so it’s the same on all platforms) and we end up with no alternative?
So again I ask, what’s the point of obscuring music in the ROKU APP.
Thx.
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Seriously. The new UI and design choices don’t sound very appealing or functional. I’ve never had any serious issues with your client side programs across multiple platforms, but I’m cringing at the idea of being forced into this “new experience” on iOS and Roku based on the extensive amount of user feedback I’ve read… very little of which has been positive. I love your software and obviously was down to pay for it, so please don’t leave us flapping in the wind just to, what… have what you think might be UI closer to your streaming competitions UIs. After all, we all chose plex to get away from the mainstream streaming environment no?
So I don’t want to just rabble rouse, I’m hoping to 1) receive a reply to my concerns and 2) convey my deep concern that this new app design could kneecap the functionality of your invaluable service despite your msg acknowledging the “rough rollout” or however you worded it.
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Looks like this topic got moved over to it’s own thread…
I’m not defending their choice, just letting you know what has come up on this in other areas.
PlexAmp for TV on any platform is not on the roadmap. It’s been brought up in the PlexAmp areas in the past and that’s been the response with the usual suggestion to look into setting up a headless PlexAmp to connect PlexAmp to a AV system directly (you can setup a Pi to run PlexAmp for example).
For folks who used that functionality it’s definitely a kick in the nads to have it removed.
Personally I really like PlexAmp and it works really well on my mobile device, but removing a way to play music through a TV which is often someone’s primary media device in their home seems shortsighted by Plex. Particularly as TV setups have largely replaced Receiver\Stereo setups in people’s homes.
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How hard is it to leave it available on TV device client apps? My receiver and speakers hooked up to my main TV are the best I have. I use my plex Roku app for music all the time.
Why are you making everything worse, right after you convince me to pay you for plex pass? I don’t understand why they’re arbitrarily making everything worse.
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Living my temporal love life with Plex before the nuke hits my Roku. And hoping that Plex regains sanity and addresses their (emphasis) issue. My fear is that Plex’s war against their customer base will lead to the death of Plex. Perhaps what they were shooting for??? (there has to be a logical reason… Voyager S2E16 Meld)
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The business model changed. That’s not a defense or anything, just a perspective.
Local media folks aren’t their base users anymore. We don’t make them enough money - particularly lifetime pass folks like me who bought it for $80 on sale like 12 years ago. Rentals and Discovery\Data collection stuff and monthly subscriptions (like $2 Remote Watch Pass) make them recurring income which their investors will want to see as perpetual annual growth. Yay capitalism! 
Local media folks are legacy users heading towards - if not already - the minority paying customer group now; they don’t really share numbers but that’s the impression. Plex doesn’t even mention local media in their App Store listings and it’s at the bottom of the main page now… after the “connect with friends!” section.
If you want a purely local media centric option I recommend Emby or Jellyfin (Emby is the more polished option but does cost monies). Both support music and photos in their clients too. Jellyfin recently released their Roku 3.0 channel which vastly improves the experience over their 2.0 channel.
Personally… Plex still does enough better that it’s not worth the effort it’ll take to switch because the changes aren’t as impactful for me so that’s just my situation. Switching would mean redoing all my file naming for matching and version\edition management because Emby\Jellyfin handle that very differently - more particular - and I have multiple versions for most of my titles and my family\friends would need to become more savvy to manage playback for things Plex handles automatically for them.
Kodi and Infuse are popular alternatives that work a little different (no server piece) but Infuse is AppleTV only for now (getting Android eventually I think) and Kodi isn’t on Roku (last I checked).
I have learned through some of these changes that after getting “used to it” for a bit some of the abrasion from the changes smooths out. Plex tweaks things a little in the long run and you as a user kinda get used to it and move on; particularly if you’re like me and already got your money’s worth outta the lifetime pass. If I was paying monthly with higher prices or if I was used to having music on TV and didn’t want to deal with casting from a phone I’d have a different perspective. I’m quite sure Plex knows this cycle too which is another reason you get crickets to some things - they don’t engage and it’ll eventually blow over.
I used to be more personally invested when it was more of a community project but I took some advice from another long time user and adjusted my expectations. Just mentioning it here because that helped keep me from letting a “media center app” get too me too much.
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This take is deeply sad and I refuse to accept it. Thinking they just don’t care about the users who made their platform what it is today are now an after thought is so defeating that I’m not gonna go there.
Anyway, please don’t live up to this Plex. Just fix the problems. What motivations could drive them to alienate this core user base? I don’t buy it. Surely it’s not that hard and whatever they want to do beyond that can coexist. These focuses are not mutually exclusive. Plex can offer things without taking away from people who already get what they need for local media. Whatever drove this app redesign can occur without wrecking existing functionality right? Annnnyway, I hope Plex does the right thing and fixes all these issues instead of just ignoring us. 
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Losing the ability to play music in the Roku app is my main concern with this UI update. It is the way I play music in my garage, as I can have a big screen showing me what is currently playing without needing to get out my phone while I am working. I love Plexamp and don’t want to lose it, but might have to look at alternatives if I lose the ability to play music on Roku.
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I finally took the time to install the new experience app on an entry level android phone (a Samsung A14 5G running v14 of android and v6.1 of One UI) to see the new app for myself. I discovered that many of the complaints I’ve read are not correct (at least at this time) and the result of people not knowing how to resolve them. For example, the Live TV button and live TV rows on the Home Screen can be removed by disabling live TV in your account in the web interface settings. You can find out how quite easily online. I also didn’t discover any playback issues in my very short trial run. I just wanted to share as it seems like the fair thing to do given how much concern I’ve expressed here and in other threads.
This doesn’t change my opinion on my concerns like not being able to play music on my Roku TV app when that launches widespread, or other things I’ve heard about, but it’s certainly noteworthy. I will post more as I have more first hand experiences. It’s the least I should do to try to get accurate and well informed info out there.
** edited for typos and to clarify the over all post. It was a mess, but the over all msg is unaltered
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Has anyone tried to cast music to the Roku app using Plexamp?
No. Just Apple AirPlay. I wouldn’t expect that to work as it’s a different app entirely.
