OpenPHT vs PMP vs App vs Web App as client

General Discussions
1

To begin with, I know this has been asked and answered…sort of. I have searched this forum and googled others and found lots of info. Much of it is contradictory because things change in newer versions and many answers were incorrect to begin with.

I’m reasonably new to Plex and want to migrate to it from WMC. WAF is very, very important. As a result, I’m trying to figure out the preferred choice(s) for UI. No one answer fits all people, so I’m looking for the main features of each and the direction of development. From that I can figure out my pros and cons of each. I can also determine if I want to replace client hardware (e.g. throw out the Xbox 360 for an RPi or Apple TV)

For instance, I just tried to compare the latest Windows App with PMP for Windows using keyboard/mouse. They look remarkably similar. I could learn either UI with equal ease. So why are there two? I suspect one will fall out of favour and development will cease. I want to make an informed decision that considers the present, the future and the WAF!

To that end, I would like to know for each client (current release):

  1. supported platforms
  2. similarity across platforms (common codebase?)
  3. development activity and focus (active, mature, EOL, goal of common appearance across all platforms etc.)
  4. 10’ interface (excellent/good/ok/bad/NA)
  5. keyboard/mouse interface (excellent/good/ok/bad/NA)
  6. included (or native) codec support (to avoid transcoding)
  7. “extra” features (e.g. configuring DVR recording)
  8. “missing” features and whether that is likely to change (e.g. PMP is still adding “expected” features as it matures)
  9. performance
  10. biggest strengths
  11. biggest weaknesses
  12. any other comments, including preferences, but if you have a preference, state why it matters to you (e.g. love the web app because I’m always using other people’s computers)

Also, is “Universal App” the same as “App” (e.g. Windows 10 store) and is “Web App” the same as “:32400”? Are there any I have missed?

2

PMP 1.2.X, now with the included desktop mode, can act as a 10’ interface or as a desktop app using keyboard/mouse. For which clients you should be using I will answer it this way…

In our house it was important that every TV have the same interface (or as close to it as possible) no matter which hardware I had connected to it. So for me, the 4 TV’s in our house I have an Intel NUC running PMP on the main TV, a Vizio Smart TV running the Plex Smart TV app, a TV using a Roku Stick and finally a TV using an RPi with PMP as well. All 4 TV’s look essentially the same to the user which was very important to me as I didn’t want to have to teach the family how to use more than one interface.

PMP, depending on the hardware you run it on, should handle 99.9% of all media thrown at it
A Roku is also a solid player that can handle most media as well.

3

Your needs seem similar to mine. I was thinking PMP on Windows for the main TV (currently WMC) and replacing the Xbox360s (older style “App”) with RPi running PMP.

Now that PMP handles 10’, is the App codebase being merged with the PMP codebase? I really don’t see any need for both the App and PMP on Windows. On platforms that have one or the other (e.g. Smart TV = App), moving to a single codebase (call it PMP) seems a no-brainer, but I don’t have all the info…