I have been trying to use and get used to the new UI for a few weeks now. I love a new look and feel and want to get any of this, but I have to say that it is just a huge step backwards in every way possible.
Forgetting the expected bugs, quirks and issues that will get worked out, my feedback is focused on the UI. It’s horrible. And this is coming from someone that has implemented more UIs than I care to remember.
Here are a few main points that I have observed through my and other people using Plex:
we want customization … get quickly to what we want
Plex has many lives, for some of us it is Live TV/DVR, others it is music, and others it is their own libraries of personal videos. This new UI doesn’t make any of these easier.
You need a custom dashboard/customized home for each user. We should be able to do the fewest clicks to get into what we want to watch
Make Plex the home experience for everything. Watchlists have the idea, but bring in what you did with Movies and TV Shows. Allow the users to filter and only show unwatched shows, new episodes, movies, etc.
Beef up your recommendation engine, use AI. This will bring users to use their own profiles.
think about how people sit down and want to view shows
Organization of files is nice, but is that how we use Plex daily? I would argue no.
if we wanted a flashy way to get through folders, we could do that without Plex.
Please don’t turn this into Sonos. Learn by their mistakes. As an integrator, I stopped using them a year ago, despite having anything else to turn to. I would easily stop Plex too.
we want customization … get quickly to what we want
You need a custom dashboard/customized home for each user. We should be able to do the fewest clicks to get into what we want to watch
These two feel like the same thing to me, do you mean you want to be able to create shortcuts? Could you elaborate?
I’ll ignore music for now as that’s not something the new app supports, we have PlexAmp as a dedicated music app which can offer far better features for music specifically being dedicated to it. As for Live TV, I think the new app is actually easier to access as there is a dedicated Live TV option in the main level navigation.
Maybe you could elaborate a bit here too.
Sounds like you want Watchlist improvements? Definitely valid but also this is something not directly related to the app and I think there is already a few requests for improvements here: https://forums.plex.tv/tags/c/feature-suggestions/8/watchlist
Agreed that we can be better here, this wouldn’t be something that new app does it would be server-side.
I’m a bit lost on what you mean here. Plex has always been about presenting the user with enhanced metadata for their media. If you wanted to just browse through folders then I’m not sure why you would use a product like Plex in the first place.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I wanted the best way to provide the feedback, and this may have worked.
Let me clarify and streamline a few of those answers above.
Yes, these could be brought together. The point being is that when we sit down to watch TV, most often it will be for specific tasks. We are creatures of habit and each of us will have a few things that we always likely do. For example, I’ll use me:
Watch Live TV for KTLA, KABC, KCBS, KCAL and Bloomberg (from Plex Channels.
Pick up where I left off on a TV Show or Movie I didn’t finish
Use my Watch List to start something new.
I will add that there are likely benefits to the Plex ecosystem to add things like top shows, latest additions/recordings, hot PPV, etc. These would be secondary, especially for your Plex Pass users.
My wife, well, she probably wants to see the latest shows that are available (maybe it isn’t recorded on Plex) or recorded for one of the Housewives shows or some other specific Bravo shows.
My 7 year old … he’ll watch the same 3 movies or shows, over and over
A customized view for each of us that is tied to our profile would be enormous.
My point on music was more to acknowledge that some are probably sad to see this separated. Personally, we find Spotify more appropriate. But again, different preferences.
On the Live TV - I think this is a huge step backwards. Separating the Plex Channels from the rest of your listings from OTA makes no sense. Also, moving between the top menus and the side menus is cumbersome. Here are a few other points (putting bugs aside):
Channel Guide should be filterable by type of show
Allow more than one “Favorites”. I may have MY News channels, my Locals. These wouldn’t be the same as just filtering, as I want to weed out the local channels that are repeats, etc.
have a default that it always goes into. You used to have this… which worked about 70% of the time. I’d open the Channel Guide and it would show me my favorites. Now, I have to Select Live TV at the top, then go to the left side, then look at Favorite Plex Channels, then go to Favorite DVR channels. 95% of the time when I go in, I want to see my favorites, then click filter to change the ones. Think about how YouTube TV does this. Much better interface, although I also think YTTV is too clunky looking
I figure this is still coming, but a complete revamp of the upcoming recordings, including the ability to force record a show. i.e., last week I had a recording set for “Tech Today” but the Fed hearing was on, which wiped that out. I wanted to set the later, 11am showing of Tech Today to record. But I can’t.
again, I go back to the number of clicks to get where I want. Clicks = cumbersome and this interface has way too many clicks. Just today, it took 16 clicks to switch between 3 shows I start my day with that are live tv.
I’ll look at this further, as I haven’t done that in a while. But yes, this revamp should include this or you will likely lose a lot of people’s interest.
Fair point. I’d create a roadmap on this one as you launch though and share, have a beta soon after, etc. This will get people excited. Most won’t understand why it isn’t there. I get it, but the average user would just see it missing.
Some of my comments could likely be consolidated with the customization features. BUT, I would add that my point is still analyzing how people sit down and use Plex. Metadata is great and a given, but the real reason people like Plex is that they don’t want to pay the cable company. Likewise, they have probably curated the shows already and know what they are. I am not saying get rid of the metadata, as it is still huge. I’m just saying that a lot of this revamp looks like it is just moving around the navigation to get to shows, movies and Live TV. In my opinion, it is more complicated and increases the number of clicks than what you have today. You may be trying to add too much to the UI vs. typical filters, etc. i.e., the navigation at the top, then the sub navigation, then the additional navigation on the left. Too much.
I would hazard a guess that the average user would sit down and enjoy a “My Plex” screen to conduct 80% of their daily tasks, if it was done right. I’d rather see you make Plex my TV Hub. This does bleed into the watchlist improvements, but I think those are critical to the Home Screen.
Sorry for the long message, but I’m trying to give you as much feedback as I can. I want to see Plex succeed. But again, I think this new UI needs some big tweaks.
Another perspective is a friend of mine. He has all of his libraries sorted by putting a number in front of them:
1 - New Movies
2 - New TV Shows
3 - Movies - Comedy
4 - Movies - Drama
5 - Movies - Vintage 80’s
etc, etc. I have seen about a dozen variations of this with others too. Those are really filters based on tags, including customizable ones. Your meta data has some of these. I’d be this type of user would love to have a Home Screen where they have saved filters.
Just curious - any idea how your friend is accomplishing that? Are those libraries pointing to specific folders or something? I would love the ability to have “shortcuts” like that on the side - basically giving me a filtered view of my library based on specific criteria.
I’ve been using Channels DVR for a few months now (mainly for Live TV), but they also allow me to import my libraries and create custom sections with filters, etc. - tons of flexibility. Unfortunately the UI doesn’t have nearly the beauty of what Plex - if Plex could add more customization that would be huge. They could do it with their Plex channels as well - just having “favorites” isn’t enough IMHO.
That’s exactly it. He creates a new Library for each of these and then points them to a different folder. It’s a lot of work to get what he wants to accomplish.
I have a less sophisticated, but similar strategy that I learned from others, where I have TV Shows, TV Shows - Kids, TV Shows - News. Honestly, it is kind of silly to have all of these, and I screw things up all the time when recording. Like having my Bloomberg Technology accidentally get added to my TV Shows - Kids, etc.
The harder part for the initially referenced user is moving from 1 - New Movies to its proper category later. He has to go through multiple steps.
If there was a way to filter these through a single “TV Shows” and then you could have pinned “TV Shows - News” that grabs it from the same folder, or better yet, “TV Shows - My News” where I created a tag called “My News”, it would organize things much better. In the case of “New Releases”, that’s just a filter for movies added or released within xx days.
I’ll have to check out the Channels DVR. I find the Plex DVR and Live TV support is too finicky. If a show has a signal issue, it just cuts it off without trying to buffer and retry. I’ve been experimenting with other solutions to get around that. I’d record it on something else and then move it to my main viewing platform, hopefully still Plex.
I think we are both on the same wavelength, as are many others I talk to.
