Plex core features are falling behind in my opinion

General Discussions
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To start with I’ve used Plex for years before they even offered the Plex Pass, I bought it without much hesitation, but I think as time goes on the direction from Plex is diverging from my needs.

First thing is first, Plex’s core mechanics are great. It serves up standard movies and tv shows without many issue and if that’s all I was trying to watch, Plex would be great. Unfortunately it seems the Plex dev’s are on a forward trajectory toward more clients instead of upping the server features.

Its been years that people have been asking for custom icons for libraries, bulk metadata editing, file stubs, disk or absolute episode order, better movie grouping, etc. and I’m starting to think that server features are less priority than client expansion.

As an example I happen to have a large library of art video’s that Plex refuses to even show; if I add them, Plex does nothing even though the log shows it see’s the files but doesn’t know what to do with them (I’m guessing because they’re not added as S00E00) while they immediately show on a competing media streamer in their folder structure as you’d expect.
If I add this personal media folder as “TV” I have to rename every file with the S00E00 format to maintain structure (which is a LOT of work). If I do it by “home video” its a jumbled mess of videos, disk structure is ignored.

Simply put one of the big Plex competitors handles personal media just as you’d expect it to, allowing you to configure its display and offers much better metadata handling and editing. I have a huge collection of standard TV/Movie shows; but as I collect a larger group of personal media, I’d like to view it when I travel just as easily as anything else I have on the server.

This isn’t a condemnation of Plex or its offerings for viewing most media, but as for hitting the big 1.0 (congrats by the way) I can’t believe I’m still waiting for server upgrades that have been asked for, for years. I’m not upset that I paid for Plex, when I paid for the lifetime offering I already got that cost and more from the years before, its a great product. Just one I feel is falling behind now on features, possibly in the name of brand expansion.

I hope Plex continues in its success, but I hope they focus on more server features soon as well.
Sorry for rambling, and yes I know these are my concerns and not everyone else’s, but thanks for reading :slight_smile:

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@bayn said:
Its been years that people have been asking for custom icons for libraries, bulk metadata editing, file stubs, disk or absolute episode order, better movie grouping, etc.
No current Plex client uses library icons anymore so this is not going to be possible. I know, this is one of my favorite features from before. Bulk metadata editing is possible is a limited way. Not sure what File stubs are. Episode order, there is a modified TheTVDB agent you can use for. I forget what it’s called but you can search in the agents section to find it.
As an example I happen to have a large library of art video’s …
If I add this personal media folder as “TV” I have to rename every file with the S00E00 format to maintain structure (which is a LOT of work). If I do it by “home video” its a jumbled mess of videos, disk structure is ignored.
Just leave it as a video section and change the view in the client to Folder View. Then you can see them in the same structure as on the disc.

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Hello Moviefan,
Thanks for responding, those are all good suggestions.

The point of my topic was to discuss how Plex has limited features, and seems to have slowed down new server functions being added. Why were library icons removed when these are old requests? Metadata editing has improved but with a media server shouldn’t this be a constant field to improve on? Episode order as well, why did a 3rd party have to come up with the agent for this when this is a years old request - as is the agent, (or if metadata editing was better, we could simply reorder it ourselves).

What you offered were great ways to work around these issues, many of which I’ve done over the years, but my comments were to ask that hopefully the Plex roadmap can focus a bit more on server features.

I know this is just my opinion, but Plex is a great way to push bought TV and Movie’s to your clients - maybe thats its sole focus. But as a general “media” server, work could be done, in my opinion anyway, to allow us to configure our “non-Tv and non-Movie” based media and metadata better.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings in any case.

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@bayn said:
The point of my topic was to discuss how Plex has limited features, and seems to have slowed down new server functions being added. Why were library icons removed when these are old requests? Metadata editing has improved but with a media server shouldn’t this be a constant field to improve on? Episode order as well, why did a 3rd party have to come up with the agent for this when this is a years old request - as is the agent, (or if metadata editing was better, we could simply reorder it ourselves).
Library icons were removed because with the new UI, there is no place for the icon. The libraries are just text now. Plex was never really designed for large scale metadata management, it was designed to provide the data from the selected agent. If there are errors in the data, it would be better to change it at the source so everyone can benefit. Except for the sort title, I don’t think I’ve personally edited any of the metadata for a movie or TV show. I’m not sure what type of mass edited you would be doing except adding labels. Home movies and photos are a different story and these could be done better. For episode order, Plex matches the order to the agent used. Plex’s official agent for TV Shows is TheTVDB and their ordering is by aired date. Again, if there is a problem with the order, it should be taken up at the source.
What you offered were great ways to work around these issues, many of which I’ve done over the years, but my comments were to ask that hopefully the Plex roadmap can focus a bit more on server features.
There are more server features coming. However, the ones above are lower priority and are not very popular requests based on the vote count.
I know this is just my opinion, but Plex is a great way to push bought TV and Movie’s to your clients - maybe thats its sole focus. But as a general “media” server, work could be done, in my opinion anyway, to allow us to configure our “non-Tv and non-Movie” based media and metadata better.
I agree on this last part. Right now it’s a matter of resources and the things Plex is working on leaves little time to work on these not so popular features. Not saying these can’t be improved in the future, just that for now they don’t warrant being moved to the front burners.

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Plex’s official agent for TV Shows is TheTVDB and their ordering is by aired date.

That’s not all they have (DVD and “Absolute” order as well as Aired, though the data’s predictably spotty for shows where the aired order matched the DVD order), but it is all that Plex supports. There’s a plugin that seems to be in a partially broken state at the moment to get Plex to do DVD order - it’d be great to see the ability to do DVD order in Plex’s core.

What I’d love to see Plex do? Ditch these awful metadata providers and build their own metadata provider similar to how Steam Controller profiles work: anyone can create a profile for a game (which in Steam maps buttons to keys; in Plex it would be the metadata for the movie/episode/season/etc), then the most popular choice is default for people adding the content to their library, but they can easily switch over to a different/better profile for the media if they don’t like the default (similar to how Plex currently can switch between the available posters and backgrounds).

This way, instead of a bunch of Plex users wasting their time fixing the same error in the same locked TVDB entry and having it never change, Plex users could contribute to metadata that’s designed for the Plex platform.

(Image copyright is likely a problem for the posters and background images - might need to stay with TVDB for those?)

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@MovieFan.Plex said:
Just leave it as a video section and change the view in the client to Folder View. Then you can see them in the same structure as on the disc.

Would love to see Folder View brought back as a more prominent view on more clients again. It’s looking good on the iOS client, nicely remembering the display preference for different library sections. If that were the case on the ATV4 and PMP as well, that would be ideal! :slight_smile:

Thanks, and keep up the good work!

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@bayn said:
To start with I’ve used Plex for years before they even offered the Plex Pass, I bought it without much hesitation, but I think as time goes on the direction from Plex is diverging from my needs.

I think this is the most important statement you make. Plex is diverging from your needs, not necessarily from the majority of people’s needs. I, for instance, use it mainly for Movies and TV shows and the occasional music streaming. I have no need whatsoever for home videos or pictures or special video types or watch later or channels, etc. People have been clamoring for years about the ability to lock down adult movies but I have no need for that functionality at all. As the Plex base grows, your needs may be falling into a smaller and smaller minority.

Plex is moving in certain directions. Some things you will like, some things you will not (like removing the Icons).
It happens. Companies do this all the time. (Think “New Coke”.)
Unfortunately, not much can be done about it, unless you want to infuse with some real money, not just the cost of a Plex Pass. The company I work for re-wrote a core software product from the ground up. We changed the way we did things in the software. Some customers were mad, so mad they left. Others paid lots and lots of money to get some of the features back in. Some features are never going to be put back in, no matter what. That is just the way it is. The Plex team has to weigh the benefits against the losses and see what makes sense. Plex isn’t the tiny media streaming company anymore. Hopefully it will work out better than some of the earlier offerings that I used along the way and have fallen by the wayside (Is TVersity still around??? How about Boxee???).

Just my $0.16 (US) - that’s 2 cents from the year I was born, adjusted for inflation.

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@rsava
I agree, that’s why I put that statement in there :slight_smile:
Plex does what it does very well overall, its a really solid product. I just was suggesting they go back and put a bit more work in the server side, if its in their interest.

Gnomon (https://www.gnomon.edu/) used to sell a ton of their videos on DVD, its nice to buy them, and make them available when i’m on a plane or want to quickly brush up on a topic. And after collecting gigs of video’s from youtube/dvd’s/purchase and download, Plex makes me spend even more time renaming and reordering files to show them in an organized way.

Like I said, I just hoped they would focus a bit more on the user customization side of the server. I’ll keep running it side-by-side with another media server for the time being. They have their priorities and I lose little by voicing my (minor) opinion.

@MovieFan.Plex
Thanks for the responses, its always great to get team replies.

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Sorry if I came across as saying you shouldn’t voice your opinion. Did not mean to.