I’m hearing quite a bit of the community getting angry at plex, for lack of communication, stability issues / hardware transcoding not in combined code branch, combined with too many non core features etc.
…so I wanted to hopefully give plex some constructive thoughts and to support / help Plex to direct your small dev team and prioritise the stuff we want, and hopefully help you retain more of your PlexPass clients/community …before they get narky and jump to your competitor. Plex you have a cool product, but you need to focus on the core reasons we want Plex and stability please.
Below are my feature / requests in priority order - Plex dev teams …Lets get back to the core reason we like Plex!
I know its a big job but please allocate more dev resources to Hardware transcododing feature please, iron out the bugs and have included in main code branch (I’m perfectly happy for this to remain in Plex Pass only, I’m happy to pay for a good product as appreciate resources required to bring to us)
DVR - works well and I find stable on the LG/Samsung tv app, but app its not user/family friendly for DVR (only admin friendly), We need the Plex.Inc TV apps (LG, Samsung etc) where the users (our family users) can manage TV recordings (add in recordings/series via EPG, delete content, delete recordings/series) I’m perfectly happy for this to remain in Plex Pass only, I’m happy to pay for a good product as appreciate resources required to bring to us
Others please add
Certifying other TV tuner, can you can have those tv tuner manufactures help in ironing out the compatibility issues with their tuners? (I would still prioritise Plex dev on h.w transcoding and DVR)
others add
others add
Photo’s feature is a great feature, but its really a nice to have feature, people typically want Plex for content to play on their tv’s, devices, please - Plex please allocate your limited resources to core features first (I would still prioritise Plex dev on h.w transcoding and DVR) please
Live TV, a cool feature, but more of a nice to have in my opinion, I have a good tv to watch live tv - Plex please allocate your limited resources to core features first (I would still prioritise Plex dev on h.w transcoding and DVR) please
others add
Cloud access, who really cares, I don’t know anyone who wants to use it - Plex Product Management to stop playing with what looks a cool feature, and get back to core values and stability please!
Plex teams: Do a poll of features and divert your limited resources to those in the communities priority order.
This thread really isn’t a feature request and probably belongs in the general discussions section. I also disagree with the notion that Plex should exclusively focus on what you classify as its “core” features (i.e. playing/recording videos on TV). The software was originally built as a way for users to create their own home theater systems, and I believe Plex has done an excellent job keeping pace with what customers want and expect.
@bsheperis said:
This thread really isn’t a feature request and probably belongs in the general discussions section. I also disagree with the notion that Plex should exclusively focus on what you classify as its “core” features (i.e. playing/recording videos on TV). The software was originally built as a way for users to create their own home theater systems, and I believe Plex has done an excellent job keeping pace with what customers want and expect.
I agree. The DVR functionality has only been around a relatively short time. While it’s a spectular features (along with Live TV) to encourage more people to save money by cancelling their cable or satellite services, I don’t think it can yet be considered one of the core features.
The reason I started using Plex was because of the ability to rip all of my DVDs/BluRays and watch them on my Apple TV without any hassle, and with a beautiful interface.
I do agree that all of the things mentioned need attention, though. There have been a lot of new features added in the last year and it does seem like they all need attention to stabilize and complete the features rather than adding new features/functions to Plex.
I persoanlly think that the Plex team has taken on more features than they can manage. Many actual core audio (music)/video (movies/tv) experiences are broken. The Windows and Xbox clients are trainwreaks and they haven’t seen updates in ages.
Personally, at this point, DVR and hardware transcoding are “nice to have” features. They don’t make or break the service, so it doesn’t make much sense to invest heavily in them while simple core scenarios are severely suffering.
The thrust of your message is appropriate. However. I am going to have to disagree on your ordered list of priorities… for the majority of plex users…
And I agree with @Spineless
While I agree that the wheels are once again coming off the bus at plex… its because
The backend is failing… both the general release and the pass versions lately have had major issues… not installing correctly… crashing, remote/local connectivity, and the DVD/Live that is no longer beta is worse now than at 1.5.x… lasly the backend in concert with point 2… is no longer able to deliver content… movie content… what we are ALL here for… correctly and at HIGH QUALITY
The front end clients are a mess again… tvOS client is transcoding just about everything, direct play/steam completely broken… PMP is making strides slowly but its 5 years+ late to the party… but the big issue is how between back and front end… plex is no longer able to reliably play content at the highest quality the server/client combination is capable of…
The Automatic Quality has been severely broken and has had to be disabled on just about every client to get it to work at all.
Plex needs to start proving the HOME THEATER experiance again… period.
@Spineless said:
I persoanlly think that the Plex team has taken on more features than they can manage. Many actual core audio (music)/video (movies/tv) experiences are broken. The Windows and Xbox clients are trainwreaks and they haven’t seen updates in ages.
Personally, at this point, DVR and hardware transcoding are “nice to have” features. They don’t make or break the service, so it doesn’t make much sense to invest heavily in them while simple core scenarios are severely suffering.
I totally agree. Instead of working on “cool” new features, the priority should be attending to technical support questions on the forums (in particular, for the Windows platform, which is currently being ignored), and fixing the many existing bugs on all platforms.
I’m pretty tired of seeing Plex trumpet DVR, cloud, etc., when the basic functionality doesn’t work.
@foxprorawks said:
… (in particular, for the Windows platform, which is currently being ignored)…
It is interesting that I see posts on here saying that Windows is being ignored or Linux is being ignored or Android is being ignored or ??? is being ignored. It looks like EVERYTHING is being ignored and those of us that are invested it different platforms fall into the “special” group where we get ignored by several different Plex teams.
This has been going on for a LONG time but it seems to have had dramatic increases in “ignoring” lately.
However I have a slightly different view for what is happening right now and it can be summed up in a single word “vacations.” This is a time of year when vacations are typically taken and I am quite sure many Plex people have availed themselves of the opportunity to get in some relaxation. (But there are some workaholics that still check in regularly and probably some who take their tablets to the beach and get in a bit of “Plex stuff” along with their mojitos in between surf sets.)
The vacation problem is not just the vacations it is also the fact that many folks are less productive for a week or so after returning from vacation and there is also the discontinuities that are unavoidable when the team for any platform changes even briefly.
Remember: “No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one.” Elbert Hubbard
That does not excuse Plex’s lack of direction and the failure to fix what has been broken for a long time but it does help explain some of the problems we, as users, have seen for the last few months.
This has nothing to do with vacations… It is a lack of staff resources. The Windows dev lead quit. And judging by things, he may have been the only dev.
you get locked out… just like happened last year when the gueniuses on the iOS/tvos team pushed updates with the new security token/system but the server team was about 3 weeks behind… thus… no connectivity until they caught up… and you cant easily downgrade iOS software if ever… and when pressed they saw nothing wrong with it and even bragged they released early… not grasping the concept of release control is an artform around here…
For perspective, “cool and new” features/functions can often become a tangent. Noting that it’s natural to want to work on something ‘different’ - makes it a bit more challenging. As any product grows over time, it will flourish to include additional functionality. However, in order to remain “true to roots”, a couple of things must happen:
As a product’s feature set grows, the “sliding scale” of new feature/function (inception to mature) - moves from: 95% new feature/5% maintenance to: 5% new feature/95% maintenance. Establishing and maintaining this balance can sometimes be a daunting task, but it is a hallmark of mature products. From a user/community perspective, it means supporting maintenance - over new features - to ensure product stability. While new features may be desirable, supporting core product maintenance must override new features. This can be difficult from a user perspective, but what good is some new feature - if the core product doesn’t work? Or if satellite/cable/internet are down and you can’t enjoy local media?
Features and Functions must be prioritized into maintenance buckets with appropriate priority:
A) 1st Priority: “on box”. If the NIC were disconnected, what features/functions MUST operate in order for Plex to meet it’s charter? (asserting that all media is stored on the local machine)
B) 2nd Priority: “local network”. If the local network were disconnected from the Internet, what features/functions fall into this category (not covered by “on box”) in order for Plex to meet this portion of it’s charter?
C) 3rd Priority: “internet connected”. All remaining features.
A/B/C - all need sub-prioritization to capture things correctly.
Depending on size of organization - yes, vacations can certainly account for certain trends (same could be said of holidays).
The product was - AFAIK - always intended to target “Home Theater”. This does NOT automatically infer “internet connected” or “local network” - thus reiterating priority of efforts.
When a product reaches a certain magnitude of features/functions - it can be a daunting task to keep them prioritized, generate/maintain a test harness to validate each feature/function, etc.
Figuring out a means to provide feedback and catalog that information in a meaningful way so that the developers can re-mediate issues by priority is clearly the need (based on posts, thus far).
Would certainly be willing to offer some cycles to help determine a viable means to capture feedback and catalog it so that the developers have a clearer picture of what’s happening “in the field”, but unfortunately there is not a means to contact “Plex” to make that offer.
As a product’s feature set grows, the “sliding scale” of new feature/function (inception to mature) - moves from: 95% new feature/5% maintenance to: 5% new feature/95% maintenance. Establishing and maintaining this balance can sometimes be a daunting task, but it is a hallmark of mature products. From a user/community perspective, it means supporting maintenance - over new features - to ensure product stability. While new features may be desirable, supporting core product maintenance must override new features. This can be difficult from a user perspective, but what good is some new feature - if the core product doesn’t work? Or if satellite/cable/internet are down and you can’t enjoy local media?
Maybe they are in need of a change of leadership. As a product matures, and priorities change, management needs to mature as well to match.
These threads will persist interminably, as Plex is more of a development thesis that is distributed to the community for free, (perhaps for data mining, perhaps for beta testing) than a product with customers.
@latweek said:
These threads will persist interminably, as Plex is more of a development thesis that is distributed to the community for free, (perhaps for data mining, perhaps for beta testing) than a product with customers.
Suspect that (regardless of origin) that the topic and related expertise was of inherent interest to someone, who believed that the community could enjoy the fruits of their labors. Given the outcome - there’s quite a few of us who certainly appreciate(d) the efforts (Plex Pass anyone…).
Data mining would likely be 3rd party for marketing/monetary gain or enforcement - easy enough to mask as “Cloud” or “remote access” purposes.
You can speculate all you like but the fact of the matter is that plex is shifting away from maintaining the very features the advertise as Plex Pass. I mean we still have buggy sync which has been around for years.
As much as I love plex and what it use to be, I can’t shake the feel they just chase after new features forgetting everything else that came before it.
You only have to look at Plex got Kodi to see the attitude. 18 months of development to make a product, 3 months of talking / minor updates and now it’s been left as abandonware on ironically the most up to date video player there is.
@danjames92 said:
You can speculate all you like but the fact of the matter is that plex is shifting away from maintaining the very features the advertise as Plex Pass. I mean we still have buggy sync which has been around for years.
As much as I love plex and what it use to be, I can’t shake the feel they just chase after new features forgetting everything else that came before it.
You only have to look at Plex got Kodi to see the attitude. 18 months of development to make a product, 3 months of talking / minor updates and now it’s been left as abandonware on ironically the most up to date video player there is.
How telling.
For you to give Plex this kind of criticism really says how bad it’s gotten. You’ve been an avid Plex Police for some time brother this almost scares me
This is bothering me, I always preferred plex over other options because of how well it worked. But lately it’s been running less nice on my NAS and I am actually exploring alternatives because of it. It’s sad to see such a great application drift off from the main aspect: “You media on all your devices.”. Syncing hasn’t been great, streaming drops every few minutes on my phone (complaining about the connection speed, while it worked fine for 5min straight), HW transcoding is not being updated.
I’m just missing the development on the functionality I installed Plex for.
@danjames92 said:
You can speculate all you like but the fact of the matter is that plex is shifting away from maintaining the very features the advertise as Plex Pass. I mean we still have buggy sync which has been around for years.
As much as I love plex and what it use to be, I can’t shake the feel they just chase after new features forgetting everything else that came before it.
You only have to look at Plex got Kodi to see the attitude. 18 months of development to make a product, 3 months of talking / minor updates and now it’s been left as abandonware on ironically the most up to date video player there is.
How telling.
For you to give Plex this kind of criticism really says how bad it’s gotten. You’ve been an avid Plex Police for some time brother this almost scares me
Cheers,
Formerly MovieBuff44
I am no police.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Plex and the experience it provides. I love the potential so much I use a client I would call alpha on a daily basis. I use it everyday but when Plex are seemingly prioritising new features over fixing already existing clients like PFK, it irks me a great deal.
It’s absolutely baffling to me that the only dev of Plex for Kodi was pulled from the project to work on some other client especially as there is seemingly no replacement for him?
The biggest problem is that we don’t have the visibility of which bug was taken into account.
If plex team have 400.000 bugs in the pipe, they will hire more people in the maintenance.
