Yes, it’s not a technical issue as video plugins are supported (I’ve named a few) but these aren’t the same type of Plugins as we see for Plex or Kodi. You won’t find plugins for things like ABC, CBS, NBC, CW, FOX, HALLMARK, etc as Emby itself doesn’t allow it.
Anything podcast, netcast or similarly related is probably ok as the content creators want people to use it. Online radio stations as well. They just aren’t going to allow use of plugins that clearly violate the creators/networks TOS/license.
Yes, I’m already working on a couple for my personal needs. I’m sure other devs will start to explore Emby as a development platform soon. The only drawback moving from Kodi/Plex to Emby is that there its .NET so someone who has been coding in Python might take a while for the transition. But yes documentation, plugin templates, scraping examples and active support from Emby developers are all there what someone would need for development. The good thing for it is the Plugin API for Emby is more mature and a lot of things we only wished we could do in Plex can be achieved on Emby.
My dear friend Elan, I knew your software and I have followed it since you started when you did not give up your work and dedicate yourself completely to Plex, where it had a Plex window interface for its administration before returning it to web, from day one that launched Plex Pass I subscribed with a brilliant lifetime membership.
I love Plex and I have tried to integrate in my 7 servers all the solutions they have done except music, podcast and live tv & dvr because I feel that they are not yet very integrated to other countries as it is my case in Mexico. I am currently very sad about the direct decision they have made when canceling the plugins, I am having the inconvenience for two reasons, I have many close friends and family with whom I share and are a proactive part in the management of these servers.
We integrated an IPTV solution with the Cigarra IPTV plugin, we tried to integrate with an IPTV proxy such as Xteve to make use of Live TV & DVR, which really is a very good integration that they have done with that software only that still I find it very limited for the following reasons:
Limitation of not being able to share it but you are part of a domestic user, and if I integrate my friends and family as a domestic user there is a limitation of 15 users.
I’m putting more than 200 channels, where interfaces like the Apple TV, Fire Stick, Plex Media Player, end up freezing.
I understand that it is necessary to integrate APIs from the new school and that the plugins do not allow it, but do not you think that a direct decision like the one that is planned generates problems for those of us who support Plex, recommend it and pay us that way? Before wanting to remove any feature you do not think you should give an alternative solution as indicated in the Plex blog?
Greetings and my comments I try to be constructive but at least you could share the roadmap to be prepared?
I appreciate your kind note! I can only tell you that we tried to take all the variables into account when making the hard decision. I fully realize that even though there are a very small number (percentage-wise) of users who are using plug-ins, there are very good use-cases for them, and so I’m really sorry. Personally, I would like to see us offer a (better, richer) replacement for plugins in the future, but I don’t have anything to offer at this point.
How about having unsupported legacy versions of Plex clients available until you do implement a new plugin interface? You could even hide them from app stores to prevent confusion. I feel like this would be a good compromise.
I have to imagine that things like “Plex for VR” have an exponentially smaller percentage of users and so can we expect to see support for that going away soon?
Then pick any “feature” and say, “After 22 number of months, if the user base of the feature isn’t above 5%, support will be pulled at any time.” Then folks would at least know that something that they love, but others do not, its on its way out.
We have been told that the people on the forums aren’t a significant percentage of users and so I just wonder who is that they are listening to (if that is really deciding factor).
Keep in mind that this removal is being done after an extended amount of time of low usage. It’s not like it hit a magic number and we decided to stop supporting it. If there are other features that are also low usage, yes there could be a chance of that feature stopping at some point in the future too. That’s just the way evolution of anything works. Think about TV shows getting cancelled. It’s not like everybody stopped watching, but the number were low enough that it was decided to make room for others. This is very similar. Plex stopped support and development of certain low usage features to make room and time for others.
Edit - Unlike TV shows, we don’t remove stuff on a whim.
I have an oculus go myself, and while of course I have no access to your behind the scenes numbers, I find it extremely difficult to believe that VR usage eclipses plugin usage.
Aside from 3d media, the use case for plex vr is much more limited than the variety of plugins available, officially or unofficially.
I have to question the accuracy of your analytics.
Can you please clarify when you say Plugins, you actually mean the scanner metadata agent plugins as well as the video plugins are their usage of 2% being stated is combined. Yes, I know agents are unaffected by this change but you’ve made installing them a headache for non-technical/non-forum folks.
Id like to followup and say if that is the case then 98% of Users are not using Plex “correctly” (my definition) and that is Plex’s fault for probably not educating them well enough. If subtitles is such a big feature, what was everyone using thus far - Sub-Zero (EDIT: Still using). I guess the others never knew it existed. And there are more…
Other than the Plex Ninja’s who have been taking care of Plugin development/maintenance, I don’t recollect any Plex Employee in the Plugin section in the last few years. If 0% Plex developers visit (let alone develop/maintain) the Plugins, 2% Users is an astronomically high number.
Rather than blaming the feature which got no love and support from Plex and still flourished it would have been better to introspect and fix its shortcomings.
I like the sync feature but I have never successfully been able to use it and I end up using Netflix’s sync feature when about to travel. I don’t have time to troubleshoot a day before my travels as most would agree. Do I want the sync feature to be dropped because only x% can use it - hell no, I want Plex to fix it !
I don’t know the break-down of that 2% Will need someone else to answer that. Agents have always had to be installed manually so I’m not sure how removing the directory has made this harder.
If you are referring to the Sub-Zero plugin, that’s not an agent. Installing that manually is no different than installing any other plugin. Yes, it was easier before because it was available in the directory (store). Before it was in the directory, it had to be installed manually too. If you were already using it, it was not removed so it should continue to work. I’m not sure I would call installing plugins manually a head-ache. It’s basically copying (sometimes unzipping) files into a folder.
That’s probably because there were no Plex plugins. They were ALL created by users, so Plex had nothing to add. If there were problems on the Plex end, the developers had other ways to get in touch. We also had people (like myself) monitor that section looking out for bug reports and respond when needed.
Plugins will be removed - That is quite clear from several employee posts.
Many people are both in favor and opposed to that decision.
Plex is not going to change their mind no matter what users say - Also quite clear from posts from Plex.
Continuing debate will only cause both sides to dig their heals in harder.
Therefore any continuing debate is only because people like to argue. The best thing for us users to do is move forward and try to figure how to replace the functionality that is being removed.
Continuing to debate this only adds to the internet of noise but it is the right of ducks to quack.
that plex (or anyone else) will or won’t ‘dig in harder’ due to the debate
further, this is official plex supported forum, and the primary place for customer feedback, whether you (or plex) likes what they read or not, is not for you or anyone else to say that someone can’t express their own feedback.
I may not like what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to speak it. and so on.
