Yes that is true kamererhouse about the ripper part for on demand movies/shows. But “trying” to look at it another way, if it’s streamed in the clear with no DRM or other protection then the provider doesn’t seem to worried about it.
BTW, tubitv.com (on demand) and plutotv (TV channels) are both free services paid for by injecting ads in the stream just like normal TV shows/movies. If we can record them off cable or OTA when they don’t have DRM then what’s the difference when you get down to it (except of course maybe terms of service of the provider).
But in either case check out tubitv.com yourself as this could be an awesome additional to Plex. The service could be scraped once by Plex itself and then the contents and meta-data made available for automatic download by servers (so individual servers don’t need to scrape it. Then then content could be integrated right in with any server with full content/rating protection for kids. Client apps could play the streams directly from tubitv servers via the plex server as well which could help those who share on limited upload connections.
All I’m getting at is that instead of adding content types like “News” they could add services similar to Tubitv that seem to match what we use Plex for (movies and shows) and a service or two built in like this could be quite powerful if done right.
I posted that update back on September 28th. That type of grid view is planned, I just don’t have a timeframe to share. It will most likely be closer to what the Channels app is like on Android TV. I believe that is the screenshot the OP in that Reddit thread linked to is.
A bit disappointed about the delay. A proper traditional guide would have been a great holiday present for Plex DVR users. However, I fully understand that these things take time and nothing was actually promised in terms of an ETA.
Hopefully the first quarter will yield the results we want to see with the upcoming guide updates.
@robwhitey said:
Someone needs to buy JUST the code of WMC and make that an addon. Sure add new features, codec support, etc. But it simply WORKED.
IMO, Microsoft Media Center is the best DVR software even to this day. I look forward to seeing other companies trying to surpass Microsft Media Center in this respect but I don’t expect it to happen anytime soon if at all.
@robwhitey said:
Someone needs to buy JUST the code of WMC and make that an addon. Sure add new features, codec support, etc. But it simply WORKED.
IMO, Microsoft Media Center is the best DVR software even to this day. I look forward to seeing other companies trying to surpass Microsft Media Center in this respect but I don’t expect it to happen anytime soon if at all.
I agree. I haven’t found a replacement that is better. That makes it all the more disappointing that Microsoft just gave up on it instead of maybe rolling it into a stand alone app that could be installed on Windows 10, or trying to develop a real app store for it.
The funny thing is that there were a lot of calls to make Microsoft Media Center a user installable application very early on. Instead Microsoft insisted on integrating it into Windows and creating a new Windows version for it. In fact when it was first released users couldn’t even buy the Windows XP Media Center Edition OS. Instead they had to buy an overpriced Media Center PC with the OS and hardware preinstalled. Microsoft made it very difficult to get and the buy in price was high. There was also no justification for this but Microsoft knew they had something good and they continued to make it better.
It was actually fun to see the development of Microsoft Media Center over the years. It started out as a fairly solid product and it’s really good when development ended.
Plex is coming at the DVR concept from a different direction and I don’t blame them for putting their own Plexy spin on it. However, sometimes you really shouldn’t try to reinvent the wheel. Also, sometimes users don’t want to see how the sausage is made. That is a polite way of saying it’s not always fun to see the bugs, lack of a proper guide and so on.
@Octavean said:
A bit disappointed about the delay. A proper traditional guide would have been a great holiday present for Plex DVR users. However, I fully understand that these things take time and nothing was actually promised in terms of an ETA.
Hopefully the first quarter will yield the results we want to see with the upcoming guide updates.
So hopefully before the end of March sometime,…
Greetings all, I’ve got a bit of an update for you regarding the grid-style program guide. The team is juggling a variety of priorities, and sometimes features in due evelopment do shift in priority. I would have loved to have seen this come as a Christmas present as Collections did (well, that came a few days after). Grid (similar to the Channels app on Android TV) is expected to land on the first client platform (Apple TV) by the end of Q1 with others to follow. I’m advocating, based on user feedback and discussions in the forum, to push up the priority for it coming to other platforms.
@kinoCharlino said:
Greetings all, I’ve got a bit of an update for you regarding the grid-style program guide. The team is juggling a variety of priorities, and sometimes features in due evelopment do shift in priority. I would have loved to have seen this come as a Christmas present as Collections did (well, that came a few days after). Grid (similar to the Channels app on Android TV) **is expected to land on the first client platform (Apple TV) by the end of Q1 ** with others to follow. I’m advocating, based on user feedback and discussions in the forum, to push up the priority for it coming to other platforms.
SMH…Apple TV is first?? Come on…I’m guessing majority of your client based wants Windows support first. Remember us WMC users that were BEGGING for the same type of grid view?
SMH…Apple TV is first?? Come on…I’m guessing majority of your client based wants Windows support first. Remember us WMC users that were BEGGING for the same type of grid view?
I was there at the beginning of the thread, and I remember your illustrated WMC screenshots.
I think unfortunately what’s happened is that Windows has dropped down the list of platforms by usage because of the other issues that Plex has with PMP. PHT was a well-designed, easy-to-use UI; when they replaced it with the utter shitshow that is PMP, people stopped using it, switching over to OpenPHT (as I did), and causing PMP on all OSes to drop in the usage rankings.
At this point, they have to go by platform size because they’ve wasted so much money on useless crap no one asked for and everyone objected to, and my guess is AppleTV (and hence iOS - iPad and iPhone) are much larger platforms by share than Windows. I suspect that Android is next (enabling FireTV and Shield as well), followed by some of the embedded devices like Roku and then and only then will they swing back to Windows, Linux and OS X.
There they have to decide whether to continue with the horror show that is PMP, or scrap it, and hence the addition there will be late if it comes at all. More likely, I anticipate they’ll just put out an announcement later this year indicating that since they started Plex, they’ve seen “tremendous growth” in connected devices like Roku, AppleTV and mobile platforms and so they’re discontinuing their desktop efforts. Of course, they’ll always be the Plex Web App for the few remaining desktop users, and they recommend that we use that. ¯\(ツ)/¯
@kinoCharlino said:
Grid (similar to the Channels app on Android TV) is expected to land on the first client platform (Apple TV) by the end of Q1 with others to follow.
I’ve always been curious why PMP or the Web App isn’t used as the flagship of new features? They’re the most cross platform interfaces that most, if not all users have access to play with.
I understand that priorities have to be made and that such priorities may change over time.
Plex is supporting a number of different platforms and that is an asset. However, it’s also a liability given the effort needed in supporting dissimilar platforms and the high degree of fragmentation with respect to feature set across said differing platforms.
This is very much unlike that of Microsoft Media Center and supported Microsoft Media Center extenders that had to strictly adhered to Microsoft specification and standards. Also note that Microsoft was a company that could afford to throw money at projects that were not profitable just to destabilize the competition.
So IMO, wherever Plex software engineers have to focus their attention, so be it. If AppleTV turns out to be the platform to receive the guide grid view first, so be it. At least it shows progress in this regard.
I have an AppleTV (4th gene), FireTV (4k), Chromecast, a couple of LG 4K Smart TVs with native Plex App support and a number of Windows PC’s. I would very much like to see Plex feature parity between all these different platforms (like yesterday) but that is unlikely to happen.
@jrcorwin said:
…the end of Q1? For something that should have been available months ago? The hits keep on coming.
I’ve been told to expect it sometime in Q1 (which is what I provided in my previous update), but mentioned end of since I don’t have an exact date. Like many here, I would have liked to have had this feature at launch of DVR, but it was not possible until we could clear some legal issues (which I’ve covered before as well), now its just up to standard feature triaging. I keep bugging the powers that be so they’re well aware of the demand.
So the possibility remains that we will see progress in the guide before the end of Q1. That is good to know. However, since it’s still not a guarantee the possibility remains that the estimated ETA will slip again. I’m not saying that to be discouraging but rather to be realistic.
AppleTV being the likely first release platform for the guide update is still good / new info though. I wouldn’t confuse AppleTV with iOS BTW.
If I were to guess, I would have thought it would be Android TV that would get the guide improvements first.
Edit:
This type of piecemeal rollout of the full guide grid indicates a client application update on each platform is necessary . So I have to wonder if the guide update will be integrated into the PMS web interface? To be honest I use the PMS web interface on PC more often then the Windows client software.
@Octavean said:
So the possibility remains that we will see progress in the guide before the end of Q1. That is good to know. However, since it’s still not a guarantee the possibility remains that the estimated ETA will slip again. I’m not saying that to be discouraging but rather to be realistic.
AppleTV being the likely first release platform for the guide update is still good / new info though. I wouldn’t confuse AppleTV with iOS BTW.
If I were to guess, I would have thought it would be Android TV that would get the guide improvements first.
Edit:
This type of piecemeal rollout of the full guide grid indicates a client application update on each platform is necessary . So I have to wonder if the guide update will be integrated into the PMS web interface? To be honest I use the PMS web interface on PC more often then the Windows client software.
It does seem kind of confusing how they are doing things. A few months ago they were bragging about the XBox app getting the Plex 2.0 redesign which would eventually roll out to the rest of the platforms. Seems like they would stick to one platform as their prototyping system and design a “porting” workflow from that instead of jumping around to a new platform for every new feature.
If it were me, I’d probably vote for Roku. Supposedly they are still the largest living room TV platform out there. Although maybe not the biggest existing Plex user base. I guess only Plex knows that.
Regarding the Web interface, I also use that more than the other platforms. So I hope the web get’s the grid view soon. I mean it basically comes with the Server so every user would have it. It is primarily a keyboard/mouse interface though, so it probably isn’t the best prototyping example for the other platforms.
Cluster doesn’t begin to describe this. They are obviously spread too thin from a development stand point, lack transparency as to their priorities, can’t hit release dates, constantly shift their business priorities to chase shiny pennies, repeatedly release a bunch of poorly implemented low value features (DVR, VR, etc.), all the while neglecting their core product to expand their platform coverage.
My suggestion would be to tighten the circle by reducing the number of platforms they support and features they roll out to the ones that they have the capacity to be the best at. I wouldn’t just release crap (e.g., Live TV where you can’t tune directly to a specific channel). Just not worth giving the users a bad experience for the sake of coverage. Additionally, I’d stop playing the “it’s coming soon” game for every feature that is requested. It’s okay to say, “It’s not a priority” or “we aren’t doing it”, at least you would salvage your creditablity. Apple does this all the time and people are surprisingly okay with it because when they do release something it usually isn’t a cluster like the DVR Plex released.
@sloan1919 said:
Cluster doesn’t begin to describe this. They are obviously spread too thin from a development stand point, lack transparency as to their priorities, can’t hit release dates, constantly shift their business priorities to chase shiny pennies, repeatedly release a bunch of poorly implemented low value features (DVR, VR, etc.), all the while neglecting their core product to expand their platform coverage.
My suggestion would be to tighten the circle by reducing the number of platforms they support and features they roll out to the ones that they have the capacity to be the best at. I wouldn’t just release crap (e.g., Live TV where you can’t tune directly to a specific channel). Just not worth giving the users a bad experience for the sake of coverage. Additionally, I’d stop playing the “it’s coming soon” game for every feature that is requested. It’s okay to say, “It’s not a priority” or “we aren’t doing it”, at least you would salvage your creditablity. Apple does this all the time and people are surprisingly okay with it because when they do release something it usually isn’t a cluster like the DVR Plex released.
I’m going to respectfully disagree here.
I’ve made feature requests here in the forums and have received feedback akin to “It’s not a priority” or “we aren’t doing it”. In such a case I was requesting support for something like the Hauppauge HD PVR USB capture device which would use the analog hole and thus allow recording of premium cable channels like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and so on.
As for reducing the number of platforms supported, I don’t much see the point. While Linux PMS release may be a little behind as well as SmartTV Plex player client software the idea that they will eventually get around to updating them is better then being shut out,…IMO.
Edit:
BTW, Plex Devs,…
My Apple TV is waiting and its now March,…the last month in Q1,…
If you guys aren’t going to hit your previously stated quasi ETA of Q1, it might be good to make another announcement to that effect soon.
I for one really hope this “can doesn’t get kicked down the road” again but I do understand the hazards of development. I’m not a developer myself but I know enough of them to know how these things work.
