I believe you are bang on the money there (excuse the pun)!
Regards
Thanks for that link @Vornath after reading it my hopes for Plex being what it used to be are pretty much gone. Seems to me the company is not looking to be what it started out to be.
When I read things like the co founder saying "thereâs folks like Netflix, Hulu, and Slingâand usâwho are trying to make that experience better because it gives people more flexibility, options, and control.â I really start to wonder what the future really holds for Plex.
Hulu, Netflix and services like that in my opinion have nothing to do with Plex. Why would they try to step in that lane and become something they didnât start out intending to be? If they want Plex to offer me content from other sources then I have no use for Plex anymore. This is not what Plex started out looking to achieve and not what I signed up to support.
Plex for me is the best way to watch, organize and view YOUR OWN media. Since when did Plex look to become something like Netflix or Hulu? That seems to go against everything Plex started out trying to become.
Below are some more interesting quotes from the co founder that indicate more of this ânew visionâ.
âOur goal long-term is to add more and more awesome and legitimate content into the system over time,â Valory said."
âNow we have lots of companies coming to us asking how we can get more content onto that platform,â he added."
âThe fact that Plex can be used for things that it shouldnât be used for is a fact,â he admitted, but stressed that it wonât be an issue for the company in the future."
âOver time, we expect to do deals with various content providers in order to enable them to use Plex as a distribution platform,â said Olechowski"
Yep. In the end, it always comes back to harvesting and monetizing the good old user base.
Erugh. Thanks for the article that was an interesting eye opening read. My sentiments are exactly the same as those given here. I donât like where plex seems to be heading. Although, if other content providers are going to be using plex as a distribution platform I suppose that means before that happens we will possibly get bandwidth and stream controls.
Personally I believe Plex is going in the right direction, it is starting to look at lot more âgrown upâ and I am sure as time goes by more features will be added in, also with it moving in this direction it becomes more off the shelf, allowing easier adoption, instead of for tinkerers, with more adoption brings more money. More money brings more R&d/development, which brings more and more features/improvements.
Letâs face it iOS, android and windows 10 are a million miles away from where they used to be.
Also I find that what most people want to do is watch a movie/TV show, and unless I have missed somethinh, that works pretty well.
@Vornath said:
âŠ
A simplified GUI familiar to the smartphone generation is probably seen as more accessible to new users. This would provide value to content providers.The âDiscoveryâ section (which many of us centered on home libraries dislike) could allow Plex to offer âpremium placementâ to content providers. Allowing users to disable it would lessen its value.
Bingo⊠and bingo.
I was just going to sit back and watch this thread for a while, because I thought it was like many other âventâ threads and after a while they all just seem to blend together⊠but I have to say⊠these two comments are spot-on in my summation as well.
Yea probablyâŠbut we are not asking for an option to disable but to put it behind. I still want to use discovery and they can advertise all over it for all I care (Roku already does this with the ad on the right, which I block) but I just want to use it 5% not 95% of the time.
I am worried for Plex because of what happened to Boxee Box. Its almost an exact replica of what is happening to Plex and look what happened to them. I hope Plex can avoid Boxee Box fate, but atleast if they cannot then everyone will jump to Emby which I am sure would get better very quickly.
@Vornath said:
This would provide value to content providers.The âDiscoveryâ section (which many of us centered on home libraries dislike) could allow Plex to offer âpremium placementâ to content providers. Allowing users to disable it would lessen its value.
I get the frustration and think everyone is feeling the growing pains right now. But when I read the direction this topic is going, all I can think is, âYeah and so âŠâ
Every software chooses to simplify the interface, at least if it wants to be successful. If a software has too many bells and whistles, it becomes a niche software that only appeals to a limited more technical audience.
And there are only two ways to make money in technology.You can either make money by charging for your product or selling access to your user base.
I know, it is just unthinkable! Plex (which by the way is a commercial software business) actually wants be successful and make money. The gall! (insert large amounts of sarcasm here)
When a subculture-successful technology provider matures, standardizes UI, merges application layer, reduces QA regression, etc⊠luddite gain always exceeds tweaker loss. I looked at plex three years ago and wanted nothing to do with it, didnât need another day job. I recently inherited a huge DVD library and made the obvious choice for a media server. As a new user, I have not looked at a part of plex and thought: I wish I could do X, but I cannot. My only negative experience so far has been that 2006 XBMC-esque UI on the Samsung client that screams raging dork. I just have to /facepalm at that thing.
Other people looked at plex three years ago and said sign me up, and I understand your concerns. If I lost the functionality I have in my Sonicwall or my Z-wave system, Iâd be pretty upset too.
I agree that the content platform idea sounds odd, something that Amazon and Roku should cultivate, while plex happily rides along as a channel rather than the channel. I may not have a Usenet provider and the associated concern about plex being library-centric, but Iâm not going to move my Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Showtime subscriptions into anything plex-specific.
But when I look at the tiny and arcane channels that Roku incubates, I can see plex thinking that they can offer that ease of entry and spawn rate as a cross-platform win. Want to get on Roku? Ok, go ahead, but what if you do the same or less work and you can get your pixels everywhere that matters in something slicker than a web UI?
At this point, the Channels tab is a joke. I wander in there when I feel like off-roading, itâs fun to see how many error modals I can pop in a few minutes, especially in the grayest of unsupported apps. I have a thousand plus discs and 3k artists all gathered together in one place successfully. Iâd like to build a channels library of reliable quality content that I know I can access directly with a browser but prefer to curate the same way I do for video and audio content I own. I could pop a disc into a player as easily as I could type a URL. Give me bookmarks on steroids across all the devices I own and will own in a clean UI and I get what I like about Roku no matter where I am or what screen Iâm holding.
I use plex for path to content, so if more content becomes available easier, win. I use plex to never need to stop what Iâm doing to help a family member watch content, so if tweakability causes bugs or longer QA cycles before we get access to shiny new pixels, fail.
So from what I see here, the people who are OK with Plex becoming less user friendly and more simplistic in itâs approach are the people who really donât care to take the time and effort to use Plex to itâs full potential. I get it now.
You guys want all the benefits of a great functioning server and media player without really wanting to take the time to learn how to fully utilize the software. If your nephew doesnât understand how to add a skin to PHT then whoâs fault is that?
@shopgirl284 Success is not only measured by money, and to think more money equals success is simple minded (not saying you are). Look at what Linux became. They didnât become valued because of how much money and profit they accumulated. If it wouldâve compromised itâs values and/or vision for profit then I doubt it would be as widely used as it is now. You donât have to simplify yourself to have successful software.
Regards,
I think there could be room for both experiences (simple and advanced clients), but the frustration comes from the fact that Plex seems to be only interested in the first one.
@latweek said:
I think there could be room for both experiences (simple and advanced clients), but the frustration comes from the fact that Plex seems to be only interested in the first one.
Yep exactly right. If they balanced these two experiences especially with the server, web and desktop clients then I think everyone wins. But downgrading everything to fit the simplicity of other clients is where things are going awry in my opinion.
I do not see how the reference to opensource/freeware projects apply, since Plex is not a freeware project. It has been a commercial software business for many years (long before most people here started using it). The fact that Plex is still able to offer as much as it does for free should make users happy (the operative word being should).
And though I agree that money is not the only means of success, when you are running a business, you will not be in business very long if you do not make a profit. Plex cannot keep the talented programmers you want Plex to have, if they do not make money.
I also do not see a âgreat loss of features,ââ but then I use the Roku player app which is further along in the development process, so the developers have had the time to add back a lot of the things I wanted. But if you truly hate the official player app Plex has developed, you can write your own. Plex provides the API to access PMS.
And that is the part that gets me the most. People just want to use the software that others have written and then complain when it doesnât work exactly the way they personally think it should. They want everything to be this âfree loveâ opensource software world, but they donât want to do any of the work themselves and God forbid if the programmers who are actually doing all that hard work want to get paid.
@shopgirl284 said:
But if you truly hate the official player app Plex has developed, you can write your own. Plex provides the API to access PMS.
This does not just relate to one official player app, itâs all of the current official client apps and now PlexWeb!
As a âRoku userâ you must have noticed from that forum section that there are more âhatersâ of the ânewâ Roku client than âloversâ, the same can be seen in every forum section for the official Plex clients.
Itâs a job job that some of us keep the unofficial Plex clients going, two of the best Plex clients being OpenPHT and Rasplex, now both from the Rasplex team. Now that we are able to change PHT we have fixed a lot of long standing issues and provided much needed new functionality to keep driving forward the best Plex experience for the â10 foot eraâ as well as satisfying the need for a PC/Mac based media player.
If you donât like where Plex Inc is going stick with Rasplex/OpenPHT.
But then, Iâm biased! 
Regards
@NedtheNerd said:
As a âRoku userâ you must have noticed from that forum section that there are more âhatersâ of the ânewâ Roku client than âloversâ, the same can be seen in every forum section for the official Plex clients.
Actually I have not seen a lot of âhatersâ on the Roku forum. There are always people that do not like change, so there were those who complained at first, but there were just as many complaining about the old app being outdated before they created the new app. And now that users have given the new app a chance and actually used it, that initial resistance has died.
You can never make everyone completely happy, especially with a very popular app like the Roku one that needs to meet the needs of so many. But the new video player topic shows that most of the posts are thanking the developers for all the work. And honestly, people are much quicker to complain than praise, so that says a lot.
Honestly, I cannot see how anyone can complain about the new Roku app right now. The Roku developers have done an excellent job of listening to users, addressing issues, and incorporating new features. And they had to deal with the limitations of the Roku and using Brightscript.
And as I said in my original post, I get the frustrations and everyone is feeling the growing pains. But the Roku app does show that features are being added, it just takes time.
Whether user think the âall at onceâ method was best is always going to be objective. If they did not update them all at once, users would complain about the inconsistency in apps. So do you pull the band-aid off slowly or rip it off quickly? I am more of a rip the band-aid off quickly kind of person.
@NedtheNerd said:
If you donât like where Plex Inc is going stick with Rasplex/OpenPHT.
This bears repeating. These are my two favorite Plex clients. They both offer tons of configurable options for the power user but the default setup works great right out of the box. They are both actively developed by very talented people.
IMO, theyâre what Plex should have been all along, and what Plex should aim to be in the future.
Haters gonna hate no matter how much plex is their inflatable lover. But only those who wear plex branded boxer shorts or pull a paycheck are going to come in here and rave about an awesome new UI. Any change that takes buttons and knobs away is going to generate a skewed amount of whine because in place of the offsetting raves for the new look is a field of lemmings chanting whatev, stuff to do, my F: drive is not my love slave.
I support users who demand an advanced mode to the extent that <1% use complexity doesnât delay new feature roadmap. Homogenized UI is just way easier to keep stable in a continuous delivery cycle.
Iâll sit back now, this is a valid gripe for long term users that I donât need to interrupt.
I guess I donât understand the disdain for the masses out there who wonât âtake the time and effort to use Plex to its full potentialâ. Whatâs wrong with that? Itâs not their idea of fun. There is a legion of us who have been around here for a long time that love to tinker and experiment with encoding/containers/clients/trailers/pre-plays/etc. Iâm one of them. I enjoy it. Most people simply donât. Plex is, at its core, a content delivery serviceâŠyes, Iâm gonna say itâŠlike Netflix. Plexâs content just happens to be (primarily) local content.
How many people out there are begging Netflix for the ability to customize their experience? Not many. People are far more likely to gauge their satisfaction with Netflix and other streaming services by two factorsâŠcan they find what they want to watchâŠand does it stream reliably? A sexy UI may be necessary to get people to walk in the doorâŠbut itâs the streaming ability and reliability that keeps people inside. Customization? HonestlyâŠI donât think many people care.
After allâŠwhat are we using plex for? To stream our TV shows and MoviesâŠor show off some uber-customized interface tweaked to your every desire? Sure, some people may want to spend lots of time tweakingâŠbut for what gain?
In my opinion, Plex needs to simplify things even furtherâŠat least from the client side. On the server side,a more comprehensive media-optimizer and the ability to manage the settings on connected clients is what I want. I donât want my nephew (the one who couldnât install the skin) to now decide that he wants to watch the Avengers in itâs full 15mbps glory on his RokuâŠand suck up the entirety of my upload bandwidth. I want all remote Rokuâs to default to 4mbps and not be allowed to go higher. Then I want to use the media optimizer to pre-build 4mbps streams for all of the Marvel movies that I know heâll be streaming over and over again.
That will allow me, the guy who knows all about Codecs, my bandwidth limitations, CPU limitations, and number of concurrent streams to manage my media and associated clients to ensure that my system will RELIABLY stream to clients. Because all that most people connecting to my Plex server will care about is whether or not it just WORKS.
@Elijah_Baley said:
@pjmorley said:
Recent developments have almost moved me to the point where I will try Emby again to see how they are coming along. There are advantages to having a lot of truly free time and being old enough where going out is difficult. I have time to test whatever peaks my curiosity.
I havenât tested Emby in a long while, would love to hear what you think of it. Sadly between work and caring for a disabled spouse I have little time to play with software anymore - moving way from Plex would represent a huge investment in what little spare time I have.
