Server Version#: 1.22.2.4276
Player Version#: 3.4.4
Having read a number of threads on this topic, I’m well aware of how firmly Elan and the Plexamp design team hold to their stance on this issue. I understand that there are UX considerations being made to ensure the app preforms well, reliably.
The fact remains that I’m currently at my wit’s end with trying to get a decent playlist of music downloaded for offline playback on my Android Head Unit in my car. As previous users can attest, the full-fat Android app is simply not usable in this context, due to its high resource overhead and general purpose. Third-party apps fare no better in this regard.
For the initial 24 hours of music in my Sync smart playlist, Plexamp v3 was finally able to deliver the listening experience I’ve been looking for in my vehicle. However, my head unit does not have a cellular connection, it cannot stream unless I tether my phone to it manually every single time I start the car. Meanwhile, the 400 GB SD card I bought for the purpose of containing my offline on-the-go playlist languishes unused.
I’m a DevOps engineer by trade, and I truly do understand that some limitations imposed on systems/services are made with the intent of providing the best possible user experience. But simply asserting that you understand your customers needs better than they do is - to be quite frank - infuriating.
@elan, you have stated in the past that you will not consider offering any way to bypass this limit, since you’re not receiving requests to do so. Have you considered that your firm stance discourages discourse on the issue?
I assure you I am not trying to be argumentative but the limit is 24 hours per downloaded item, so if you had 30 of them that would be 720 hours of music which, feels like a “decent amount” for most remote listening experiences.
I expect having things split across multiple downloads is not exactly what you’re looking for however hoping this does help show it is possible to load quite a bit of downloaded music into Plexamp, the limitations read a lot worse than they are in practice from my experience over the last few months.
Be that as it may, my intent is to have a smart playlist containing highly rated songs that stays consistent across my devices. Obviously for my PC and phone, I’m fine with streaming music from the playlist, but the car is an entirely different animal.
I don’t think it particularly helpful to offer smart playlist functionality whilst preventing users from using those filters to sync their music.
It is still allowing you to sync your music, it is just syncing the partial playlist. Can you elaborate a bit more on how exactly you envision using the highly rated playlist in the car for extended periods, trying to fathom the need for thousands of songs at any given time if you can only physically consume so much just by virtue of the time required to listen to a significant portion of the playlist.
To be perfectly honest, I find the fact that you’re asking me to justify my use case to be indicative of my point about discouraging discourse.
When not mid-pandemic, I often drive 18 hour trips to visit family. I don’t want to spend that time listening to 18 hours of the same 24 hours of music I have in the vehicle.
I understand that I can download individual artists and such, but maybe I want a specific live or instrumental version of a song, not the whole album, for instance. Sometimes I’ll listen to Plexamp on my phone or PC and hear a song that I want in my car, and since I might be doing dishes, actively driving, or working, all I have time to do is hit the 5 star rating on the song. Is it really so difficult to understand why I might consider having a commonly available, easy way to ensure songs are available in certain places to be valuable?
You seem preoccupied with telling everyone they are “discouraging discourse” which, in itself, is discouraging my desire to help.
Have you tried refreshing the playlist at the end of the 18 hour commute, which assuming you have the playlist criteria set up to rotate music in/out based on freshness, should handle this for you?
I’ll let you continue to be accusatory and argumentative with someone else because I am just here to help and personally do not hold a lot of patience, I hope these suggestions are helpful in your continued use of Plexamp however, and maybe someone else can chime in with some additional ideas.
Listen. I appreciate you taking the time to reply at all, but I’m simply far more interested in having a discussion regarding the cost-benefit equation of this design philosophy rather than frankly janky workarounds to the core problem.
I can see that you’ve found the current state of the app as sufficient to your use case, however I think that I need to clarify that we should all be empowered to arbitrate the value-cost of our specific, self-hosted Plex instances and applications.
I’m sure your input here will help others, but I cannot consider the advice you provided to be the solution to this thread.
It is not a janky workaround though. I think you’re underestimating what @shrtstck is saying about such a playlist.
It is an intended way to get as much use of the 24 hour limit as possible. Probably enough for even your usage. Plexamp can even create the playlist for you automatically.
This solution still requires that I constantly burn though nearly my entire data plan every single month to ensure that I have tracks for offline playback, instead of allowing me to slowly build up a collection of music that just remains in the car.
As I stated earlier, it takes time to tether my phone to the Head Unit, and being obliged to do it anytime I want to hear a particular song that Plexamp has decided for me is too stale really doesn’t make sense.
I recommend looking into the Fresh smart playlist; essentially it contains highly rated tracks which you haven’t hard recently. This means that tracks cycle through it as you play them in this playlist or elsewhere.
It’s a nice way to have a “sliding window” of 24 hours of fresh, highly rated music, which also keeps in sync on all your devices.
I think perhaps that it might help to attempt to explain what I hope to achieve in a different way.
The intent is to be able to manage a central playlist that I already have setup and working for organizing my highly rated content.
As I’ve stated previously, the head unit in my car doesn’t have native connectivity, and it really is a bit of a bear to get it online. My intent is to only connect the unit to the cloud once every 6 months or so. I also want an offline library of music on my car that a passenger can search and play from without my intervention as the driver.
I understand that I can just go through and add each individual artist to the download queue, but then I don’t have any central management, or a way to add individual songs that I like to the sync list from other devices.
The point I’m trying to make is that I understand my needs, I understand the smart playlist functionality available in Plexamp, I really love that use-case on my phone and PC, but the car is simply too different. If there were ANY Plex music client that achieved what I’m looking for in my car, I’d be satisfied, but there isn’t.