Yeah… seems like that’s going to be the case (the other thread about it from several months ago also didn’t get notice). This’ll be my last bump for attention. 
DLNA\USB plays the audio fine and Plex is supposed to direct play anything that is natively supported - and it used to work - so it’s definitely a bug or regression.
Or if DTS-HD passthrough will not be supported anymore on Plex, maybe we can get a better transcoding profile… turning a 1500Kbps DTS-MA audio stream into 640Kbps AC3 is noticeable. 1500Kbps TrueHD streams currently transcode to EAC3 1000Kbps and is much more equatable so it would be nice to get the same for DTS-MA\HD transcoding.
It would have been nice to get a ‘yeah, that doesn’t seem right, we’ll add it to our issues log’ or something.
This is my first bug report in awhile and I was hoping it’d get traction because in the recent Plex Fireside thread they stated all forum posts are reviewed by Plex reps (this was in response about not having more dedicated support). I used to think because of the community nature of the support forums being relatively semi-official that stuff just got missed sometimes, but with that statement, it means a lack of response is a decision.
I used to be more confident about engagement in the past, even with that feeling of semi-offical support. Personally, I don’t really blame reps themselves as I can think of various reasons why they’ve pulled back on engagement even if they wanted to help; based entirely on some of my own assumptions. There are some really helpful folks in these forums - including some that are great at supporting and engaging in their areas of expertise - so hopefully they won’t leave anytime soon.
Unfortunately, this makes it hard to believe the other statement in the Fireside chat assuring us that Plex as a company is still focused on local media support and not de-prioritizing resources in favor of their newer streaming services and revenue.
But the front page states at the very top as their mission: “Need something to watch? We’re on it. Plex combines free movies & TV with the best free streaming services, so there’s always more to discover.”
The “free movies & tv” doesn’t seem like it’s talking about local media because that’s what Plex calls its own services. “Your Media” is mentioned after Rentals, after the ad-based Movies and Shows service, after the ad-based Live TV service, after the Discover features (which includes the new social platform… that’s a whole other business model). Additionally, support around streaming services is engaged more often in these forums than local media issues (so it seems - that could be bias on my part). That doesn’t feel like local media management and streaming services have parity in priority.
To be fair, there has been some client work recently using betas with community testing which hasn’t happened in a long time - particularly for AppleTV which was way behind - so that’s promising.
I was hoping competition with Jellyfin, Emby and Infuse would push Plex a bit but I guess they aren’t feeling that pressure if they aren’t worried about local media folks leaving, which doesn’t surprise me really. Lifetime Plex Pass folks - which I think many long time admins are - aren’t producing revenue for them and local media has become more and more niche anyways. Even buying blurays has dropped enough that major chains have stopped carrying them in store and bluray players are now considered home theater aficionado equipment - it’ll cost about $400 to have DV and TrueHD support from a UHD player and you have to make sure your audio and TV equipment will support it. Getting ripping equipment is even trickier. So despite many people heading back to more personal ownership of their media lately, it’s still way overshadowed by most regular people using streaming. There are affordable ways to stick with local media if you aren’t worried about players with higher end features like HDR\Atmos and you can get most movies in bluray or dvd free from your local library including stuff that isn’t on any streaming platform; it’s like having a Blockbuster back and most libraries you can reserve titles online for pickup and don’t even have late fees anymore. Comics are particularly nice to grab from them too - physical or digital. Support your local library!
Another example on that conflict between local media and streaming services revenue is on the front page at the bottom where it mentions the Discover Credits feature to find information and other movies with cast and crew… but if you use the Editions tag feature on your local media it breaks that function. It’s come up in other threads and I haven’t seen anybody say they’ll fix it … and why should they? That’s even more esoteric a function. It’s just annoying to see it mentioned on the front page but I know it’s a function that’s a bit broken for me because of my local media use case.
So I’m keeping an eye out on the alternatives these days. LTT video about Jellyfin vs Plex presents some good info about the two platforms and mirrors some of my feelings about the situation as well.
Most issues are minor really and aren’t fully breaking Plex, but the ongoing minor issues seem indicative of the changes in Plex as a product\company. I used to feel Plex balanced the business aspects with customer consideration as not only the the owners but users as well - part of the community themselves (particularly back when it was XBMC). But now it feels like an “us” and “them” situation and heading towards enshittification - at least for those of us still using Plex for managing local media.
Plex still does a lot of stuff better than all the rest and I don’t mind Plex’s new business models for revenue growth even though they don’t apply to me but it doesn’t feel like the resources they get from it are going towards improving aspects of Plex that do apply to me.
Sorry this turned into a bit of a rant. I’m just feeling disappointed and becoming resigned about it which led to a bit of venting my frustrations over a very first world problem.
