Starting to understand the Team's priorities

General Discussions
81

@HitsVille said:
I can’t believe I just read that last sentence :open_mouth:

Trust me, I want the feature too :slight_smile: In fact, I was the one who wrote up the big “Collections 2.0” spec internally, and I realize there are quite a few likes on the feature post in the forums. But you have to realize, there are a ton of people using Plex, and everybody has their own “top ten” of things which are important to them. For some, maybe gapless audio is the Must Have thing without which Plex is broken. For others, it’s something completely different, like Live TV. And nobody can possible understand why we’re not working full speed ahead on their specific list.

Try to look at it from our perspective; we have about a thousand years of work ahead of us, give or take a few. We have to be very surgical and precise about the work we do, so we try to make things which are the most useful to the most users of our platform (but might not please the hardest core users). Also, and this should be obvious, but we are a business, and we need to make sure that we continue to put food on our team’s tables, so that also provides some “weighting” for the things we do–it has to.

As a wise person once said, you can’t please everyone all the time…

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@HitsVille said:

@elan said:
Collections, as I discussed with you personally (IIRC), is something we’ve been wanting to do for a while, but it just hasn’t bubbled up on the priority list (and we don’t get a large number of requests for it).

I can’t believe I just read that last sentence :open_mouth:

I also can’t believe I read that, as the two requests that cover it in @MovieFan.Plex listings of popular requests makes it one of the most requested, firmly placing it in the top 10. Of course @MovieFan.Plex hasn’t updated it in a month or two, so his numbers are wrong…

https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/81160/movie-collections with 689 likes and
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/152418/popular-collection-overhaul-ideas/p1 with 415 likes. Collectively, that’s over 1100 votes for a feature that’s hasn’t had a “large number of requests for it.” Collectively these two requests for the same basic feature make it the 4th highest in the list…

I guess I read it differently than some other people do…

And when I said DVR is broken, I’m taking this from the DVR forums. Guess I shouldn’t read a forum I don’t run the beta for myself, huh?

83

@MikeG6.5

Collectively, that’s over 1100 votes for a feature that’s hasn’t had a “large number of requests for it.”

Then I have to beg forgiveness, it’s probably higher than it was in my head. Sometimes it’s hard to keep all the requests and priorities straight :slight_smile:

And when I said DVR is broken, I’m taking this from the DVR forums. Guess I shouldn’t read a forum I don’t run the beta for myself, huh?

Read away, but I would hesitate to draw such serious conclusions without using it yourself. You have to remember too that we here at Plex are some of its biggest users. I myself use DVR all the time, and it works great for my use cases. I know, that’s totally subjective, but we’ve also gotten very good feedback overall.

Would love to get linked to threads which say it’s “broken”. And no, lack of Live TV doesn’t count, I’m sorry. In its first incarnation, it’s only intending to be a DVR :slight_smile:

84

Been lurking this thread for a bit now, but it’s good to see @elan pop in and talk with us…and while each user may have a different set of priorities, i’m just hoping the Plex team avoids the ‘mile-wide, inches-deep’ problems that have plagued projects like Elite: Dangerous for so long. But I am curious to see what is coming down the pipe in the near future.

-Cody

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@MikeG6.5 said:

@HitsVille said:

@elan said:
Collections, as I discussed with you personally (IIRC), is something we’ve been wanting to do for a while, but it just hasn’t bubbled up on the priority list (and we don’t get a large number of requests for it).

I can’t believe I just read that last sentence :open_mouth:

I also can’t believe I read that, as the two requests that cover it in @MovieFan.Plex listings of popular requests makes it one of the most requested, firmly placing it in the top 10. Of course @MovieFan.Plex hasn’t updated it in a month or two, so his numbers are wrong…

https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/81160/movie-collections with 689 likes and
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/152418/popular-collection-overhaul-ideas/p1 with 415 likes. Collectively, that’s over 1100 votes for a feature that’s hasn’t had a “large number of requests for it.” Collectively these two requests for the same basic feature make it the 4th highest in the list…

Those two words… “Basic feature” In just about every media centre software except for Plex. That’s what I cannot get my head around. It’s not like we are asking for some niche feature. If collections had 11 votes and not 11,000 it doesn’t alter the fact that its a basic feature.
I also struggle to see any evidence of correlation between votes for a feature and it being implemented.
That said I do love Plex and I appreciate @elan taking time to comment.
:slight_smile:

86

@elan said:
Would love to get linked to threads which say it’s “broken”. And no, lack of Live TV doesn’t count, I’m sorry. In its first incarnation, it’s only intending to be a DVR :slight_smile:

Yeah, I wouldn’t include the DVR functionality for the Feature Request which asks for Live TV streaming. It’s two different things all together. The DVR has no votes for the Request that I could find, where live TV streaming has 1338. https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/58741/very-popular-live-tv-support-in-plex-media-server/p1 That new count places it firmly in at 2nd place on @MovieFan.Plex’s listings.

Problems with the DVR:
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/246716/dvr-wont-record-all-premier-league-games#latest
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/246731/recordings-end-abruptly-after-9-seconds#latest
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/246727/dvr-not-recording-certain-channels#latest
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/244660/dvr-stability-problem-missing-dvr-program-guide-error-recording-schedule-error#latest (Which links to several other similar posts.)
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/246096/video-playback-is-choppy#latest

These are just on the first page of the appropriate forum. Since I don’t use this beta, (And very likely won’t as I have no interest in the additional hardware.) I don’t know if these are all of the issue posts or not. Perhaps it’s not as broken as I had thought.

I guess the questions are these: Is the priority more about what the Team wants to build and less about what we as users want? Or is the entire direction Plex is going no longer something the users have a voice in? If that’s the case, then lock the Feature Request forum, tells us that there is a new (hidden) plan, and our input is no longer important anymore. Because that’s what a lot of us think is happening now, anyway…

With over 10,600 votes for the top 10 requests in that forum, and the lack of progress on these features, how else are WE supposed to think? And I don’t mean you and the Team I mean us, the users… The Team has been doing it’s own thing for a long while now. And not talking to us about what’s on the burner, or what we can expect to see coming down the pike…

BASIC features. That’s what a large number of the requests on @MovieFan.Plex’s thread is all about. Feature Requests that ask for basic functionality. Improving on the features we do have, or adding in basic functionality that other streaming apps already have. Not the fluff most of us aren’t likely to use… But features that a large group of users not only would use, but may very well NEED.

Communication, dude… We’ve communicated our wants and frustrations, collectively, many times over the last few years. And nothing has changed. We’re ignored time and time again.

87

“Basic feature” In just about every media centre software except for Plex.

To be clear, we support collections, we just don’t support the full range of features one might want :wink:

88

@elan said:

“Basic feature” In just about every media centre software except for Plex.

To be clear, we support collections, we just don’t support the full range of features one might want :wink:

No, you don’t. Not as the Feature Requests have been asking for Plex to support them. And that’s the disconnect, I think…

This is a BASIC feature in most other media suites. Grouping like movies into a collective group, with a single icon in the movie listings. Click that one icon and another page shows up with the movies in the collection, with the order set when the collection is made. Hit play, and the entire collection plays one item at a time.

What you have is a filter that you need to go 2 filters deep to access. If you want a preset order, you need to do additional filtering to make it happen. This is NOT how collections work in any other media suite out there.

What Plex has is NOT what people want. And until it gets there, people are going to feel the feature is missing, because the functionality that they are used to with other apps is missing. (Sounds an awful lot like Blacklist filtering, too… We know we want it, but you haven’t gotten that fact yet, so it hasn’t come about…)

89

This is a BASIC feature
…
What Plex has is NOT what people want
…
We know we want it, but you haven’t gotten that fact yet

Stepping back for a minute, and being a tad harsh, you’re projecting your wants and needs and acting like every single person who uses Plex feels like you do. You don’t speak for the entire Plex community. We have millions of users, with incredibly disparate needs, wants, and use-cases.

In some cases, we’re in agreement (I think collections could be improved). In some cases we’re not. But let’s be respectful of the different ways in which people use Plex and their resulting differences in priorities.

90

Ok @elan: This is an easy request then. Help us plex pass lifetlime members…so we can “stop projecting”. Should be pretty quick, right?

Share your/Plex Server’s actual list of customer requested priorities #1 - #10.

91

Elan , do you realize all the limitation that the Shield TV as right now is all because of disk write issue?
not once was it mentioned anywhere if your working to fix it .?

Storage Limitations

Writing to USB and Network Storage

When you mount a USB drive as “removable storage” or network share on NVIDIA SHIELD, that content is read-only. It is not currently possible to write content to those mounted locations, which can affect some Plex features.

Media Optimizer

When making use of our Media Optimizer feature to optimize content, you will need to choose a library location on your device’s “internal storage”. The optimizing process requires “write permission” to the specified location. Unfortunately, when you mount a USB drive as “removable storage” or connect to a network storage location, those are provided to us as read-only locations, as mentioned above.** ( means that if you have a NAS attached as storage you cant use the optimizer) ***

Manually Installing Channels or Plugins

When running on the NVIDIA SHIELD, the Plex Media Server data directory is not currently user-accessible. Unfortunately, this means that it is not currently possible to manually install channels or plugins on the device

Premium Music Libraries

Plex Media Server running on NVIDIA SHIELD does not currently have the libraries necessary to support premium music libraries. We’re working to bring in that support as soon as we can

** Cannot make backup **
Because files aren’t accessible

Most of these is all because of plex using a secure location instead of an accessible location for Plex data on the shield…
my question again is , any dev have any ETA on this ?

92

Hi @elan , we really appericiate your time.

Could you please give us an update regarding Amazon Cloud? We can’t sync our items to the cloud (Cloud Sync), and there seems to be a radio silence regarding Amazon Cloud.

Thx :slight_smile:

93

@elan said:

This is a BASIC feature
…
What Plex has is NOT what people want
…
We know we want it, but you haven’t gotten that fact yet

Stepping back for a minute, and being a tad harsh, you’re projecting your wants and needs and acting like every single person who uses Plex feels like you do. You don’t speak for the entire Plex community. We have millions of users, with incredibly disparate needs, wants, and use-cases.

In some cases, we’re in agreement (I think collections could be improved). In some cases we’re not. But let’s be respectful of the different ways in which people use Plex and their resulting differences in priorities.

No, I’m projecting the wants of 1100+ users that have taken the time and efforts to vote for the feature, not counting the ones that don’t know you need to add a “Like” to the first post to get a vote counted.

Or almost 11,000 wants for the top 10 most voted for features. Which puts things into a whole different perspective for the top 10 Requested Features.

Just how many requests were served with the photo tagging? You know, one of the latest features that have been added? The one that doesn’t allow editing of tags once they are done? Remind me, again… I can’t seem to find it in that forum…

94

@elan said:
As a wise person once said, you can’t please everyone all the time…

True but I bet if you were able to please @Elijah_Baley, @MikeG6.5 and myself you would by default please 99%+ of the users since we know the pulse of the users and work with them all the time and know what would work better and make life easier for them and ourselves.

That might seem conceited but I bet it’s pretty true.

95

What frustrates me is the whole Feature Request process. There’s no way anyone has any idea what people want.

I raised a FR regarding improved chapter support and got totally dissed by the person who runs that forum.

It shouldn’t be this difficult. Someone raises a FR. This gets reviewed by the person managing the forum, then you set up a formal vote for each ‘accepted’ FR. Only Votable FRs are deemed formal ideas. Gives clarity as to what is up for ‘liking’ and a much easier way to keep track.

It would then be quite easy to add this into the newsletter to get visibility to those that don’t frequent the forum to come along and vote.

Only problem with this idea is that it’s too transparent and Plex have nowhere to hide when FRs aren’t implemented. Bottom line is why would they be interested in improving a product for people that already pay? As a business there is nothing in it for them until it becomes a retention exercise.

The majority of dev resource is on new things to entice non-subscribers to buy a pass.

96

@cayars said:

@elan said:
As a wise person once said, you can’t please everyone all the time…

True but I bet if you were able to please @Elijah_Baley, @MikeG6.5 and myself you would by default please 99%+ of the users since we know the pulse of the users and work with them all the time and know what would work better and make life easier for them and ourselves.

That might seem conceited but I bet it’s pretty true.

I’m glad you said it, because I was sure thinking it…

97

@elan said:

“Basic feature” In just about every media centre software except for Plex.

To be clear, we support collections, we just don’t support the full range of features one might want :wink:

Let’s be clear, you don’t support collections in the way that users want.

Thanks for coming in here and commenting, though. I disagree a lot with a lot of what you said, but I appreciate you taking the time to express your view.

98

@reddwarfcrew You didn’t make a Feature Request. You made a poll. And those have a place, IMO. And it’s not for the non-Team members to use… I didn’t even look at it because it’s a poll, until you posted in this thread. Not wasting my time voting for a poll that won’t have any impact on Plex’s outcome. Now if a Team member made the poll, that means Plex wants to gather information from us. Then I would look, and likely vote in it.

Notice, too, that your poll has 9 votes for it, but the actual likes is only 1. You shot yourself in the foot making it a poll… The “Likes” are the voting mechanism, not poll responses.

There is no “owner” of that forum. But there was a reply from a ninja. And one that usually is very short on words, and at times even more abrupt than I am. He knows his ■■■■, but there is a language difference, I think, and doesn’t always articulate English well.

The current system doesn’t need email reminders, except to the Team, perhaps… As @elan has already stated, he wasn’t aware of the votes for Collections. And that’s where there is a disconnect, IMO. The decision makers with Plex aren’t listening to the user’s wants. Whether that be from investor’s input, apathy, or lack of understanding that the users have made Plex what it is by previously implemented Feature Requests.

We know what we want. And that’s reflected in the Feature Requests system. The top 10 on @MovieFan.Plex’s list would cover a lot of the short comings, pretty easily. Too bad he hasn’t updated that thread with the new numbers in a while… Likely after this thread, he won’t… It significantly highlights Plex’s shortcoming in implementing those features and that’s not good for PR.

99

@latweek said:

Share your/Plex Server’s actual list of customer requested priorities #1 - #10.

I’m sorry, but as I’ve stated numerous times over the years, we don’t share a roadmap or priority list like that, for a handful of reaons (not least because it’s fluid). Pretty sure you won’t find many companies which do.

@TwistedEndz said:

do you realize all the limitation that the Shield TV as right now is all because of disk write issue?

Yes! This is an Android limitation and nothing we have control over. We’re chatting with Nvidia about the issue, let’s see what comes of it.

@albertokoelie said:

Could you please give us an update regarding Amazon Cloud?

All I can say at the moment is that we have a bazillion people lined up to try it, and we’re working our ■■■■■ off to ensure that we can let people in as soon as humanly possible :slight_smile:

@MikeG6.5 said:

Just how many requests were served with the photo tagging? You know, one of the latest features that have been added? The one that doesn’t allow editing of tags once they are done?

What a boring world it would be where all we were allowed to work on were things which customers requested! Surely there’s a healthy mix, and based on initial feedback a lot of people are enjoying the photo tagging feature. Also, I know you were just being snarky, but iOS doesn’t allow editing auto-tags either, so I’m not sure what to tell you.

@cayars:

True but I bet if you were able to please @Elijah_Baley, @MikeG6.5 and myself you would by default please 99%+ of the users since we know the pulse of the users and work with them all the time

As I mentioned in my last reply, you’re projecting your needs and wants onto the entire Plex community, which is not constructive. I would consider people such as yourself to be power users of Plex (it’s not an offensive term, I consider myself to be a power user too, but probably not to the same degree).

I would urge you to read this post for a slightly different viewpoint on things.

@MikeG6.5 said:

The decision makers with Plex aren’t listening to the user’s wants.

Please stop spreading this sort of nonsense rhetoric. Don’t confuse “listening” with “doing everything I say”.

1 Like
100

WOW!

Well, I guess you told me, didn’t you…

BORING WORLD!!! WTF? Your USERS want these features, and you call it BORING!!! That tells me a whole hell of a lot, right there…

One last thing @elan… I think YOU should make a poll in the General Free forums (or other avenue, if not the forums.) asking the users there for what they feel is important. Give each of the top 5 or 10 requested features a selection, and include things like photo tagging and DVR and Plex Cloud. Maybe more hardware choices for PMS to run on, you get the idea…

Give this a month and make it an open poll. Put it into a newsletter so everyone gets the option to put in their votes in the poll. I’m betting some raised eyebrows…

If @elan does this, I ask all of you folks that have staunchly supported my stance in this thread to abstain, so as not to unduly affect the outcome of this poll. I won’t vote, either. He already knows were we stand, this poll would be the 80%-90% that his link says are the folks that wouldn’t take the time to make requests or visit the forums.

If you do make a poll like this through another avenue, @elan , I would hope you would post the unaltered results in this thread. I mean it doesn’t do any good to make an experiment like this if the results are closed, and no one else sees them, right?

But I bet he doesn’t.