@mavrrick said:
The part that really sets plex apart has always been the remote playback functionality.
Because you use Plex primarily as a remote solution doesn’t make Plex primarily a remote solution. However, you seem to now be stretching the use of “remote” to also include playback on local networks. This makes no sense, because even if you use a Plex client on the same hardware as your server, you’re still using Plex over a network – just an extremely local network.
@jkiel said:
@jjross said:
Can we get a little more detail into why we moved to downloading codec instead of shipping with the installer?My guess is DRM.
DRM? In what sense?
@jkalland said:
@jjross said:
Can we get a little more detail into why we moved to downloading codec instead of shipping with the installer? If this is some part of a big new feature that can’t be announced then that’s fine. Say that. But if not can we get a little more insight into the rationale?The same reason Linux doesn’t ship with them and you have to manually install them there, too, most likely.
OK, so why doesn’t Linux ship with them?
@jjross said:
If this is some part of a big new feature that can’t be announced then that’s fine. Say that. But if not can we get a little more insight into the rationale?
“That”
Plex now downloads certain components on demand, the first time they are used on that system. It allows us more flexibility, smaller initial download sizes, and lays the foundation for a number of cool things we plan to do down the road.
@MovieFan.Plex said:
Plex now downloads certain components on demand, the first time they are used on that system. It allows us more flexibility, smaller initial download sizes, and lays the foundation for a number of cool things we plan to do down the road.
Making it even more internet connected!!!
Regards
I think the dream is a place called “PlexFlix”.
Not going to happen.
@jkiel said:
@mavrrick said:
The part that really sets plex apart has always been the remote playback functionality.Because you use Plex primarily as a remote solution doesn’t make Plex primarily a remote solution. However, you seem to now be stretching the use of “remote” to also include playback on local networks. This makes no sense, because even if you use a Plex client on the same hardware as your server, you’re still using Plex over a network – just an extremely local network.
Again putting words in my mouth. I never said plex was primarily a remote solution. I said that is what sets it apart in functionality. The remote functionality that is provided by plex is fantastic compared to any other solution avaliable to the consumer. I would also suggest you read my previous post. I also never said or implied anything about remote accessing being on the same network, nor did i state I do playback on the server. I am not sure how you got that impression but that is far from the case as my server is a headless device that sits on the other side of the house.
@MovieFan.Plex said:
@jjross said:
If this is some part of a big new feature that can’t be announced then that’s fine. Say that. But if not can we get a little more insight into the rationale?
“That”Plex now downloads certain components on demand, the first time they are used on that system. It allows us more flexibility, smaller initial download sizes, and lays the foundation for a number of cool things we plan to do down the road.
Alright then, I’m curious to watch where this goes…thank you.
@MovieFan.Plex said:
Plex now downloads certain components on demand, the first time they are used on that system. It allows us more flexibility, smaller initial download sizes, and lays the foundation for a number of cool things we plan to do down the road.
Give us the option to preload everything. So that I can set up a Plex server for my wife when she goes on a 6-week stint to a hellhole without functional internet. Or so I can upgrade during the time of day here in China where international connectivity is somewhat functional.
My alternative is to analyze every file in my library, find all different codecs, start playing and then stopping a set of movies to force codec download. Which is ridiculous.
@MovieFan.Plex said:
Correct. In this use case, it would be simple to hash your user and passwords and store them locally. The problem is that this would only work in this specific use case. So there would have to be multiple solutions for multiple use cases. It’s possible something like this may happen in the future, but for now Plex wants to focus on broader solutions.
Please give me an example of an use case where a local, cached, fallback copy of server data causes a problem. I’ve already given you an use case where it solves a problem.
Let me clarify the new codecs feature. PMS previously came installed with many codecs. Now PMS will only download the codecs when they are needed. The codecs are installed locally onto your PMS machine, so once they are installed, you don’t need an internet connection to use them. So the limitation is that you need internet if you want to play a new codec. If it is a codec you’ve already used, they should work just fine.
In short, you’re requiring me to do an analysis of my media library in order to ensure I can preload all codecs I may need, so that I can use Plex without internet. Now, this shouldn’t be hard to script, but that’s because I can script it. A non-developer user wouldn’t have much luck with this.
You are explicitly choosing to make an already fragile solution more fragile. This is a bad choice.
@mavrrick said:
I am a bit confused by your comment stating “What gets me annoyed is that they remove the ability to continue using the product I’ve paid for in the way I intended to, and could, use it when I paid.”. This user id functionality has never worked this way. You have always needed to log in to use user authentication. All they changed was the ability to use plex home with users created essentially as subaccounts under the servers owners ID.
The user ID functionality is just a sample of poor design choices.
My main issue is the codec-on-demand change. Which completely breaks my usage of Plex. I could reliably use Plex without internet when I purchased, now I cannot.
I understand the desire for Plex home for kids. I use it for my daughter as well. I was very pleased when it was announced since it also added managemnet for the sub accounts that made decideing what content she got to see very easy to manage. I am just not completely convinced this won’t open up the web app for a major rewrite, for a fairly specific use case. I am not saying it can’t be done, just there is a balance between rick vs reward.
If a local cache requires a major rewrite, Plex would likely be the most intermingled spaghetti mess of a codebase I’ve ever seen. I don’t think that’s likely though, I’ve seen a lot of bad code 
As far as the comment “Anytime, Anywhere” i am sure that was directed at streaming remotely and not local playback. as I have said previously Local playback really shouldn’t be an issue.
If they require an internet connection, make sure that’s explicitly stated, so that the customer knows that they’re not paying for a media center solution with additional features, but an always-online solution. When they say “anytime, anywhere” I expect to be able to play my media in Kabul without expensive downloads over satellite.
It would be a poor design choice for the specific use case you are refering to. But with the web centric focus they have been going towards it may not be. You can’t take your specific situation and make those statements. Well you can, but you could very well be wrong when it comes to the whole picture.
@jjross said:
OK, so why doesn’t Linux ship with them?
just codec things: FFmpeg License and Legal Considerations
@mavrrick said:
It would be a poor design choice for the specific use case you are refering to. But with the web centric focus they have been going towards it may not be. You can’t take your specific situation and make those statements. Well you can, but you could very well be wrong when it comes to the whole picture.
With all due respect, it’s not “his specific situation”, its the original use case. Ergo, stop breaking things.
Folks are trying to bend the issue to be seen through the lens of “well, don’t use it that way, and then the problem goes away”, which is circular logic.
@eriksperling said:
Please give me an example of an use case where a local, cached, fallback copy of server data causes a problem. I’ve already given you an use case where it solves a problem.
It would have to, at best, phone home at an interval equal to the minimum “Plex Pass” purchase duration. Just like how Spotify caches offline for 30 days and then holds your music hostage until you re-auth, or how Napster (the legal, post-lawsuit one) did before it. There really isn’t a way to do anything that’s “subscription based” without periodic internet requirements…and call ti whatever you want, but Plex Pass is a subscription. Sure, you can get a “lifetime subscription”, but it’s still exactly that.
@latweek said:
With all due respect, it’s not “his specific situation”, its the original use case. Ergo, stop breaking things.
Folks are trying to bend the issue to be seen through the lens of “well, don’t use it that way, and then the problem goes away”, which is circular logic.
Origninal use case or not times do change and things evolve. I am not saying his use case isnt important, but i recognise that sometimes things change in a way that work better for a majority and hurt a few. I will not put my blinders on and think that everyone can be pleased all the time. I can think of a ton of different ways to handle local playback. A few of them actually handle metadata better then plex. Nothing I have said says don’t use it that way. But to find the best solution for your use case. Honestly if i had such a poor internet connection as he describes I wouldn’t use plex. I would either use Kodi as a client with mapped drives to a central PC, or keep a machine on windows 8.1 with MC and use My Movies for rich metadata. Heck even Cyberlink has a fairly nice setup for sharing content between machines with it’s PowerDVD software.
Codec support is a PITA, and always will be. I don’t fault plex for wanting to be dynamic in that manor. The claim here is that it makes the app less reliable and that isn’t true. What is making the app unreliable is something that has nothing to do with plex in his case, but plex does need to function. Plex would likely be flawless if the user didn’t have internet issues. I have been doing a variety of things with video content for about 10 years now. It would be nice if it was as simple as just load a codec pack, but it often times isn’t. That is a tremoundous simplification of the subject.
@mavrrick said:
It would be a poor design choice for the specific use case you are refering to. But with the web centric focus they have been going towards it may not be. You can’t take your specific situation and make those statements. Well you can, but you could very well be wrong when it comes to the whole picture.
I have the option to say “right now I want to refresh metadata”, or I can configure plex to refresh metadata periodically. When it does, it updates a local copy, so that I do not need to wait for external fetches when browsing media and seeing this metadata.
These are sensible design choices. The information shouldn’t be fetched on every use, since it’s primarily used locally. I’m quite certain a lot of Plex users would be annoyed if their searches or browsing had to wait for everything to be retrieved from slow external servers every time.
There are no technical reasons why the same choice can not be made for local users.
@mavrrick said:
Origninal use case or not times do change and things evolve. I am not saying his use case isnt important, but i recognise that sometimes things change in a way that work better for a majority and hurt a few. I will not
Now, if things could change so they work better for a majority and not hurt a few, wouldn’t that be a better solution.
@mavrrick said:
Codec support is a PITA, and always will be. I don’t fault plex for wanting to be dynamic in that manor. The claim here is that it makes the app less reliable and that isn’t true. What is making the app unreliable is
You do not lose the ability to “be dynamic” with local caching. Added external dependencies do introduce fragility though.
@mavrrick said:
It would be nice if it was as simple as just load a codec pack, but it often times isn’t. That is a tremoundous simplification of the subject.
What Plex is doing is as simple as that. They download a codec library, store it locally, then use it. I want it predownloaded and stored locally so that they can use it. I don’t mind dynamic updates, I don’t mind externally stored local users, I simply want to also have a local copy so that I do not need to depend on functional internet in order to watch a movie.
@jkalland said:
It would have to, at best, phone home at an interval equal to the minimum “Plex Pass” purchase duration. Just like how Spotify caches offline for 30 days and then holds your music hostage until you re-auth, or how Napster (the legal, post-lawsuit one) did before it. There really isn’t a way to do anything that’s “subscription based” without periodic internet requirements…and call ti whatever you want, but Plex Pass is a subscription. Sure, you can get a “lifetime subscription”, but it’s still exactly that.
And that’s not a problem. If you have a subscription, Plex can refetch the expiry date whenever it wants to, and disable subscription features if it cannot verify that you’re still subscribed. That’s of course both acceptable and expected.
This is really not as hard as its being made out to be. Even the basic Samsung Smart TV can seek out and then play files from a DLNA source.
I agree that any Plex client should have some “offline” mode. Yet it seems to be curiously, somehow deliberately and intentionally avoided.
If Plex is available ‘offline’ then how will plex be able to spam the UI on all the clients with advertising?
