Elan, I appreciate you dropping in and commenting. When I saw you had made a couple of "likes" in the thread I was like "wow, Elan is going to comment" :)
I'll generalize a couple of things instead of replying individually:
Elan: Yes, we can be secretive at times, but that's mostly because we enjoy surprising and delighting, and exceeding expectations.
If that is what you are going for it's not working. The silence at times is maddening and there is less delight it seems with each new release. As you can probably tell from the many comments, expectations aren't being exceeded and people are feeling sort of the opposite. It's getting to the point for many that when we install a new version we hope it doesn't break to many things. It sometimes feels like we take 2 steps forward and 1 step back in features. That is probably harsher sounding then reality but it's the "trending feeling" going around.
There is tons of good feedback, ideas and bug reports in the forums that go un-noticed. It would be great if it were part of the dev's responsibilities to monitor the section of the forum that apply to them. It would be very helpful to get a replys from them also. It can be as simple as "noted", "thank you", "added to tracker". It's the lack of communication and not knowing if anyone is reading or understanding the issues that is probably the most frustrating thing at times.
It's human nature to want to communicate. But there is no such thing as a one-sided communication. Things as simple as an acknowledgement can go a long way. Not always, but often. But FEELING ignored doesn't cut it.
FILTERING:
The reason for the negative filtering has been stated numerous times in the forums but I'll give a simple explanation. I have a movie library with 4+K movies in it. 3800 or so have ratings, 400 to 500 have no ratings. Of the 4+K films there are probably only a dozen who need special treatment. These are what I'd call HARD R movies bordering on porn and very explicit. Now instead of having to completely rework my entire movie library so that I can tag everything but these dozen movies it would be so much easier to tag these dozen as "explicit". Then for the teanager I might share with I can give them access to movies up to and including "R" but be able to use the negative/exclusive flag to filter out "explicit". It's just so much easier that way. This is only one example and there are dozens like it.
HOME:
It's not just about being a part of multi-home systems but the way it's setup in general. It fits the "corporate" model for how it should work but could have been much more powerful and configurable for system operators. Why could it not have been setup so accounts are created on the local server including password. A user can log straight into the server. The server has a flag for each user that determines if that user gets the easy signon or not. Then just have the ability to associate the local plex server account with a PLEX.TV account. Doing it this way would allow almost every possibility that people have asked for in the forums. It of course would also allow people to be part of multiple homes.
ENCRYPTED INFO ON SERVERS AND XBOX ONE LOGINS:
Lumped these 2 together. The point we were getting at is that the new clients always want to connect to PLEX.TV before our own servers. This requires things like xBox Live and the internet to be functioning. Instead, each and every client should try and connect to it's default server or a server on the same LAN first and can fetch credential there. If there is any type of internet outage the client such as xBox can still function against the server on the local lan. FORCING clients to require internet access is a step backwards and HAS BEEN causing problems.
Each and every client should always be usable on the local LAN at least for a period of time (cached credentials from the server). Every client should be designed to FULLY RUN OFFLINE without internet needed. This has previously always been the way it worked and how we still want it to work. Changing things up for your own convenience in programming isn't cool to us customers. You're essentially changing some of the fundamental ways that Plex works to the detriment in many case of the customer. This has and will continue to force people to use other software like MB3 which has no such restrictions. If you purchase the "plex pass" version of donations to their system you get an API key you load into your server or client and that's it. Still no internet required and you get full features.
MARKETING:
There needs to be a distinction in the marketing of products and how early access relates to Plex Pass. As an example unless you know the "key words" to look for the average user thinks the xBox One app is feature complete and only available with a Plex Pass.
Maybe the terminology just needs to be changed and used properly throughout the site. For example call some things "Advanced Features" (available with Plex Pass membership) and other things "Early Preview" (available with Plex Pass membership). Don't hide the fact that some clients are EARLY PREVIEW but make it a point to be clear so expectations are correct from the start. Maybe even add "RELEASED Version x.x" and "EARLY PREVIEW Version x.x" to the website to help differentiate the status of each client.
As far as marketing goes it would really be a great and useful thing to have a CLIENT MATRIX OF FEATURES to show what each client can and can not do. It doesn't have to be a Y or N but could be Released, Testing, Development or whatever. This could be useful to present customers to know what will be in the next release or two of the client. I'd assume knowing what features will be added to bring parity to clients isn't giving away any trade secrets.
Roadmap quote:
I'll disagree with your disagreement :) I'll give you two quick examples. xBox One dimming issue was a disaster when released and took over a month to get fixed. Yes part of it was waiting for MS to approve the "fix" app. BUT had something as simple as screen dimming been discussed or even thought out it would not have been implemented the way it was. Even after all the threads about it and the discussions the devs/management took nothing from this and are NOW releasing this same feature set on new clients. Screen dimmer kicks in at 2 minutes and blackens screen in 5 minutes.
Why was nothing learned from the xBox fiasco? It's not rocket science to allow the user to set the amount of minutes before dimming or before the screen goes black and this configuration could allow the setting of 0 (ZERO) to turn off the feature (or have a checkbox to ENABLE or DISABLE the feature) for those who do not want this "feature". I may be an exception but I do not want anything like this due to having people with visual impairments in the house. But even if I did want to use it I would not want it to start dimming at 2 minutes (maybe 10 or 15).
Another example is the method or architecture of cloud sync which is a real sore spot on the forums. By all accounts (well most accounts) it doesn't have the features people want or can use without having to jump through hoops.. While it surely didn't need to be designed by "committee" it should have been designed by someone with at least a bit of software architecture experience. (sorry if this seems overly harsh, but the implementation at present is garbage compared to how it could have been). But had the basics of this feature been at least talked about (not designed) but talked about with some users then Plex Inc., would have had a much clearer picture of what/how end users would use it and THEN it could have been designed to fulfill the need/want of the customers.
Quoting the whole section:
cayars: Imagine if 10 to 20 (even 5 to 10) plex users were selected and signed NDAs, given a private forum and were able to participate with developers/designers
Elan: Yup, that’s what we do with Plex Ninjas, who are privy to new features and get to contribute ideas, test them out, and give feedback.
Don't know what to say about this from a customer standpoint (with agreement from those in the thread also)
Either:
1 The Ninjas aren't listening to customers and reporting this back to you
2 Ninjas don't run big enough system to really push the software to know it's weekness or short comings
3 Ninjas don't communicate well
4 You guys aren't listening to what the Ninja are telling you
Either way, from a customer experience it's not working so well. You may need to replace some of them or listen to them more. No idea from the outside but something probably needs to change. Maybe new blood is needed.
Interesting choice of name however. From Wiki: A ninja or shinobi was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, and open combat in certain situations.
Had to get something of a joke in there at the end to lighten the mood. :)
I do appreciate you joining the thread,
Carlo
