(UPDATED with VIDEOS) December Plex Pass Community Roundtables

General Discussions
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Recordings Now Available

A big thank you goes out to everyone who attended! We enjoyed talking with everyone face-to-face. Couldn’t attend? Attended and want to see what it was like in other sessions? We’re making recordings of each session available for you to enjoy. To help you seek to the parts most interesting to you, I’ve attached a spreadsheet with notes time-coded against the videos. The notes are a high-level overview of what was discussed at certain points in time, not a play-by-play or a word-for-word recounting. If you see an interesting topic in the notes, check out the video for the full discussion on that subject. See the attachment at the bottom of this post for the spreadsheet.

Coming the week of December 12th

Last August we hosted our first ever Plex Pass Community Roundtable as a dynamic way for our users to communicate with the people behind Plex! Users had the chance to shoot the breeze with engineers, designers, product managers, and QA. Even our infamous co-founder Elan paid us a surprise visit for the Q&A. It was also awesome to see what some Plex Pass users are doing—one guy was gracious enough to give us a guided tour of his basement man cave! Jaws dropped as we fell in love. #plexgoals Now we’re ready to do it all over again!

What’s in store for you

  • Product Feedback: Be part of the face-to-face discussion and funnel insights directly to the development, QA, and support teams—the folks who are making things happen
  • Gurus Attending: We will have subject-matter gurus, developers, designers, and more, giving you the opportunity to hear and be heard by an ever-growing group of Plex experts

Your agenda

December’s roundtables will be more about the topics you would like to discuss. Sure, we’re going to have some agenda items of our own, but we want to hear from you about what we should cover. Please suggest anything you would like to have discussed by commenting in this thread. We can’t promise we’ll be able to touch on everything, but by knowing in advance we can try to make these roundtables as juicy and informative as possible.

Pick the brains of your Plex brethren

We have 3 roundtables scheduled for the 2nd week of December. The dates and times are listed here in the PST time zone, however the sign-up form will automatically adjust the time zone for your location.

  • Session 1 : Tuesday, December 13th 10:30 am – 11:30 am in Pacific Standard Time
  • Session 2 : Wednesday, December 14th 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm in Pacific Standard Time
  • Session 3 : Thursday, December 15th 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm in Pacific Standard Time

Your place at the roundtable awaits!

We want everyone to have a chance to contribute and be heard! There will be several roundtable sessions to accommodate people living in various time zones. Since space is limited, we want to be fair to everyone interested in attending: if a session exceeds 25 people signing up, we will choose the actual attendees from that pool at random. Everyone who signs up will receive an auto-reply by email. Event confirmation emails and calendar invites will go out afterward. We look forward to see you in the live video chat!

Sign-ups are open through Tueday, December 6, end of day PST

Are they going to be recorded or broadcast live?

We’re hoping to be able to make recordings of each session available after the events take place, just as we did for the August roundtables. Participants will need to sign and return a release form. At this time we will not be broadcasting the roundtables live.

What about Plex Cloud Beta?

Plex Cloud beta users are more than welcome to register for the Plex Pass roundtables, though keep in mind we will not be discussing the beta in detail. We will be scheduling separate roundtables exclusively for beta users after the new year.

How do I add topics to the agenda?

We want your input in building the agenda. You can suggest a topic or a question you would like to have addressed in this thread. We can’t guarantee we’ll hit every topic or question in the roundtables, however we’ll try our best to make it worth attending. The agenda will be posted here once it is finalized. Each session will include a Q&A portion as well.

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I would like to know about the process of the FireTV issue plenty of Members ans Plex Pass owners have with Plex on that device. Since we did not got a single answer from anyone from Plex we don’t know if you’re working on a fix or if you even know about the problems.
There is a kind of famous thread here in which I’ve provided some evidence that shows that the problem did not exist in the beginning but suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

3

@an3k,

Thanks for the suggestion. Do you have a link to the thread I can reference?

4

@kinoCharlino There it is https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1296244/#Comment_1296244 :slight_smile:

I linked one of my posts because this one shows some evidence that the problem didn’t existed before the 16th September. As soon as the problem occurred I stopped using the FireTV (which was the BEST player).

Thanks for (thinking about) adding it to the table :slight_smile:

5

To be perfectly honest, I don’t think the roundtables are suitable to answer technical issues. It was a huge waste of time the last time around to listen to the answers for questions like: “Oh I want this feature and this feature and I’ve never got this feature to work.”, all problems that weren’t able to be resolved live. It would’ve been far more productive to just answer questions about where the direction is headed rather than cornering in on specific scenarios.

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@danjames92 said:
To be perfectly honest, I don’t think the roundtables are suitable to answer technical issues. It was a huge waste of time the last time around to listen to the answers for questions like: “Oh I want this feature and this feature and I’ve never got this feature to work.”, all problems that weren’t able to be resolved live. It would’ve been far more productive to just answer questions about where the direction is headed rather than cornering in on specific scenarios.

Mostly I agree. Of course it would help if the Plex people actually followed up on both kinds of questions. In the first roundtable (May 7, 2016) Plex made many statements that promised greater communication and/or implied that a feature/fix was coming soon. I have seen very little in improved communication and the features discussed seem to mostly have fallen by the wayside.

I have signed up for this one and, if accepted, I intend to try to follow up on those misleading statements but this post and the fact that I am not, apparently well received by a lot of Plex pundits will probably assure that I will not get an invite.

While I understand that features can get derailed unexpectedly that should not mean that communication about those features should be nonexistent. I do understand that features and improvements should not be prematurely announced, as has been done with “Plex Cloud,” I do not understand keeping everything so secretive.

Right now we do NOT know the status of what is holding up “Plex Cloud’s” development and Plex that makes it feel that Plex is hiding something.

I am not planing on using the roundtable as a venue to rant or even just complain, I actually do feel good about much of Plex, but I do want to here something more than the empty platitudes we have heard so far.

I can get all the empty and broken promises I need from politicians and bureaucrats.

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@an3k said:
@kinoCharlino There it is https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1296244/#Comment_1296244 :slight_smile:

I linked one of my posts because this one shows some evidence that the problem didn’t existed before the 16th September. As soon as the problem occurred I stopped using the FireTV (which was the BEST player).

Thanks for (thinking about) adding it to the table :slight_smile:

This might be something we can address before the roundtables, or at least get some kind of timeline on. We have an issue filed for this exact thing. Let me dig to see if we can get more traction this.

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@danjames92 said:
To be perfectly honest, I don’t think the roundtables are suitable to answer technical issues. It was a huge waste of time the last time around to listen to the answers for questions like: “Oh I want this feature and this feature and I’ve never got this feature to work.”, all problems that weren’t able to be resolved live. It would’ve been far more productive to just answer questions about where the direction is headed rather than cornering in on specific scenarios.

I think this is fantastic feedback and I wholeheartedly agree. I’ve added a note for my facilitation to ensure the proper expectation is set at the beginning of each session.

9

I’d like to have a discussion about the Plex Dance. I started a discussion a few weeks ago which got some surprising reactions from people who think there’s nothing wrong with a feature that doesn’t do what users expect or what the documentation says it does.

One Plex employee said that Plex does not consider it a bug, although Plex employees in the past have said otherwise.

10

@beckfield said:
I’d like to have a discussion about the Plex Dance. I started a discussion a few weeks ago which got some surprising reactions from people who think there’s nothing wrong with a feature that doesn’t do what users expect or what the documentation says it does.

One Plex employee said that Plex does not consider it a bug, although Plex employees in the past have said otherwise.

If I remember correctly I was pretty much on your side on that. It IS a bug (or at least a lack of proper design) in that there is no way to have the same effect as the “Plex Dance” happen within Plex.
It is a good subject for discussion.

I wonder: Has Plex ever admitted they made a design mistake?

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@Elijah_Baley said:
It IS a bug (or at least a lack of proper design) in that there is no way to have the same effect as the “Plex Dance” happen within Plex.
Having the same effect as the Plex Dance within Plex is not what I want. The Plex Dance causes items to be removed from playlists, any history of movies or TV shows is lost (‘watched’ status, ‘On Deck’ status, etc.), custom artwork is lost, and I don’t know what else.

If I make a change in a music track’s embedded ID3 tags, such as adding a genre, correcting a typo, etc., I want Plex to re-read those tags and update Plex’s records without losing all that. That’s what the Help for the ‘Refresh’ command says it will do, that’s what a user reasonably expects it to do, but Refresh doesn’t do it.

Anyway, no need to hash all that out again here. I’d just like to be clear on what’s expected, and I’d like to have a conversation in the round table about it.

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@kinoCharlino said:

@an3k said:
@kinoCharlino There it is https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1296244/#Comment_1296244 :slight_smile:

I linked one of my posts because this one shows some evidence that the problem didn’t existed before the 16th September. As soon as the problem occurred I stopped using the FireTV (which was the BEST player).

Thanks for (thinking about) adding it to the table :slight_smile:

This might be something we can address before the roundtables, or at least get some kind of timeline on. We have an issue filed for this exact thing. Let me dig to see if we can get more traction this.

Thank you very much. It is highly appreciated and means much to us because (until now) nobody reacted to the mentioned thread. I love Plex on FireTV and hope we can get it working again!

13

I would like to have a discussion about Feature Requests that aren’t moving forward. We KNOW what we want to see in this suite. And yet, instead we get broken things like Plex Cloud. Or hardware with embedded PMS which is severely lobotomized in features or upgradeability.

Collections, Per User Server side Speed Limits, Black Listing for permissions, filters, tags, etc. The list goes on. Development time spent on Cloud or Netgear’s router could easily have been spent on these features that USERS have been begging to get for years.

It’s time to stop adding fringe devices and features and finalize the core of PMS, IMO.

14

just signed up, missed the last one.

I’d love to have a discussion about “hardware transcoding support” on NAS devices.
There is a example thread: https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/239841/qnap-hardware-transcoding#latest

regards

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@Elijah_Baley said:
Right now we do NOT know the status of what is holding up “Plex Cloud’s” development and Plex that makes it feel that Plex is hiding something.

Everyone will know the status of Plex Cloud overy soon. We’ve had to stay quiet for certain reasons I won’t get into, but when we provide our next update that will make more sense of everything.

@beckfield said:
I’d like to have a discussion about the Plex Dance.

This would be a good topic to discuss. I’ve reviewed the threads there does seem to be two opposing viewpoints in the community, making this a great topic for the roundtable.

@MikeG6.5 said:
I would like to have a discussion about Feature Requests that aren’t moving forward.
…
It’s time to stop adding fringe devices and features and finalize the core of PMS, IMO.

How feature requests get prioritized against other tasks and needs and how they get into production is something we can cover. As for fringe devices it is a matter of opinion. We have many users who have shared with us in social media and other outlets how they use the NVIDIA SHIELD as a PMS – how it fits their use case well. Depending on the media used, we’re seeing users get 3-4 simultaneous 1080p transcode streams using that device. But it doesn’t fit everyone’s use case and I can understand how it might not be well suited for you. For other users it is a simple, low-cost way to get a PMS and client in a single box. Plex develops for many server and client platforms because one side doesn’t fit all. We can talk more at the roundtable about how we balance the requests and use cases of advanced users in the forums with the rest of our user base. This also transitions well into the next one…

@b3m3 said:
I’d love to have a discussion about “hardware transcoding support” on NAS devices.

This would be a great topic, and I would include the NVIDIA SHIELD and the Netgear router in this device category for discussion. Not all NAS devices have hardware transcoding. Those that do can handle a few transcoding streams, while those that don’t have hardware support really need to have media optimized to avoid transcoding. In my ideal world, all devices would have hardware transcoding support! I do understand that these manufacturers like to market several models at various price points, and the lower price points end up accepting trade-offs. Thanks for the link to the QNAP thread.

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@b3m3 said:
I’d love to have a discussion about “hardware transcoding support” on NAS devices.

This would be a great topic, and I would include the NVIDIA SHIELD and the Netgear router in this device category for discussion. Not all NAS devices have hardware transcoding. Those that do can handle a few transcoding streams, while those that don’t have hardware support really need to have media optimized to avoid transcoding. In my ideal world, all devices would have hardware transcoding support! I do understand that these manufacturers like to market several models at various price points, and the lower price points end up accepting trade-offs. Thanks for the link to the QNAP thread.

Good to hear that! It’s truly understandable that not all NAS devices / routers can be used for hardware transcoding. But the devices with a similar and powerfull CPU architecture (Intel based and maybe new ARM models for example) should use this advantage when possible.

I’m looking foward to have a great discussion about this.

regards ben

17

I would love to hear the feasibility of releasing official docker images. UnRAID has mainly shifted away from plugins and Synology added Docker functionality. It would also be an easy way to install on Windows 10/Server2016 using the Containers feature.

Also, any plans to support DRM (DTCP) protected channels in the DVR feature

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@Elijah_Baley I also think that it would be a good idea to have a little chat about Plex Cloud, I don’t know if the current solution of an 1:1 adoption of Plex in the cloud is the way we/I want to have it or we/I can use it.

I Would love to further discuss this :wink:

kind regards

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@y1n14i11 said:
@Elijah_Baley I also think that it would be a good idea to have a little chat about Plex Cloud, I don’t know if the current solution of an 1:1 adoption of Plex in the cloud is the way we/I want to have it or we/I can use it.

I Would love to further discuss this :wink:

kind regards

Really? It doesn’t conform exactly to your use case? Shocking. Not like Plex to create a product that’s inclusive of everybody’s needs. /s

I’m joking by the way, well partially. Obviously Plex Cloud needs encryption before most are willing to adopt it. Hope to get some discussion on the topic.

20

As a Passport Pro Owner and a big used of Plex home I would like to explore ways of enabling “seldom connected” plex devices. Should we continue down the server on device route or look more at a second tier of plex server/client where the device ie. Passport can sync content from the top tier and share it with other clients