Why HTPC Support Should Remain Indefinitely

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Hey Devs,

I will respectfully try to explain why I believe HTPC support should remain indefinitely.

  1. HTPC users like myself have dedicated loads of man hours, money and resources into building actual home theatre rooms for our families. In my case a Mac Mini hooked up to a 70inch 4K UHD TV. This is primarily the way we enjoy movies. Although we have roku ultra in other rooms for viewing, the Mac Mini experience is far better and will not likely be replaced by streaming devices.

  2. Streaming devices like Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast or any other streaming device should in no way be the only options for viewing our plex media. I love the fact that I can go watch plex on these devices if needed, but being limited to only those streaming devices is not good for Plex or the users of the Plex community.

  3. Dropping HTPC support makes long term users really lose trust in the developers and what they say. Plex for me (and many others) is essentially a HTPC solution for our media.

  4. The Plex Media Player TV layout should be integrated into the new Plex app, or be a standalone officially supported TV app for HTPC users on mac, windows and linux.

  5. I think you owe HTPC users far more than what you currently give us and I believe you owe it to the HTPC community to continue support for HTPC solutions for Plex. You asked us time and time again to continue to support Plex and we have, now it’s time for HTPC users to ask in return that you continue to support us. HTPC solutions is the backbone of Plex and always has been, to remove that is a huge mistake.

I ask that any comments be kept respectful so this thread will not be closed or locked. I hope developers understand this is not ok to do.

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I’m not sure why you’re starting a new thread. This is already being discussed here: Killing PMP for Windows

Most if not all your points are being covered in that thread.

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Most if not all his points are being cursorily dismissed in the other thread.

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If that’s how you see it, how is a different thread going to change that?

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While I agree, mostly, that HTPC support be continued I do not feel that any particular advantage should be granted to anyone just because they have put a lot of time or money or emotional investment into their setup. That would be like saying that I, and a few others, bought the most expensive client available and the entitles me to support even though that support costs development for other clients that have a lot more users.

Even if the support of HTPCs does not progress there are still needs for developers to spend both time and effort keeping them working correctly, and that costs Plex money and that cost gets passed on to all users. In many ways it is the old idea: “Is it right for many people to be charged just so a few can benefit?”

Again, I do agree that support for HTPCs should continue but not if there is much expense or if that support costs much in development time for other clients.

Technology is much like the animal kingdom: Sometimes it is OK to allow an animal (or piece of technology) to become extinct. It is not really necessary, or even good, to protect everything.

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This is actually a completely different topic. I’m saying HTPC support should remain indefinitely. That thread is not really discussing some of the points I’m making here. And I hope to raise more points.

Cheers,

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I do not recall saying it would. Can you point out where I did if you’re going to get snarky about it?

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Pretty much what that thread IS about. (I’ve read every post).

  1. Definitely covered with plenty of user examples how HTPC is used/needed.

  2. Covered.

  3. Definitely covered.

  4. Covered in various threads about the new player apps.

  5. Totally covered. Plenty of posts express exactly this. (And countered by Plex user metrics).

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Hey Elijah,

Good to see you still in the forums! And I do agree with you. But I can’t help but think that HTPC users should be valued here in the Plex community (and officially supported). I don’t want to be entitled or tell developers how to develop plex, but HTPC and plex go hand in hand for me and many others.

It’s not gonna make me boycott plex or rant about how bad plex is, I actually really like the new Plex app and find it really useful. But removing HTPC support and that part of the plex experience? Just doesn’t sit well with me. But maybe I’m a bit nostalgic…

I’m sure we all will adjust as we have since Plex Media Center (oldie but goodie lol) but I hope developers take the next 4-5 months to evaluate the decision and at least consider how this would affect the setup of many users.

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Hey,

Thanks for the reply. That thread title/topic is “Killing PMP for Windows” and my thread title/topic is “Why HTPC Support Should Remain Indefinitely”.

Different topics of discussion even though some views and opinions similar to mine may be voiced there.

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As has been pointed out before, the HTPC users are the power users, the early adopters, the ones who are passionate and contributing back to the community to make it better. Alienate them is to the detrement of the entire community, not just the HTPC users.

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I disagree with that, mostly. Plex should never go out of their way to appease any small minority of users. Of course neither should they go out of their way to alienate such users.

If Plex has made the decision to not support the HTPC type platforms in the future then that is fine with me because I do not want my money spent, however slightly, on a platform that is not used by any but a few power users.

I would not see any objection to having an app that is supported by the community of power users but I see no advantage to Plex supporting a small minority no matter how powerful they are.

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Yep. And, I’m totally speculating here, it’s possible Plex as a company has passed the era when the hardcore evangelists and self-described power users (many power users have moved beyond HTPC’s, so the HTPC/power-users Venn diagram isn’t a circle) brought significant income and/or visibility to the product.

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And I disagree with that. Removing core functionality is never a good thing. Pissing off core users is never a good thing. This isn’t asking for something completely new and unique that only a few will use, its asking for the same thing that is already being developed for other platforms and already exists on this platform to continue to do so.

Instead they put development into tidal and other integrations that none of us asked for that are completely different things that didn’t already exist. Plex is a local media server and that is what I paid for.

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I’m not sure HTPC users are as small a minority here as people are making it seem. Just because every plex user doesn’t use plex this way (as in with HTPC connected to a TV) or because more plex users favor streaming devices than a HTPC, how does that justify removing core functionality that the plex platform was built upon? I think that is a silly argument to make.

Plex has a ton of features that a small minority of users are actually using I would argue. But just because the user base of those features are small doesn’t mean plex should remove that functionality. How many users are actually using tidal vs their personal collection of music? I’d like to see the data for that.

I also dislike the term “power users”. It’s kind of creepy to be honest and I wouldn’t consider myself a “power user” just because I connect my Mac to my TV to watch movies. That is basic functionality that plex is built upon and should remain apart of the ecosystem.

I’ve never, ever used sync with Plex in my 10+ years of experience with Plex. But I would not advocate for that to be taken away just because the user base who uses it is small in comparison to the rest of plex. Fun fact, every plex user probably uses plex a bit different than the next. That’s the beauty of having streaming and HTPC setups not just one or the other.

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The point that is utterly infuriating is not the “number of people who use PMP”. It is the point that there is no other alternative to play our PMS media with Dolby Atmos and 4k HDR. The power users who are using Plex to play in their home theaters are the same ones that are providing the PMS to all those casual users whose stats are being used against us.

No one would even care if PMP was being merged into something else if Plex gave us the ability to play our media as it is meant to be consumed.

Plex are essentially removing functionality and sticking the middle finger up whilst they do it.

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Both HTPC threads are quite informative. I actually got a refund for my lifetime plex pass and will kick Plex to the curb when HTPC support is gone.

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If plex should not go out of its way to support a minority, the why arent they dumping VR?

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I think the Plex metrics tells them that 98% of users are using VR. :rofl:

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Hah. I admit to my own skepticism of Plex’s metrics with the 2% plugin figure.

That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if Plex had internal metrics that showed a major downward trend in HTPC usage. With the proliferation of smart devices, it’s probably a niche market now. I can absolutely believe they looked at their engineering resources and the usage numbers/trends, and made the call.

I can appreciate that it may have been really hard to maintain PMP for so many different hardware options. I honestly wish they had just chosen a set of “approved hardware” they’d support (translation: NUC’s and a few other high-use items based on their metrics) without doing full elimination of the product. But that opens its own can of worms, and it still would have led to a whole bunch of unhappy people with suddenly-unsupported configurations.

I don’t think Plex had any really great choices if they wanted to use their internal engineering resources efficiently.

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