Why is Plex for Windows so bad?

Plex Players Desktop Players
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It’s been out for a few years now but the Windows Plex player is still shockingly bad, particularly if you want to use one of the main Plex Pass features and actually synchronise your media.

I could just about accept it being a weak beta version when it was released (although the lack of features was pretty poor) but it being a few years on and still not even have implemented basics like choosing a download location is just a bit embarrassing.

The other sync options are my way or the high way, no option to sync seasons, no way to sync more than 5 unplayed episodes of a show, barely any quality options, etc. It all just seems like an afterthought.

I guess the question is, are Plex planning to abandon those who use Windows to watch offline? Is the intention to push Plex as an online only player with the Plex streams that keep getting forced on me? I can’t think of any other reason why the software is so consistently poor but if this is the plan it would be nice to be informed so I can look elsewhere for my needs.

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Yea, it needs work…

When what I’m watching has the hydraulic jerks so bad I have to shut down Plex for Windows on the Desktop and go to my Roku Ultra for smooth playback - there’s something wrong.

Download/Sync Media?
Have never done it, but for some reason I can’t get that Download Icon off my player. I hope nobody else I know uses PfW and clicks that button.

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I see the Download icon when looking at a season.
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Correct. This may change in the future. For a work-around, you can create a smart playlist for this and then Download that playlist.

This will be changing in the future. You will see all the quality settings you see now for streaming.

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i also want to know the roadmap in advance, so thx for asking

but i don’t think they will abandon Plex for Windows because it earns money (plex pass subscribers ) and Windows Web Browsers can’t currently do Direct Play with newer codecs like HEVC (i think)

i also just tried yesterday and Plex for Windows can stream all that free live tv + free tv/movie content from Plex servers (that they are pushing on us) just fine

but i could be wrong :frowning:

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ps: they also just made and released the new Windows player called Plex HTPC, so probably unlikely to abandon 1/3rd of the windows player ecosystem

so hopefully we are safe with Plex for Windows :slight_smile:

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Plex does not provide roadmaps for features.

Plex for Windows is free.

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u sound rude taking things out of context (misquoting)

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software = installs = potentially…
sell plex passes
sell user data/stats?
not free

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Serious question? No, absolutely not.

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I ended up abandoning Plex a while back when I got a 4k TV and started using 4k content, all because of the Windows Player. It simply will not direct play 4k content without jerking and stuttering from my home theatre PC hooked up over GBit LAN to my FreeNAS server running Plex server. If I instead open 4k content over a SMB share with VLC or my video editing software, it plays smooth as silk (server load negligible, htpc cpu load about 60-70%). Gave Plex a spin again this week but Player still no good. Would love to know if I likely just have a bad configuration or if this is expected with player. For now, back to the alternatives.

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Definitely not expected. There could be a bottleneck somewhere in your setup, but can’t say without more details.

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