Plex's Upcoming App Redesign is a Big Swing at Going Legit 47
An anonymous reader shares a report: Plex is beginning to test its "newly reimagined Plex experience," which will be available first on mobile and is coming to TV platforms "very soon." Plex says the new experience has been in development for almost two years and is "designed to bring everything you love into one seamless interface." But don't worry -- while the new version of the app is currently missing some features, Plex says it will be "closing those gaps" and will keep the current app available during the preview, which will hopefully prevent a Sonos-like debacle.
A big change for the new app is redesigned navigation that more clearly delineates between media you might have on your Plex server and the company's streaming and on-demand offerings. The bottom bar has dedicated tabs for your media libraries, live TV, and on-demand movies and shows. The Watchlist, which lets you make a list of things you want to watch, has a spot at the top of the app. And artwork is shown more prominently.
A big change for the new app is redesigned navigation that more clearly delineates between media you might have on your Plex server and the company's streaming and on-demand offerings. The bottom bar has dedicated tabs for your media libraries, live TV, and on-demand movies and shows. The Watchlist, which lets you make a list of things you want to watch, has a spot at the top of the app. And artwork is shown more prominently.
I am confused. (Score:2)
How is making the UI continually worse a 'swing at going legit'?
Is there a certain amount of enshittification required for legitimatude?
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Is there a certain amount of enshittification required for legitimatude?
Short answer yes with an "and"; long answer no with a "but"...
Re:I am confused. (Score:5, Insightful)
You had one job... (Score:2)
I want an app that lets me watch local media I have in my house and I am willing to pay for it rather than ad supported stuff pushed in my face. Paid for emby premium lifetime access after Plex gone loco.
Re:You had one job... (Score:5, Informative)
> I want an app that lets me watch local media I have in my house and I am willing to pay for it rather than ad supported stuff pushed in my face. Paid for emby premium lifetime access after Plex gone loco.
https://jellyfin.org/ [jellyfin.org]
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> Jellyfin
This. I still have a Plex server running alongside Jellyfin for my parents, who I'd set up with Plex when I last visited them a couple of years ago. Since then, I've spun up a Jellyfin container and gotten it dialed in; it works like a champ with a couple of Chromecasts at home and my phone and notebook on the road. When my wife and I visit them next month, I'm putting the Jellyfin client on their Rokus and shutting down Plex.
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When Jellyfin has feature-parity for device support, I'll be making the jump. But right now, none of the family's smart TVs support it. The choice is between "it works, but shitty" (plex) or "it doesn't work at all" (jellyfin). I WANT to make the switch, but simply cant.
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When Jellyfin has feature-parity for device support, I'll be making the jump. But right now, none of the family's smart TVs support it. The choice is between "it works, but shitty" (plex) or "it doesn't work at all" (jellyfin). I WANT to make the switch, but simply cant.
On the Apple TV, at least, there are options that work with a Jellyfin server - such as Infuse.
Infuse has some paid add-on features, but you don't need them to watch your Jellyfin content.
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Thank you, I'll have to check that one out again. I tried it a while back, but at that time it was still somewhat limited in what it supported.
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I believe Jellyfin has a plugin that makes it a DLNA server, which most smart playback devices can interact with. It's usually not as rich of a UI as a dedicated client can provide, but it gets the job done.
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How is it that you have never heard of Kodi? It's 6-7 years older than Plex depending on whether you count from when it was XBMP (from which it changed quite a bit) or when it was XBMC (which it is immediately recognizable as a rebrand of.)
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I paid for the lifetime Plex subscription many years ago and can tell you Plex is not what you want for local viewing. It's way too bloated and does too many things. For all my local media viewing at home, I use Kodi on all devices, just because I love directories and subdirectories and hate searching with metadata.
About time (Score:4, Funny)
If this app redesign at least makes it visually possible to distinguish between media on my own server vs. from other sources, it will be a step in the right direction. But what I really want is a switch that just TURNS OFF all online content completely. I 100% only want to use Plex to access my own media on my own server. That's all I want. I want an option to TURN OFF EVERYTHING except the one thing I want to use Plex for: accessing media on my own server, and disable everything else.
Plex, are you listening? Many of your users just want to use Plex to access their own media on their own servers. That's what Plex is good at. That's the niche you fill. Stop trying to be a new Roku or a new streaming content aggregator, we already have those. We are already paying you for a subscription to your service, stop ignoring us and shoving spam at us. I'll even pay $5 more to bribe you with a "premium subscription" that REMOVES FUNCTIONALITY I DON'T WANT, such as DOING LITERALLY ANYTHING BUT HELPING ME ACCESS MY OWN MEDIA ON MY OWN SERVER.
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I gave up on Plex several years ago because every update seemed primarily designed to drive you harder towards their paid "features", which few people care about. That's their right as developers, but I'm not obligated to buy into their system when all I want is to watch my own content from my own server.
Jellyfin works fine.
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I agree, Jellyfin works fine and does 99% of what Plex does.
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But what I really want is a switch that just TURNS OFF all online content completely. I 100% only want to use Plex to access my own media on my own server. That's all I want. I want an option to TURN OFF EVERYTHING except the one thing I want to use Plex for: accessing media on my own server, and disable everything else.
Sounds like a skill issue on your part. These settings have existed for years now as part of your Plex account controls. You just need to disable everything on this screen [app.plex.tv] to remove ad-supported content. I believe that will cover the search function on apps, too. But if it doesn't you can correct that by changing the search setting on the client itself by going to the preferences on the far right [imgur.com] of the search bar and uncheck everything below the heading "On Plex". These same controls exist on TV/streamer c
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You're gonna need to be more precise in your description of what you are doing and seeing than "pushes shit I don't want" if you really have disabled all the Online Content. If you have any features whose sole purpose is to recommend content (like Discover or Rentals) pinned to the left sidebar, make sure you unpin those, too.
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But what I really want is a switch that just TURNS OFF all online content completely.
Here you go [kodi.tv].
The only value to Plex is the online stuff, which is more polished than most Kodi plugins.
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I downloaded the preview. They did away with the left side dropdown menu. Now there is just a menu on the bottom. Four choices: "Home", "My Libraries", "Live TV", "Discover"
I've been fiddling with it a bit. Seems like an improvement to me.
Content download doesn't work. It just says "Unable to queue download". I haven't tried to debug yet.
How about fixing the terrible media player itself? (Score:2)
I frequently have to switch back to VLC because PLEX can't handle shit. It's at the point where it's barely used because of how bad it is. Their delineation claim sounds like an outright lie. It tries to re-enable their commercial trash at every update.
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The PLEX client on a Firestick. It says unable to decode and various errors all the time, I just look it up in VLC from the network share and it's fine.
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I have yet to find a media that my PLEX server and clients won't play. Not really sure what you've got going on. In fact, my Plex server is using hardware decode on an Nvidia GPU so I can run multiple 4k streams at once to several Android TV clients throughout the house, including one hooked up to a proper surround sound setup that does passthrough of Dolby TrueHD / Atmos or DTS Master Audio just fine.
But I can turn off all external content, right.... (Score:1)
Plex Watchlist experience (Score:3)
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You mean the hardware and movies you get for free has to somehow be paid for? Unbelievable! The nerve of some people.
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You mean the hardware and movies you get for free has to somehow be paid for? Unbelievable! The nerve of some people.
No one wants the free shit Plex offers. No one has ever wanted it. Then they started pushing shit like Tidal and then tying in a bunch of ad supported streaming crap that no one asked for. They simply got greedy because I guess they don't make enough money off of lifetime and monthly passes.
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Have you disabled the free shit Plex offers yet? It's literally a few checkboxes in the settings.
There seems to be a big overlap in the Venn diagram between people who complain about the presence of the ad-supported content and people who don't disable it. I'm looking at the web interface to my server now and I see no content that is Plex-supplied at all on the Home tab, and I don't even have that stuff disabled. I just have the sources unpinned on this particular computer.
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Re: Plex Watchlist experience (Score:2)
It's an account setting. Not tied to server or client.
Who is this for? (Score:2)
I've been running Plex and Jellyfin in parallel for quite some time. It may be time to just shut down Plex.
The Enshitification Returns. Again. (Score:2)
Yet another story about how Plex is supposed to be better than something something something. I bought an Emby Lifetime Premier subscription and lo and behold, an IPTV plug-in that works pretty well, you know, the way Plex used to work 5 or 6 years ago but doesn't now. As soon as someone notices Plex trying to do any more shady crap I'm moving on to Emby full time. They lost my heart and mind years ago. I hardly believe that they're trying to "make it better". They're trying to make their company "more
So much whining (Score:2)
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More than that, you can disable the crap you don't own, and remove it from the pinned sections on the left so you never see it.
If people spent 30 seconds learning how to use something rather than 4 seconds and then running to bitch on the internet, they'd probably have less to bitch about.
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Ditto. I've never had an issue determining what's local and what's Plex Streaming.
Going Legit (Score:3)
> Going Legit
Because managing media that you own on your own system places you into 'illegitimate' by default.