Plex Launches 'Discover' and 'Universal Watchlist' Features to Help Users Find and Watch Content Across Streaming Services

[LV426]

Waste is subjective.
Define "healthy bank balance" in your case.
If you make enough money, these various streaming services are a non starter, it doesn't even register as consequential.
If a few streaming services is affecting your bank balance that bad that you post about it on the internet, your bank balance ain't so healthy.
Some peoples defintions of "healthy bank balance" if you notice it missing, you probably can't afford it.

Let’s say, for argument‘s sake, a current account balance of around £20K.

If I carelessly wasted my money on a plethora of streaming service that I’ll never have the time to watch, that’s just being wilfully stupid with money, and my current account will deplete. I notice every wasteful transaction – that’s the kind of person I am.

You know what would benefit you, me, and the entire world of streaming consumers, is if companies separated the business of making content from streaming it. Companies like Cloudflare or Akamai are perfectly capable of streaming to the masses, and I would happily pay for their service (peanuts) and pay the content providers for what I want to watch or own.

If things carry on with the current trend, you’ll need to subscribe to a hundred streaming channels to see the stuff you’re interested in. That’s not in the consumers’ interests.

 

[Paul Shields]

Do you pay for your groceries or just walk out with them? It's a lot cheaper.

 

[hardax]

So it doesnt seem to track it. I let an episode play... and went back to Plex and it does not indicate "watched" you have a button where you can Mark it "Watched" in Plex. Unless I am missing something... it doesnt appear to Sync. Which is a Major bummer for Binge watchers.

Thats really unfortunate. I guess its nice that your search is all under one roof but thats all it really is, a search engine. I also tried it out and on the 2 Netflix shows I'm currently watching you cant initiate playback on and episode level (at least on my Sony AndroidTV). When I select a past episode to watch it launches Netflix and starts playing my most recent unwatched episode.

 

[hardax]

If you read the thread, you would of already known this. It works the same way in AppleTV.

Doesnt AppleTV track the played status? Its been a few years since I played with and AppleTV but I remember the TV app had an "up next" section doesnt it?

 

[OmegaRed1723]

i'll just stick to my usenet and sail the high seas rather than subscribe to 10 different services.

Remember the first rule of Usenet. ?

 

[jhollington]

Doesnt AppleTV track the played status? Its been a few years since I played with and AppleTV but I remember the TV app had an "up next" section doesnt it?

Yes, Apple’s TV app is somehow able to track the played status — even shows started from other apps appear in “Up Next” — so there’s a much tighter level of integration that Apple worked out with its partners. Sadly, Netflix is not among those partners.

By contrast, the new Plex Discovery service doesn’t integrate with its own “Up Next” queue (“Continue Watching” formerly known as “On Deck”). The “Watchlist” section is an entirely separate screen.

It’s in beta, of course, so some of this may still be coming. Plex does have the advantage of being more multi platform, and one nice touch is that the search includes trailers, so you can add unreleased movies to your watchlist even before they come to theatres, and they’ll be there waiting for you when they come to digital stores or streaming services — the appropriate buttons will just show up.

I go back and forth between Plex and Apple’s TV app as I have a massive personal media library that includes content that can’t be found on streaming services (I’m a fan of older, classic TV shows, for instance). I use the TV app for streaming, and Plex for the content I own.

I was hoping this new feature might allow me to stay in Plex more, but I haven’t yet decided if that’s going to be practical in its current form. Plex seems ideal for movies, where tracking isn’t really required, but in its current form I can see it becoming more of a headache for TV shows.

 

[svish]

Looks like a good update!

 

[max2]

Remember the first rule of Usenet. ?

Sorry that rule does not exist anymore.

 

[CarlJ]

So it doesnt seem to track it. I let an episode play... and went back to Plex and it does not indicate "watched" you have a button where you can Mark it "Watched" in Plex. Unless I am missing something... it doesnt appear to Sync.

I also tried it out and on the 2 Netflix shows I'm currently watching you cant initiate playback on and episode level (at least on my Sony AndroidTV). When I select a past episode to watch it launches Netflix and starts playing my most recent unwatched episode.

Sounds like either Plex's implementation isn't complete, or they're just not really trying to do the thing lots of people really want for tracking shows. With WatchAid (which I used to use a lot, but then they seemed to stop tracking a lot of shows), it would take you to the episode you selected in the corresponding app, then when you hit Menu after the episode, it would take you back to WatchAid, and pop up a dialog saying "Would you like to mark episode X of show Y as watched?" - not automatic, but relatively painless. Plex could do something like that, even without having two-way communication with the streaming app.

 

[archer75]

Sounds like either Plex's implementation isn't complete, or they're just not really trying to do the thing lots of people really want for tracking shows. With WatchAid (which I used to use a lot, but then they seemed to stop tracking a lot of shows), it would take you to the episode you selected in the corresponding app, then when you hit Menu after the episode, it would take you back to WatchAid, and pop up a dialog saying "Would you like to mark episode X of show Y as watched?" - not automatic, but relatively painless. Plex could do something like that, even without having two-way communication with the streaming app.

The devs have already stated they're working on it.

 

[mbeckman16]

You can get dolby vision and atmos from rips....I have hundreds if not thousands of such rips on my server. Streaming movies don't have lossless audio. I can't imagine google drive has much storage which would mean highly compressed movies. There's reasons to make your own rips and store locally, if you want the best quality.

Thanks. What software do you rip with? I have a 2TB plan with google so I’m good on space but just haven’t been able to rip high quality movies to my server. If you have any insights on how I can rip movies with Dolby Vision and Atmos I’m all ears. Thanks!

 

[archer75]

Thanks. What software do you rip with? I have a 2TB plan with google so I’m good on space but just haven’t been able to rip high quality movies to my server. If you have any insights on how I can rip movies with Dolby Vision and Atmos I’m all ears. Thanks!

Makemkv.com

Best to store content locally. 2tb fills up fast. My collection is 49tb.

 

[max2]

Makemkv.com

Best to store content locally. 2tb fills up fast. My collection is 49tb.

My collection is 980 TB

 

[scarecrowmac]

Unfortunately that’s not likely to ever happen unless Apple makes a pretty big change to how its TV app indexing works.

Basically, the TV app relies on a cloud-based catalog of content — it doesn’t index what’s available in the actual apps on your Apple TV. Further, that catalog is stored on a per-country basis, not a per-user basis. The TV app shows the same content to everyone in the same country.

As things work now, for the TV app to be able to index your own Plex Media Library, Apple would have to support user-specific catalog databases, and Plex would have to upload an index of everything in your library to Apple’s servers.

Apple will likely never support individual user catalogs on their servers, as that would make things an order of magnitude more complicated, and Plex is understandably reluctant to upload user library information anywhere for privacy reasons. It’s even made it very clear that this latest feature doesn’t expose your personal media library beyond your own server.

The only other way this could be made to work is if Apple’s TV app could read your Plex library directly through the Plex app. I think it’s even less likely that this will ever happen, as it’s entirely on Apple’s end, and Apple has no incentive to actually do this.

Thanks for the detail, easy for me to say but clearly there’s a lot more to it for it to actually work. Cheers!

 

[grouch]

You can do that already if you're a Trakt VIP + Plex Pass subscriber. At least if I'm understanding what you want to do correctly.

I do this - you don't need to be a trakt vip, just a plex pass subscriber. The difference being Plex's discover watch list isn't accessed the same way that the others are.

 

[d21mike]

I have been using WatchAid for years (with Plex integration) and so far it is the best and easiest app for doing this that I have found. My problem is they have pretty much dropped support even though for the most part it still works.

My problems with PLEX as it compares to WatchAid.

1. It only works for the Plex Account Owner so my Managed Users (my wife login) does not work.

2. WatchList is on the top bar and can not be moved to the left bar.

3. My biggest issue is it shows you everything in the WatchList every time you go into it. What I want is all of the New Episodes available NOW that I have not yet seen. I have 21 Shows in the WatchList but maybe only 4 have New Episodes. Maybe they need a WatchNow for New Episodes available to watch.

4. Regarding marking something as watched. The way WatchAid works is when you are done watching an episode (like on Hulu) and you go back to WatchAid a popup comes up where you can say you finished watching it. It then will no longer be on the WatchNow (i.e. "Newly Available). You can go to the Upcoming Tab which shows all of WatchList and when the next episode will be available to watch.

I really hope PLEX adds these very helpful features. I have only mainly been using PLEX for Movies since all of the TV Shows I watch are on the Streaming Services.

 

[CarlJ]

I have been using WatchAid for years (with Plex integration) and so far it is the best and easiest app for doing this that I have found. My problem is they have pretty much dropped support even though for the most part it still works.

I, too, used WatchAid for years, and found the interface / operation method to be nicer and more direct than JustWatch and ReelGood (I haven't looked into Plex's new thing). And compared to Apple's TV app, it has the huge advantage of only showing you what you have said you want to watch, without piles of "you might also like / hey give this a try" almost-ads. I largely stopped using WatchAid, because it has seemingly been cast adrift - shows that are a season or more ahead of what WatchAid knows about. It feels like it's on autopilot at this point, with nobody at the controls.

It's a shame, really - of all these various pegs to fit in that hole (call it a watchlist aggregator) it was a near perfect fit. I'd be happy to pay a few dollars a month for a fully supported version - even better if it could somehow tie into whatever API Apple is using to communicate "watched"/position information between the TV app and the various streaming apps. But I'd pay just to have WatchAid with fully up-to-date details/schedules for everything.

Or have Apple incorporate a screen just like WatchAid into their TV app (I'd want a separate tab where it only shows shows you've selected and nothing else, in a nice easily scannable grid, with indicators for unwatched episodes and that top row for the shows with recent activity - something designed without marketing's help - I find it frustrating having one row of "up next" info in the midst of a screen trying to entice me to watch other things, some of which I have "free" access to and others which would cost money).