Plex is stepping up their game

Plex Raises $50 Million to Become ‘One Stop Shop’ for Streaming

Bottom line is their DVR sucks. no Multiple lineups.... Poor support for combining OTA and Cable tuners.

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I like PLEX for what it does well. But that $50 million would be better given to Channels Developers :slight_smile:

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They plan to do this work in one whole year.

We will see....

Google and the likes of Tivo are trying to get that right..

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Plex describes the landscape as “media chaos” with consumers trying to keep track of what content can be found where.

I would describe media chaos as when Plex added their own catalog front and center and I could barely find my own freaking content :laughing:

Tried their DVR twice and it was god awful. Streaming my movies is great, though.

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I would shut down my plex server if it wasn’t for my family and friends leeching off of me...

No proper way to share content in channels..

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Plex has really become a hot mess. The likes of Apple and Google have been trying to perfect aggregating streaming services for years now (AppleTV and Google TV) and still have not perfected it. If Apple and Google (who have much bigger war chests than Plex) can't get Netflix to play ball with them, how in the hell does Plex think they are going to get Netflix to relent? I see this as one more thing to muddle up what was once a great product.

My assessment of this is that its similar to what happened to Tivo. They have been selling unlimited licenses for a long time and now need more revenue streams so they are getting into completely different businesses to drive revenue. The reason people initially went to them has been totally lost and is now an after thought.

Thank you Channels DVR team for remaining focused on your humble mission, and for picking up the torch that Tivo dropped years ago.

I'm sure I'm grossly over simplifying the Plex situation, but I already have a killer environment with Channels DVR's treatment of Pluto for ad supported live TV. And I seriously doubt that if Apple and Google can't get Netflix and others to play along with them on aggregating streaming services, how these guys are going to do it.

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I like Plex as a server, it really works well but the moderators on the forum are clueless and don't even care to answer simple questions. I agree the cash would be better spent on Channels...

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Like others - i have used plex since 2012-2013 - but their live tv/dvr is not even in the same universe as channels - when channels added tve i moved over for good

I heavily use plex so i hope they keep making the product better

This reminds me of Boxee - it was software (and later a set-top box) that would aggregate streaming and local media into one interface. Things didn't end so well for those guys - Samsung purchased them and did jack all with the product or the team.

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Plex says "it has no plans to launch its own exclusive content, nor does it intend to make its own hardware, so it feels more like a neutral party than any of the big streaming platforms."

“Given our vision of what we’re trying to do, the fact that we’re not competing with them with our own content, or trying to edge them out, or use them as a bait-and-switch . . . that thaw is taking place because we’re not presenting ourselves as a threat."

But Plex has been talking to subscription video providers about offering their services through its app. The company has also hinted at hosting on-demand video rentals and at using its app as a central guide to content that’s only available inside other apps.

I was a boxee user. I like it, but disliked their keyboard remote.

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Tivo is already pretty good at that. They could use the $50 million and be a lot further ahead of Plex. That’s just my opinion.

The problem with TiVo is they they pretty much abandoned any type of R&D to actually improve their product. I used TiVo for about 15 years and as developers began to stop making apps for their OS the platform began to be neglected. One of the reasons we switched to Channels in my house is because we were constantly changing inputs on the tv to other devices to use various apps. Now we have everything running on the fire stick with very few issues.

TiVo's notion of "apps" has always been pathetic. Terrible selection and even worse performance, zero support. That "TiVo+" business is just an abomination. All it would do is crash my boxes when I tried to launch it, and I heard the content was awful, too. Don't even get me started on the non-specific banners for it cluttering the guide, as well as the intermittent pre-roll ads that would crash people's TiVos, requiring persistent calls to "opt out" to "fix" it. Over and over and over again.

TiVo never even brought CEC to their TiVo Minis.

Once they reneged on their promise to release tvOS and Android clients, after over a year of hot air, I was done. This past year with Channels DVR and the freedom/control is allows me, has been exhilarating. It's the single best upgrade I've done to my home AV, and that's saying something. I'm constantly buying gadgets and tech components.

This small developer team has put TiVo's (if they even have one anymore?) to shame. My only regret is not switching over to Channels five years sooner.

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Hell hath no fury... :slightly_smiling_face:

100% agree from another former Tivo user.

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I agree with you. I’ve been a user for about 20 years. It’s sad they had such a good product but they never had the money or took it as a priority to invest in a new OS or continue development. They spent most of their time fighting patent infringements. And now they are trying to play catch-up with a streaming device. Which I will note I really like. It aggregates my streaming apps and searches and does have an integrated guide for Locast, sling and Pluto.