Plex is testing a major redesign of its app experience, starting with mobile and now expanding to tvOS.
The new design puts a spotlight on live TV and on-demand content, with a prominent navigation bar for easy access.
*Plex is also getting more social, allowing users to share movie and TV show reviews with others across the platform, if they choose to make their profiles publicly accessible. Users can also comment on reviews by others.
*In addition to the new social features, Plex Plus customers are now getting access to HEVC hardware encoding, which offers better visual quality at the same bit rate for a higher-quality video streaming experience.
Plex's Reimagined App Experience
Plex, the popular media server software, is rolling out a major redesign of its app experience, starting with mobile and now expanding to tvOS. The new design is still under development, but Plex is eager to get feedback from the community as early as possible.
One of the most notable changes in the new design is the increased focus on live TV and on-demand content. The navigation bar now prominently features these options, making it easier for users to access their favorite live TV channels and on-demand rentals. However, if you only care about enjoying your personal library, you can still disable these options, similar to the mobile version.
Plex Gets More Social
In addition to the changes to the navigation bar, Plex is also making its platform more social. With user permission, movie and TV show reviews can now be viewed by everyone across the platform. Users can also comment on reviews by others, creating a more community-driven experience. This feature seems to be inspired by the success of Letterboxd, a popular platform for sharing movie reviews.
To enable social features, users need to change their privacy settings to allow their profiles to be publicly accessible on watch.plex.tv. By doing so, users can easily share a link to their profile with others, allowing them to see what the user has been watching, what's on their watchlist, and more.
HEVC Hardware Encoding for Plex Plus Users
Plex is also making HEVC hardware encoding available to all Plex Plus customers. HEVC encoding offers a number of benefits, including better visual quality at the same bit rate. This means that users can stream higher-quality videos with the same (or lower) bandwidth usage. Additionally, HEVC encoding fully preserves HDR metadata, ensuring that users can enjoy the full range of colors and contrast offered by HDR content.
HEVC encoding is supported on macOS, Linux, and Windows when using hardware encoding with Apple, Intel, or Nvidia devices.
Conclusion
The new Plex app experience is a major overhaul that puts a spotlight on live TV, on-demand content, and social features. Plex Plus customers also get access to HEVC hardware encoding for a better streaming experience. While the new design is still under development, it's clear that Plex is committed to providing its users with a more powerful and versatile media server experience.
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