Roku has dropped Plex Classic - is Emby next?

[nkelly 6]

Hi;  I'm running both Emby and Plex.  I use Emby on a Roku 2 unit with SD output running a SD big Screen TV in my workshop.  Roku has been preparing to make significant changes to their SDK which will kill a lot of legacy Apps on the Roku.  Since Plex Classic wasn't officially supported, Roku officially removed it from the web store and all Rokus starting yesterday.  It's still possible to side load (private channel)  the old and un-supported RARflix roku channel but that will end as well soon (since it's not being updated).  What i'm wondering is if Emby has plans to redesign a Roku channel version with the new SDK and will it support the old Roku 2's.  Thanks

[Jdiesel 1431]

I believe Emby is and has been using the new Scenegraph SDK for a while now

Edited June 29, 2018 by Jdiesel

[nkelly 6]

Oh man that would be great if they do.  Many users of the old plex classic on roku 2 ( have kids tvs and so on or really hate the newer roku interface ), are seriously pissed off right now.  It's technically not Plex's fault that roku when ahead and removed a working app but wow are they unhappy with plex. 

[speechles 2055]

Roku didn't remove plex classic. Plex was asked to accept responsibility to prevent their app from access piracy and did nothing. You see at plex they focus on the future not the past. They forgot to update their old app to the new terms and conditions which make plex liable when the app is found to support open piracy and isn't fixed in a quick manner to remediate said piracy. Not saying plex infringed, but they never clicked the I AGREE button and update these minor details about the app, even if the app wasn't being updated to the code itself. You update to accept their new TOS and avoid your app from being taken down in a harsh manner later.

 

https://forums.plex.tv/t/roku-no-longer-supports-plex-classic/276234

https://forums.plex.tv/t/roku-just-stopped-supporting-plex-classic-6-27-2018/276783/23

 

Roku is killing sdka off on Jan 1st 2019. Plex classic was based on sdka.

There is an emby app still available on the roku store using sdka.

https://my.roku.com/account/add?channel=embyblueneon

 

This blue neon app will suffer the same fate in 2019 and die as plex classic would have if roku didn't smite it. Plex didn't accept responsibilty under the new terms and conditions roku has when you submit new apps, ie they never updated the plex classic pkg. If they had their app could've remained. They likely knew it was coming and due to be removed and just didn't care. Same when people wanted their source code to sideload in regions where plex isnt available any other way. Plex said yeah, that was fun and whistled and walked away leaving you hanging with no answer. Emby in effect, has done much the same with their new scene graph code, but its clear why. The source code becomes valuable when it can be rebased against a competitors API with minor effort. So more and more these once cool apps that used to do wonderful things are disappearing.

 

*whistles wind of change*

 

There will be a new rsga version of the blue neon app one day, until then click here.

Edited June 29, 2018 by speechles

[Waldonnis 148]

I believe Emby is and has been using the new Scenegraph SDK for a while now

 

^^ True.

 

Oh man that would be great if they do.  Many users of the old plex classic on roku 2 ( have kids tvs and so on or really hate the newer roku interface ), are seriously pissed off right now.  It's technically not Plex's fault that roku when ahead and removed a working app but wow are they unhappy with plex. 

 

Hehehe, I believe it.  There's even a thread on the Roku forums...although it only has three posts: one saying it sucks, one demanding that they seemingly should never remove anything because "the device belongs to me", and some random guy saying he's switching to Android TV because he wants a browser/Kodi but never mentions Plex Classic at all (*shrug* seemed unrelated, but you do you, random guy).

 

I suspect that speechles is right, though, in that I doubt this was an SDK thing and is probably more because Plex just walked away from updating Classic and never addressed the updated requirements that Roku put in place for attempting to address piracy.

[speechles 2055]

Lest it not be forgotten either, plex classic wasn't just taken down from roku stores. Roku went to any device that had downloaded that appid# and removed that app from their roku rather rudely. Same thing happened to alot of piracy apps and users rokus. What I would be surprised is if people who did have the plex classic removed, are also marked as pirates and their roku device no longer allows pirvate channels to load. Roku makes it clear on the new TOS screen you must click through when loading proper private apps and makes it clear if the app is removed, don't just switch your piracy to another app, as your rokus ability to use private channels could be jeoparodized every time a piracy app is removed from your device.

 

Curious if anyone who had plex classic prior has also had their roku blocked from private channels? A test is anyone who had plex classic can they load blue neon and have it appear on their roku homescreen?

 

NOTE: The blue neon app is emby based, and emby has never supported third party piracy plugins (which means this app isnt capable of it either), so is not at the same risk as plex apps are.

Edited June 29, 2018 by speechles

[Jdiesel 1431]

Sounds like a pretty effective way to force everyone to use the new version of their Roku app 

[nkelly 6]

I'm already using the blue neon app.  i like to switch between the interfaces for a change of pace.  I like the classic look of the layout and the ease of finding what i'm looking for.

 

What really sucks about all this is even if you bought and paid for an app, it's damn near impossible to stop updating it and just enjoy what you have purchased.  My plex server was running version 0.9.16.6 until tonight.  I had the updates turned off , every thing was working fine until the android app updated on my tablets and phone automatically and they now would no longer see the plex server (server version no longer supported) .  So i updated.  Then i spent 20 minutes in the "new" stupid android interface trying to find out how to just browse the library i had selected.  i finally had to go online and search the sub reddit for plex (because they switched the forums to Discourse and it's really hard to use) to find out how to browse.  Now this is software i bought that did what i needed when i purchased it.  i don't want the new wiz-bang features like 3D, VR, news, pod casts, dvr functionality, all of them with bugs and issues.  i don't want to have to access their server (and provide data about my server) to see the files on my server 20 feet away.    I think i'm basically moving away from "online" tablet based, phone based, set top based devices that remove operator control by design.  Even in the days of software dongles, you could maintain an old windows XP system (with no internet access) and run software you paid for until the dongle died - even if the original company went out of business.  i'm a lifetime license holder of both Plex amd Emby but i feel like Plex has just about reached the end of their useful lifetime ( for me at least).  anyway - rant over- thanks for the good news about the Emby roku app. People on the Plex forums are asking for alternatives and I've already pointed out Emby. GO EMBY !

[speechles 2055]

https://view.email.roku.com/?qs=6f1cd3e75fb2e13231b2147538b96fa7f14ba8dd68f16759addd4b5436c761e315ccaa85c187d388e337c01b206fd4377618291ef3e0c94376e9fb152dacd2f11437b40618d671055272ef71ed575c10

 

This is what killed plex classic.

Edited June 29, 2018 by speechles

[Jdiesel 1431]

@@speechles What kind of build environment do you need to start compiling and testing Roku channels locally? I wouldn't mind getting something setup once you start releasing BN2 code based on the SceneGraph SDK to do some tinkering

[speechles 2055]

@@Jdiesel

 

None really, unless you want the automation that the environment would provide. Like syntax highlights when reading code and automatically packaging and uploading your zips to roku while automatically creating a new manifest each time. But none of that is required. You might want to use some kind of text editor that has syntax highlights for brightscript if you are new to this. That way you can tell brightscript tokens/functions apart from hand-built tokens/functions by the highlight. Like I said though, at first none of that is required for tinkering.

 

I primarily use notepad/wordpad and do just fine. I also use kdiff3 to do difference comparisons against file hierarchy or just against plain file against file. This helps when making changes that break things upstream. I can roll back through the older zips and compare code and see where the mistake was made, kdiff r0x.

 

You can take the current blue neon zip and open'r up and have fun changing anything you want. Simply rezip after you are done. Use the developer dashboard of your roku to upload this zip. Once uploaded to roku this zip becomes a pkg. This pkg is keyed to your developer key. Always remember your developer key. If BASIC, python and c had a baby, brightscript would be that baby. It has details used from all 3 in different spots. It has c like function declarations, python like dot notation, and simple BASIC structures.

 

If you need help walking through getting your roku into developer mode or any other questions let me know.

 

I am in no way ready to share code for BN2 yet as it is far too incomplete to be useful.

Edited June 29, 2018 by speechles

[Jdiesel 1431]

@@Jdiesel

 

None really, unless you want the automation that the environment would provide. Like syntax highlights when reading code and automatically packaging and uploading your zips to roku while automatically creating a new manifest each time. But none of that is required. You might want to use some kind of text editor that has syntax highlights for brightscript if you are new to this. That way you can tell brightscript tokens/functions apart from hand-built tokens/functions by the highlight. Like I said though, at first none of that is required for tinkering.

 

I primarily use notepad/wordpad and do just fine. I also use kdiff3 to do difference comparisons against file hierarchy or just against plain file against file. This helps when making changes that break things upstream. I can roll back through the older zips and compare code and see where the mistake was made, kdiff r0x.

 

You can take the current blue neon zip and open'r up and have fun changing anything you want. Simply rezip after you are done. Use the developer dashboard of your roku to upload this zip. Once uploaded to roku this zip becomes a pkg. This pkg is keyed to your developer key. Always remember your developer key. 

 

If you need help walking through getting your roku into developer mode or any other questions let me know.

 

I am in no way ready to share code for BN2 yet as it is far too incomplete to be useful.

 

Thanks that is super helpful and surprisingly simple. 

[Waldonnis 148]

It really is that simple.  Like speechles said, a good text editor is about all you need.  BrightScript is also similar enough in syntax to a few other languages that you can probably get some rudimentary highlighting to work on just about any editor that does syntax highlighting (and SceneGraph's XML elements are...well, XML, so easy for just about any modern text editor).  If you have any programming experience at all, it won't take long for you to get the hang of it, and even if you haven't written code before, it probably won't take long before you can cobble together something that works.  There are a few sample channels made by the Roku folks on Github, I think, that you can also learn from (look for the SceneGraph ones).

 

One thing you'll quickly learn is how awful the examples in the documentation really are.  Many of them are either unfinished/incomplete or are just flat-out wrong, so take their example code with a shaker full of salt.