Infuse future? Should I keep going?

General
1

Hi all,
So this may be a bit of a venting post. Complaining post. But it is my opinion…
My subscription is up for renewal in 10 days. But I am in two minds…Do I keep it or can it.

Make no mistake. Infuse is a great programme and has served me well over the past few years. But I feel issues are not being addressed.

For the past 6 releases, I have been having an issue when deleting an episode or movie. It remains on screen and one has to go out of the season and back again for it to be updated. I reported this a couple of times but no response.
I thought it may be because I use a Plex server, but removing the share and using Infuse only turned out to be a nightmare. I lost my collections. Metadata was a mess. So I put Plex back just to restore my sanity. At least my metadata and collections work

The other feature that has been requested for years, is multi user support. Either through Plex or even better, a stand alone profile management for Infuse. My home has 4 family members. 2 of them are children and they watch their own shows from a local NAS share. But we cannot seperate watching, libraries etc. This is a real pain for me. My workaround was to install Plex clients on their tablets and on the 2 ATV so they could use their own profile.
Plex is free. Infuse is not. See where I am going?
Multi user support on Infuse went from wishlist to planned and I think it is back to wishlist.
But again, no movement.

There may be other issues but for me, those are my main pains. And as a paying customer, I feel let down.

I do not have a Vision Pro. Have no plans to buy one.

So why keep a subscription when other media platforms have no cost?

I said this was a vent and my opinion and feelings…and maybe in the grand scheme of things, losing one subscriber means nothing. But I am pretty sure I am not the only one wondering…

Thanks for hearing me out

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Firstly this is reasonable to ask, you need to value the subscription.

For me, as a long time plex user (PlexPass) who has been constantly let down with the Plex players on Apple products, specifically stability, lack of good audio codecs, broken media downloads (dating back to sync), awful ux, no PIP on macOS……just to name a few things…….

I tried last year to return to plex player clients full time, just couldn’t, it’s stale, out of date, broken and they don’t care (check the forums, it’s a ghost town of complaints about core features).

No doubt we are all looking for some focus to help Infuse move past some basic issues and errors, and some new features over the coming months.

At least with Infuse, I know progress is happening, we get feedback most of the time over non of the time with Plex. Look at Plex Player for iOS release history, the last big thing was either the stupid free streaming service and improved downloads that still doesn’t work reliably (this was the reason I got plex pass many years ago, one of life regrets).

The breadth of client support for Plex is obviously beyond their ability to support, added the layoffs and questionable financial position. Just hope they don’t go tits up, however I’m sure I’d find other alternatives.

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There are better hardware players than the Apple TV, but in my opinion, there is no better video app for the Apple TV than Infuse.

Is Infuse perfect? No, but it offers more and causes significantly fewer problems in my setup compared to other similar apps.

One year of Infuse costs as much as a burger. I’m more than happy to pay that.

1 Like
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I have had the same experience with Plex on Apple products. I bought a lifetime Plex Pass years ago and couldn’t use it for the same reasons cites. I recently retried it and found nothing had improved.

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Obviously your usage and needs may vary, but as someone who sounds like they’re in a similar boat (Lifetime plex pass for years - been using I since it was the Mac version of XBMC). If you start looking for alternatives, I recently moved to Jellyfin and have been very happy. The last thing I really missed from Plex/Infuse was the skip intro functionality, but with that being in Jellyfin now and coming out in Infuse any time now I don’t miss Plex at all.

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Same. Loving JF!

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I was a Plex User from before it was Plex, paid for Plex Pass for years but have given up on them.

The meta-data handling was better or had more control but as a player Infuse is way ahead.

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Server side is fine for me, and like you I’ve been using it for years, so have a fair bit of customisation going on (including using it for AudioBooks) that I’d need to invest a bit of time looking at how I could migrate.

Player side, at least it’s an open ecosystem, so Infuse fixes most of my issues, specifically:

Plex client on iOS slow downloads
Plex client on iOS background downloading rarely works
Plex client on iOS frequent crashing
Plex client on MacOS no PIP or minimal window video playback option
Plex clients on all platforms in my experience have patchy support for various audio codecs

Thank God for Infuse, whilst not without wrinkles, it delivers a stable reliable and high quality playback solution.

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Just as a quick aside: I also have the bug where I delete an episode but the screen goes back to the same episode screen as if I hadn’t deleted it, allowing me to select “play” etc, but obviously it shows an error if I click on it.

I did report it and it seemed to be fixed but it’s still there.

It’s not a huge bug, more of an annoyance

1 Like
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Hi all.
Thanks for everyone’s comments. I never disputed the fact that Infuse is a beast of a player. I love it and full disclosure, my subscription renewal came off last night. So I decided to keep it.

I just feel that issues weren’t being dealt with. The bug with deleting files. Multi User support. And it was for that reason I was asking whether to stay or go…

Yes the issues are still there, but I suppose (as someone said), for the price of a burger, I’ll give it another go.

3 Likes
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For what it does, Infuse is a bargain. I don’t actually use it much anymore. I also have a lifetime Plex pass that, for many years, was worthless to me (as an exclusively Apple user). But the last couple of years I’ve been using it much more than Infuse. Now that it finally works (at least for me). Mostly, I switched for simplicity. I don’t have to add folder artwork, for example. You have to show Plex where the files are, but after that, it does more in the background, and it’s more forgiving with naming conventions, etc.

Infuse, however, has a couple of HUGE advantages over Plex. First, the reason I keep it. When the internet goes down (which happens a lot where I live), Plex becomes useless. Even though all the media is right there on my computer, and it’s attached via ethernet to the Apple TVs, everything disappears. Infuse, on the other hand, keeps serving away. Obviously it can’t download metadata or other such housekeeping, but it’s all still there. Also, Plex needs the user to create libraries and assign folders. Now, in one way, that’s better. With Infuse, you must organize the hard drive to match how you want the TV to work. But once you figure out a system that works for you, you’re done. With Plex, you always have to teach it where your files and folders are. It can’t just go and find them, like Infuse.

The other advantage Infuse has is, for me, just as huge. When you scan your video forwards or backwards, Infuse puts a thumbnail on screen to show you exactly where you are. Plex doesn’t have this function, and I absolutely love it.

So, for me, it’s a no-brainer. First, I have a lifetime subscription to Plex, so even with the extra functionality, it’s free for me. And, as someone else said, it’s the price of a burger. In Canada, maybe more a combo. It should be a happy meal. For what it does it is cheap, reliable, and dependable. Even as just a backup server, it’s worth every penny. And one other thing, just my opinion. This community is more responsive and helpful than the Plex community. I’ve never had a problem with Infuse that someone here hasn’t been able to help me solve.