I’m developing an application that interacts with the Plex API to manage media. One feature involves launching playback in Infuse Pro using a deep link.
My app generates a direct playable URL from the Plex API, like: {Plex_Server_URL}/library/parts/{Part_ID}/{Timestamp}/file.ext?X-Plex-Token={Token}
I pass this URL to Infuse for playback, which works great. However, I want to ensure that Plex Media Server correctly tracks the playback status (registers as “Now Playing”, updates progress, and eventually marks as watched) when initiated this way.
My question is: What is the recommended method to achieve reliable Plex playback tracking when using these externally generated URLs with Infuse via deep linking?
Does Infuse automatically detect this is a Plex URL (perhaps via the token or structure) and communicate playback status back to the Plex Server (e.g., using the /:/timeline API)?
Are there any specific URL parameters I can add to the deep link URL that Infuse recognizes to assist with Plex tracking?
Or, is the best approach for my own application to make a separate call to the Plex /:/timeline endpoint (signalling state=playing, time=0, etc.) at the same time it sends the URL to Infuse?
I’m trying to find the cleanest and most reliable integration point. Any insights or best practice recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
At this time, Infuse wouldn’t do any syncing to Plex when open videos via the x-callback-url scheme.
This integration is mainly designed for other apps to take advantage of the Infuse video player while using their own apps to browse and manage other things related to the video library.
This certainly could be expanded in the future, but there are not any immediate plans right now.
Sorry to reply again but I thought that maybe in the future you could append the viewOffset or play position onto the query string of the callback url once playback is stopped? We could then manually sync playback positions then
Yes, something like that could certainly be possible.
However, it kind of comes down to determining how many people would find a feature like this useful and if it would be worth investing the time to develop these features.
I’m moving this over to the suggestions area for now so those who are interested can like the first post to show their support for having this ability added to Infuse.
Is there a way to deeplink to the Plex item in Infuse and just start playback normally? That way there wouldn’t be any need for playback tracking beyond what already exists.
As Plex’s controversial new TV app design is starting to expand to more platforms, I think a lot of us are getting worried about the future of Plex playback on Apple TV when that day comes. I personally can’t access the tvOS beta, but I’ve heard reports that deeplinking functionality has been removed entirely.
Infuse has by far and away the best video player and playback experience of anything on tvOS, but the fundamental hardware limitations of Apple TV prevent it from being used to play back lossless object audio and P7/FEL DV.
Adding the ability to deeplink by Plex serverId and ratingKey would unlock a lot of possibilities, and probably would be extremely minimal effort (since it would just be a mapping/lookup of whatever ID Infuse uses locally, which may even be ratingKey itself in Direct Mode!).
So many of us have a secondary device (Shield/Ugoos) for remuxes, and being able to deeplink would mean we could have a consistent browsing experience that opens Infuse for compatible formats, or triggers playback on a secondary box when necessary. I really hope you guys consider doing this!
