Plex is kicking off the year with some updates that could make the streaming platform a more social place. Viewers will be able to leave public reviews on titles and to comment on other users' assessments. "To us, discovery isn’t just about finding what to watch, but also about finding more friends and fans like you in the process," the company said in a blog post announcing the new features. Public reviews expand on the social features Plex introduced in October.
The expanded reviews are paired with some new privacy options. Plex users can make their profiles visible to others in search, allowing anybody to see their reviews and ratings, as well as their watchlist and viewing history. Users will be findable in search by default unless they have previously changed that setting. Plex is also letting users set how broadly visible their ratings and reviews will be; this setting ranges from totally public to all logged in Plex users to friends of friends to friends only to private.
Plex has been working on a redesign of its app for a long time, and today the company will begin previewing the new look on Apple TV. More platforms will be added to the preview "soon." The blog post cautioned that the Apple TV preview is still preliminary and encouraged users to provide feedback. The new look emphasizes more artwork and visuals, as well as offering more intuitive navigation through the library.
Finally, Plex is ready to make its HEVC encoding available to members of its Plex Pass membership. This option offers improved visual quality at a lower bitrate, and it preserves HDR metadata.
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