I have been observing over the past year the myriad of posts and responses regarding the beta releases. I personally have not engaged in any of the testing, so I hope that my post is not offensive to those who have. It is clear to me that the DMS team is not conducting proper regression testing prior to releasing beta versions. Each version tries to fix one problem and breaks functions that were working. Clearly the DMS teams needs to take several steps back and figure out how to fix the problems with the scraping and posters without affecting playback and other vital functions. The purpose of regression testing is to make sure that all previous functions are working properly with the new updates. This ensures that the core product is not affected by the updates. This is standard SW/App development practice. Moreover, the fact that the scraping and movie & TV poster functions have not properly worked since they were introduced is clearly a sign that the design or technical functionality is not ready for prime time and needs to go back to the drawing board. First and foremost this is a media server, so the focus should be on making sure that all supported media can be played and played correctly, then focus on file and media management. The initial version allowed the user to control the poster function locally. Give the users back that control until you figure out how to make it work in the cloud.
Finally, to those of you who have done extensive beta testing, I want to personally thank you for keeping the DMS team honest. If it were not for you, we'd still be on version 1.0.?.?. That being said, I really feel that the DMS team is misusing the beta testers by having the testers figure out what the problems are with each beta release. The DMS teams obviously doesn't understand that these testers are loyal customers who believe in the product and deserve better than the frustration and time ill spent doing the job of the DMS team. My suggestion, for what it is worth, is the DMS teams needs to stop with the endless beta releasing, go away and do not return until you have a finished product that we can use immediately and works the way it suppose to work. This doesn't mean that you completely disappear, but provide timely updates and a clear schedule with reasonable dates of when the product will be ready. If that is not possible, refund our money so we can move on to another product. One last point, the DMS should at least provide the beta testers with some sort of recompense for their time and effort, if nothing else, than out of respect for the work they have put in you behalf of the DMS team.
Finally, to those of you who have done extensive beta testing, I want to personally thank you for keeping the DMS team honest. If it were not for you, we'd still be on version 1.0.?.?. That being said, I really feel that the DMS team is misusing the beta testers by having the testers figure out what the problems are with each beta release. The DMS teams obviously doesn't understand that these testers are loyal customers who believe in the product and deserve better than the frustration and time ill spent doing the job of the DMS team. My suggestion, for what it is worth, is the DMS teams needs to stop with the endless beta releasing, go away and do not return until you have a finished product that we can use immediately and works the way it suppose to work. This doesn't mean that you completely disappear, but provide timely updates and a clear schedule with reasonable dates of when the product will be ready. If that is not possible, refund our money so we can move on to another product. One last point, the DMS should at least provide the beta testers with some sort of recompense for their time and effort, if nothing else, than out of respect for the work they have put in you behalf of the DMS team.
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