Anyone use Plex?

[kato]

I was a long time Windows Media Centre user, then boxee, then XBMC. I have to say Plex is by far the best media player. Especially if you have the Roku 3 or chromecast.

Anyone have really good Plex setups?

[drf10034]

Just to stream stuff to my smartphone over my DSL. Inside my home I use XBMC...

[w1bble2]

yep, I use it for the Roku and for my note 2

[L242L]

Plex works great! Streamed it to a chromecast, roku 3, iphones, and galaxy note ii. The development team is very active and listen to their user base.

[cckwokchun]

I have it running on my mac and connect to the LG TV. It seems that the only thing work with my tv anyway

[jojobrown911]

I haven't gotten around to testing it out but since it works on chromecast it should be worth looking into.

[PyRo300]

I use it as well excellent software. They do a great job of adding your library. I wish it would play 1080p to the chromecast with out transcoding though. I bet it will only get better though. As l242l said they have a great development team!

[liveon2legs]

Use it heaps though I find that the streaming does choppy when the NZB's are processing on my 2010 iMac. use it on my Ipad Mini 2, S4 and LG 55 inch TV. LG app is a bit rubbish but does the job.

[aztecman]

Using it for a while now to play shows on my Samsung TV. Frees up my PC instead of watching on it. Excellent to share media with family at other locations.

[mos-to]

Use it with a dedicated Mac Mini and a Harmony Remote. Was a bit of a hassle to configure the various remotes, but totally worth it in the end.

[outlaw112]

I use plex to stream to apple tv 3

[davesphone00]

I have Plex running on my Diskstation.

[zkov]

Plex with premium pass. Plex is godly. I'm pretty sure it syncs with my coffee maker.

[StriderDADDY]

I use Plex to stream to my Smartphone when I'm away from home.

[f1fanatic]

Use it for Roku. Works great

[pir8]

I have it running on a Mac Mini with a Logitech diNovo Mini remote keyboard. Works well streaming to iPhone too.

[xtraz]

use plex for roku and apple tv3. Also you use xbmc for all the addons.

[haiger2680]

I use Plex on a dedicated Mac Mini. I can stream it to my iPad/iPhone/AppleTV/PS3.

[egyu]

I've got plex running on my Mint 15 install. Got it streaming to my chromecast and various phones. Plus I can easily sync content to my phone for flights - works awesome.

[Wolffe]

Been using Media Center for about 8 years and just switched to XBMC. I should have done it long LONG ago. I'm thinking of setting up a plex box just for streaming. Seems lots of people are jumping on the Plex/Roku bandwagon...

[quack]

Plex on my file server, app on my phone, cast my media to the TV via a Chromecast. It's pretty effortless. Or at least it will be when they iron the odd bug out - the phone loses touch with the Chromecast session fairly regularly & then I can't pause/rewind any more... it just plays through unless I start a new session from the phone to override it.

Still, it's a world better than sneakernetting a USB stick to the TV, which is what I was doing before. And light years better than burning CD-RWs to ferry to a divx-capable DVD player which I was doing only a couple of years back!

[DisgruntledLemur]

Still, it's a world better than sneakernetting a USB stick to the TV, which is what I was doing before. And light years better than burning CD-RWs to ferry to a divx-capable DVD player which I was doing only a couple of years back!

haha, we come from a similar place!

I've been using Plex for awhile now. Pretty sure they already had the iOS app but not the Android yet.

I really like it because it's good and getting better. I actually just set it up tonight, because I just replaced my main computer. (5 year old i7 Gateway sold with Vista, run with 7 for 4 years, and near death with whatever the current LTS Ubuntu release is. 12.1? ==to==>i7 mac already on mavericks.)

Turns out Im having trouble getting my server to be seen outside of my own network. I had not tried that feature before, so I don't know where the problem lays.

[rango3221]

i use plex with plex media server installed on ubuntu. I prefer this setup because i can browse my media collection remotely too.

[noclue]

Sorry to hijack, but does anyone use plex with a samsung smart tv? I have heaps of problems getting my 'mind of its own' tv to do anything anymore and over watching everything on the laptop.

[mos-to]

noclue,

I don't personally own a smart tv, but two of my friends do and much prefer routing Plex through a computer. They say the smart tv app is not that… well, smart.

[tranz]

Good Program for streaming to Samsung TV

[vn11]

I've used both Plex and Subsonic - however, video is quite choppy with subsonic. When using plex video takes a little longer for me to buffer but plays much more smoothly.

[quack]

I really like it because it's good and getting better. I actually just set it up tonight, because I just replaced my main computer. (5 year old i7 Gateway sold with Vista, run with 7 for 4 years, and near death with whatever the current LTS Ubuntu release is. 12.1? ==to==>i7 mac already on mavericks.)

Turns out Im having trouble getting my server to be seen outside of my own network. I had not tried that feature before, so I don't know where the problem lays.

Totally agree with you about the "good & getting better" - I threw money at them for a lifetime pass within a month of setting it up because I could see that it was almost exactly what I wanted and was under active development (and the plexpass extras were super useful).

Current Ubuntu LTS is 12.04 which is obviously 2 years old. I'm running all my servers on it and it's fine, but the new release next month with be a LTS too so I'm going to upgrade everything - I'm both excited to move them on and scared about the risk of breaking something important LOL

I know the 'remote access to your server' feature is tied to your plex account & the server needs to be able to login to their site. Also if you've got a VPN active on your server (as I have) then things get very messed up. I either need to setup split-tunnelling (so some traffic goes through the VPN, some directly out) which looks like it's a pig, or build a virtual machine on the server and put the stuff that I want on the VPN onto the virtual machine. For now I'm avoiding the work and putting up with having no remote access.

But if you're saying your new plex server is the mac, I can't help you with that :-)

[rango3221]

i use plex to stream stuff when iam away from home only. At home i still prefer using XBMC.

[Caballero]

noclue,

I don't personally own a smart tv, but two of my friends do and much prefer routing Plex through a computer. They say the smart tv app is not that… well, smart.

Agreed. It's actually so bad that it's even an improvement to access your Plex server through an iOS app and then using AirPlay to mirror it to the big screen using an AppleTV. :)

[Sandk]

Tryed Plex, but went back to XBMC

[zerosquared]

It lags on my machine and locks up sometimes.

[senorcheech]

Going to start using it to stream to my PS4

[Whiner]

Pisses me off that the Plex app on my new Vizio smart TV requires a plex pass in order to use it.

[megabyteme]

Pisses me off that the Plex app on my new Vizio smart TV requires a plex pass in order to use it.

Does not seem to be a very smart purchase, then. :idunno:

[eviljelly]

Plex is amazing.. I have all my movies and tv shows catalogued and stream to my phone, tablet and best of all Now TV boxes with sideloaded Plex app (£10 a box) - perfect with a remote control on the tv.

[dlee021772]

Tried Plex, but didn't work that well for what I wanted to do.

[Stu1179]

Plex is awesome especially with a Roku3.

[megabyteme]

Plex is awesome especially with a Roku3 Fire TV.

Fix'd

[pootystomp]

Plex is awesome especially with a Roku3 Fire TV.

Fix'd

Is that what you really think, if so, please explain.

[megabyteme]

Is that what you really think, if so, please explain.


The Amazon Fire TV essentially has the innards of an upper-mid-range smartphone. It runs on a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 CPU, which is backed by 2GB of RAM. It also has 8GB of storage.

It's far more powerful than the Roku 3, which runs on a dual-core A9 Broadcom BCM11130 Merlyn and 512MB of RAM. While its local storage is a decidedly tiddly 256MB, it can be expanded considerably through a microSD slot.

Read more at http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/amazon-fire-tv-vs-roku-3#lK7fTkoaCz5fMzSm.99

The Fire is simply a more powerful computer. I am enjoying the heck out of mine. With XBMC loaded, Plex, Amazon Prime, and Netflix, it is an entertainment beast.

[pootystomp]

Good info,

I do have a roku 2 and the stick and have some issues with the plex and amazon app on both.

The black levels on both totally crush out any dark detail just on the plex app, but if I run video off the server or through samsung bluray it is fine.

Then the amazon app stores cache or something and will eventually lock up and require a power cycle to correct.

The only thing I heard about the fire was people bitching about the voice search only working on amazon content.

[megabyteme]

I do restart both my Stick and the Fire occasionally. It does seem to slow down maybe once a week. I don't know if any streaming device/service is going to provide 'videophile' level picture quality. Apparently, you can do some modification to XBMC so that it will download the entire video instead of buffering, but this is only as good as the source. Netflix adjusts quality based on line speed. Not sure what Amazon service does. Plex has settings that can be changed on both the server side, and the receiver. I'd bet that in the long-term, the machine with the most power will ultimately provide the better quality. That said, Fire TV is still in its first year and hardware incarnation, so software improvements could develop. I have not tried them side-by-side. My last unit was a Logitech ReVue.

I do like the Fire TV better than the Stick. At $85 on sale, it is quite a capable box for the money.

[JojoToto2]

i started to use plex and like it very much.

[cheetah33]

Love plex (installed on my FreeNas box), been using it for a few months now. The android app is pretty good as well. Helps me keep track of what I've watched.

[peterpickel]

Plex is simply fantastic. Can't wait for the Nvidia Shield Console to try some 4k streaming action.

[userb]

plex is good because you can use multiple devices with it. its bad because you need to run a server for it. this could mean using your daily desktop to install and run the server.

[shaina]

I use universal media server or ums for short it is a take off of ps3 media server and I installed it on my main pc with multiple hard drives for storage and it works on everything you throw at it from xbox 360 to ps3 to smart tvs
it seems to convert different media files faster and more efficient and easy set up for novice or you can fiddle with it for more advanced users as well

most smart tvs recommend plex but I found it more sluggish
you can read the comparisons on there web site on comparing different media streaming programs
and you can run it on any pc mac or unix
check it out

[Dolfan-Neil]

Love my Plex setup. I'm running it as a service (search their forums, one of the users created the tool) and cast to two different Chromecasts on the first and second floor. I migrated over a year ago aft using my PS3 and XBOX360 to stream to my TVs with PS3MediaServer. Got fed up with it having issues with MKV and since it was running as a service, the issues it gave me when I wanted to do a Java update.

There has been no looking back since then. Plays anything I want and not issues.

[johndoe54]

i use it, is very useful

[shaina]

Love my Plex setup. I'm running it as a service (search their forums, one of the users created the tool) and cast to two different Chromecasts on the first and second floor. I migrated over a year ago aft using my PS3 and XBOX360 to stream to my TVs with PS3MediaServer. Got fed up with it having issues with MKV and since it was running as a service, the issues it gave me when I wanted to do a Java update.

There has been no looking back since then. Plays anything I want and not issues.

Plex is steaming Mkv files (HD Movies) to xbox 360 without the picture shuddering or freeze frames ??

And are you using WiFi or Hard Wired to router or modem/router??

Could you post some of your settings your using on plex , for it to work?? And are you still getting 5.1 sound ??

I am getting full sound with Universal Media Server (not the same as PS3 media server) , but the odd large MKV file . the picture still shudders or freezes on the xbox 360 only

thanks

[BeerMan81]

Plex is simply fantastic. Hands down it is the best Media streaming/media management software available. I use it to stream my MKVs and stuff to my WDLive (Direct Play, No transcoding) most of the time. It also works to stream to PS3/4, Xbox 360/One iPad, iPhones etc.

It also keeps track of what you are watching and where you left off. Start watching a TV show on your TV and then go to the bedroom and stream to your iPad in bed. It really is quite awesome. All my devices are hardwired to Gigabit network (with the obvious exceptions) and all my media is stored on my 8tb Raid 10 array. It is quite fast.