Plex Media Server

[pariah]

Ok, first this is NOT an ad, I am a user of this software, and trust me it is very well worth your time (and can be used for free without paying anyone anything ever), if you have a media collection and would love to have the ability to stream and watch it anywhere you are in the world :-D .  I promise you will enjoy this...

 

 

First let me define Transcoding for those who are not aware of what I mean by it.  Transcoding is the ability to take a file [say an MKV as compatibility is picking up but they can be pesky to play on devices natively right?]  and let's say your Apple iPhone won't play it because it likes MP4s [i am an Android user but if I remember right MKVs don't play well in ios].  Well you could do it the hard way and create a 2nd file yourself converting the MKV to MP4 and save both so you can use 1 on your iphone and the other maybe bigger and better quality for when you watch it on a TV.  Well that is not only time consuming, but can take a ton of space.  INSTEAD you could say create a custom version of ffmpeg [a sweet utility for creating or converting media] and create a program that when you connect to your computer and click play if the device you are using can't read the file you have on the computer the program could as you watch your media re-record it for you on the fly to a file your device can use, and when done remove the resulting temp files used to do the work.  That's the basics of transcoding the ability to on-the-fly take a file as you stream it and convert it to a different format your device can use.  Pretty sweet huh? :-D

 

Well, may I introduce you to Plex Media Server, not oly do they have versions for Windows OSX and Linux [i run it on an xUbuntu 14.04 box personally] as well as Raspberry Pi, some FreeNAS devices and you could port it to pretty much anything you wish they do have a github project open [sans their transcoder code sadly (it's a totally customized, and optimized ffmpeg by the way)].

 

I could prolly stop there and you would say sign me up, but wait there is more :-D....

 

Basic Rundown of Plex Features

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*FULL Transcoding capable [basically if your server can play the media then Plex can transcode it].

 

*Media Syncing: Yes you can sync any media to a device [even if it is just a browser on a computer it still can sync by using a local secure storage area accessible to the browser]

 

*Photo Syncing: You can set a Plex client on Android or iOS to sync any photos you take back to your server and even set a default section and album to drop them in.

 

** Web Browser Interface: A Netflix esque interface that has full filter, sort, and search capabilities.

 

* Metadata Crawlers: It reads filenames and is able to connect to web based metadata sites and match your media to it's metadata for you [using thetvdb and themovieDB (you can add others and even code your own].  This includes Posters, backgrounds, screen caps, SUBTITLES, and much more.

 

* DLNA : Plex has it's own clients and protocol, but it also runs it's own DLNA server which is VERY capable and has custom things like the ability to pick up where you leave off watching media even if it was on a different device [timeline reporting (and only if the DLNA client is capable of receiving the data (my Xbox 360 handles it fine)].

 

* Multi User support: You can share your server with different Plex users so it can track your media seperately.

 

* Playlists: They just added Playlists where you can easily add any media to a playlist and then play everything in that playlist without leaving the couch.

 

*Online connection service: If you have a Plex account you can log your server in to their free encrypted service where they provide essentailly a gateway between your machine and the world so if you have an IP that changes or you want to access your media from behind a firewall it is as easy as installing the client logging in to your account and viola it handles the rest [and they do use either 256 or 512 AES encryption (you dont have to use this I use an OpenVPN server personally and you can only access my server if you connect ot my VPN [if interested it MUST be a BRIDGED VPN as Plex uses subnet broadcasting between server and clients] and you can't access my server from their website [you can login to plex.tv and access your  server  via a browser as well].

 

 

They have sections to handle TV, Movies, Music, Photos, and you can create as many different sections as you like if you wish to divide things up in different ways.

 

SOME of these features do require what they term a "Plex Pass" which does cost money, but they are VERY reasonable and essetially it gives you access to Beta versions of the server, as well as features before the users of the free version can use them (like the playlists they just added so you may need to have Plex Pass to use them now, but in a couple weeks or so it will usually make it's way to the free version.

 

The majority of Plex can be used for free, things like Web Interface, Transcoding, Casting from one device to another.  They will never force you to have a pay account if you never wish to pay.

 

Trust me if you have any media and wished to easily stream it out to almost ANY device without worrying about file formats and bandwidth [like I can tell my client to only use 1Mbps 480p and even if media is 1080p it will transcode down so my mobile is not killed trying to maintain a huge data stream :-) ].  You REALLY should check out Plex Media Server.

 

 

Plex Media Server Web site: Https://plex.tv

 

I hope others find it as awesome and useful as I have, trust me it is SOO worth it I can watch any of my media anywhere and share it easily with family and friends.  Ever since starting to use Plex I will never go back to fumbling around manually managing my own collection and many different versions of the same files just to get things working on many devices.

[ZeroPenguins]

Well I wouldn't really mind using Plex if it wasn't closed source/proprietary and aimed at the low technical skill end of the market. The developers are not too keen on releasing a more advance build or adding advance settings for users. Another issue is that even though you say it's free, which is true for the most part it isn't free when it comes to iOS and Android when it comes to a legal way of obtaining the client app. Unless you're on premium subscription which means it's not free anymore...

 

Plex is great for anything other than anime, as you people know the anime fansub and encoding scene is quite high skilled compared to "other" scenes. We have high quality styled fansubbing with proper typesetting and title/positioning. That definitely does not work on Plex, all the hard work those people put into making your subs nice will get reverted to some shitty font and it is not rendered properly.

 

Personally I find Universal Media Server which is forked from the open source PS3 Media Server to be a lot better when it comes to transcoding. What you see on the original content is what you get, which is what it should've been like on Plex. It also supports a lot more decoders such as avisynth/ffmpeg, MEncoder, VLC and etc.

 

/end of quick rant

Edited August 2, 2014 by Ang3lofDarkness