PLEX...wow!

oHUTCHYo

oHUTCHYo

oHUTCHYo

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So I have always used Kodi, not for the 'other' stuff but just as a media library connected to my WD Mybooklive devices to stream my own Bluray MKV rips. Was just about to invest in an Nvidia Shield but realised my Samsung KS8000 has Plex, so thought I would give it a try.

I have installed Plex on my Laptop, then pointed it to my NAS drives as the library. It is fantastic!! I have lots of questions....

1) I understand Plex can be installed on some NAS drives, so your PC dont need to be turned on? The money I was going to spend on an Nvidia Shield is now going towards a new NAS setup instead. Which NAS drives are reccomend as easy for noobs like me. Mybooklive is the only experience I have.

2) What other tricks can Plex do? Do I need to pay the monthly pass if I would like to use two ipads and and an iphone to stream my media, as well as TV?

3) Is there any limitations or downsides to Plex I need to know of before I ditch having a standalone media streamer box completely?

Cannot believe this has gone under my radar, its so convenient having Plex on my TV and so, so wife friendly too!!
 
I've had a few brief dalliances with Plex but have always ended up going back to Kodi to be honest but my understanding is:

1) Yes some NAS boxes can run the Plex server - however, not all can transcode "on the fly" - Synology for example - I have a DS213 and it's simply not powerful enough to transcode files on the fly to run through Plex! (I believe Qnap and Netgear have some that can transcode OK!)

2) I don't think you need the monthly pass - in the house you can stream to whatever you like and you can even access your media while you are on the move! (still without the pass)

3) There are definitely limitations, hence the reason I've gone back to Kodi each time - but a lot of people swear by Plex (as I said, I'm no expert!)
 
As above.

I have a laptop that acts as a Plex Server. I also download films directly to a large seedbox and stream them from this.

Another way to steam and download films to an iPad is 'Air Video Hd'. Works well and IMO is better the Plex Pass.
 
Vargas said:
As above.

I have a laptop that acts as a Plex Server. I also download films directly to a large seedbox and stream them from this.

Another way to steam and download films to an iPad is 'Air Video Hd'. Works well and IMO is better the Plex Pass.
Click to expand...

Forgive my naivety, but is a seedbox just a NAS?
 
Thanks so far guys, Im now reading that NAS drives are unlikely powerful enough to transcode 1080p files. It appears a Raspberry Pi3 can be used, just as I am currently doing with my laptop, but a Pi3 could always be on using less power yes?

Getting myself confused here.

I dont think I would ordinarily need transcoding but there is a known bug with the KS8000 where you have to manually select DTS or Dolby in the TV menu, otherwise it plays in stereo. The work around is apparently to have Plex transocde which forces Dolby, which mewns the TV can permanently be left on Dolby. With me? Good :D
 
I use Plex on my Synology DS213se, I've never had the need for it to transcode on the fly. It also stores all my media, backups from my other devices, and can download torrents. It's a great little box.
 
I wanted a Synology NAS to use a plex server but discovered that all but the most expensive models cant really handle transcoding so I ended up putting an Xpenology system together (there is a big thread in the Servers forum). If you haven't heard of it it's basically just a PC running the Synology OS. It can be a bit of faff to set up initially but it was worth it in my opinion because i essentially ended up with a Synology NAS powerful enough to run a Plex server for a lot less money than a genuine Synology NAS. I'd never had a NAS or server of any kind before this so it's definitely noob friendly.
 
I swear by plex, have had a 20Tb (xpenology) server filled with BR mkv's for years now (was initially about 4tb but steadily grew with BR collection).Started with Unraid but moved to xpenology about 6 months ago.

I dont transcode to my desktop, but to the tablet which I use in bed the server handles that seemlessly (obviously mkv is just a folder, its whether the file is mpeg4/vc1 / etc as to whether video needs trancoding, and majority of tablets will need to transcode audio as very few are DTS or Dolby licenced).


There are good and bad things about both approaches (official NAS vs your own server) - but the main thing it really comes down to is imo cost vs expandebility - ie the smaller amount of bays you start the more expensive it is building your own server vs off the shelf, but your own home server will require a lot more management to start with. But obviously if you start with your own server you can buy a tower case and start with only two bays filed and expand vs start with an off the shelf two bay device and that will fill up pretty fast (especially if you are doing full br rips) , so you either "throw away" the discs when they get full and get larger ones, or throw away the unit itself and get a device with more bays......but managing it is a lot easier when you are learning the ropes.
 
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I think I have the right solution for myself now. I was initially going for a Nvidia Shield to use Kodi on until I started thinking about running Plex on my TV as the main streamer.....until Ive seen that as well it being able to run Plex frontend, Shield can also run Plex Media Server. This is perfect, as not only can I then connect it to my existing Mybook Live NAS I can also add local removable storage and have that shared too.

Awesome :D
 
Using PLEX on your pi3 will be a lot better then using it on your TV use Rasplex i have a pi3 and i use my pc as my server and have two 6tb WD reds. I also have KODI on my Minix Neo u1 but i mainly use that for Android games KODI exc. The benefit using Rasplex you won't need to transcode anything as Rasplex is run like plex home theatre which is not supported no more. Sadly one of the Rasplex devs died last August but it will still be updated exc i love Rasplex

The Benefits of Paid is you get to use trailers exc and you can share your Libarys with friends and family. I have a paid sub cause i like the look of the trailers and previews exc it gives that Theatre look

http://www.rasplex.com/ plus you get a choice of Skins on Rasplex which are updated by the 2 DEVS one is Aeon Nox and the other Black Edition skin both are very good and you can customise them and if you want something changing the devs always try to help and change the skins if you request to plus if you have CEC you can use your tv remote to control Rasplex

https://forums.plex.tv/categories/rasplex
https://forums.plex.tv/categories/third-party-skins
 
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I tried plex but prefer the customisation of kodi, however the library features across multiple devices wasn't good without the trouble of SQL style setup.

Then i discovered Emby... Emby+Kodi > Plex imo.

:)
 
I didn't like KODI for my own Media was more trouble setting up and customising i found i was customising to much to find something i liked and was always trouble scrapping my media just didn't do it for me like PLEX
 
I run Plex Media Server on my HP Microserver. It's been faultless for years. I use Plex on all sorts of devices, FireTV, Chromecast, Android TV and an RPi3, all of which work flawlessly, even streaming to my girlfriend's house.
 
I've been running Plex from before it went cross platform and you had a native Mac interface to configure the server end. Personally I have all my media sitting on a couple of NASes but I'm running the Plex server on a couple of Ubuntu VM's on a microserver (a couple as I have one for testing updates before I install them on the main Plex server as running the cutting edge version means things break at times). I don't run the server on the NASes because they don't have the oomph for transcoding.

Client wise, other than phones and tablets, I tend to use old (2010) Mac Minis running the client software rather than the apps which my Samsung TVs run (as they don't require any transcoding and handle subtitles better than the apps). I use the OpenPHT client rather than the main Plex client as I absolutely hate the interface of the new client and it's severely broken if you have either a large number of sections or TV shows with a very large number of episodes. OpenPHT, like the old PHT client it was based on, has a lot ore options for tweaking.

The only issue I've had recently is with the size of my main Plex database ... it's getting rather large!
 
I use PLex too. I like it so much that I became a lifetime subscriber to it. Watch movies on my TV client, xbox client and windows phone client. MY plex server is on an Unraid server, the server is built on a Q6600. I have been very impressed with how easy it has handled everything, movies, music and TV.
 
I've been using plex for years. I love it.

For me the joys of it are that I can set up my ipad to sync with content so that I can watch stuff on my commute or when I go away. Then when I get home it knows what I have and haven't seen. It syncs over night (it doesn't need that long but it's a convenient time to do it).

The other joy, is if I'm watching something on my pc, turn it off, then go to my tv, or ipad I can carry on from where I paused the stream.

The other advantage is that my wife and I both have an account, so it synchs our content customised to what series we're interested in (she likes the girly things I like the manly things :p) - but we both connect to the same server.

Streaming from inside and outside of the house - for example when I got to my parents or in-laws we can watch stuff from home in live streaming.

I have a few plug ins which allows we to watch relatively all UK and French free to air channels, and iplayer and so on. I am going to connect an aerial to it in due course to allow me to stream and record live tv as well throughout the house via 1 aerial point (https://www.silicondust.com/product/hdhomerun-connect/).

I have a separate micro ATX intel CPU based PC which is my media server (i.e. running plex) on an SSD so it boots nice and quickly. The plex server is also running plex home theatre and connects to my home cinema setup via HDMI over ethernet. The media is on a NAS. The server can transcode several 1080p streams with ease.

For me it's just great to have a centralised server than can synch stuff and keep all the info in one place, no fiddling - but can be tweaked/customised if you want to.
 
Plex streaming is likely to require something with more transcoding horse power though, and reasonable internet (I have crappy internet).

I run Plex on my Synology NAS no problem, it can't really transcode but then most things direct play so no need to transcode anything.

My client is the PI3 using Rasplex - very simple to configure, and works well with HDMI-CEC to use the TV/Receive remotes to control it.

I did have a Shield but found it buggy, whether it was the server + client, or just the client, it wasn't as reliable as my PI.

If I did need to Transcode stuff in the future I would consider throwing a NUC into the mix as a Plex server, then the data could still live on my less powerful NAS, but it would give me a more powerful transcoding server. The Xpenology stuff looks OK but I like having less hassle, and real Synology is better supported, and presumably a bit less of a headache. It generally "just works" without too much intervention on my part.
 
I use a Plex server linked to a 30TB NAS with all my material on but all the players I use are Kodi/SPMC with the official Plex plugin, The player options with the Kodi family are much more in depth and allow for a much better fine tuned experience than Kodi alone or Plex alone.
 
I currently use plex, but is the transcoding in plex any more, or less, efficient than kodi. ?
Ability to edit plugins on plex and add your own radio stations, and then drive chromecast audio is a big plus for me.

[ I have found for some videos using aac-lc audio format, re-encoding this with ffmpeg as aac-he (freeview codec) gave better sound from a panasonic tv, which seems to give poor sound quality with aac-lc.
ffmpeg-hi10-heaac.exe -i "%plexdir%\%%~X" -map 0:0 -c:v copy -map 0:1 -c:a libfdk_aac -profile:a aac_he -cutoff 15000 "!outf!" ]
 
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