Plex

How do you guys like Plex?

What are some advantages/disadvantages?

Is there any disadvantage to storing your library on a USB 3.0 external HDD when streaming on the same network?

bump

I believe plex is a lot more simpler but I haven't used it so... Also bump I want to rip my blu rays.

It works really great. I got a Plex Server running on a dedicated server (6TB and 1Gbit up/down) and another Plex Server running on a NAS at home with about 14TB of content.

I got Plex Media Player running a 2 Chromeboxes, an iPad and my laptop. Also on a the Android TV equipped TV.

It will direct stream anything you throw at it really. 4K, H.265, high bitrate stuff.. never an issue. Transcoding on the fly for iPad also works great or for offline viewing.

>Is there any disadvantage to storing your library on a USB 3.0 external HDD when streaming on the same network?

It won't affect playback speed. It might slow down scanning/scrapping a slight bit, but nothing serious.

Also my content is mostly Movies and TV Series that are untouched Blu-ray quality, so 30-40Mb/s stuff.

I like it so far, I've been using it to stream my media for friends to watch and its been working quite well. The biggest disadvantage is it doesn't seem to play well with mkv but I mean thats easily solved with a file conversion. Other than that as long as you have decently fast internet it should be fine!

>The biggest disadvantage is it doesn't seem to play well with mkv

What? Like what?

Most Plex users will use it for Matroska files. Its probably optimized and aimed at playing MKV's ever since they removed ISO playback.

Oh does it finally support internal soft subs and audio tracks? Maybe I configured something wrong

It plays both text based as picture based subtitles without issue, basically anything slightly mainstream. Multiple audio tracks is also not an issue, but some players might be limited.

Hmm maybe its how I was watching it? Or maybe the drive I was using is dying, who knows I was getting horrible lag with mkvs and not other formats. But now that i think about it all the mkvs are on one harddrive away from the other stuff

Plex is a fucking BITCH to set up in Debian.

i guess its supposed to be nice, although i never got mine to fucking work.

the fact you have to let it go out to the internet just to connect to an app in your tv or an external player is fucking stupid. i just want to tell it a fucking IP

Dude.. it's like 3 commands?

No it isn't. You have to set up a new user that plex users, then you have to setup folder permissions, and if you're lucky then everything works. The guide on the Plex website doesn't even work

If you think Plex is a hard install, I'm 'fraid you may be on the wrong board friend. Plex is easymode.

How do you name image files so plex can index them?

>'fraid
Kill yourself m'lady

Plex does names them automatically using meta info

I love Plex.

I made the jump from UMS to Plex and I really couldn't be happier. So much more intuitive and it works way better.

I have just two problems:

1) There's no app for Sony Blu-Rays, so I have to use the app within the Opera TV app.

2) For whatever reason, without changing any settings, it randomly started fucking up audio. If I fast forward or rewind it knocks the audio two seconds out of sync.

Minor shit.

Image files? Like ISO's?

Those are no longer supported.

You seem upset, sounds like you are easily flustered. That may explain why basic tasks are difficult for you.

>You seem upset
Huh, no? What makes you say that?
>sounds like you are easily flustered
Not at all, in fact, quite the contrary.
>That may explain why basic tasks are difficult for you
Wrong on all three accounts!

That's the deal. It doesn't name them because it doesn't see them.

>It won't affect playback speed
It shouldn't, no.

That said, if you abuse Plex like I do (2x Xeon 2660 / 12 4TB HDD) and run multiple 1080p or better streams it can.

There's also the risk of saturating the USB3 bus. Not that I've ever done that...

I like it, but I switched to Emby a few months ago, mainly because it's more configurable and it allows you to manually edit pretty much any metadata you want. Plex is nice and works well in general but it stinks of the Apple-style "it just werks" mentality where simple things are really simple to use but if you want to do something that's slightly outside the beaten track it's suddenly convoluted and hacky as fuck.

Also the Emby plugin for Kodi has much nicer integration than the one for Plex last time I tried it.

>Plex is a fucking BITCH to set up in Debian.
Don't they have a package? I remember there being one you can download and just install.

>thats easily solved with a file conversion
Having to convert my entire media library would be a huge PITA to the point where I wouldn't even bother trying a media server that didn't play well with something as ubiquitous as mkv. That being said, my video collection is probably 95%+ mkv and I've never had any issue with Plex at all.

'fraid not. Glad to see you're projecting, given you know nothing about the person who posted that reply.

Well I think honestly Its my harddrive dying thats causing issues not plex itself, this was my mistake

I've got a Synology NAS with 16TB of WD red drives in it, running Plex.

You set up RSS on the built-in torrent client and everything you want to watch is there when you open Plex.

Why anyone even has cable tv or foxtel here in Australia astounds me.

Same poster here.

Fun fact, every day I get reports emailed to me from my NAS regarding IP addresses being blocked from too many login attempts.

They're ALL Chinese.

plex is great because of built in transcoding
just set up a vpn so you don't have to buy any of their apps

if you're on a local network just use any normal file sharing program and use kodi instead of plex-- you don't need to transcode for local content.

I like it. I have it running on a NAS under my bed. i am using the web interface right now because xbmc is segfaulting on me

Copy the imdb name including year. Movie Title (2016). Rarely fails to match and easier then editing meta data for each

Love it. Running on Debian with library on a couple external drives. With a Roku on every tv it plays smooth (including mkv) with low maintenance.
Have also set up for friends on Ubuntu and Windows, just as easy to set up and maintain