Thought I'd start up a thread dedicated to Plex, so that we can all share tips and tricks, as well as to serve to let others know about it. I'm a long-time fan of XBMC, but I just recently started playing with Plex and I think I'm in love with it. Here's some of what I can do with it:
- I have a central desktop computer running Windows 7 with Windows Media Center running combined with a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime cablecard tuner (3 tuners) and a Comcast cable subscription. I use this to record TV shows which get stored as .wtv files. I have some XBox 360's in the house which can play these files natively but can also let me watch live TV and set new TV recordings.
- In addition to my TV shows, this central computer has a large number of Blu-ray .MKV movie rips.
- I have Plex server installed on that desktop PC, along with Plex clients installed on an Acer Revo 1600 (nettop PC with Intel/NVidia ION CPU/GPU), as well as Plex client apps installed on my MacBook Air, iPhone 4S, and iPad 3.
- The Plex server app handles getting all of the metadata for all of my movies and TV shows and stores that info on the single desktop PC. My client apps can pull up all of that metadata info on-the-fly. For fully-capable clients (e.g., the Acer Revo 1600 nettop or MacBook Air), I can select a movie to play and it will stream it bit-for-bit. Note: If I try to do this wirelessly, this can present some buffering problems with my Blu-ray movie rips, because those are very high-bitrate files, but for TV shows it's fine, and it should be fine if I'm hard-wired via ethernet 100mbps or faster. If I'm using the iOS client app on my iPhone or iPad, the Plex server app running on the central computer will transcode on-the-fly my TV shows and movies and send them at a lower bitrate wirelessly. It does an excellent job at this and the end result can be very watchable HD-quality (not Blu-ray quality, mind you).
- Especially impressive is that I can stream Blu-ray .mkv rips to my iPhone, then AirPlay them to my AppleTV and the quality is still very watchable (and I'm picky). Mind you, if I'm going to watch something in my living room which has a 1080p front projector, I wouldn't do it this way (I'll use my Revo 1600 which is connected via ethernet to play them without any transcoding), but the quality is good enough that I would be happy doing this on my 52" LCD bedroom TV.
- Did I mention that it will play my .wtv files? Mind you, I have Comcast and most of the non-premium channels are not copy protected (otherwise, they'd pose a problem). Using a very lightweight script named WTV-MetaRenamer, it will rename my .wtv files in a way that Plex can then go and grab the metadata for the TV shows online. I can then watch these TV shows on any of my devices which are running a Plex client app.
- Plex also includes support for streaming over cell networks. It will transcode your shows to an even lower bitrate (but, again, if you have the bandwidth you can get very good quality) to your iPhone when you're out and about. And the desktop server Plex app will take care of opening up the necessary ports, etc. so that it's drop-dead simple to get this up and running.
The software isn't perfect; there are some bugs. For example, I have some Blu-ray .mkv rips with subtitles embedded in the .mkv file which don't display when I play these movies on my iPhone or Revo 1600, though they work fine on my MacBook Air.
Overall, though, I'm super-impressed.
- I have a central desktop computer running Windows 7 with Windows Media Center running combined with a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime cablecard tuner (3 tuners) and a Comcast cable subscription. I use this to record TV shows which get stored as .wtv files. I have some XBox 360's in the house which can play these files natively but can also let me watch live TV and set new TV recordings.
- In addition to my TV shows, this central computer has a large number of Blu-ray .MKV movie rips.
- I have Plex server installed on that desktop PC, along with Plex clients installed on an Acer Revo 1600 (nettop PC with Intel/NVidia ION CPU/GPU), as well as Plex client apps installed on my MacBook Air, iPhone 4S, and iPad 3.
- The Plex server app handles getting all of the metadata for all of my movies and TV shows and stores that info on the single desktop PC. My client apps can pull up all of that metadata info on-the-fly. For fully-capable clients (e.g., the Acer Revo 1600 nettop or MacBook Air), I can select a movie to play and it will stream it bit-for-bit. Note: If I try to do this wirelessly, this can present some buffering problems with my Blu-ray movie rips, because those are very high-bitrate files, but for TV shows it's fine, and it should be fine if I'm hard-wired via ethernet 100mbps or faster. If I'm using the iOS client app on my iPhone or iPad, the Plex server app running on the central computer will transcode on-the-fly my TV shows and movies and send them at a lower bitrate wirelessly. It does an excellent job at this and the end result can be very watchable HD-quality (not Blu-ray quality, mind you).
- Especially impressive is that I can stream Blu-ray .mkv rips to my iPhone, then AirPlay them to my AppleTV and the quality is still very watchable (and I'm picky). Mind you, if I'm going to watch something in my living room which has a 1080p front projector, I wouldn't do it this way (I'll use my Revo 1600 which is connected via ethernet to play them without any transcoding), but the quality is good enough that I would be happy doing this on my 52" LCD bedroom TV.
- Did I mention that it will play my .wtv files? Mind you, I have Comcast and most of the non-premium channels are not copy protected (otherwise, they'd pose a problem). Using a very lightweight script named WTV-MetaRenamer, it will rename my .wtv files in a way that Plex can then go and grab the metadata for the TV shows online. I can then watch these TV shows on any of my devices which are running a Plex client app.
- Plex also includes support for streaming over cell networks. It will transcode your shows to an even lower bitrate (but, again, if you have the bandwidth you can get very good quality) to your iPhone when you're out and about. And the desktop server Plex app will take care of opening up the necessary ports, etc. so that it's drop-dead simple to get this up and running.
The software isn't perfect; there are some bugs. For example, I have some Blu-ray .mkv rips with subtitles embedded in the .mkv file which don't display when I play these movies on my iPhone or Revo 1600, though they work fine on my MacBook Air.
Overall, though, I'm super-impressed.