Plex available for non-jailbroken Apple TV 2 & 3

johnnnw · Jun 5, 2013

Plexconnect was released, allowing people to use the awesome Plex system with their NOT JAILBROKEN Apple TV 2 and 3's.

Anyone installed this yet? Is it working good?
http://elan.plexapp.com/2013/06/04/introducing-plexconnect-an-appletv-client-which-thinks-different/

This is obviously a big deal for ATV3 users as they couldn't be jailbroken even if you wanted to.

mic j · Jun 5, 2013

I'm surprised there hasn't been more excitement about this on the forum. Seems like adding Plex capability to an aTV3 would be a big deal to a lot of people.

Or is it that we have all gone ahead and converted our discs to mp4 and no longer have a need for Plex?

Che Castro · Jun 5, 2013

mic j said:
I'm surprised there hasn't been more excitement about this on the forum. Seems like adding Plex capability to an aTV3 would be a big deal to a lot of people.

Or is it that we have all gone ahead and converted our discs to mp4 and no longer have a need for Plex?

I went ahead and muxed all my mkv movies using iflicks

But I could of used this a few months back

jmcgeejr · Jun 5, 2013

johnnnw said:
Plexconnect was released, allowing people to use the awesome Plex system with their NOT JAILBROKEN Apple TV 2 and 3's.

Anyone installed this yet? Is it working good?
http://elan.plexapp.com/2013/06/04/introducing-plexconnect-an-appletv-client-which-thinks-different/

This is obviously a big deal for ATV3 users as they couldn't be jailbroken even if you wanted to.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1590040/

and

http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/forum/136-appletv-plexconnect/

Tons of great results, myself included.

mic j · Jun 5, 2013

jmcgeejr said:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1590040/

and

http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/forum/136-appletv-plexconnect/

Tons of great results, myself included.

1) Does PlexConnect support full surround audio (DD5.1, DTS, and HD versions of those)?

2) Does it support VOB/PGS subtitles?

jmcgeejr · Jun 5, 2013

mic j said:
1) Does PlexConnect support full surround audio (DD5.1, DTS, and HD versions of those)?

2) Does it support VOB/PGS subtitles?

With a plexpass account and the latest version of pms .27 it will convert all surround sound into DD which the atv supports. I dont know about the subtitles question tbh.

mic j · Jun 5, 2013

jmcgeejr said:
With a plexpass account and the latest version of pms .27 it will convert all surround sound into DD which the atv supports. I dont know about the subtitles question tbh.

Thanks for the info. I wasn't really thinking clearly. I should have known the audio would have to be converted to DD because of the aTV limitations.

towg · Jun 5, 2013

Does anyone know if I have to mux all my movies to MP4 or can it transcode mkvs and avis?

jmcgeejr · Jun 5, 2013

towg said:
Does anyone know if I have to mux all my movies to MP4 or can it transcode mkvs and avis?

It will transcode them

towg · Jun 5, 2013

jmcgeejr said:
It will transcode them

Ok Many thanks. I'll give it a go and report back later.

UKBeast · Jun 5, 2013

I could not succeed to make this work,

it does work for online channels but does not play local media on my mac.

Can i play avi files on my mac through plex ? i do not want to bump up fan speed

towg · Jun 6, 2013

I couldnt get it to work.

My IP address is a different number of digits to the format on the Apple TV.

Dalton63841 · Jun 6, 2013

jmcgeejr said:
It will transcode them

TO be completely clear, the AppleTV is doing nothing but showing what is being redirected to it. The Plex Media Server does the transcoding, just as it always did.

UKBeast said:
I could not succeed to make this work,

it does work for online channels but does not play local media on my mac.

Can i play avi files on my mac through plex ? i do not want to bump up fan speed

In the PlexConnect settings on the AppleTV there is an option to "Force Transcode". That would most likely need to be set to play AVI's.

towg said:
I couldnt get it to work.

My IP address is a different number of digits to the format on the Apple TV.

All IPv4 addresses are 4 groups of digits. On the Apple TV it just gives you extra digits in each group, so for instance an IP address of 10.0.1.1 would be entered as 010.000.001.001 on the Apple TV.

institute · Jun 6, 2013

I have played Avi files on Plexconnect without the force transcode setting.

charlien · Jun 6, 2013

I am blown away at how well this works. I like seeing my TV series grouped rather than by season. Tried the Amazon Instant video channel and couldn't get it to work.

towg · Jun 7, 2013

Dalton63841 said:
TO be completely clear, the AppleTV is doing nothing but showing what is being redirected to it. The Plex Media Server does the transcoding, just as it always did.

In the PlexConnect settings on the AppleTV there is an option to "Force Transcode". That would most likely need to be set to play AVI's.

All IPv4 addresses are 4 groups of digits. On the Apple TV it just gives you extra digits in each group, so for instance an IP address of 10.0.1.1 would be entered as 010.000.001.001 on the Apple TV.

I see. Many thanks - I'll give it another shot.

mic j · Jun 7, 2013

PlexConnect transcodes on-the-fly to an aTV compatible format (mp4) and DTS to DD5.1. Which also means no HD audio as that is still an aTV limitation. Can someone please explain the excitement about this? Why would I want to do on-the-fly transcoding vs manual transcoding? How does on-the-fly transcoding quality compare to manual transcoding (video and audio)?

And don't get me wrong, I use to use Plex. But I used it with my MBP wired to my TV/AVR system so I could play non-transcoded mkv ripped from BRs.

I mean, it's cool that someone was clever enough to hack the system to get Plex to be available but if it doesn't give you the ability to play the non-transcoded files in your library, is it really that important?

jmcgeejr · Jun 7, 2013

mic j said:
PlexConnect transcodes on-the-fly to an aTV compatible format (mp4) and DTS to DD5.1. Which also means no HD audio as that is still an aTV limitation. Can someone please explain the excitement about this? Why would I want to do on-the-fly transcoding vs manual transcoding? How does on-the-fly transcoding quality compare to manual transcoding (video and audio)?

And don't get me wrong, I use to use Plex. But I used it with my MBP wired to my TV/AVR system so I could play non-transcoded mkv ripped from BRs.

I mean, it's cool that someone was clever enough to hack the system to get Plex to be available but if it doesn't give you the ability to play the non-transcoded files in your library, is it really that important?

There are two different types of transcoding, there is the actual transcode that changes the video bitrate and resolution and then there is just a container change which doesnt change anything. With the atv3 and plex connect if you have a 1080p mkv with 5.1 DTS audio, plex does nothing to the h.264 video inside and instead converts it on the fly to an mp4 container so the video quality has no change (as long as it's 4.1 level or lower) and for the audio that just gets muxed into a 5.1 DD package.

pwfletcher · Jun 7, 2013

I have quit waiting for the ATV3 jailbreak and now use Videostation on my Synology NAS to stream to my ATV3 via Airplay. It works flawlessly for all file formats and uses the NAS processor instead of my computer's.

mic j · Jun 7, 2013

jmcgeejr said:
There are two different types of transcoding, there is the actual transcode that changes the video bitrate and resolution and then there is just a container change which doesnt change anything. With the atv3 and plex connect if you have a 1080p mkv with 5.1 DTS audio, plex does nothing to the h.264 video inside and instead converts it on the fly to an mp4 container so the video quality has no change (as long as it's 4.1 level or lower) and for the audio that just gets muxed into a 5.1 DD package.

That's interesting info. So it's more of a on-the-fly remux to mp4 than a on-the-fly transcode to mp4, as long as your source material is already h.264? Correct? How does it work for the small percentage of BR's that are VC-1? Also, for mpeg2 sources, does it do the actual on-the-fly transcode to mp4? Can it do that smoothly if you don't have a multi-core MBP? I found that on-the-fly transcode of movies by AirParrot to be of poor quality (studdery motion) and you could cook breakfast on my 2008 MBP. I have read where it worked better with multi-core MBP's.

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm really trying to understand (and think others might be interested in a deeper understanding) of what the capability of the hack is before I go messing with a setup that runs pretty smoothly.

jmcgeejr · Jun 7, 2013

mic j said:
That's interesting info. So it's more of a on-the-fly remux to mp4 than a on-the-fly transcode to mp4, as long as your source material is already h.264? Correct? How does it work for the small percentage of BR's that are VC-1? Also, for mpeg2 sources, does it do the actual on-the-fly transcode to mp4? Can it do that smoothly if you don't have a multi-core MBP? I found that on-the-fly transcode of movies by AirParrot to be of poor quality (studdery motion) and you could cook breakfast on my 2008 MBP. I have read where it worked better with multi-core MBP's.

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm really trying to understand (and think others might be interested in a deeper understanding) of what the capability of the hack is before I go messing with a setup that runs pretty smoothly.

MP2 as well as VC-1 media will require a full on conversion to be able to stream to that atv, that's a big media change and is a full on transcoding of the video versus just a container change. For anything that requires a full transcode conversion you will get better results with faster cpus with more cores, that's just something that has always been for media.

smellalot · Jun 7, 2013

mic j said:
PlexConnect transcodes on-the-fly to an aTV compatible format (mp4) and DTS to DD5.1. Which also means no HD audio as that is still an aTV limitation. Can someone please explain the excitement about this? Why would I want to do on-the-fly transcoding vs manual transcoding?

I can! With On-the-fly transcoding/remuxing I can start watching right away. I don't need to take care of the files myself. I don't care which file format they are - Plex takes care of everything for me. With iTunes home sharing I need to add metadata to files. Plex also does this for me.
Oh, I have one more: plex's on-the-fly conversion runs slower than straight conversion so the fans barely outpace 2000 rpm.

jmcgeejr · Jun 7, 2013

smellalot said:
I can! With On-the-fly transcoding/remuxing I can start watching right away. I don't need to take care of the files myself. I don't care which file format they are - Plex takes care of everything for me. With iTunes home sharing I need to add metadata to files. Plex also does this for me.
Oh, I have one more: plex's on-the-fly conversion runs slower than straight conversion so the fans barely outpace 2000 rpm.

THe reason your fans dont kick in is because plex converts the video in batches, it used to just convert the whole thing so it would saturate your cpu until it was done, now it just does it in small clips.

smellalot · Jun 7, 2013

jmcgeejr said:
THe reason your fans dont kick in is because plex converts the video in batches, it used to just convert the whole thing so it would saturate your cpu until it was done, now it just does it in small clips.

Yes, that's what I meant to say. And I think it's great. Plex is just great!

Nutdotnet · Jun 7, 2013

pwfletcher said:
I have quit waiting for the ATV3 jailbreak and now use Videostation on my Synology NAS to stream to my ATV3 via Airplay. It works flawlessly for all file formats and uses the NAS processor instead of my computer's.

What does this have to do with Plex Connect?

Plex available for non-jailbroken Apple TV 2 & 3

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