Plex Connect for ATV3

jmcgeejr · Jun 2, 2013

Just a heads up guys, some great progress in this utility, basically it hijacks apples dns requests for trailers and allows you to watch your plex through it. You do have to be a plexpass user to get the latest build that supports 5.1 but otherwise you can try it out if you want. I spent the night using it with multiple tv shows and a movie and it works great.

itickings · Jun 2, 2013

Looks very promising, will have to try that one. Thanks.

Unraid is not officially supported, but at least one post indicates it shouldn't be a problem (just a matter of installing Python and changing the port for the default web interface, sounds plausible and doable).

smellalot · Jun 3, 2013

This looks great, I was going to get an ATV3 anyway and use airplay, but this would be much better.

My question: what happens if I shut down my Plex server? Are DNS requests from the ATV to other pages like youtube or photostream going to idle forever since I shut down the ATV's DNS server?

Hopefully someone with this configuration can give this a try.

itickings · Jun 3, 2013

smellalot said:
My question: what happens if I shut down my Plex server? Are DNS requests from the ATV to other pages like youtube or photostream going to idle forever since I shut down the ATV's DNS server?

From my understanding: You can shut down the Plex server as long as you leave PlexConnect running, everything else should still work fine. If you kill PlexConnect, you have to restore the AppleTV's to a normal DNS server or live with a crippled device.

smellalot · Jun 3, 2013

itickings said:
From my understanding: You can shut down the Plex server as long as you leave PlexConnect running, everything else should still work fine. If you kill PlexConnect, you have to restore the AppleTV's to a normal DNS server or live with a crippled device.

That's my understanding too. Of course I meant turn off the Mac running plex server (including plex connect). Maybe it's possible to send the DNS request to the router. The router could then try to connect to Plex Connect and in case that fails route the request to a secondary (the "ordinary") DNS.
Do you think this may be possible? I have a router running DD-WRT here.

itickings · Jun 3, 2013

smellalot said:
That's my understanding too. Of course I meant turn off the Mac running plex server (including plex connect). Maybe it's possible to send the DNS request to the router. The router could then try to connect to Plex Connect and in case that fails route the request to a secondary (the "ordinary") DNS.
Do you think this may be possible? I have a router running DD-WRT here.

Possible? Most likely. Feasible? No idea, depends on your skills and on how much time you are willing to spend.

In my case I was actually thinking about simply running PlexConnect on my router instead since you don't have to run it on the same device as the Plex server...

smellalot · Jun 3, 2013

itickings said:
Possible? Most likely. Feasible? No idea, depends on your skills and on how much time you are willing to spend.

In my case I was actually thinking about simply running PlexConnect on my router instead since you don't have to run it on the same device as the Plex server...

That's even better. Are you running DD-WRT too?

institute · Jun 3, 2013

Ignore

itickings · Jun 3, 2013

smellalot said:
That's even better. Are you running DD-WRT too?

No, not DD-WRT.

Besides, I guess it is not necessary to do something overly complex even if it can be fun to get stuff running on unsupported devices. An easier way to make it work would be to just add trailers.apple.com to the router's DNS table instead and point it to the "correct" server...

jmcgeejr · Jun 3, 2013

itickings said:
No, not DD-WRT.

Besides, I guess it is not necessary to do something overly complex even if it can be fun to get stuff running on unsupported devices. An easier way to make it work would be to just add trailers.apple.com to the router's DNS table instead and point it to the "correct" server...

THe only problem with this would be that trailers wouldnt work on any machine in your whole network if you redirected it via a router or ran the python script on the router. My guess will be that soon plex will implement PlexConnect as a built in option in PMS as a toggle and then you will just point your atv3 to the plex box as we do now.

itickings · Jun 3, 2013

jmcgeejr said:
THe only problem with this would be that trailers wouldnt work on any machine in your whole network if you redirected it via a router or ran the python script on the router. My guess will be that soon plex will implement PlexConnect as a built in option in PMS as a toggle and then you will just point your atv3 to the plex box as we do now.

...yeah, I'm aware of that issue if I do it the easy way with just a DNS entry in the router, but I never watch those trailers anyway. And if I did, it would be possible to return different addresses based on where the request originated. Not really interested in doing that since I have no use for it, but the configuration is theoretically possible.

Running the full Python stuff on the router wouldn't have that particular problem for long. A trivial addition to the script could make it return different results for different request origins. Sure, sounds like it would be a neat solution, but I wouldn't enjoy the added delay...

As for integrating the functionality into the main Plex Server, it wouldn't solve this particular problem anyway, right?

smellalot · Jun 4, 2013

itickings said:
No, not DD-WRT.

Besides, I guess it is not necessary to do something overly complex even if it can be fun to get stuff running on unsupported devices. An easier way to make it work would be to just add trailers.apple.com to the router's DNS table instead and point it to the "correct" server...

Thanks for your help!

If I do it this way, will DD-WRT use the standard DNS in case the Plex DNS is offline?

itickings · Jun 4, 2013

smellalot said:
If I do it this way, will DD-WRT use the standard DNS in case the Plex DNS is offline?

Well, the point of doing it in that way is not having to mess with the DNS server at all. Sacrificing the trailers (for all devices on the network) makes everything else work normally at all times.

Small price to pay for convenience, I'd say...

maans88 · Jun 5, 2013

how do i get this anyway? do i have to install it?

and does it work with ATV2? i have two of them, if this really works then I'm going to the apple store and grabbing me one.

jmcgeejr · Jun 5, 2013

maans88 said:
how do i get this anyway? do i have to install it?

and does it work with ATV2? i have two of them, if this really works then I'm going to the apple store and grabbing me one.

Everything you need to know and links to all data within are here.

http://elan.plexapp.com/

The very first blog from elan.

smellalot · Jun 7, 2013

OK, my Apple TV 3 arrived today! Two days ago there was a special offer for 77 and I couldn't pass that deal.
This solution works like a charm! I'm so glad, no more carrying my Macbook around and remote controlling through the Rowmote App.

Just one question: how do I make that handy tool start in the background upon launching Plex (when I boot my Macbook)?

institute · Jun 8, 2013

Over on the Plex forums there is a thread that provides an Apple script that lets Plexconnect run in the background. Here is the link to the thread:

https://forums.plexapp.com/index.ph...Application-to-launch-PlexConnect-at-startup?

Code cookies · Jun 8, 2013

Any one tried setting up a raspberry pi as a plex media server running plex connect for the apple tv yet?

Sgtarky · Jun 9, 2013

well, my atv3 will sit on the shelf now.. it really doesnt do much unless you want to pay for content, yeah airplay is nice but I rarely use it. I have followed the directions on using this plex connect. It seemed to work good on my macbook pro but it is not my media machine. I have a windows 7 media center, I set up plex connect on it, some times the movies will show up but nothing played then it would say accessing trailers. and ***** iTunes if i use it on mac it makes 2 copies of the movie the windows version seems to link it, but I have to drag and drop each movie i want and lately when I move a movie to it it never shows up, I never see progress bar of it importing or an error message. I will use my roku from now on until they unlock or at least have some free options on the apple tv , the only thing i was using it for was netflix

jmcgeejr · Jun 9, 2013

Sgtarky said:
well, my atv3 will sit on the shelf now.. it really doesnt do much unless you want to pay for content, yeah airplay is nice but I rarely use it. I have followed the directions on using this plex connect. It seemed to work good on my macbook pro but it is not my media machine. I have a windows 7 media center, I set up plex connect on it, some times the movies will show up but nothing played then it would say accessing trailers. and ***** iTunes if i use it on mac it makes 2 copies of the movie the windows version seems to link it, but I have to drag and drop each movie i want and lately when I move a movie to it it never shows up, I never see progress bar of it importing or an error message. I will use my roku from now on until they unlock or at least have some free options on the apple tv , the only thing i was using it for was netflix

Bummer sorry to hear that mate, so far so good for me, win 7 x64 SP1, running pms 9.8 with the latest version of plexconnect, I had to edit one of the files to get it to launch due to port 49152 already being in use but otherwise it's been rock solid for me.

GarrettL1979 · Jun 9, 2013

Does plex connect allow you to access files from a NAS without a computer in the mix? That would be cool.

jmcgeejr · Jun 9, 2013

GarrettL1979 said:
Does plex connect allow you to access files from a NAS without a computer in the mix? That would be cool.

You will ALWAYS need something running plex media server whether it's a supported NAS or a computer. And for right now the only decent revesion of plexconnect is to run on a mac or windows box, linux support has been very limited.

technowar · Jun 9, 2013

GarrettL1979 said:
Does plex connect allow you to access files from a NAS without a computer in the mix? That would be cool.

That would depend on what NAS you have. I think Synology NAS have bugs on them, but QNAP NAS works fine. You may refer to this link: http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/70373-plexconnect-running-on-a-qnap-nas/. x86 for ReadyNAS here also: http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/70190-plexconnect-on-a-nas-drive-readynas/?p=406097

Sgtarky · Jun 10, 2013

i just dont know why atv doesnt have a plex app instead of us jailbreaking or doing other work arounds

98EXL · Jun 10, 2013

institute said:
Over on the Plex forums there is a thread that provides an Apple script that lets Plexconnect run in the background. Here is the link to the thread:

https://forums.plexapp.com/index.ph...Application-to-launch-PlexConnect-at-startup?

awaiting it to get a little more refined....

Other than that, been running this no problem for a few days, dunno if I like it compared to just using iTunes as my media server

Plex Connect for ATV3

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