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Beta Version of Plex Media Server With Native Apple Silicon Support Now Available

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Popular media platform Plex today announced the launch of a beta version of the Plex Media Server that has native Apple silicon support.

Apple-Silicon-Teal-Feature.jpg

The new version of the Plex Media Server uses the "Universal" build for Macs, which means it is compatible with Apple silicon and Intel Macs. At the current time, the release version of the Plex Media Server runs using Rosetta 2.
Since the introduction of the Apple M1 chip for macOS, users have asked for Plex Media Server to natively support "Apple Silicon". The existing Mac server versions run just fine under Rosetta2, but native is always better, right? Well, here it is!!!

We present, the Plex Media Server "Universal" build for macOS. This new package includes Plex Media Server for both Intel and Apple Silicon architectures, so you don't have to worry about what you are installing.
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The preview version of the Plex Media Server must be installed manually and will not auto update to newer releases, which is something to keep in mind. It can be downloaded from the Plex website.

On Apple silicon Macs, Plex users can expect improved transcoding speeds, though there may not be a significant difference. The code will be more stable and efficient on the CPU, according to Plex developers.

(Thanks, Will!)

Article Link: Beta Version of Plex Media Server With Native Apple Silicon Support Now Available
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/05/27/plex-media-server-apple-silicon-support/
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I’ve noticed a few issues with the Rosetta version of Plex. I’m hoping this solves it, otherwise I have an issue elsewhere. I’ve been waiting for native Apple Silicon support for a minute. Glad it’s finally available!
 
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How can it be native but support both Intel and Apple architectures and then call it universal? Doesn’t seem to imply anything native.
 
That's great. It's not so long ago I tried to figure out if they were working on this and they said they weren't.
 
Geoff12889 said:
Was going to pick up an Intel NUC to run as a Plex Server. Would an M1 Mac Mini be overkill?
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Seems like significant overkill to me. I've always just used older, leftover Macs as my media servers. Right now that means a 2014 Mac Mini running Jellyfin, which I prefer to Plex - simply because of the absurdity of Plex requiring a remote account login to view my local files.

Prior to the 2014 Mac Mini, I was using a 2006 MacBook Pro.
 
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Recently I have preferred Windows because you can run it as a service and don’t even have to have the machine logged on, which is also better if you prefer to separate your low power (perhaps always on) plex server from your high power everyday machine that you encode/prep media with and sleep when not in use.
With Mac now being able to be both your low power and high power (or high enough) machine, and universal binary for plex I hope to return to Mac for Plex, but my preference is a 27” iMac so we all know how that is going so far.
 
Geoff12889 said:
Was going to pick up an Intel NUC to run as a Plex Server. Would an M1 Mac Mini be overkill?
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I think the M1 Mac mini would handle Plex very well. The biggest problem is lack of being able to expand internal storage. Sure you can add an external hard drive, but then that's another box and another adapter.

I use Plex on an Atom-based Intel NUC. Just a little 10w box. Using FreeBSD as the base OS.

Seems to have been working well for me for the last, nearly 3 years. It performs very well with my music library (~1500 albums). Sometimes flakes out on video media, but things working much better now that I have my AppleTV using ethernet instead of wifi.

Overall I like the NUC for it's low power usage and expandability. I think I'd only use a Mac if it were one that I had sitting around from being decommissioned.
 
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Geoff12889 said:
Was going to pick up an Intel NUC to run as a Plex Server. Would an M1 Mac Mini be overkill?
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CarAnalogy said:
It would be just the right amount of kill.
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Exactly what I have a M1 mac mini for :) movie server but with Infuse on ATV, instead of Plex. The mac mini also functions as a network time machine backup for all our other macs and itself gets backed up to Backblaze.
 
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Sheepish-Lord said:
How can it be native but support both Intel and Apple architectures and then call it universal? Doesn’t seem to imply anything native.
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That's what Universal actually means. Native ARM code and native x86 code in the same Application bundle.

They could offer them as separate downloads but a lot of developers aren't doing that just yet. That way users who don't know what kind of processor they have will never get an error.
 
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svish said:
Good to see Plex natively supporting Apple Silicon. Took a long time though. Long time since M1 was released.
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Not so long. I'm still waiting on several important applications, personally. Probably will never be ported, or not until Apple removes Rosetta 2.
 
kalafalas said:
Great news! My 2014 Mc Mini is getting sad and I've been eyeing an M1. Native is great, but does it use HW acceleration via videotoolbox for encode? I would particularly love to be able to transcode to h.265 instead of h.264 as well, it would give so much better quality.
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So much better quality, or so much smaller file size.
 
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