Official Plex App Now Available for New Apple TV

[Hardscan451]

But with no 1080p24 on Apple TV, i'll stick to Plex Media Center on the Mac mini

Yup I was looking forward to finally getting 24fps on this, what's up with Apple not supporting it? Doesn't make any sense to me, don't their development teams see the horrible judder especially in nice slow horizontal panning shots, totally kills the HD experience.

 

[PrimeMatrix]

Briefly, the native frame rate of films is 24 frames per second, a 1080p60 television displays 60 frames per second so the 24 frames of the original film content don't divide equally into the 60 fps the tv is displaying. In order to work around this, some frames from the original content are shown 3 times each while others are only shown twice, a technique known as 3:2 pulldown. This results in a picture that isn't perfectly smooth, and the artifact of the technique is referred to as "judder." A 1080p24 device simply shows each of the original frames once each, for 1/24th of a second, resulting in a smooth "film like" quality preferred by enthusiasts. Hopefully this quick and dirty explanation helps...

Thank you for your very helpful explanation, and thank you very much for not being a doobie, like many others here have been on the subject. Greatly appreciated.

 

[dbendixen]

Errr no, you've totally missunderstood the point - this isn't some audiophile nonsense, this is something my mum can see. Forget the video the guy posted, its talking about how buying a consumer camcorder that shoots at 24fps wont give you an instant "movie look" (as he says, its one of about 20 things put together that makes film look like film)

The problem i'm talking about is that film and cinematic TV shows (Breaking Bad, Fargo etc) are all shot at 24fps. The problem with this is PAL in the UK is 50hz and NTSC in the US is even worse at 60hz...multiples of our TV FPS which are 25 and 30 respectively. As you can see 24fps doens't divide equally into 25 or 30, (50/60) which means that to show it on our TVs they have to do some snazzy maths that involves introducing an extra frame every second to fill in the time. This is whats called Telecine Judder. Anyone can see it, its most noticeable on a slow pan shot from left to right or right to left when you can see the extra frame being introduced and the pan is not smooth - the TV needs to set to a multiple of 24hz to display this smoothly.

This isn't videophile nonsense which 4k and "expensive HDMI" cables are. (And yes I include 4k in that because there is way someone is seeing the difference between 1080p and 4k on a 40" tv) so dismissing it as something silly like that is only showing your ignorance.

I've been following your responses on this thread and you are clearly the telecine expert on Macrumors. With that in mind, what media player do you suggest for playing 24p (23.98fps) movies (aside from a Mac mini)?

 

[PrimeMatrix]

Similar to you, I've long used iTunes and Home Sharing, and have my library perfectly set up as I like it. However, I also run a Plex Server on the same machine, pointing at the same files. Therefore, I have the ability to use my same media via non-Apple devices as well. So, best of both worlds.

Bazinga!

 

[Dc2006ster]

Currently I am running Plex on a PS3. The PS3 also gives me access to Netflix, BBC I player, Channel4 and 5. I pay a few bucks a month for the plex pass. What would the Apple TV give me that I do not already have other than not needing the plex pass?

 

[Duane Martin]

1080p24 - not 1080p, if you don't know what that is, telecine judder has probably never bothered you, so as you were.

There are lots of things that can cause "judder" in an image but the telecine process is not one of them. If you have a television that will take a true 24p signal (or even 23.976p or psf) please post the brand here; sincerely, I am trying to find an alternative to the very expensive and tiny broadcast monitors we use in the edit suite. Otherwise all televisions in North America are playing everything at 29.97 (sometimes erroneously referred to as 30) or, at best, 59.94/60; most is still interlaced. So even if you have a 1080p24 file you cannot play it back on your television without conversion (tell me I am wrong, provide me the model of your television monitor, and you will make me and my producers very happy).

Curiously, in most of Europe they use a 25fps playback so even they are not looking at the original 24 frames.

In North America, throughout television history, almost all dramatic television and film has been recorded at either 24fps or 23.976 fps and broadcast at 29.97 fps (59.94 fields per second). We have been looking at telecine all our lives. Any judder you perceive has to do with a faulty conversion or improper connection (sending interlaced signal to progressive monitor, or vice versa) or improper settings. Not telecine.

Oh, and while killing myths, the reason film is shot at 24fps is not because it looks better (it really doesn't, especially in action sequences) but because 24fps was the slowest they could run the film and still make it appear like the sound was in sync. It is an economic choice, not an aesthetic one. In fact, before the introduction of sound most silent films were shot at 16fps, saving even more money on film stock. So why shot digital film at 24fps, when, for instance, The Hobbit was acquired at 48fps? Again, it's all about the money. Storage ain't cheap.

 

[Rique]

Does this new Plex app give you the ability to use Parental Controls being that you have a Plex Pass ? I'm debating on buying a subscription

I can't answer, because I don't have the ATV4 yet. However, I run several Plex clients and all of them support the parental controls. IMO, it is one of the main benefits of the Plex clients. Also, bear in mind the ATV4 client was ported from the iOS client - and I know the iOS client supports parental controls, because I use it often. I hope this helped.
-- Riq

EDIT: And I DO have a Plex Pass. I think parental controls would not be available to me if I did not have the Pass (but I actually don't know that for sure - maybe some other Plex subscribers can confirm?)

 

[dino12]

Thanks for mentioning this; I'll have to take a look at it. At the very least, it would help me clear up an issue with content that was purchased with my wife's original iTunes account. Even though our computer is authorized to play it, the new AppleTV loves to tell us we need to authorize it for playback on the computer before it can be streamed.

No problem. I think I paid about $30 for it. Well worth the money.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Cool.
Finally it's here.

But.. why... why.. must you login.
I paid for the iOS client so that "userless" playback was enabled on LAN streaming.

Now with the Apple TV 4 app a username / password is mandatory. Crap.

 

[dannys1]

There are lots of things that can cause "judder" in an image but the telecine process is not one of them. If you have a television that will take a true 24p signal (or even 23.976p or psf) please post the brand here; sincerely, I am trying to find an alternative to the very expensive and tiny broadcast monitors we use in the edit suite. Otherwise all televisions in North America are playing everything at 29.97 (sometimes erroneously referred to as 30) or, at best, 59.94/60; most is still interlaced. So even if you have a 1080p24 file you cannot play it back on your television without conversion (tell me I am wrong, provide me the model of your television monitor, and you will make me and my producers very happy).

Curiously, in most of Europe they use a 25fps playback so even they are not looking at the original 24 frames.

In North America, throughout television history, almost all dramatic television and film has been recorded at either 24fps or 23.976 fps and broadcast at 29.97 fps (59.94 fields per second). We have been looking at telecine all our lives. Any judder you perceive has to do with a faulty conversion or improper connection (sending interlaced signal to progressive monitor, or vice versa) or improper settings. Not telecine.

Oh, and while killing myths, the reason film is shot at 24fps is not because it looks better (it really doesn't, especially in action sequences) but because 24fps was the slowest they could run the film and still make it appear like the sound was in sync. It is an economic choice, not an aesthetic one. In fact, before the introduction of sound most silent films were shot at 16fps, saving even more money on film stock. So why shot digital film at 24fps, when, for instance, The Hobbit was acquired at 48fps? Again, it's all about the money. Storage ain't cheap.

Pretty much every HD TV (above 40inches) since 2005 has had a 1080p24 mode bud. It just syncs the refresh rate to 24hz so that you don't get the telecine judder (sorry i'm going to keep referring it to that as its an apt description for the panning issue and its what everyone refers to it to for ease). You're probably going to come back with 24hz isn't the same as 24fps etc etc and yes, we know that, how the refresh rate is how the TV syncs up the frame rate of the source footage. Its the devices to output at 24p that is more difficult to find, not the monitors (every single Samsung about mid-level for a decade now at least)

And you're right about economy, it was also easier to splice mathematically (12 frames half a second, 6 quarter, 3, 1, etc) not as possible with 30 or 25. The way the movie channels in the UK get around the 3:2 pull down issue is they speed the movie up 4%, so it remains smooth (and it finish 4% earlier! ha) to 25fps as that (and thus 50hz) is the PAL refresh rate for TV. Obviously not possible in North America and other NTSC territories as 24 to 30fps is a fair jump.

and I don't agree with your assumption about 3:2 pulldown not causing judder anyway, sorry it does, just cos you've been watching it all your life doesn't make it not a thing.
"The “2:3 pulldown” telecine process creates a slight error in the video signal compared to the original film frames that can be seen in the above image. This is one reason why films viewed on typical NTSC home equipment may not appear as smooth as when viewed in a cinema and PAL home equipments. The phenomenon is particularly apparent during slow, steady camera movements which appear slightly jerky when telecined. This process is commonly referred to as telecine judder. Reversing the 2:3 pulldown telecine is discussed below."
I don't know how you can claim that isn't true.

 

[Duncan-UK]

double post in error

 

[Duncan-UK]

Danny is absolutely correct and I'm rather astonished at the confusion on display. Coming from the UK people here tend to be a little more sensitive to pulldown judder because film gets sped up to 25fps so we have smooth pans. The "cost" of this is speed up. Hence I dislike watching US tv shows on UK networks due to the higher pitch that results.

I've had 24p TVs for about 8 years and I find it ridiculous that Apple won't support 24p output and instead force us to endure pulldown. I certainly won't be contemplating the new Apple TV and will continue to stream mkvs from my Mac to my TV or projector via my Oppo BD player which does do 24p and will pass the DTS HD and MA files through to my amp.

 

[chappel]

I'm currently running Plex on my ATV3 using the 'plexconnect' hack, and it works great. Anyone know how the 'native' ATV4 Plex app compares to the 'plexconnect' interface? Is it smoother? Make videos look better? Automatically refill my beer and fetch more pizza? I'm really looking forward to using Siri to search for content now that my library has grown to the point I'm starting to make myself woozy when I scroll through the grid of titles, but if that feature isn't going to be available for a while I'm not sure I see much value in jumping on board with an ATV4 yet. Also, I'm bummed the ATV4 no longer has a digital audio out port, since my TV doesn't seem to support the HDMI 'Audio Return Channel' and I don't have a media receiver - I'm still looking for a good way to get sound without having to suffer through the crappy speakers built in to my otherwise very serviceable TV.

 

[dbendixen]

Oh, and while killing myths, the reason film is shot at 24fps is not because it looks better (it really doesn't, especially in action sequences) but because 24fps was the slowest they could run the film and still make it appear like the sound was in sync. It is an economic choice, not an aesthetic one. In fact, before the introduction of sound most silent films were shot at 16fps, saving even more money on film stock. So why shot digital film at 24fps, when, for instance, The Hobbit was acquired at 48fps? Again, it's all about the money. Storage ain't cheap.

While I agree with most of what you just said, I don't think storage in this day and age is a reason they shoot at 24fps. Shooting digital saves thousands (in some cases hundreds of thousands) of dollars vs. film. I guess for small productions storage could be an issue. The bigger issue is probably tradition and what audiences expect. The frame rate of a moving picture drastically changes the look and feel. going from 24fps to 30fps or higher makes it start to feel like a news broadcast (especially when shot on cheap video cameras). Frame rate and picture resolution are the big "film look" factors (one source I read indicated that 35mm film had a digital equivalent of 5000 lines of resolution). Most 60fps content you see makes things look "too real" and changes the nature of film entirely from something of the imagination to real life. I think most people still want to experience movies as a fictional experience, an escape from real life.

 

[darthbane2k]

ok so after all this fuss over flex, decided to try it out. Created a few media libraries, these stream nicely from the ATV.
Installed a few channel bundles, twitch and SS Plex - these work on my desktop. The channels are identified on my ATV and I can search and find streams, however nothing plays via the ATV. Nothing works at all.

 

[MrXiro]

Paid $5 to use Plex on my Roku and it's the best thing ever. I'm not getting an Atv4 anytime soon since I have 2 Atv3s, 3 Rokus and a Chromecast. But except for some files that don't show up on Plex it's a much better using experience that streaming to Atv.

 

[garylapointe]

I too have all my Movies/TV Shows in iTunes but Plex on my ATV4 is much welcomed for the simple fact that I won't have to convert w/ Handbrake anymore. To each their own.

When it's 1080p source material, I'm not as happy with Plex (even at highest video or make my processor scream qualities). I can really see the difference, especially in the darker scenes. It's okay quality, but it completely defeats the purpose of the 10GB source material.

I've got Plex on my TV and my TiVo so there is a real connivence factor there.
Plus, I think Plex looks beautiful the way it does the background and artwork...

Gary

 

[dannys1]

When it's 1080p source material, I'm not as happy with Plex (even at highest video or make my processor scream qualities). I can really see the difference

Not if you turn on 'direct play' you can't, it just plays the original file with no transcoding. Transcoding is only for mobile devices or slower networks.

 

[nebo1ss]

There are lots of things that can cause "judder" in an image but the telecine process is not one of them. If you have a television that will take a true 24p signal (or even 23.976p or psf) please post the brand here; sincerely, I am trying to find an alternative to the very expensive and tiny broadcast monitors we use in the edit suite. Otherwise all televisions in North America are playing everything at 29.97 (sometimes erroneously referred to as 30) or, at best, 59.94/60; most is still interlaced. So even if you have a 1080p24 file you cannot play it back on your television without conversion (tell me I am wrong, provide me the model of your television monitor, and you will make me and my producers very happy).

Curiously, in most of Europe they use a 25fps playback so even they are not looking at the original 24 frames.

In North America, throughout television history, almost all dramatic television and film has been recorded at either 24fps or 23.976 fps and broadcast at 29.97 fps (59.94 fields per second). We have been looking at telecine all our lives. Any judder you perceive has to do with a faulty conversion or improper connection (sending interlaced signal to progressive monitor, or vice versa) or improper settings. Not telecine.

Oh, and while killing myths, the reason film is shot at 24fps is not because it looks better (it really doesn't, especially in action sequences) but because 24fps was the slowest they could run the film and still make it appear like the sound was in sync. It is an economic choice, not an aesthetic one. In fact, before the introduction of sound most silent films were shot at 16fps, saving even more money on film stock. So why shot digital film at 24fps, when, for instance, The Hobbit was acquired at 48fps? Again, it's all about the money. Storage ain't cheap.

The reason 30 FPS is used in North America and 25 in Europe is related to the frequency of the mains supply in North America it is 60 Hz and In Europe 50 Hz. There was a direct relationship between the frame rate and the mains frequency with early television Technology. The north American system was 525/60 and in the UK for example 625/50.

 

[nebo1ss]

Paid $5 to use Plex on my Roku and it's the best thing ever. I'm not getting an Atv4 anytime soon since I have 2 Atv3s, 3 Rokus and a Chromecast. But except for some files that don't show up on Plex it's a much better using experience that streaming to Atv.

The only reason i have ever seen for Files not showing up on Plex is incorrectly named TV shows specifically lacking series and Episode information.

 

[MacBH928]

I never used Plex, does this mean I can put videos on an HDD, connect it through USB to ATV, and watch it using Plex?

And how is this different from Kodi?

I am looking for WDTV alternative.

 

[hkenneth]

I never used Plex, does this mean I can put videos on an HDD, connect it through USB to ATV, and watch it using Plex?

And how is this different from Kodi?

I am looking for WDTV alternative.

Plex streams video from your PC/NAS to your TV/iPhone/iPad. It will transcode your source video if necessary. The USB port on aTV is for service only.

 

[Ray2]

I'll stick with HomeSharing. I tried and bought Plex years ago. Don't like the inaccurate metadata pulled so I update all my Handbrake encoded Metadata with iFlicks.

I can be scathing about Plex (long time user). But the server is very good and populating metadata is now excellent. The player is still a series of buggy updates. I run 9.5.4. It works, with the latest server.

 

[Ray2]

Errr no, you've totally missunderstood the point - this isn't some audiophile nonsense, this is something my mum can see. Forget the video the guy posted, its talking about how buying a consumer camcorder that shoots at 24fps wont give you an instant "movie look" (as he says, its one of about 20 things put together that makes film look like film)

The problem i'm talking about is that film and cinematic TV shows (Breaking Bad, Fargo etc) are all shot at 24fps. The problem with this is PAL in the UK is 50hz and NTSC in the US is even worse at 60hz...multiples of our TV FPS which are 25 and 30 respectively. As you can see 24fps doens't divide equally into 25 or 30, (50/60) which means that to show it on our TVs they have to do some snazzy maths that involves introducing an extra frame every second to fill in the time. This is whats called Telecine Judder. Anyone can see it, its most noticeable on a slow pan shot from left to right or right to left when you can see the extra frame being introduced and the pan is not smooth - the TV needs to set to a multiple of 24hz to display this smoothly.

This isn't videophile nonsense which 4k and "expensive HDMI" cables are. (And yes I include 4k in that because there is way someone is seeing the difference between 1080p and 4k on a 40" tv) so dismissing it as something silly like that is only showing your ignorance.

Very true. We're currently watching a series with a lot of slow panning. It's worst than really bad.

 

[NutFlush920]

So I tried the app. Looks really well done. Just wish Plex didn't have to pull metadata from online. Looked in all the settings and can't find anyway to turn it off. Really wish they would let me just use my own metadata and cover art. Deal breaker for me unless someone knows something I'm missing.