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Plex Media Player for Mac Now a Free Download for All Users

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Media management service Plex has announced that its Plex Media Player app is now free to everyone. Previously only available to Pass subscribers, the Plex app for Mac is a home theater-style media browser and player for content stored in personal media libraries.

Plex Media Player (which is distinct from the Plex Media Server client app) now features a fullscreen desktop interface where it integrates online files and metadata to present users' media, including artwork and, optionally, movie subtitles. In the latest update, the Player also allows users to queue up movies and music.

image-block-plex-media-player-tv-macbook-1600x958-800x479.jpg
Maybe you pine for stuff like Plex Media Player's silky smooth playback, complex subtitle rendering, and lightning fast seeking on your desktop. Maybe you have a lower-powered NAS server that doesn't like to transcode. Or maybe you'd just like to rock out to some FLAC while you work. Until today, your only option was to find some place to stash a little baby Media Player window and muddle through the TV UI to queue up your background music of choice.

Well, no more: we've harnessed our incredibly powerful Web app and wrapped it up inside our lovely Plex Media Player shell to give you a full-fledged "desktop mode" experience right out of the box. With Plex Media Player running in a window, you can now use your mouse and keyboard as nature intended, and switching to the TV UI is as easy as going full-screen.
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In addition to making Plex Media Player a free download, Plex also announced the long-awaited Plex for Kodi add-on. Kodi is a fully extensible, community driven software media center with wide support for playing a range of media content. Exclusively for Plex Pass members, the Plex add-on brings users' Plex-processed media libraries to the Kodi interface for the first time.

You can download Plex Media Player on this page by clicking the 'Get an app' button (third option).

Post updated for clarification.

Article Link: Plex Media Player for Mac Now a Free Download for All Users
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2016/12/01/plex-media-player-free-download-mac/
Gotta love Plex. Just wish I had bought a lifetime plex pass when it was $60 or so back in the day.

I was a bit confused at first - I thought plex on Mac was always a free download. I guess this is some dedicated theatre / media player app? Otherwise there's always the browser based media player.
 
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What is this about, Mac was the very first device that Plex ran on and it has always been free for MAC. When i first started using PLEX it only ran on Mac's. Everything else was added later.

Its not all fools day today is it?
 
So is this for dedicated player app? Server has been free and there is basically a player built into that you can use.
 
Sorry guys. To clarify, the Plex Media Server has always been free for Mac users. It's a background client for serving media to your other devices, but it also lets you play media from Plex within a browser.

Plex Media Player is a different thing - a standalone media center app, as described above. You can download it from this page, by clicking on 'Download a Plex app': https://www.plex.tv/downloads/

Confusing, I know!
 
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No worries for me. I like Kodi. It works great on my rMBP, older Mac Mini with Linux install, and NVidia Shield TV. I give props to Plex for its contribution though I am not quite sure I like how they branched out.
 
timmyh said:
Sorry guys. To clarify, the Plex Media Server has always been free for Mac users. It's a background client for serving media to your other devices, but it also lets you play media from Plex within a browser.

Plex Media Player is a different thing - a standalone media center app, as described above. You can download it from this page, by clicking on 'Download a Plex app': https://www.plex.tv/downloads/

Confusing, I know!
Click to expand...
This says Plex Media Server.
 
timmyh said:
Sorry guys. To clarify, the Plex Media Server has always been free for Mac users. It's a background client for serving media to your other devices, but it also lets you play media from Plex within a browser.

Plex Media Player is a different thing - a standalone media center app, as described above. You can download it from this page, by clicking on 'Download a Plex app': https://www.plex.tv/downloads/

Confusing, I know!
Click to expand...
Plex has always been two parts a server and a client. For Mac both were always free. The client part was called Plex Home Theatre and has never been killed off. From what I can now determine A new client "Plex Media Player" is what has been made available today probably to replace Plex Home Theatre. I downloaded it and it seem to support the same functionality. I now have both clients on my MAC and shall keep it that way for the time being.
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phrehdd said:
No worries for me. I like Kodi. It works great on my rMBP, older Mac Mini with Linux install, and NVidia Shield TV. I give props to Plex for its contribution though I am not quite sure I like how they branched out.
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To me the hugh advantage that Plex has over KODI is that it is designed as a client server. You run one copy of the server which manages your media and you can run many copies of the client on different platforms all connecting to the same server. You manage your media once. In my case I have a MAC client, a ROKU client and an IOS client for casting to Chromecast. I can also remotely connect to my server either with a web browser or one of the previously mentioned clients when I am travelling.
 
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nebo1ss said:
Plex has always been two parts a server and a client. For Mac both were always free. The client part was called Plex Home Theatre and has never been killed off.
Click to expand...

It was killed off in so much as it's not had an update for 18 months. It was left as the only client to update on the site whilst Plex Pass users have been getting Media Player with regular updates since then in beta. PHT is and has been dead for some time, will continue to function as a legacy product, but Media Player was built to support everything for the future with things and a code base PHT couldn't support.

The reason it's "free" today is because you had to be a Plex Pass member to access Media Player for the last couple of years.
 
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I used to love Plex. Loved how it works seamlessly between my server/desktop/phone/tablet. But after I found out how people behind the Great Wall of China using the internet, I gradually phased out the Plex setup and start doing the same thing. Now I have a Mac Mini with 8TB HD connected to my TV doing nothing.
 
Yeah, this is just a dedicated app... not really needed as the free browser already does the same thing. But think for dedicated clients using mac minis, they can use this version with a remote. For most of us, it's not needed imo
 
dannys1 said:
It was killed off in so much as it's not had an update for 18 months. It was left as the only client to update on the site whilst Plex Pass users have been getting Media Player with regular updates since then in beta. PHT is and has been dead for some time, will continue to function as a legacy product, but Media Player was built to support everything for the future with things and a code base PHT couldn't support.

The reason it's "free" today is because you had to be a Plex Pass member to access Media Player for the last couple of years.
Click to expand...
Not sure you are correct on the 18 months no update thing. I am running version 1.41.469-47a90f01 and while i could be wrong on this. It seems to me that the photo capability of the PHT client has been added in the last year. If you mean by update on the site you had to go look for the updates then yes I would force the client to go look for an update every couple of months.

One immediate advantage I can see with the new Client is that you can manage the server from the client. In fact it is more like the Browser version as someone else might have said.
 
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dannys1 said:
PHT was killed off about a year ago to be replaced by PMP (this) which has been in beta since then (for plex pass only). It's totally rewritten from the ground up and future proofed.
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Did not understand this article AT ALL until I read this post. And I'm an avid Plex user.
 
wowotoe said:
I used to love Plex. Loved how it works seamlessly between my server/desktop/phone/tablet. But after I found out how people behind the Great Wall of China using the internet, I gradually phased out the Plex setup and start doing the same thing. Now I have a Mac Mini with 8TB HD connected to my TV doing nothing.
Click to expand...


Can you please elaborate a little more? What do you use instead of Plex then? I have found that Plex works seamlessly and mostly flawlessly for average streaming needs.
 
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nebo1ss said:
Not sure you are correct on the 18 months no update thing. I am running version 1.41.469-47a90f01 and while i could be wrong on this. It seems to me that the photo capability of the PHT client has been added in the last year. If you mean by update on the site you had to go look for the updates then yes I would force the client to go look for an update every couple of months.

One immediate advantage I can see with the new Client is that you can manage the server from the client. In fact it is more like the Browser version as someone else might have said.
Click to expand...

They've done basic maintenance and bug fixes, but nothing since, it's been a legacy product for nearly two years.

See - https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/ar...Media-Player-and-Plex-Home-Theater-different-

and

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/ar...instead-of-continuing-with-Plex-Home-Theater-

The PHT github hasn't had any committed changes for 2 years - https://github.com/plexinc/plex-home-theater-public
 
dannys1 said:
It was killed off in so much as it's not had an update for 18 months. It was left as the only client to update on the site whilst Plex Pass users have been getting Media Player with regular updates since then in beta. PHT is and has been dead for some time, will continue to function as a legacy product, but Media Player was built to support everything for the future with things and a code base PHT couldn't support.

The reason it's "free" today is because you had to be a Plex Pass member to access Media Player for the last couple of years.
Click to expand...
So, it wasn't killed off.
You could always download and use PHT and Plex Server for free, and it works fine.

EDIT: It is killed off now though... see below
 
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PHT has been dead in the water for a long, long time -- the mantle has been taken up by the folks at Rasplex and named "OpenPHT."

The Plex team officially killed off PHT yesterday:

Plex Home Theater provided a solid experience when it was introduced, but we have since been focusing our development efforts on Plex Media Player and we will continue to do so. Since we're no longer actively supporting Plex Home Theater, it is in everyone's best interests for people to be using an app that is actively maintained and supported. As such, downloads for Plex Home Theater will no longer be available.

We encourage people to move to our awesome, free Plex Media Player app. For Plex Pass subscribers, our Plex for Kodi add-on is also available as an early preview.
Click to expand...
 
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