Review: Plex

Update: Forget a full HTPC, Plex Server software is now available for the Nvidia Shield. The latest update to the micro game console allows you to run a full Plex server straight from your system and stream music, movies and TV shows stored locally to any of your connected devices. The Nvidia Shield supports 4K60fps playback as well as support for hardware-accelerated video transcoding (H.264, MPEG2 and HEVC).

The streaming media world grows more and more crowded everyday. Between Sling TV, PlayStation Vue and HBO Now, there’s no shortage of streaming options as long as you’re willing to shell out the cash every month.

But what if – and hang in there with me – you want to stream your own media? What if you don’t want to pay for something you’ve already paid for four years ago? What do you do then?

What you do then, my friend, is download Plex, the all-in-one media sharing server that uses your PC to distribute content to any room in your house. Plex essentially acts as a faux-server, using your computer and the media you already have as a media hub for devices you grant it access to. It’s been around for over seven years now, and is pretty much a staple in any media connoisseur’s arsenal.

  • What’s new on Plex? A new-and-improved iOS app!

Setup

Plex is divided into two versions. A free, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink version of the media server software, and a paid version called Plex Pass that gives you everything and the kitchen sink plus everything in the upstairs rooms for $4.99 (£3, about AU$6) a month.

Plex review

The key differences between the two are the ability for Plex Pass to work with your game systems – the Xbox One, PS4, PS3 and Xbox 360 – as well as the ability to set up viewing restrictions on certain movies. The latter, though not as relevant to one-user households, is useful in stopping younger kids from watching anything they shouldn’t see.

Once you’ve decided which service is right for you and your household, it’s time to run the installer and setup a Plex server.

The installation is quick and painless, but the act of actually adding media to Plex – which requires setting up specifically named folders and subfolders and naming video files in a certain format – is best described as tedious, irritating and at points downright ridiculous. Stick with it, though, and you’ll be rewarded ten-fold once your server goes live for the first time.

Device Support

There’s nothing quite like the disappointment of buying a new piece of kit, only to learn that your favorite service isn’t compatible with that hardware. But, despite how many times that has happened in the past, that won’t happen with Plex.

Plex is available for mobile devices running iOS, Android, Windows Phone or Windows 8, as well as a stable of set-top boxes that include any Android TV platform, most smart TVs, the new Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Ouya, Roku, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Playstation 3 and Playstation 4. If you’re out at a friends house and thought to left your PC running back at home, you can even use a browser to login and access your cache of shows, pictures, music, movies and podcasts.

Plex review

Of course, having the platform to install it on is only half the problem. The other half is having the platforms talk to each other in intelligent ways.

Thankfully, Plex excels at this. If you stop at 20 minutes, 23 seconds while watching a film on your mobile device, Plex will give you the option of starting over or picking up where you left off on whatever device you use next.

The only problem I’ve run into with Plex’s inexhaustible urge to be agnostic is that sometimes the file types don’t play nicely with the platform you’re trying to stream to. When your PC needs to transcode a video to play on a platform it requires a bit of CPU processing to get the job done. Streaming across platforms – or Direct Stream, as Plex calls it – can cause some slow down. This didn’t impact me as much as other users, but it’s worth mentioning.

Interface

For its free-ninety nine price tag, you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking Plex would skimp on its interface. Sometimes our gut reactions are wrong, however, and if you’re ever looking for a shining example of that, this is the place.

Plex looks, more or less, like the bookshelf on Kindle or the iBooks app on iOS. Each title is categorized by genre and given cover art – even if the file you had downloaded didn’t come with any.

Plex review

Like your standard media player, Plex also comes with playlist, watch later and recommended features that pull data from both your personal library and any number of “channels” you install on your server.

This sounds like a minor detail, I know, but it’s small details like these that make Plex feel like a premium service.

Plex has also recently updated the music section of the service by adding intelligent playlists and music videos from Vevo. Your music will now be more complete thanks to the additional metadata and the overall experience should feel more akin to services like Spotify and Pandora but, you know, without the constant interruption of ads.

Performance

Performance, as you might imagine, depends 95% on the connection speed of your own network.

I found relatively clear playback at around 10Mbps speed both on my hardwired PC and wireless 802.11a/b/g/n tablet. The occasional dropped frame didn’t necessarily kill the experience for me, though on the one or two occasions I hit pretty severe blocks of slowdown.

In those moments, I did feel a twinge of frustration. That said, if you’re apt to have days of 3Mbps speeds, consider going another route for your streaming setup.

Final verdict

If you consider yourself a media buff and have the repository of .mkv files to back it up, Plex is everything you’ve been longing for.

Despite some lackluster installation instructions and a convoluted process to get things up and running, I found it to be one of the most gorgeous, easy-to-use and light-weight pieces of software out there. The fact that it’s free just adds icing to an already delicious cake.

As long as you go in with an open mind and a quick, stable connection, Plex will not disappoint.

Source: techradar.com

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17 Comments
  1. Reply Gus Cummings July 7, 2016 at 6:32 pm

    It's definitely a factor! I don't have a monster rig by any means (it's an i5-3750K machine), and it worked fairly well. Could see it being potentially bad, though, for certain users hosting the server on old work machines.

  2. Reply Mr. Abdul Ruecker PhD July 7, 2016 at 8:16 pm

    Another caveat to Plex: it will no longer play non-ripped media formats (e.g. ISOs, VIDEO_TS, BDMV). You have to use a tool like Handbrake or MakeMKV to rip this into something Plex can stream, which does not preserve menus and extra features.

    For this reason, I prefer Kodi/XBMC.

  3. Reply Nichole Ledner July 7, 2016 at 8:57 pm

    I'm running it on an AMD A6 5400K and seems to work fine with light streaming, my friends complain of an occasional hiccup with 1080p content but that could be their qos of their residential isp. I have no trouble at all on my LAN that is all 100mbps wired.

  4. Reply Mrs. Marjory Wisozk V July 7, 2016 at 8:59 pm

    I use Kodi on my Raspberry Pi 2 and stream the media from my Raspberry Pi 1, using nfs and ext4 formatted hard drives. I get steady transfer rates and even big 25gb blu ray rips play fine. I looked at plex, but isnt the computer you stream from a big factor? Its needs to be fast enough for transcoding etc?

  5. Reply Miss Stacey Pollich V July 7, 2016 at 9:00 pm

    You would need a constant data connection, and access to the computer/server that is running plex.

    It would be easier for you to just make your own website

  6. Reply Prof. Shawna Rice July 7, 2016 at 10:20 pm

    If the network is there when windows starts it should be all fine. But yeah, windows issue if not.

  7. Reply Ned Turcotte July 7, 2016 at 11:32 pm

    I use kodi, plexi and im able to cast both in HD. Your movies need to be mp4 h.264 and 2 channel in order for you to cast the media without your computer doing any work. To getkodi to cast youll need local cast app and a file to drop in the hidden file on your android device but you cant cast live tv because of the media format. Hopefully kodi can support casting officially soon.

  8. Reply Franz Reynolds Jr. July 7, 2016 at 11:50 pm

    I have plex server running on my HP proliant server (AMD Turion 2,2ghz dual core with 2gb ram) running windows 8. It's quite a weedy system, but if you're planning on streaming to other systems with grunt then the client handles the decoding. I stream to the xbox one and another pc absolutely faultlessly – I can't chromcast anything in HD though. I also have a now tv box with plex client installed and depending on what audio format it used It cant just about handle it between them.

  9. Reply Prof. Julie Kuhic July 8, 2016 at 1:23 am

    I have been running plex in my home for over a year now.
    I have all my movies, TV Shows & Music available on all my devices at any given time.

    Samsung Smart TV has a free plex app available. allowing me to have it on 3/4 Tv's. But $130 and 1 Roku3 later, i now have it on all my TV's, Laptops, PC's, mobiles, tablets.

    Plex is perfection at what is does, provided you can host it properly.

  10. Reply Macie Schamberger July 8, 2016 at 1:50 am

    I guess you could schedule a task that mappes the network drives every morning?

  11. Reply Anderson Farrell July 8, 2016 at 1:59 am

    the only problem I have is the fact I have to map drives from my Nas box to my PC that hosts Plex. I set my Nas to power off at night and auto start up in the morning, this disconnects the mapped drive, I have to log on my PC and click on the drive to establish the connection again, then Plex works fine.

    Is there a way round this? This is more of a Windows than Plex problem.

  12. Reply Jaquelin Leannon July 8, 2016 at 2:13 am

    I am a professional photographer that uses a MacBook Pro and 4 iPads for onsite viewing and buying. The photos are loaded onto the Pro and The iPads are synced via iTunes. This can be a tedious process at times, the details of which I will not go into unless necessary. Someone suggested I use Plex. Would this work and how? Thank you

  13. Reply Lucio Schinner July 8, 2016 at 4:24 am

    Plex is simple the best. I have been using it for one year already.

    External 3,0 USB hooked to the Router with all my media, a laptop PC with Plex media server and a Roku3 with Plex client.

    Now looking forward to replace the laptop by an Intel Compute stick (soon to be released to makert) to run the Plex Sever.

    The server will startup when you switch your TV on.

  14. Reply Osborne Treutel DDS July 8, 2016 at 5:22 am

    Getting the lifetime plexpass was one of my best software purchases, period.

  15. Reply Ibrahim Eichmann July 8, 2016 at 5:31 am

    My experience with PLEX is that although the core tech works well, the user interface is so truly horrible that unless you are the type of person who wants to spend hours in forums to figure out how to add a video to a playlist you will eventually just stop using the product.
    I don't understand how such a strong core product can be so difficult to use.

  16. Reply Zachery Grady July 8, 2016 at 5:42 am

    Sounds like a windows issue.

    Maybe try adding the drives as an network location rather then a mapped drive.

  17. Reply Dr. Milo Will July 8, 2016 at 6:41 am

    I Use Plex Free Version As My Samsung Smart TV Does Not Require Plex Pass As Their Client Is Free But Annoyingly Disconnects Alot That Bring Me To Why I Came Here Because I Wanted To Know If Plex Pass Was An Advantage As You Need It To Sign In On PS4 As It Would Be Much Quicker.

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