Plex

What is Plex?

Plex is a chunk of very highly effective media streaming software program for the house. Based on a fork of the XBMC framework (now generally known as Kodi), the software program turns your private pc or NAS right into a media server that allows entry to all of your movies, pictures and music, from a large number of units by way of a lovely and slick consumer interface.

If you’ve acquired an enormous assortment of media saved in your pc with no superb method to entry it across the house, then Plex is most positively for you.

SEE ALSO: Chromecast vs Roku Streaming Stick vs Amazon Fire TV Stick

Plex – Setup

There are a couple of variations of Plex to select from when organising the server aspect of issues. There’s the usual Plex Media Server, Plex Home Theatre and Plex Media Server for NAS. Most individuals go for the usual Plex Media Server as, let’s face it, most of your content material can be in your foremost pc anyway and never many individuals have a NAS arrange. The Home Theatre model is for these of you operating a devoted pc connected to your TV, however basically the setup course of is similar to the usual Media Server.

Once you’ve downloaded the Media Server, set up is a breeze. It installs rapidly and walks you thru the setup course of. Plex detects your media when you’ve advised it which folders to look in, after which separates the TV reveals, films, music and pictures into their very own classes. It additionally provides cowl artwork and descriptions to every piece of content material to make it look wealthy and delightful.

In addition to the Media Server operating in your pc, you’ll additionally want to put in a Plex app on the machine you want to view your content material on.

Again, that is tremendous straightforward and the app will detect your media server inside seconds. For this evaluate we put in the app on a Tesco Hudl, Apple iPad Mini, a Moto G and an Xbox. All of them have been lifeless straightforward to arrange and get going.

Between the Plex Media Server and the Plex apps, somebody eager to
stream their media in a classy, well-thought-out surroundings has
every thing they should get going. But for these of you that want a couple of
additional enhancements might want to contemplate subscribing to Plex Pass.

Plex
Pass provides much more glitter to the already crammed-in bells and
whistles. This contains the power to obtain content material to your machine
for offline viewing, sync your content material to Cloud storage in addition to
attending to check out the newest options earlier than any non-Plex Pass holders
can entry them.

As a subscriber you additionally get to put in the Plex
apps on practically all your units at no cost, get entry to film extras
and trailers, allow Plex Home so you’ll be able to create a number of consumer accounts
inside your community and determine who will get to see what content material (glorious
if in case you have youngsters). You’ll additionally get entry to Vevo music movies,
Gracenote Music Magic in addition to a really good photograph sync function that
makes certain all of your pictures can be found throughout all your units.

All this prices simply £3.99 for a month, £31.99 for the yr or you will get a lifetime move for £119.99.

SEE ALSO: Which is the best music streaming service?

Plex – User interface

The Plex UI is one among pure pleasure. It’s slick, straightforward to make use of and has all the knowledge you might need, proper at your fingertips. Seeing all of your content material introduced with superb cowl artwork and metadata actually makes your assortment pop. You are, in fact, free to decide on no matter you need to watch or take heed to, however, if in case you have bother deciding, Plex has a couple of neat options that can assist you select.

On Deck is an effective way of holding observe of the reveals you’re presently watching, as it’s going to at all times show the following episode in a sequence so you’ll be able to dive straight in. As quickly as you open Plex, On Deck is true there with a number of of your most not too long ago watched reveals and films able to go. It additionally has a Recently Added queue, so you will get at your freshly added content material.

And it doesn’t cease there. If you have got an unlimited assortment of TV reveals, for instance, you’ll be able to head to the present part’s Discover checklist and see what aired not too long ago, what’s in your queue, what sequence you haven’t seen but, reveals that you just’ve seen however may like to look at once more, and even reveals that fall underneath specific genres reminiscent of comedy or horror.

Does this all sound an excessive amount of? Well, it’s a lot to soak up while you first open the app. If you’re like me and simply need to see what you’ve acquired, you’ll be able to head straight into your library and Plex shows all your content material, full with Unwatched icons so you’ll be able to simply see what you have got or haven’t watched but. This function is especially useful for holding observe of the place you’re as much as in a TV sequence.

Plex will even observe your progress in a video file, so if it’s important to shut the app down for any purpose, you’ll be able to at all times choose up the place you left off.

There are loads of different options as properly, like the power to create your personal playlists, invite different Plex customers to view your content material, suggest content material for others to look at, add films and reveals to a Watch Later queue, in addition to the choice to put in a ton of channels like BBC iPlayer, YouTube, the History Channel and hundreds extra.

The settings are straightforward to navigate and provide you with numerous choices that can mean you can tailor your Plex expertise to fit your wants. One of probably the most highly effective choices is to allow internet streaming, so you’ll be able to view your content material wherever at any time over your cellular information connection.

The iOS Plex app is a bit more cluttered than the Android app, however it’s nonetheless a pleasure to make use of

Plex – Content Support

Plex is an extremely versatile Media Server that may cater for an unlimited collection of format varieties. Yes, we all know it will probably stream films, music and show pictures, however what codecs do you have to use? When it involves video, the MP4 and AAC Audio mixture works greatest. These file varieties are supported natively and play completely with Plex, however that’s to not say it’s essential convert different file varieties with a purpose to use them. Plex can mechanically transcode – or Direct Stream, as Plex calls it – virtually some other file sort as and when wanted. MKV, AVI and MPEG may be performed with none trouble.

Music help is restricted to MP3 and M4A, however an upcoming launch will see help for FLAC and ALAC added.

As for picture help, the possibilities are that you just’ll be viewing JPGs, however for any budding and even skilled photographers, you’ll be happy to know that RAW can be supported.

Viewing your field units of their entirety by way of Plex is a factor of magnificence

Plex – Performance

The Plex Media Server may be very light-weight and might run on a reasonably low-spec machine. A 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo with 1GB of RAM is the minimal requirement to get going and it will serve OK for many customers. Plex recommends you have got at the very least a 2.4GHz CPU with 2GB of RAM, however these of you who don’t need to danger sitting via 30 seconds of buffering or getting a dropped body or two will need to be rocking at the very least 4GB of RAM server aspect.

As you’d count on, the efficiency of Plex largely depends upon your private home community speeds and the way large your recordsdata are. If you’ve acquired an outdated router with a brief sign attain and low speeds, you’ll almost certainly have a lesser expertise in comparison with somebody with the newest router tech. And should you solely cope with 1080p movies, these will clearly take a little bit longer to course of. That mentioned, Plex appears to play properly on connection speeds beginning at 10Mbps. The quicker your community velocity, the higher the stream is. You can, in fact, tweak your playback settings and go for your content material to be served at a decrease decision to enhance efficiency, ought to it’s essential.

Plex is fairly intelligent at figuring out what machine you’re viewing on as properly, so should you’re making an attempt to stream a 1080p film over a 3G connection, Plex will do some trickery to ship the file to you as quick as attainable whereas making an attempt to retain the very best decision.

Plex offers you clear indicators of reveals or films in your assortment that you just’re but to look at

Plex – Device Support

Plex helps a plethora of units. Most pc working programs are supported, reminiscent of Windows, Linux and Mac OSX – the latter of which was the primary platform Plex was developed for – however there are a great deal of different units you’ll be able to view Plex on as properly.

These embrace Android, iOS, Windows 8 and 8.1 units, Chromescast, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TVs, GoogleTV enabled HDTVs, and video games consoles just like the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3 and PS4. That’s numerous units and also you most likely already personal at the very least one among them.

One machine that’s lacking from the checklist of supported units is the Apple TV. This isn’t an oversight from Plex, however relatively the dearth of help from Apple. The Apple TV ecosystem is presently an invite-only affair, so till Apple throws Plex a bone – and Plex has brazenly mentioned it’d love for this to occur – there’s no legit method to get Plex on the little black field. There are methods round it should you don’t thoughts jailbreaking the machine, however we wouldn’t trouble.

As far as pricing is anxious, the Plex apps do include a one-time buy price ticket – often round £3.99 – however this may be wavered should you signal as much as Plex Pass.

SEE ALSO: Best TVs

As
you’ll be able to see, each menu is acompanied with lovely paintings and plenty
of details about the file, present or film, and it’s all accomplished for you.

Verdict

Plex is the house media server resolution that anyone can, and possibly ought to, use. If you have got a group of film and TV reveals sitting in your pc with no method to entry them, apart from sitting in entrance of you monitor, Plex is what you want. You can then view these recordsdata on any machine from smartphones to consoles and even throughout the net, all in a lovely, fashionable and easy-to-use interface.

Provided your private home community wasn’t arrange within the ’90s and your pc meets the minimal necessities, Plex is not going to disappoint and also you’ll quickly be questioning how you bought by with out this intelligent media server in your life.