All the News That’s Fit to Plex
plex.tv
plex.tv
That and the privacy policy changes they've added recently give me pause for thought about their intentions.
I'm using the lowest end model (2GB memory, 32GB disk) and it absolutely flies with Kodi. Attach a gigabit USB 3.0 NIC and it loads files almost instantly over a Samba share
They do seem to be working more with NAS OEMs to get Plex up and running on their devices seamlessly. And their recent support for Network based TV tuners is an interesting move.
The cloud integration works pretty well and I've used my 1TB of O365 OneDrive storage to host somethings in the cloud. The biggest problem I have is that some of my content has to be transcoded for the client and Plex doesn't do a very good job telling me what so I'm hesitant to throw it all up there. Otherwise the idea is sound and I'd use it to avoid consuming my ISP allotted bandwidth (fu comcast) when streaming remotely.
I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they offered a STB or SmartTV that ran the Plex Client exclusively.
You can't blame them for making logical decisions for the health of the business (even if they negatively impact you).
This can be combined with a UPnP approach if there are also non-dedicated devices that need to access media.
[0] - openelec.tv
I am running the plex client on dumb devices like tv's. That gives me a nice UI, sync of watched locations and automatic transcoding of content that the client cannot play natively.
Kodi also has an optional web interface, which is primarily used to act as a remote, but I've found it can also be a thin client receiver--any media within the library can be streamed to the browser tab.
I'm definitely concerned about privacy changes that have been made recently (and then changed back?).
https://betanews.com/2017/08/21/plex-data-collection-opt-out...
There's also minidlna/ReadyMedia[2] if your server is Linux.
As a Java dev, seeing that level of animosity certainly gives me some serious food for thought!
My primary use for Plex is for viewing on my home TV, through my Roku. All of that streaming content is already available directly on my Roku, so I'm not getting anything new by Plex subsuming it into their interface.
Secondarily, I may occasionally use Plex on my phone to access some media stored at home. But that's all I'm doing - looking for my own media. I don't see myself using it for streamed content. I mean, if I'm stuck in a hotel room or something, they all have news on the room TVs.
I get off of this train when they start introducing plug-ins to integrate DRMed services. Like a Netflix or Hulu pass-through.
No thank you.
That said, I've been using the DVR features Plex has been adding recently and they're getting to be fantastic. For those of us lucky enough to have TV service and hardware compatible with it, it's great. But it needs more work, and I'd rather they focus on that than a weird, half-baked news thing. Emby is quickly catching up with Plex's core competencies, so they need to keep moving.
I think I spent 3 separate evenings trying to figure that out, but never was able to log in and use it whenever I needed to. Eventually I was not able to even log into Plex via the web server (the other place I used it) so I am not a Plex subscriber.
Do one thing and do it well and people give you money. But fail to do the original single purpose you set out to solve for people and they'll move on.
Yeah, now I download the .deb and build my container from a local .deb file, rather than downloading in the container. It was stupid, but I had grabbed the container build script from someone and didn't think about it until it was too late.
I'm still on a pre-1.0 release, and when the Roku client doesn't work anymore, I'll switch to Emby, or whatever is free and hot at the time.
I always get nervous when companies start talking up the credibility of news outlets. To me, it indicates a lack critical thinking especially when the very next image on the page has logos from CNN (of "reading wikileaks is illegal if you're not a media outlet" fame) and TheBlaze (of Glenn Beck fame).
I suppose you could write it off as marketing fluff, but.. still. That little nagging feeling. So long as they give me the ability to ban specific sources from ever showing up in my feed, fine, otherwise this will just be another feature that has to be ignored to avoid consuming propaganda.
This is content provided by a third party. Plex clearly didn't want to negotiate with each provider, figure out a pay structure, then pass those costs along to Plex Pass subscribers for a feature they may or may not want to use.
Personally I see no value it in and don't plan to use it. I'd be upset if they demanded I pay more for that.
I am a playing Plex subscriber because I want it to get better at its core functionality. I do not want news on Plex.