20% discount off Plex Lifetime Pass - limited time (website does not say when this ends)
Normal price is US$149.99 (~ AU$200).
20% off Plex Lifetime Pass AUD $159.99/USD $119.99 - Limited Time (Usually USD $149.99)
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I bought it so I could have multiple users and restrictions - need to make sure the kids don't accidentally click on GoT or something.
Alternatively you can set up a new user account for Plex (I just added a +kids to my gmail addresss), set up a Plex library specifically for kids content, and share that library with the 2nd account.
cloud sync
cloud sync is the bees knees!!!!
Plex acts as a server and distributes all that content to your phones/computers/media boxes and will transcode that content if the device can't play.
The biggest benefit though is Plex's database is your one copy that all your devices use.
Kodi is only good for one person using local content on that computer or using kodi plugins if you are into streaming sites.
Kodi is only good for one person using local content on that computer
No, Kodi can sync it's database, there are many ways to do it. Transcoding however, no Kodi can't do that.
I'm aware that Kodi can sync the database but its slow and not very reliable.
With Plex you simply access the database live, everything is instant and fast and you don't have to worry about syncing going wrong, because it does.
I'm an ex Kodi person myself, I'm sure it works fine with a small collection.
OK, you’re aware, but your prior statement made it seem as though it was not possible. As for speed, bloody fast in my experience, as for reliable, decent and 100% fine on massive collections. Emby is far better than both in that respect though, hence me moving to that. Plex, very hit and miss. I am a Plex Pass lifetime member, but Plex is no longer welcome in my house due the crazy CPU load it requires for no good reason. Annoyingly incorrect library scans, as in, just mind bogglingly bad, and yes all my files are named correctly. It would constantly get items wrong, I would correct, and on another scan it would change it back.
Plex scans are overly intensive, although it is quicker than Emby most of the time, when it’s not, it’s insane and the CPU gets crushed, for no good reason again.Plex is great in that is has the largest hardware install base from both a server and player side, holds your hand brilliantly in setup, whereas Kodi will make some people commit suicide instead of figuring out what to do.
So we both seem to be living in alternative universes….
A lot of people have problems with Emby, thats why they use Plex.. its great you don't have problems but a lot of people would disagree. I used to use Emby with Kodi, I had the same experience as those other people.
The "Crazy CPU load for no reason" actually has a reason. Plex will transcode ahead of the video and then throttle. This is actually most efficient as it allows huge spikes in usage for other plex users to be completed successfully like a lot of people starting a stream or if your server becomes busy with another task.
You can adjust the settings but nobody does because its better that way.
It sounds like you are using underpowered hardware or don't understand why things are the way they are. Plex is so much better then Emby. You seem to be under the impression that Emby isn't used because its not well known, people know about it, they just don't use it.
Also are you sure you have a massive collection? I have 3880 movies and 850+ TV Shows… ;)
As always, people will have different experiences and needs. We are both happy with where we have ended up.
The "Crazy CPU load for no reason" actually has a reason. Plex will transcode ahead of the video and then throttle.
That is bad, exceptionally bad as I have NO need for transcoding, ever.
It’s what lead me off the deep end with Plex, and no one at Plex or elsewhere could explain or offer a solution to stop it. I had Plex on Roku 3, the hardware needed no transcoding for the files I use, yet Plex would go CPU crazy. Then a Plex update came along and said my NAS was no longer powerful enough to allow playback, again, all the NAS needed to do was provide the data, not transcode. Roku got sent back…. Move onto having a Nexus Player, same story, no need for transcoding, Plex would (yes direct play etc… all enabled). That’s when I stated using Kodi. Then got an NVidia Shield TV and a more powerful NAS, so a tonne of power for playing, and yet again, Plex wants to transcode when it has no bloody reason to.
Every now and then I turn it back on to see a new thing Plex offers, and inevitably after a few days I uninstall it as I am sick of seeing my CPU get raped for no reason.As for Emby, like both Plex and Kodi (or SPMC) it has not been 100% trouble free. On my original NAS with very little RAM, Emby was too much of a RAM hog via Python, so I stopped suing it, and went to straight Kodi and MySQL. New NAS, and it’s barely a blip, while Plex will max the CPU on everything I have installed it on, included PC with Intel i7 something something…
My library is not as large as that, it’s about 5TB at the moment, but I know many long time happy Kodi users with insane size libraries.
If you have no need to transcode, then don't use clients that require transcode to run your media…
The Roku 3 has plenty of limitations, one of them I think being it only supports h264 4.0 when most media uses h264 4.1, from memory anyway.
If you thought the client could play it when it couldn't (which makes little sense as what bout all the other roku users?) then you can modify the profile and say it can run that codec etc.
I can probably answer all your questions and problems so ask away! :)
Trust me I have a lot of experience with Plex and I have never had it transcode without a specific reason which made sense. I can understand your confusion as some plex clients are not very good so you have to make sure you use the right hardware and software.
Do you mean Levels 40 and 41 for H.264? Was not aware Roku having that issue, Google is giving me mixed results on that including a Plex post sating that is not an issue. That aside, there were some real basic things I tested, but I had other issue to with the Roku, such as no frame rate switching. I should have looked into it more before hand.
As I stated, I have Shield TV, so a client that can play practically everything, and that is what all my most recent experiences have been on. Same idiotic result from Plex though.I have no need for Plex now, SPMC with Emby back end is just brilliant, perfect meta data handling, no moronic unrequired CPU spikes. Takes me away from my other annoyance with Plex, and Emby's player, and DS Video, Archer and most, the simplification they seek, leads to a few more clicks to get to the item and actually make it play, even Kodi new standard skin is a little like that. It seems like a small thing, but coming from a WD TV running the Titan X skin, it was simple and direct to play something, I found Plex's interface a large step back. With SPMC (Kodi) I can install a million different themes and make system decisions to allow it to respond as required.
Plex is perfect for many peoples needs, and a reason I was happy to buy a lifetime Plex Pass when I had already pretty much stopped using, they do good work. But it's limitations are not for me, nor are it's desire to transcode at every given moment.Yes that is what I mean, it seems to be true from googling, there is always a reason for transcoding.
The shield and things like the Odroid can play everything, both can be used with Plex.
The problem is you say you are not using Plex due to limitations, but those limitations don't exist, you were just not using it correctly…
The problem is you say you are not using Plex due to limitations, but those limitations don't exist, you were just not using it correctly…
Yes it does have many restrictions that do not exist in Kodi. I get it, you're a huge fan of Plex, but don't kid yourself that it's perfect, it's ok to say it has flaws as I have with the the programs I use. It's a little rude to say I was not using correctly without knowing all of the info, and some of the info you did get was that plex devs could also not fix many issues I raised with them.
Not sure how it is now, but for ages on the Android TV platform, no HD audio passthrough or framerate switching. No framerate switching is just not acceptable. Outside of those two major technical issues that hopefully were fixed a while ago, Plex itself, just has many restrictions due its choice of design to attempt to be simple for everyone. No manner of corrections will ever change this, it's how Plex wants to be, and that is fine for many, but unacceptable for many others.
It's ok to say the any one thing is just not suitable for everyone.You completely misunderstand.
If you use the correct device and Plex software then you won't have those problems.
You have yet to name any actual playback restrictions that aren't easily solved.
In terms of capabilitys as a media player I agree Plex is very simplified and doesn't have addons, skins etc. That was never my point.
I have no issue with you liking Kodi as long as you are liking for the actual reasons you could like it over Plex, not the artificial ones.
fair enough. I'm running a synology box, so I just used DSVideo for portability/transcoding.
One thing worries me with Plex cloud is being a US company, if the copyright crew demanded access to your account/library, you might start having to prove you're the owner of the content.
Plex cloud is a bad idea in my opinion, why a company like Plex wants to put a marker on their head about what people are using the service for.. I don't know.
If you don't have the upload speed at home then your best bet is to buy a VPS for example from a hosting company and run Plex on that.
DS Video can make use of hardware transcoding if your particular NAS has it, Plex can’t make use of that. Never found out if that is a Synology restriction, or Plex’s devs inability.
Using DS Video also takes you outside of your player base, so no syncing with watched status, etc.. with Kodi, unless there is a plugin I am not aware of, never looked into it. Plex would offer transcoding while stating in your regular player. You can always look as PlexConnect or PleXBMC Kodi add on’s to see how they work together. There is a newish official Plex Kodi integration, but apparently it’s not much more than a Plex launcher.
Emby will give you transcoding and great Kodi interaction, Lifetime Emby is USD $99. Plex has a much bigger player and server install base, it works with far more hardware
if the copyright crew demanded access to your account/library
They would have to know you had pirated content to begin with. They would then have to link that to some sort of identifier for yourself (IP address (in some places), hardware identifiers, personal details etc). They then have to link that identifier to your Plex account.
Trust me, Plex isn't about to get subpoenaed any time soon. You're safe.
After trying Plex, Emby and Kodi I found that I get the best functionality using Kodi with the PlexKodiConnect plugin. You set up a Plex server (in my case an always on Nvidia Shield), and the PlexKodiConnect addon syncs the metadata from this Plex server.
I've found Plex generally downloads better banners, posters e.t.c than the native Kodi scraper, and it's much easier to change items like movies that display incorrect information through logging onto the Plex site.
Also FYI for everyone, Plex has an official kodi addon if you are a plex pass user. I hear it works really well.
I've heard that too, but as far as I'm aware to use it you need to use a skin that plex have designed (which makes Kodi look the same as running the Plex app directly). The benefit of PlexKodiConnect is that you can still use the skins you're used to, while getting the benefit of Plex handling all the backend data.
The official Plex add on is a sham, it's not much more than a Plex launcher, there really is no need for it all, it doesn't bring anything to Kodi, it's just Plex, so you may as well use Plex.
I haven't used it but as long as it runs the media through kodi that is what you want, it bypasses all codec and device limitations if you have the hardware for it.
And a plex launcher is what you want, you want the database live, there are lots of bugs with plexkodiconnect because it has to do database syncing, the developer even admits this because of plex limitations.
pvr looked interesting, but its US based and needs hardware & an antenna.
You can buy a HDHomerun pvr here. No just US based
I moved from Kodi to Plex mainly for streaming and sharing
I love Plex but most users will only ever need the free version
Love my plex pass… If nothing else to support the developers. Constant software updates and works on every device is the house (except the toaster… no band 28 haha) without any problems.
If I had reasonable upload speeds I agree and it really is a great product. Not being able to stream remotely though sort of defeats the need to pay.
I find plex a nicer interface than kodi - there isnt really much this does (other than having support on xbox / playstation etc) that kodi doesnt.
You can host your server elsewhere still.
Still need to get all the content onto it..
@MADBONE89: pretty damn close to my exact setup! (of course the seedbox is grabbing legit copys from the itunes store)
some of the versions that play on other devices say the samsung TV app, is writen by other people so they wont get the cash ;-)
I like mine too, and bought it for amazon cloud backup/streaming, and then they announced they were dropping that feature. Bummer.
Otherwise, honestly for me it's not much of a step up from standard freebie. Still, I've used Plex for years for free so not feeling too bad about rewarding a great product.
i dont need any of the features in the life time thing, and id be willing to contribute if it was like the last deal, Plex Lifetime Pass USD $74.99/~AUD $100 (Usually USD $149.99)
Are you going to write the same comment every time the price goes up? Support good software instead.
More like support software that breaks things and introduces bugs in every new release.
Also supporting a company that instead of focusing on what its customers want they go for big crazy things that are not a good idea.
gona have to wait and see
willing to contribute if it was like the last deal
If you are willing to contribute than why didn't you grab it last time?!
Your comment came across like a fart in the wind
My server stopped working after a thunder storm and it's driving me crazy trying to fix it :(
Yes I know surge protector.
But I've gotten FreeNAS to load back up, it just can't see my HDD's now. Anyone got any tips since you're reading this :) (aside from get a surge protector)
storms don't normally damage anything besides PSU's and maybe overly sensitive motherboards.
Check your BIOS or connect the drives to another computer.
I answered below but I did check the BIOS and it can only see the flash drive containing the OS. Unfortunately don't have another desktop PC to test the drive on at home, may need to bring them to work. Any other ideas?
Thanks for your help!
Have you got a laptop? Easiest bet is probably a USB to SATA controller. You can buy a standalone one for ~$30, or use one from an external drive case.
Hard drive docks are very handy and can be picked up cheaply now days
Given one drive is new, it couldn't have been damaged by the storm. Could be the motherboard SATA controller (or PSU issue though unlikely). Not familiar with the HP's but if they have multiple controllers, maybe try different ports.
Makes it a little hard to test without any other gear.
Is there any way to test the controller? I've got 4 x HDD ports and AFAIK none of them are working.
Thanks for any help!
UPS, not surge protector ;)
Are the drives visible in the BIOS? If they are have you tried to import your pools again?
Thanks for the tip.
I did check the BIOS the other night and it's only recognising the flash drive containing the OS. I have 2 HDD's connected to it (I pre outage and one new one) so I'm still trying to figure out if the connection has a fault. I did try importing but it doesn't see either.
I'm out of ideas but don't really want to take it to a shop because I'm stubborn. It's a HP Microserver.
The obvious answer is that the drives are dead. I had a power board pop last month and took out the drive in my PVR. Everything else, including the PVR were fine.
Beg/borrow/buy an external drive case and test the drives independently.
Sorry for your loss.
Are you saying the power board took out your drive or was it a storm?
It was the power board.
My poorly made point should have been - if everything is working except the drives, the drives are most likely dead.
Yes that was also obviously my first thought. But I have since purchased a new HDD to test this theory and that doesn't show either. Originally the server wouldn't boot at all, but I managed to re-flash the system BIOS.
I'm getting no errors from the server itself which is the most frustrating part.
What I need is a decent server that runs Plex so my PC doesn't always have to be on.
Look into a Synology NAS, can't recommend it enough.
+1 Synology user as well.
Though if you want transcoding with plex you need one of the higher spec models
Even with a higher spec model you can forget about x265, 10bit or 4k transcoding from what I've seen.
Yeah if you want high quality reliable transcoding you will most likely be fighting an up hill battle doing it on the nas.
I have my server seperate running on an i7 3770 and it stays on every day of the year, from what I've worked out that costs me less than $100 a year to run.
I use Xpenology on a i3-6100 build for my Plex server. Works a charm!
I've been using Plex for prob around 6-7 years, had PlexPass for a few years (cause I love their software, need to support even if I don't use all the extra features).
@samfisher5986: Agreed! I have an ESXi server running VM's of Firewall (pfSense)/ UniFi / NMS server and have decided to run a VM dedicated to plex server for this very reason. My 12 Bay synology is purely storage now apart from Couch Potato, trasmission and a few other apps…
I have 20 hard drives running 24/7
For someone that has that many drives you should understand they aren't spinning 24/7. They sit idle most of the time
Ditch PooPotato for Radarr you won't regret it
There is also Watcher but haven't tested it enough because of how well supported Radarr is
Thats a very silly thing to say.
They do spin 24/7, for example
Hard Disk Model ID : ST6000VN0021-1ZA17Z
Total Size : 5723166 MB
Power On Time : 202 days, 21 hours
Start/Stop Count: 4Thats four times it has spun down/up in its entire lifetime, and that was when the server was shutdown by me.
There's no point to have aggressive power savings set on a 24/7 server, more wear and tear on the hard drive and a big delay when accessing the drives.
How do you know when a video will be transcoded versus being played directly?
If the player is not powerful enough or doesn't have the ability to play a certain codec, it will ask for the video to be transcoded.
Nearly all phones and consoles will transcode, among other things.
"Is Radarr considered good enough to use yet?"
Honestly, not yet. It's very very close though. Just a few more weeks of development.
You can install it though and have it auto-update so you'll be ready when it is.
20HDDs… wow how much storage do you have?
I've got 4 4TB HDDs in my nas giving 12TB of usable storage and another 2 x 2TB drive in the server, so 16TB total for me.
@brad1601: that'd be closer to 11TB of usable space, than 12, once raided and depending on overheads etc…
Yeah you are right, I wasn't really being precise, just meaning I had 3/4 of the 4TB drives as usable space due to the Raid configuration.
I have about 45TB of storage.
No RAID or local backups, all uploaded to the cloud for backup purposes, Amazon Cloud Storage and Crashplan.
Yeah good points raised. I'll admit when I'm wrong. Just don't bring it up to often ;)
@samfisher5986: other option is to get a reasonable Synology NAS model that suits your storage need, then run Plex on a NUC that has an i3 or above processor. You would just configure plex the location of your media files. This would work out significally cheaper than buying one of the Synology devices with an i3 processor.
I built mine just out of off the shelf PC parts and a great HTPC case. 8 HDDs, low power CPU, 4GB ram, 450W PSU, simples.
The PC without HDDs would've cost me a total of $450 - $500. Then add the cost of 8 HDDs (ranging from 6tb to 8tb).
IMO the NAS setups are overkill for the average home user / too stupid / too complicated.
IMO the NAS setups are overkill for the average home user / too stupid / too complicated
I would tend to agree you there. I have well above PC knowledge but have definitely gotten lost when trying to do certain things on my unRAID server. There is great community support but every response is written back with assumed knowledge
In my experience it's just not worth the hassle. And yes like you said the community is great, but they're also hobbyists and they think having a 128GB RAM 6 CPU server is acceptable for a home user.
Most home users just need a basic low power windows pc and say 10TB of space.
The main issue with that is most home users use Chromecast, Mobile Apps, plex web player and other things that transcode everything which generally means they will need more CPU power.
If everyone ran OpenPHT at home and plexkodiconnect on their phones… you would never need to transcode!
@samfisher5986: official PLEX app, be it official for KODI or official for PS4, which is how i do it, is best.
Except for when you are away from home watching a 1080P "home video" and don't wanna transmit 12GB over you mobile hotspot, transcoding comes in handy then too.
The official plex app will transcode in many situations though except for maybe PMP on PC.
Source: I have 10 users who connect to my plex server who use various different devices and apps.
Of course, I use 480p on my phone personally. Transcoding like that is good because its easy on the CPU and bandwidth.
The issue is when you have a 12GB 1080p video and the PS4 Plex app wants it transcoded to a 12GB 1080p video in mp4 container with AC3 audio. What a waste.
Anything can trancode, its the type of CPU that determines what you can transcode and how many streams.
For example you 100% can't transcode HEVC/4k, but there are other things you can't do as well.
Whats important is what your requirements are.
I have an Nvidia Shield set up on one of my TV's, and a cheap QNAP NAS. Plays anything you through at it (including HEVC 10 bit content), and it's powerful enough for Plex to transcode while watching a movie locally. Another bonus is that you can use the Shield as a chromecast device, and stream your PC games to it :) .
I use a 10 year old linux server for myself, and I use a 2010 macbook pro for my friends to stream from. Both work pretty well.
I got one of these last year, running great. They actually screwed up and offered a different server as compensation for not being able to supply the deal one. So for $9 a month it is: 1 x E3 1270 V2, 2 x 1TB HDD, 16GB Ram, Unmetered shared gigabit uplink (More or less full speed all the time). If I come across anything similar in the future, I'll share it in the forums again.
Mounted Amazon Cloud Drive on there, working fine with minimal buffering.
Sorry for noob qustion.
But how does this work?
Do I upload videos mp4s and can access them anywhere or what?No you store you media locally somewhere. Eg PC or server
You then have software running on that machine call Plex Media Server
You can then stream that media multiple devices generally using either Plex Media Player or an app. It is also possible to play via a webpage
That is just 1 of many things it can do. Maybe check out a few YouTube vids for more details and features
I knew the stuff already but really appreciate you taking the time out to explain it to the person above in simple terms instead of leaving some snarky comment.
I've definitely have been guilty of doing that in the past. If they asked "what is Plex" it would have probably triggered my jerk side. However, they obviously took the time to understand a little about Plex. Sometimes we forget the OZB is made up of all sorts of people, all with different knowledge and experience.
While I like OZB for the funnies, I mostly love it's helpfulness. Plenty of people have helped me along and feels good to give back. It's also great to get good feedback. So thank you for that
Plex. Amazing. I purchased it a year ago to support the amazing work they do.
It's only a matter of time till they get purchased though. Software this good is sure to get gobbled up by Amazon or Google or apple etc etc
I doubt it, I think a lot of big companies want to avoid it because 99% of their customer base use it for pirated content.
auto personal photo/video sync from ur mobile devices/other to ur PLEX NAS…. amazing thing this is, kicks in when 1. ac charge is on and 2. ur in WIFI range. really smart. saved my arse with 5+ portable devices at home, backing up all personal content.
worth price of admission alone!!!!
Thanks OP!! The other nice thing about Plex is they credit your current subscription (pro rata) against the lifetime membership bill so mine was only US$87 to upgrade :-)
Got the lifetime Pass when Plex offered me half-price subscription last Christmas. I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with the video sync feature because it does not always work. The worst part is when it fails to sync certian media files to your mobile devices("This media was unable to be analyzed"), you are stuck there and have no ways to resync the same media. Nevertheless, I purchased the Pass mainly to support Plex so it was still money well spent.
Cheers, purchased lifetime. Have been a long time xbmc/kodi user. But moved to free Plex a good while ago.
There comes a time in your life when you just want simplicity and reliability, and Plex is head and shoulders above the tinkerers delight that is Kodi. And the accessibility from any device is simply marvellous.
Never tried Kodi but a big fan of Plex- got the lifetime a while ago and well worth it.
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Apart from sync'ing video to your toys (which i can already do), is there anything else that this does that kodi doesn't?
The pvr looked interesting, but its US based and needs hardware & an antenna.