No idea Plex | Mezzmo | Chromecasts and all that jazz

[Scouse]

OK. So I've updated my opinion on Plex.

It's pretty, reasonably useable (though the lack of mouse support is simply unforgiveable - obvious practical design over theoretical aims please). But then I thought WTF - I could buy it - I like flinging music from my phone to my laptop.

Then I found out they want £3.99 a month. A month. Or £120 to buy it outright!

Well fuck that for prettier but slower access ot my movies and music.

 

[Scouse]

@soze - or anyone - is there a Kodi setup that gives similar functionality to plex?

i.e. the ability to pick songs / vids on your phone and fling them to another device. < Pretty much this is all I'm after.

 

[caLLous]

You can use the PleXBMC addon to make Kodi act more like Plex (and it connects Kodi to a Plex Server) but afaik, because Kodi doesn't do client/server out of the box, you can't do the whole casting bit with it.

What do you need the Plex Pass for? I'm getting by just fine without it (I don't use it for music at all though so there might be something in there that you need to throw money at them for).

 

[Trem]

What about something like All Cast for Android things?

 

[MYstIC G]

OK. So I've updated my opinion on Plex.

It's pretty, reasonably useable (though the lack of mouse support is simply unforgiveable - obvious practical design over theoretical aims please). But then I thought WTF - I could buy it - I like flinging music from my phone to my laptop.

Then I found out they want £3.99 a month. A month. Or £120 to buy it outright!

Well fuck that for prettier but slower access ot my movies and music.

You might try emby, it's similar to plex but because it's new and unproven the full cost subscription is less at $90.

 

[Scouse]

Thanks but balls to that. If it's more than a ten or fifteen quid it's simply not worth it

I'll check plex again - it was giving me gyp and asking for subs when twatting a bit of music around the other night, but looking at their site it doesn't say that's premium usage. If it is I'll just go back to clicking on things again. It's faster after all

 

[caLLous]

Yep the way it works for video is, you have to purchase the Plex Android app (which is a one off payment of a couple of quid), then you can browse the media libraries on whatever server it can find and then, it either plays it on the phone with the app installed or, if it can see another client on the network, it can cast it to that. Presumably that's how it works for music as well.

 

[Scouse]

Yep the way it works for video is, you have to purchase the Plex Android app (which is a one off payment of a couple of quid), then you can browse the media libraries on whatever server it can find and then, it either plays it on the phone with the app installed or, if it can see another client on the network, it can cast it to that. Presumably that's how it works for music as well.

Dunno if it's changed but the android app is free (well, it was for me) and now they want £3.99 / month for that sorta functionality. :\

 

[caLLous]

It seems they've changed the way you do things. It was a couple of years ago but I'm sure I had to pay before downloading it from the Play store. Now though, you seem to be able to download the app for free and then you have to "activate" it before you get full functionality. One of the ways to do this is with a Plex Pass but another is a one-off payment.

 

[Fweddy]

@soze - or anyone - is there a Kodi setup that gives similar functionality to plex?

i.e. the ability to pick songs / vids on your phone and fling them to another device. < Pretty much this is all I'm after.

Kore is the official Kodi Android app/remote. As far as I know it won't play anything itself, it just detects and controls any running instances of Kodi on the same wifi network as your phone so if you had Kodi running on your media PC and the music was in your Kodi library then that will let you browse and play it no bother. Is that what you're after?

 

[soze]

@soze - or anyone - is there a Kodi setup that gives similar functionality to plex?

i.e. the ability to pick songs / vids on your phone and fling them to another device. < Pretty much this is all I'm after.

Yes I have never done a lot with it on Android but Apps like XBMC Commander on iOS gives you the option to cast to XBMC and also lets you queue films ect that are in your library to play on your TV.

 

[Scouse]

Is that what you're after?

Sounds perfect if I can do one thing - select a track that's stored on my PC upstairs, using my phone as the control device, then fling it to my laptop downstairs to play.

?

 

[soze]

Sounds perfect if I can do one thing - select a track that's stored on my PC upstairs, using my phone as the control device, then fling it to my laptop downstairs to play.

?

Yes, you add your music on the upstairs PC to the Library on your Laptop using Windows shares. Then You add the Laptop to your Remote and you can then see any media on that Player and you can play it from there. Plex is smoother at this as you maintain one library and all your players access that. Kodi you either have to mess around with SQL databases for your Library and keep a common source file or you have a different Library for each player.

 

[Scouse]

It seems they've changed the way you do things. It was a couple of years ago but I'm sure I had to pay before downloading it from the Play store. Now though, you seem to be able to download the app for free and then you have to "activate" it before you get full functionality.

Fuck it. I did that. £3.30.

How they think £4/month is gonna fly I don't know :\

We'll see how that works then


Edit: I just realised how much file maintenance I've got to do on my hard drives. It's a whacking great job

 

[caLLous]

Yeah I just don't do anything that would justify outlaying that sort of money on a regular basis. I mean, it's not much money, but for what? The only thing that could convince me would be early access to the apps, they've just released a replacement for Plex Home Theater called Plex Media Player which is a complete rewrite and is supposed to be much better but it is only available to subscribers so I will wait thanks. Also a proper OpenELEC + Plex solution (there's only a bodged together unofficial version so far). I get that they've gone down the closed-source commercial route and they need to monetise the product but there's nothing there for me.

re: file maintenance: if it's movies and TV shows then FileBot is your friend. Absolute godsend for me, my media was a bit chaotic but it's all in one mahoosive place now and fully organised thanks to this wonderful program.

 

[SilverHood]

Anyone used Amazon Fire Stick, or Roku? Or is that a yankee only thing? My blue ray player stopped being able to connect to the internet recently and I need a new way of getting Netflix and Amazon prime onto my TV in the living room.

 

[DaGaffer]

Anyone used Amazon Fire Stick, or Roku? Or is that a yankee only thing? My blue ray player stopped being able to connect to the internet recently and I need a new way of getting Netflix and Amazon prime onto my TV in the living room.

I have a Roku 3 for Netflix. Its not that useful for anything else in Ireland, but then neither is any other streamer. In theory I can use it for Plex as well but it has shit file support so MKVs don't work.

 

[TdC]

Kodi is better but not as non-techie friendly (eg for everyone else in the house) as I'd like.

you let others touch your home entertainment infrastructure?

 

[Trem]

Anyone used Amazon Fire Stick, or Roku? Or is that a yankee only thing? My blue ray player stopped being able to connect to the internet recently and I need a new way of getting Netflix and Amazon prime onto my TV in the living room.

https://forums.freddyshouse.com/threads/amazon-fire-tv-stick.251854/

Brilliant little thing and even better if you chuck Kodi and maybe Genesis and Phoenix on it.

 

[Vae]

Anyone used Amazon Fire Stick, or Roku? Or is that a yankee only thing? My blue ray player stopped being able to connect to the internet recently and I need a new way of getting Netflix and Amazon prime onto my TV in the living room.

I use a Fire TV with Plex, Amazon prime, iPlayer, 5 player.
I also got a Fire TV stick for my parents and set it up with Kodi as they don't have a Plex server. Worked so much smoother than 'The Little Black Box' I had them running Kodi on before. The only problem is that you have to do a bit of a hack to get Kodi running on it as there is no native app.

 

[Poag]

My folks have a Fire TV Stick. If you are using shared media libs in plex as your primary usage i would not recommend it.

It appears to be an old version of plex where if its not your media lib it doesn't appear on the 'On Deck' page, instead you have to navigate down through social and such. Sadly the Samsung SmartTV app is actually better in that regard as it shows stuff theya re watching from shared libs as on deck.

its not 'bad' its just annoying and like 10 extra clicks to get to the media, followed by finding the right TV show and then the right episode.

 

[Trem]

I use a Fire TV with Plex, Amazon prime, iPlayer, 5 player.
I also got a Fire TV stick for my parents and set it up with Kodi as they don't have a Plex server. Worked so much smoother than 'The Little Black Box' I had them running Kodi on before. The only problem is that you have to do a bit of a hack to get Kodi running on it as there is no native app.

Do the Llama thing and have Kodi on your home screen as a launtionable app as well so you don't have to go through the installed apps bollocks, Ikono trick etc. I do have to say it would be perfect if it was wired. If you can grab one for £19 in the offer they do it is a no brainer but at £34 it is a tough choice between those and the MXQ box which I can get off a guy fully set up for £35. I got one for the boy and it is very impressive for the money. But the sweetness of the stick is the mobility of it.

 

[Vae]

Do the Llama thing and have Kodi on your home screen as a launtionable app as well so you don't have to go through the installed apps bollocks, Ikono trick etc. I do have to say it would be perfect if it was wired. If you can grab one for £19 in the offer they do it is a no brainer but at £34 it is a tough choice between those and the MXQ box which I can get off a guy fully set up for £35. I got one for the boy and it is very impressive for the money. But the sweetness of the stick is the mobility of it.

That's exactly what I did Trem. Reasonably straight forward but still a fuss compared to a native app. The controls on the Fire TV box/stick are very user friendly so I had no hesitation recommending it to my parents to use.

 

[soze]

I use a Fire TV with Plex, Amazon prime, iPlayer, 5 player.

Does Plex work on it now? I tried this but the media would not resume playback. It would crash on any file I had half watched so I had to start from the beginning and scroll forward.

 

[Trem]

Does Plex work on it now? I tried this but the media would not resume playback. It would crash on any file I had half watched so I had to start from the beginning and scroll forward.

Isn't that an NFS thing server side?

Edit - To resume playback isn't NFS required for certain clients I meant.

 

[Tom]

Does anyone else miss the days when you bought a telly with four buttons on the front, wired a mains plug on it (you always had to do that), plugged it into the aerial socket, then spent 20 minutes tuning each channel in? When you had to get up off the couch to change the channel or volume?

 

[caLLous]

Nope.

 

[DaGaffer]

Nope

 

[soze]

Isn't that an NFS thing server side?

Edit - To resume playback isn't NFS required for certain clients I meant.

It might be but it works OK on the XBOne and the NowTV. When I had the problem it was on the Plex Forums as other people had the same issue and no one had an answer then.

 

[Moriath]

Does anyone else miss the days when you bought a telly with four buttons on the front, wired a mains plug on it (you always had to do that), plugged it into the aerial socket, then spent 20 minutes tuning each channel in? When you had to get up off the couch to change the channel or volume?

And VCR without a remote that could only record one station at a time and the reason you had kids was to send them to fast forward the tape during the ad breaks