Plex How to Match Video Again
Our Verdict
A feature-rich, easy-to-use media director that works on just about any platform. If you're simply in it for the gratuitous streaming selection, though, Plex tin can't mensurate up to its subscription rivals.
For
- Intuitive navigation
- Vast pic and Goggle box show database
- If it'southward a video file, Plex can play it
Confronting
- Ad-supported streaming is only okay
- Could be more customizable
- Personal library features seem less of import than Plex's content
TechRadar Verdict
A feature-rich, easy-to-use media manager that works on just about any platform. If yous're only in it for the free streaming choice, though, Plex can't mensurate up to its subscription rivals.
Pros
- +
Intuitive navigation
- +
Vast picture and TV bear witness database
- +
If it's a video file, Plex can play it
Cons
- -
Advert-supported streaming is only okay
- -
Could be more customizable
- -
Personal library features seem less important than Plex's content
The i-minute review
Plex is the solution to that mess of random DVD rips, movies, and TV shows you lot've accumulated for the final decade, now scattered beyond your computer and dusty external difficult drives. Unlike near streaming apps like Netflix or Disney Plus, Plex is primarily a personal media library tool, designed to wrangle your messy files into a slick interface that looks only as nice as the big streaming providers. It scans your files, pulls in metadata like the name, encompass art, genre, and description, and sorts and tags everything for you.
The simplest version of a Plex server is a convenient library you run and watch on a PC. But with a picayune more than setup, you lot can stream from your Plex server to your Boob tube in the living room, a games console, or even your smartphone when you're out of the house. You lot can share your media library with friends, create custom playlists, or utilize Plex as a DVR to tape live TV. And starting in 2020, Plex expanded beyond your personal media, with a option of free streaming movies and TV shows to check out (with ads, of class).
Plex does almost everything for gratuitous, but information technology also has a paid tier called Plex Laissez passer for some exclusive features, like downloading files to your telephone and getting admission to new updates sooner. Because Plex is so versatile, you lot'll need to wrap your head effectually everything it can do – and figure out exactly what you want to exercise with it – earlier you determine if Plex Pass is worth paying for.
- Head to the Plex website to find out more and sign up
Plex price and release date
Plex started in 2007 as a version of XBMC, a pop open source media player that was first built to run on the original Xbox. Plex eventually forked into its own project and is still like in many means to XBMC, which was renamed Kodi in 2014. Both are media library organisation and streaming tools first and foremost, but Plex has made a big push button in the last year to integrate its own content with ad-supported movie and Tv set streaming and a partnership with Tidal for music (which requires a separate subscription).
About people who utilise Plex probably don't need to pay anything for information technology, because much of its core functionality works perfectly well without Plex Pass. You can download the free app on merely about any platform you tin recollect of. Information technology's free on Windows, Mac, and Linux, every major streaming device, Xbox, and PlayStation (simply not the Nintendo Switch, unfortunately). Running your own Plex server is completely free, too. The mobile versions on iOS and Android are technically free to download, but y'all'll need to pay $5 to "unlock" them, or you lot're limited to watching simply one infinitesimal of video at a fourth dimension. Unless you're exclusively using Plex on your phone to rewatch Quibi shows, i minute probably isn't going to cut it.
Plex Pass, the premium option, can be purchased at a few different price tiers:
- $v/£iv/AU$vi.49 per calendar month
- $40/£32/AU$l per year
- $120/£95/AU$160 lifetime
Plex Pass includes premium versions of Plex'southward music and photograph library features, but the more significant perks are live Boob tube DVR support, mobile syncing (wirelessly downloading files to your phone), and hardware acceleration – the ability for your PC or other device hosting your Plex server to tap into its graphics processor'south power for more than efficient streaming.
1 important note: while paying the $5 to unlock the mobile versions of Plex doesn't grant you lot access to whatsoever of the advanced Plex Pass features, paying for Plex Laissez passer does unlock the mobile apps for as long as you're subscribed. Plex also occasionally offers a disbelieve on the lifetime Plex Laissez passer, if you're signed up for a costless account and receive emails.
This is why I use Plex. Afterward years of troubleshooting the best mode to play motion-picture show files on my TV and piddling with USB sticks and external HDDs and long-ass HDMI cables, I decided to build a Plex server to host all my media, making information technology attainable on any device in my home or when I'm traveling. Also, I spend a lot less time organizing files into folders than I used to, because once Plex scans your library, it doesn't matter how messy your file system is. The ii best things about Plex are how it organizes files for you lot, and how it and then helps you play them on different devices.
The setup process for Plex is wonderfully like shooting fish in a barrel. To utilise Plex, you need a server to manage your files and a client to play them. These can actually be the same device – a PC, for example, tin host a Plex server and so play your videos through a desktop app or spider web browser. You can also host a Plex server with tons of storage on a NAS or run a budget, low-power server on a Raspberry Pi. The Nvidia Shield Telly is another pick, a powerful streaming box that can serve every bit both server and client. Setting it up takes just a few minutes, including downloading Plex, creating a free account, and pointing it at where you keep your files.
Plex asks yous to ready up libraries like Movies, Television receiver, and Music, and it then matches the names of your files to vast databases of metadata. Depending on how you lot name your files, this process could feel like magic as yous spotter art and descriptions popular in for everything, or it could be a bit frustrating as Plex fails to observe a match for that .mp4 inexplicably named "Th3 PR35T1G3."
Yous can either rename files that Plex fails to match, or use Plex's interface to tell it what it'southward looking at. I've found wrong matches are rare, and Plex has been able to match even the most obscure movies in my drove with a bit of assist. Tv shows require a bit more organization, like being sorted into folders past season or following a clear nomenclature like "Lost S2E03." There are tools out at that place like Filebot that tin be helpful if your files are a real mess.
Over the years I've spent many hours ensuring Plex properly matches all of my files, but the payoff is a beautiful interface that's far more flexible than those files would be if I was but double-clicking them to play on my PC. You tin can sort your movies by played and unplayed, by director or actor or genre or year, by language or even resolution. Yous get to browse through cover fine art (which is customizable) instead of thumbnails, and that feel is the same on your Goggle box, phone, and laptop, with no worries near compatibility.
At that place is one downside to how Plex handles libraries: you can't mix and lucifer Television set shows and movies. I created a Comedy library to organize one-time stand-up specials alongside TV appearances, but you can only pull from either Telly or movie metadata, not both. I solution to this is to create custom playlists, which can pull from all of your libraries, merely it'd be squeamish if libraries were at their core more flexible.
When it comes to really playing files, though, Plex is incredibly flexible. This is why a Plex media server is so useful: the server will talk to your client app (say, on a Roku) to decide if the customer has the proper hardware, video codecs, and all that technical stuff required to play the file directly. If it can, Plex will only stream the file from your server to the customer, which requires barely any CPU power for the server.
If the device can't natively play the video, Plex will seamlessly transcode information technology instead, changing it to a file format the customer is okay with. It tin also change the quality for a weaker network connection, so if yous're on spotty wi-fi, it tin can automatically plow a super high bitrate Blu-ray rip into a more than manageable 720p stream.
Transcoding uses a lot more than CPU power, but it's the undercover sauce that makes Plex and so versatile. It's as well a not bad entry point into learning more nearly audio/video hardware and optimizing your abode theater setup, if yous similar to obsess over quality but still prefer the convenience of digital files over playing Blu-ray discs. Playing a movie in Plex can exist every bit simple as clicking play in Netflix, but it gives you a lot more than information to work with if you lot want it, and the power to choose a quality setting, likewise.
Plex will tell you when a video is being transcoded because your device doesn't support it, which is why I switched from a Roku to a Nvidia Shield Television receiver that can natively decode just about any video I throw at information technology. Plex's playback information is especially helpful for deducing whether HDR files are playing properly, something I've torn my pilus out troubleshooting with other streaming services.
Most of the fourth dimension, Plex but works – if y'all're the only person using your server, you probably don't accept to worry much nigh whether information technology's transcoding or straight playing, and if you're simply using it at dwelling, you probably won't have to do much, if whatsoever, fiddling with your domicile network to make sure it plays properly. If you're building a server you want to access abroad from home, or if you lot similar to share it with friends and family, that tin exist more than involved. You lot may have to go into your router and do some port forwarding to play Plex videos on your phone.
I run my server on Linux, and had to root around in user permissions and video drivers to get Plex to properly use hardware dispatch, tapping into my Intel i5-9600's GPU to help transcode video with Intel Quick Sync. Ultimately, this would only affair if the family unit members I share with all happened to be streaming at the same fourth dimension and overstressed my processor with multiple streams. But again, if you lot're doing something simpler, like running Plex on a Windows gaming PC, Plex can easily use an Nvidia graphics bill of fare for hardware acceleration without whatever circuitous setup. Plex actually scales to be as deep a hobbyist project as yous desire it to be.
Plex isn't the only option for running a home media server. Open-source Kodi (formerly XBMC) and Emby are popular alternatives. Media junkies could talk about which one you should use forever, and that choice volition largely come up down to what specific features or parts of the feel yous prioritize. Broadly, Kodi'due south more flexible considering it's an open source platform with a wealth of plugins – including a Plex plugin, and then you can actually run a Plex server through Kodi's interface. But at its most bones, Kodi is best on a single device; out of the box information technology doesn't utilise a client-server setup, so the device you're playing on will have to exercise all its own transcoding.
Emby is more like to Plex, and has a reputation for being more customizable and having more than responsive developers. But each have their strengths. Plex's easy installation process and interface are especially polished; some users consider Plex integrating Tidal and free ad-supported streaming channels a betrayal of its core purpose every bit a media library, while others call up of them every bit perks.
I don't apply them, but I'chiliad also not also worried that Plex has abandoned its cadre functionality – information technology launched a much-improved UI in 2019, and in 2020 added a Idiot box prove intro skipping feature and HDR to SDR tonemapping, which ways HDR videos won't look crappy and washed out on a non-HDR screen.
They're welcome features that bring Plex a step closer to the "don't recollect about it" simplicity of Netflix and other major streaming platforms. And its interface is arguably better than whatever of them.
Plex app pattern and UI
Plex debuted a new "unified" user interface in 2019, gradually getting all of its many apps onto the same pattern. Plex is congenital around a customizable sidebar where you tin can pin whichever libraries you want piece of cake access to (and hibernate the ones you don't, like Plex's ain streaming channels, in this reviewer's case.) The goal of this blueprint is to unite your own libraries, likewise as ones that friends or family might exist sharing with you, into a singular interface. So you could take Movies from your server pinned, and underneath it Movies from Uncle Bob'south server, besides. But you lot can also but do a search and see results from all the servers you have access to in one results list. It'southward easy and intuitive.
Plex's Home Screen and its Recommended tab for each of your libraries feels pretty like to other major streaming services. It has a handy Continue Watching row for stuff you lot paused partway through, On Deck for the next episodes of Telly shows you take in-progress, and rows for recently added media. This layout is customizable, too, then you can choose what you want and in what order. The Recommended tabs for your other libraries will automatically generate a few categories like "Top Rated Westerns," simply this is minimal and unfortunately tin't be customized to offer every bit much algorithmically driven advice as Netflix. Only for most users, that won't be a big deal – you'll spend more than time on the library tab, merely scrolling through your collection to see what you desire to lookout.
The sorting options hither are deep, and sorting by Unplayed and Critic Rating is incredibly useful (I really need to sentinel Charlie Chaplin's City Lights, i of these days), every bit is filtering to just '80s movies when you need to see some big hair. Outside of the weak recommendations, it's hands among the best streaming app interfaces effectually.
Plex every bit a streaming service
In May 2020, Plex added TV and movies from streaming service Crackle to its own library of free stuff, claiming it had "more individual movies than you can stream on Netflix." Equally with Netflix, Plex's library ebbs and flows based on however the deals betwixt giant entertainment companies work. As of early 2021, you can notice some great movies on in that location in the US (the library volition vary depending on your region): in just a few minutes of browsing nosotros plant Zodiac, Minority Written report, Boxing Royale, Set on the Block... odds are good in that location's something y'all'll desire to watch.
The TV pick seems to skew heavily towards sometime sitcoms and reality shows, but there are plenty of shows that pass the "something to put on the groundwork" bar.
Different the detailed playback details Plex gives you with your own files, it offers basically zilch for its complimentary streaming, other than noting when movies are in Hard disk drive. There's no 4K HDR hither, but hey, information technology'southward complimentary.
Use Plex if...
Don't use Plex if...
- Caput to the Plex website to find out more and sign up
- Our option of today'southward best streaming services
- Stream in safety with a streaming VPN
Source: https://www.techradar.com/au/reviews/plex
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