Who Here Uses Plex ?
Discussion
I've tried Plex now on three occasions, and on each occasion it has failed to deliver, or work correctly.
First instance; Linux machine used to store my media on (movies, tv shows, etc) - Plex worked occasionally but usually failed to access the hard disk most of the media was played on. Disk permissions on Linux have to be specific to allow access, but Plex would co-operate and access the library maybe 50% of the time, and fail the remaining 50%. So I junked Plex and replaced it with Kodi.
Second instance; NVidia Shield TV - Plex could not access the NAS connected to the Shield, even though any other video/media player I tried could ! So Plex found itself disabled and removed from the menu.
Third instance; NVidia Shield TV - This time the new Plex Media Server app specifically developed to turn the Shield into a dedicated home media server. Error screens after signing in saying it couldn't access the server (erm, hello - the first step signing in should be setting it up as a server and pointing it towards the media libraries etc) Eventually on the third attempt it let me in, and then I set the Shield up as a server from the web app (what was wrong with having the set-up built into the Shield app menus itself ? what ever happened to a bit of logical thinking ?).
Sit back and watch it scanning the media folders it was pointed at on the NAS, and stored locally on the Shield on internal storage. It takes an age, so I leave both the Shield app and the web app open as I do some reading.
One hour later it is still scanning movies and tv shows, except it is (to me) slow to actually Play the movie when you select it - it seems to pause/buffer as it loads the movie. Bearable, but not impressed...
And then the TV shows, it failed to catalog any of our tv shows -- nothing ! It took the 8 Harry Potter movies from the Movies folder and dropped them into the TV Shows category. It failed to catalog any of the other 20+ TV shows. But it pulled in details of a few episodes seemingly at random and allocated them to two TV shows from the 90s I was aware of but never even watched when they were on TV in the 90s ! The files are totally unrelated, and the filenames are not even close so as to give it the benefit of the doubt.
To top it all off, I have some movies in more than one format, some in MKV and MP4, and some in FLV and MP4. The MP4s sit in the main movies folder, and the other files sit in archived folders labelled MKVs and FLVs respectively. It created two TV shows - one called MKVs, the other FLVs, and dumped random movies and video files into each category !
Bye, bye Plex - for the third time ! Check the app's storage and discovered that it now has 700MB of storage taken up, just by indexing the media folders and making a hash of it !!!!!!
Wipe the cache, wipe it's allocated storage/files, uninstall updates, and Disable the app.
Thank you and good riddance...
Back to Archos Video Player which we'd previously been using, which successfully catalogs every movie and tv show we throw at it, and whose user interface on the Shield is effectively a carbon copy of Plex - except it works. And for what its worth AVP has only used 102MB of storage so far (incl. its Cache) with a full catalogue of all our shows/movies (which it catalogued with full details of everything in maybe 5 minutes when I set it up maybe two months ago.
What gives ? Plex is highly lauded, hence why I've repeatedly tried it and given it a chance, but it has fallen flat on its face each and every time now!
There must be quite a few on here using it given it's popularity ?
I always prefer solutions that just work-out-of-the-box with minimum set-up and manual intervention - which Plex is supposedly reputed to offer, but my experiences of it would indicate it's a POS which still needs lots of further development.
Why have my experiences been so different to perceived 'internet wisdom'.
First instance; Linux machine used to store my media on (movies, tv shows, etc) - Plex worked occasionally but usually failed to access the hard disk most of the media was played on. Disk permissions on Linux have to be specific to allow access, but Plex would co-operate and access the library maybe 50% of the time, and fail the remaining 50%. So I junked Plex and replaced it with Kodi.
Second instance; NVidia Shield TV - Plex could not access the NAS connected to the Shield, even though any other video/media player I tried could ! So Plex found itself disabled and removed from the menu.
Third instance; NVidia Shield TV - This time the new Plex Media Server app specifically developed to turn the Shield into a dedicated home media server. Error screens after signing in saying it couldn't access the server (erm, hello - the first step signing in should be setting it up as a server and pointing it towards the media libraries etc) Eventually on the third attempt it let me in, and then I set the Shield up as a server from the web app (what was wrong with having the set-up built into the Shield app menus itself ? what ever happened to a bit of logical thinking ?).
Sit back and watch it scanning the media folders it was pointed at on the NAS, and stored locally on the Shield on internal storage. It takes an age, so I leave both the Shield app and the web app open as I do some reading.
One hour later it is still scanning movies and tv shows, except it is (to me) slow to actually Play the movie when you select it - it seems to pause/buffer as it loads the movie. Bearable, but not impressed...
And then the TV shows, it failed to catalog any of our tv shows -- nothing ! It took the 8 Harry Potter movies from the Movies folder and dropped them into the TV Shows category. It failed to catalog any of the other 20+ TV shows. But it pulled in details of a few episodes seemingly at random and allocated them to two TV shows from the 90s I was aware of but never even watched when they were on TV in the 90s ! The files are totally unrelated, and the filenames are not even close so as to give it the benefit of the doubt.
To top it all off, I have some movies in more than one format, some in MKV and MP4, and some in FLV and MP4. The MP4s sit in the main movies folder, and the other files sit in archived folders labelled MKVs and FLVs respectively. It created two TV shows - one called MKVs, the other FLVs, and dumped random movies and video files into each category !
Bye, bye Plex - for the third time ! Check the app's storage and discovered that it now has 700MB of storage taken up, just by indexing the media folders and making a hash of it !!!!!!
Wipe the cache, wipe it's allocated storage/files, uninstall updates, and Disable the app.
Thank you and good riddance...
Back to Archos Video Player which we'd previously been using, which successfully catalogs every movie and tv show we throw at it, and whose user interface on the Shield is effectively a carbon copy of Plex - except it works. And for what its worth AVP has only used 102MB of storage so far (incl. its Cache) with a full catalogue of all our shows/movies (which it catalogued with full details of everything in maybe 5 minutes when I set it up maybe two months ago.
What gives ? Plex is highly lauded, hence why I've repeatedly tried it and given it a chance, but it has fallen flat on its face each and every time now!
There must be quite a few on here using it given it's popularity ?
I always prefer solutions that just work-out-of-the-box with minimum set-up and manual intervention - which Plex is supposedly reputed to offer, but my experiences of it would indicate it's a POS which still needs lots of further development.
Why have my experiences been so different to perceived 'internet wisdom'.
Feedback here would be the same as the typical internet consensus then ! I know now that for the use we give it I won't be touching Plex again for a long, long, time. We don't actually use the server functionality per se from anywhere remotely. But on a rare occasion where that need might arise I've our laptops and phones set to access the NAS through it's native app anyway, so that'll suffice as it's only been used to access one file remotely in the last six months.
Our principal need is an efficient cataloguer and player with a nice, clean user interface, and quick playback of the chosen material. So essentially a simple-and-quick-to-use set-top box rather than a full-blown server is what fits our needs.
I know there is no issue with file-naming conventions, as we used Videostream previously. The media sat on a Linux machine in another room and was accessed through the Videostream app on any Android device to hand and played back through a Chromecast on the TV.
Since getting the Shield a few months back (and Plex let me down for the second time) we've been using Archos Media Player with the Shield remote or a remote app on our phones.
Both Videostream and AVP read the media folders and files correctly, and AVP has catalogued everything correctly.
Before that (3 years ago), it was Kodi (or XBMC as it was at the time) on the same Linux laptop hooked up to a tv for playback. XBMC also read the catalogues correctly back then.
The filenames are fairly standard e.g. The Americans S01E01.mp4 etc
The directory structure is equally simplistic;
Movies
Music
Photos
TV Progs
Plex just seems to have fallen on its face so I'm out for another few years for now.
Our principal need is an efficient cataloguer and player with a nice, clean user interface, and quick playback of the chosen material. So essentially a simple-and-quick-to-use set-top box rather than a full-blown server is what fits our needs.
I know there is no issue with file-naming conventions, as we used Videostream previously. The media sat on a Linux machine in another room and was accessed through the Videostream app on any Android device to hand and played back through a Chromecast on the TV.
Since getting the Shield a few months back (and Plex let me down for the second time) we've been using Archos Media Player with the Shield remote or a remote app on our phones.
Both Videostream and AVP read the media folders and files correctly, and AVP has catalogued everything correctly.
Before that (3 years ago), it was Kodi (or XBMC as it was at the time) on the same Linux laptop hooked up to a tv for playback. XBMC also read the catalogues correctly back then.
The filenames are fairly standard e.g. The Americans S01E01.mp4 etc
The directory structure is equally simplistic;
Movies
Music
Photos
TV Progs
Plex just seems to have fallen on its face so I'm out for another few years for now.
scottri said:
I love plex, it worked perfectly on my NAS/Server. I got the nvidia shield yesterday so i am letting that be the server and client as its more powerful. It took about 10 mins to set up and i was more than happy configuring it via laptop as it would have taken a lot longer using the remote on the shield. It did take a while to rebuild the database but that's not surprising as i have 3TB of files for it to crunch through and its all stored on the NAS. Its worked perfectly for me so far on the shield.
Always interested to hear how it goes for you. Keep us updated on how it performs over time, if you don't mind ! Thanks. tankplanker said:
Who else is using download managers? I'm using Sonarr, get_iplayer, and couchpotato to manage everything for me, I just add a program and off it goes, removes all the pain of finding downloads, renaming and moving files myself.
It was a lot more work to setup but I find it much more powerful and a lot less hassle once it was all working.
I was waiting until I had a few satisfied weeks completed before I posted. This might help those using any kind of Android TV device (with storage).It was a lot more work to setup but I find it much more powerful and a lot less hassle once it was all working.
I use the Flud torrent app, and add a specific RSS for any series I follow. It also moves the download to a folder you enter in the settings menu, so you can set it to transfer the download to your media location, or wherever.
For me it means we can just walk in home, launch AVP and the most recent files are at the top of the screen waiting to be viewed.
It's also clever enough to have placed them in the relevant tv series episodes, so it builds up a full series over time.
Quite happy with it now, it's had a few weeks of testing and behaves perfectly.
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