Maccast Members #169 - Plex

I have been loading more and more content into my iTunes Library using iVI Pro.
The main reason is that I want to be able to access the content from my iOS devices and my Apple TV.
I really like iVI Pro because it does a great job getting the metadata and does everything in one step.
Tech geeks I know who are really into this home theater stuff all seem to be big fans of Plex.
Plex is more open and available on many platforms, built into NAS devices, and even on set top boxes like the Roku and Chromecast.
There also is a way to get Plex to work with 2nd and 3rd gen Apple TV, so I thought I should at least give it a try.

What is Plex?

A home media server and playback system
Uses a centralized server running on your home network
- Access content with clients
- Server software can be run on OS X, Linux, Windows, and popular NAS systems like Synology, ReadyNAS, and Drobo
- Clients available for many platforms and systems, including OS X, iOS, Linux, windows, Android, consoles, and set top boxes.
Plex offers a collection of apps and services
- Plex Server
  - once installed there is a web interface for managing and configuring
- Plex App for accessing content from the server.
  - web browser
  - dedicated app, iOS, Android, Chromcast, etc.
  - Media Center app.
  - Also has DNLA support
  - PlexSync, lets you pull content from your sever to the app for offline viewing
- Plex Home Theater app
  - 10 foot interface
  - For Mac and Windows
  - Also a port for Raspberry PI
- Web Service
  - MyPlex
    - Sign up for a plex account
    - view and access content from the MyPlex website
    - helps apps remotely find your home Plex Server
  - PlexCloud
    - Let’s you set up syncing of Plex content with services like Dropbox, SkyDrive, Box.net, Bitcasa, etc.
    - Gives you access to content from the Plex app when your server isn’t available.
What are the advantages over iTunes?
- A more “open” system. You are not limited to iTunes for managing and syncing content.
- extreme metadata support
- You can set up your own, “iTunes in the Cloud” for your media.
- Supports movies, TV, music, and photos all in one place.
- can set up remote access to the server, so all content can be access, streamed, and synced from anywhere you have Internet access.
- sync’d content is transcoded
Plex Pass
- A premium service that lets you access some of the more advances web services and features
- Plex Sync, Plex Cloud, MultiUser Control
- Plex Pass costs $3.99/mo. or $29.99/yr. or $79.99/lifetime

Setting up Plex

You can run the Plex server on the Mac you are also using to use as a player
you might also want to dedicate a system to be the server. A good use of an older Mac
system requirements
- No transcoding, Intel Core 2 Duo processor 1.6 GHz or better and at least 1GB RAM
- Transcoding, Intel Core 2 Duo processor 2.4 GHz and at least 2GB RAM
- Transcoding is CPU intensive, so a faster CPU will give better performance and support more devices and connections simultaneously.
Download the server app and install it on your Mac.
Prepare your media files
- Unlike iTunes, Plex uses folder structure and file names for it’s organization
- Files and folders can also be placed in many different locations and all brought into the Plex system
- you’ll organize the files in Plex into “Libraries”, but a library can point to many folders and files.
- Plex will try to figure out the metadata associated with a file by it’s name, so a good naming structure is advised
  - it’s recommended that you use the movie name, with underscores, and the year, in parentheses, plus the file extension as a default naming structure. i.e. Movie_Name (release year).ext
  - You can also place movies in folders, though it’s not required. This let’s you add posters, subtitle files, etc. for the movie and to keep them all together.
    - Plex will recognize the extra files and use them, but again they aren’t required.
  - TV Shows should include season and episode in the name, i.e. “Dexter s01e01.mp4”.
    - TV show should also be in a Show/Season/Episodes.mp4 folder structure.
- Run and configure the server
  - once you launch the server it will place a Plex icon in your menu bar
  - from there you select and launch the “Media Manager” which runs as a web app.
    - connects to http://localhost:32400/web, locally
  - Basically Plex sets up a local web server and manages your files from there
    - for the technically inclined to me it seems like it uses a combination of Python, SQLite, and web technologies.
    - the local server typically runs in port 32400, of course you can change it.
  - you can also set up a MyPlex account and get a hosted version of your library, not the files themselves, to access from everywhere
    - MyPlex also lets you set up multiple accounts to share a Plex Library
    - the multiple account feature requires a Plex Pass subscription.
  - At the first launch you’ll get a setup wizard
    - walks you through the process of setting up Libraries
    - a library is set up by media type, Movie, TV Show, Home Videos, Music, Photos
    - you point the Library at folders that contain the media.
    - a library can point at multiple folders and those can be in different locations, different, drives, etc.
    - Plex will then scan the folder based on media type. Movies, TV Shows, Music, Photos
      - the scanner will get and populate the metadata using an agent
      - the agent it will search internet sources to enhance any missing data
      - you can configure the scanner and setting for each library.
    - the wizard will also ask if you want to add any Channels
      - these are external sources of content, like YouTube, Vimeo, PBS, TWiT, etc.
    - finally you’ll be asked to set up or connect you local Plex Media server to your MyPlex account.
      - this is optional, but think of it like Home Sharing that can work over the Internet
      - in each Plex client you can connect to your account and always have access to your server from anywhere you have a connection.
      - locally the Plex client will use Bonjour to locate your Plex Server
- Once your Plex Server is all set up you’ll want to load your content and set up your clients.
  - loading content is as easy as adding new media to your Plex Server folders or adding new folders to a Library.
  - then use the web interface to “scan” for new data
  - plex will use it’s scanner and agents to pull in the new files and metadata
  - you can use the web interface to edit, correct, and supplement any missed or incorrect data.

Plex Clients

On your Macs you can use the Plex Web interface to access and play content, but you’ll probably want to install the Plex Home Theater app.
- it give you a really nice “10 foot” interface for accessing content.
For iOS, there is the Plex App, $4.99 in the App Store
- once installed it will just find the Plex server on your network
- if you have a Plex Pass, you can sync content from your Plex Server to your device
- and if you have local content your iOS device can actually become a server and share content to other Plex apps and client devices.
Other devices
- Chromecast, needs a Plex Pass, or so it seems.
- Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Google TV
Apple TV doesn’t have an official app yet, but…

Plex on Apple TV

There is a really clever project called PlexConnect
Make sure you get it from the GitGub page, by iBaa. You DON’T need to pay for PlexConnect. The Plex Connect.org site is a scam.
what Plex Connect will do is “hijack” an existing Apple TV app and server your Plex Media server content to it.
The basic idea is, to:
- re-use a native AppleTV app (in this case Apple Trailers)
- re-route the Trailers app requests to your local Plex Media Server
- re-work the reply to fit into AppleTV’s XML communication scheme
- let iOS do the rest
- enjoy Plex on your unmodified AppleTV
And it works really well and is supported on Apple TV 2 and 3 with firmware 5.2 or later.
there is an OS X install guide on the site
- basically you need to install Python 2.7 on your Mac, any OS X 10.7 or newer mac should already have it.
- download the Plex Connect files (python)
- generate SSL certificates and install them
  - required because Apple makes the Trailers requests via SSL
- Run PlexConnect
  - Requires running from the terminal to start the web service
- configure your Apple TV to route requests to the Mac running the Plex Connect software.
  - basically you are doing a DNS proxy.
  - plex connect will watch for requests to trailers.apple.com and rewrite them to your Plex Media Server.
  - Non Trailers requests are simply passed through.
  - it uses Google DNS by default to handle other DNS requests, but you can change that in the configuration.
- if yow want to can run PlexConnect as a launch daemon
- if all this sounds too complicated there is an App for that.
  - Plexify
  - Available on the App Store
  - This is a GUI and will handle all the set up, install the software, generate the certificate, etc.

Transcoding Content

So why am I doing all this?
I’m in the process of archiving my DVD collection
Tools I’m using
- iVI Pro, Southpole Software
- MakeMKV for Mac
- IDentify 2
Right now I am putting the files both in my iTunes and on my Plex Media Server
- doing both because i have iTunes purchased content and that is not natively supported on the Plex Server, although there is a “channel” for accessing it and playing on the Mac. On the remote apps you’ll only have access to non DRM’d content.
- storage on an external USB drive and Drobo 5D
After listening to Renie Ritchie’s Vector Episode 22 interview with Don Melton, I did a lot of testing with Don’s encoding scripts * its like three hours long on transcoding video * Don Melton, former Engineering Director of Internet Technologies at Apple * His scripts use the Handbrake CLI (command line interface) to transcode MKV rips as the optimal quality for multiple Apple devices. * basically he says matches Apple’s process for iTunes content. * means that Plex shouldn’t need to re-transcode during playback.
- Here’s the thing, I don’t think it matters for DVD, standard definition, videos too much.
- I had a hard time telling the difference between rios using Don’s scripts and once done inside iVI Pro.
- the advantage of iVI Pro is everything, ripping, metadata, transcoding are all handled in one step and it’s fast.