![]() Here's the VERY competent and recently updated web client. Here's an example screenshot of the Plex Windows 8 client: On other Macs or PCs you can use Plex Media Center, and there's also Plex for Roku, LG TVs, Samsung TVs, and Google TV. There are Plex clients for iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7 phones, as well as for Windows 8 and Surface. All you need to do is name something "title (year).ext" for movies and "show name/whatever Sx Ey.ext" (where x and y are season and episode) and Plex does the rest. You might think this is a little thing but it really makes your whole setup feel more pro. Plex will also get art, descriptions, and generate thumbnails for your media. (For Synology systems, I strongly recommend a faster Intel machine, not the little ARM ones.) You can also put Plex on your Network Attached Storage appliance (NAS) like I have with my Synology. You can run it on Windows, Mac, Linux, but that's not all. You install the Plex server on any system you have. That means that Plex will use the power of your server at home to dynamically squish videos so that they still play smoothly on your smart phone over 3G or your tablet over hotel Wi-Fi. Most importantly, the killer feature is that Plex will transcode your videos depending on your device and network. Then, Plex is client (or clients) on your device (or devices) that you run to access your stored media. So what is it? Plex is media server software that you have running all the time at home. I'm totally happy to pay a company for value and Plex provides extreme value. You can accomplish most all you'd ever want with both, but at this point in my life, I'm OK with throwing a little money at the problem and I have happily given Plex my $30 for their UI polish and their new PlexPass feature that unlocks some goodies. Plex is starting to monetize their platform while XBMC has more of a hacker/enthusiast vibe. There are two main heavyweights in the media server space. Plex is a whole ecosystem that is extremely polished, easy to setup and available on every device you'd ever want. More recently, I've tried using a Raspberry Pi as an ersatz media player along with AirPlay to throw videos from my iPhone/iPad up on the big screen.įast forward to 2013 and I've found Plex. I talk about how I streamed things in 2008 in this " Geek Developer Cribs" video. I've long had shares like \\server\movies and \\server\photos for accessing family files from laptops around the house, as well as streaming home videos to the Xbox or PS3 via DLNA. When you have a headless server in your home, you're always looking for ways to utilize it. that's probably going to be the deciding factor.I've blogged about my Synology 1511 NAS before and how I have added a few things to it like CrashPlan Cloud Backup and even discussed it on my podcast. I'll have to ask them what channels they want. My father will still be able to use the streamed channels, and more if he is motivated to learn. My mother can use android, so she can use the sideloaded apps. ![]() I'm looking for something easy for my parents. Users complain that the interface isn't great yet, and there is no search-filtering for Amazon Prime content (probably deliberately) Can also transfer files via AirDroid (I assume to the internal 8GB). Local Network streaming = sideload ES file Explorer sideload MX player. But, for instance, the CrunchyRoll app listed is also limited to 480p. !browse/movies-and-tv/by-popular - Here is the Roku channel list for comparison. Crunchyroll can be sideloaded, but needs an official app for HD-content. ![]() (Lacks HBO-Go (sideload app), Vudu, Spotify). It has many channels, but not as many as it should. Fastest Hardware by far (snapdragon 600 SOC - QuadCore Adreno 320 GPU 2gb RAM like Samsung Galaxy S4) some mice / keyboards seem to work over USB / bluetooth. actually this may have more information overall. list of sideloadable apps for Fire TV. Is there anything wrong with the Amazon Fire TV? I'll contribute the current state of my research:
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