Guide to Watching Your TV!

[Manic Velocity]

It amazes me that the simple act of watching television can be extrapolated into so many freakin' paragraphs.

[likwidtek]

My file server at home is also running plex server.  It's pretty awesome although not as good as XBMC.  So we use plex on the roku in the bedroom and on our mobile devices in the house and while on the road.  XBMC is still king for main home theater TV though in my opinion.

The best part about both though is they're both totally free.  Very good stuff.

[Tbone]

I was under the impression that Plex was basically XBMC+. They took the XBMC technology and added to it. The dev team split up and the Plex group started adding more features with the XBMC group remained focused on just the raw open source technology. If you use Plex for your TV and mobile devices, what do you use XBMC for? And why do you think it is better?

[Milhouse]

I use the usenet and XBMC.  I haven't tried Plex yet, but what XBMC gives us is unlimited access to our library of movies and tv shows.  We can sort the movies by title, year, genera, etc.  That comes in pretty handy when you've got 500+ movies.  The tv shows are also sortable, but the nice thing is it marks what's watched and unwatched.

Probably the biggest thing that would keep me from leaving XBMC is all of my downloaders work directly with it.  When my media server downloads a TV show via Sickbeard, it updates my XBMC library automatically.  Couchpotato does this too.

Automated library management and a simple to use interface it where it's at.

[likwidtek]

What's keeping me on XBMC for our living room TV is that Plex, while pretty and smooth... still doesn't support on the fly movie trailers or airplay.  We use both of these features a lot and would be sad without them.  Being able to have friends over and fling videos from your smart phone or tablet to the main TV where everyone can see them is really fun.

The only reason we use plex is because it'll stream to the Roku and iPad and stuff easily.    

The differences aside from that weren't enough to make me care one way or the other.  They both give you a pretty front end to getting all of your TV shows and Movies just fine.  XBMC is much more customizable if you care about that sort of thing but we just picked a skin we like and have stuck with it ever sense.  

Plex is neat to run as well because you can stream all of your content over the internet as well.  All you have to do is make sure you're logged in with your plex account on the server and any client devices and you can transcode on the fly over the internet and watch anything and everything in your library.

It's pretty good stuff. So we use both.

[Sared]

I haven't downloaded PLEX yet just because my Galaxy S3 is already DLNA equipped to talk to my Xbox 360.

Looking at either getting a Roku or hooking up my old media server. Any thoughts?

[Tbone]

Plex automatically fetches information about your file and organizes it in a pretty interface. TV shows go into seasons (it can even play the theme song when you browse to that show). Movies get box art, play time, etc. It auto updates when you download/add a file to the folders that it is watching. It says if a video is watched or not and you can even resume where you left off regardless of which device you were watching it on.

You can also share your media server with friends. I sent my brother an invite and he was able to watch my TV shows on his browser in Mississippi (he also could have downloaded the Plex client).

I used to use just DLNA for the Xbox, but Plex just organizes it SO well. I don't have to do any work on my end. I got my Roku box in as well and it is EXCELLENT! Roku has a Plex channel, so it works perfectly.

[likwidtek]

^  What he said.

Plex is ideal for people who wanna play it on a device like a tablet, smartphone, roku or whatever.  It's really good for that.  

Still, I prefer XBMC for our "serious" TV and Movie watching.  It does all the stuff Tbone listed above minus the streaming over the internet and to devices stuff.  We do enjoy it on our Roku in the bedroom though a LOT.

[Sared]

Started using Plex today, dropped five bucks for the Android app in a New York minute. 3g streaming isn't as reliable as I'd like it, but I'll be quicker to blame shoddy coverage. Wanting to use this to stream playlists I drop in media folders instead of, say, streaming Pandora or another streaming audio app.

I will also add, the ability to email a video link to my queue to watch on whatever device is fucking sick yo.

[Broin]

Set up the roku and plex with hulu plus, amazon prime, and torrents... AMAZING!!!!!!!

The wife can not wait to call the cable company and tell them to go to hell...

They literally just raised our rate to 200 a month... gonna save like 140 - 160 a month now.

F-YOU CABLE!!!

OH AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CHANGE MY AVATAR ALREADY

[Tbone]

That's ok. Put that 140-160 away each month and then you can get me a sweet birthday present in April! =P

...you don't like Chuck Norris?

[Tbone]

Queuing With Plex

I finally got around to testing this. There are several ways to do this, but I use the Plex Chrome Extension. There was a Youtube video about the Oculus Rift that I wanted to watch, but I still wanted to work on some things on my laptop. The Chrome Extension puts an icon on my taskbar. I simply hit that button when at the Youtube page and it added it to my "queue". From Roku I just went to the queue and there was the Youtube video. It played perfectly in 720p on my TV as I continued doing things on my laptop! Sweet!

Sharing

Another cool option is sharing your media. Go to the media manager and you can type in an email address to share the server with. This allows that person to use Plex to stream all (or stuff you've selected) of your media! My brother and father have been watching Homeland this way and have even started putting in requests. I'm not positive if it works for DLNA or not. For instance, my brother could stream to a Plex client on his computer, access it in a browser, or access it on his phone if he has the app. If he wanted to play it on an Xbox or a Roku, however, I'm not certain that he could do that since they detect Plex through the local network.

There are ways to sign in to Myplex on these devices, however (at the very least the Roku), so it might be possible. Just be aware if you are sharing the server that it doesn't actually tell you when someone is streaming from you. This means that if your internet can't handle it, you might find yourself with sub par performance without being able to check and see if it is a Plex friend. For this reason, I suggest limiting the number of people you share this with or only share a limited number of things.

[Tbone]

Roku is pushing out a new update this week that overhauls the UI. It looks pretty sleek. They'll basically have the Roku 3 interface.