Plex Updates Roku Channel

Plex Server recently announced a new interface for the Roku media center device.  With that announcement I decided to jump back into the world of Plex and give it another round of testing.  Plex is a media streaming device with client interfaces on a number of good platforms including some LG Smart TVs on the market.  The one I use most is the Roku of course.  I hope someday they get something going for the WD Live but until then let’s see what they have to offer.

Plex installs on your workstation and with very simple configuration it will serve up any movie files you have stored locally or through mapped connections to the Roku.  The interface is easy to use.  Install the Plex software and for best performance install Google Chrome (the browser of choice for managing Plex).  I don’t get into the internet browser wars, in fact I have Chrome, IE and Firefox on my machine, but Plex developers worked with Chrome and they want you to stick with it, so who am I to argue.

Once you have Plex installed the GUI provides a simple interface for you to select folders where your movie files are stored.  Once it has that connection setup it will begin to scan the folder and if your movie names are properly formatted it will download Meta data about the film and store it locally.  Meta data is not critical but when you go to select a movie and it has a nice JPEG image to represent the film and a description of the movie along with its rating you will begin to enjoy Meta Data to the point where you feel you will need it.

Once you have the folder selected, within minutes, you can jump over to your Roku. One of the changes Plex made is that they are no longer a “third party” custom app; they have gotten the approval from Roku and are now on the Channel Store.  With that all you need to do is browse to the Channel Store on your Roku and find the Plex icon and install it.  Once installed, go to the Channel.  Once there you will get a simple and clean interface for Plex.

A group of icons in the Plex interface will represent the folders you selected in the management interface on your computer.  If you created one called Movies then one icon will appear here to represent that location.  You can have a single icon represent a single folder or add multiple folders and combine the content from a number of sources.  I have a movie folder on two different hard drives and selected both of those folders underneath the Movie icon and the result is a single icon which I can open and see all the movies as if they were in the same spot.

To test out a few different interface ideas, I also created an icon in the Plex Management server called Family where I linked to a special folder underneath my movie folders where I keep all my family friendly content.  Now when my wife looks at the Plex App she sees Movies and Family Movies.  This gives her some category control over the content even though it is coming from the same location.

I also tested out using Plex to pull from a network share.  I mapped the Z Drive on my computer to the file location on my WD Live where I also have some MP4 and MKV movie files stored.  I then pointed a management point in Plex at my Z drive and called it Movies on WD Live.  I can now grab files from that source as well and let me tell you they stream wonderfully.  I cannot tell the difference but I say that only because the WD was not doing any other work at the time.  If someone was watching the WD or copying content to or from that device I am sure I would see something.  Just knowing I could do it makes all the difference though.

You can throw all your movies into one content folder or make a bunch of specialized folders, either way the search feature in Plex will find the movie you are looking for.  The search is a fantastic feature especially as I build up the number of videos and files available via Plex.  If you decide that making special movie folders is too much work, then you can rest assured that the Search function will get you what you need in a hurry.

I tried one additional thing that Plex never did for me before.  I pointed the Plex server at the folder where my Windows Media Center recorded TV shows resided.  WMC saves TV recordings in a proprietary format .WTV which not every media server will work with.  Plex will.  Previously you had to modify a few files to get Plex to even see WTV files but that is no longer the case.  Point the Plex at the folder and it will find them all.  Two things you should know before you try this.  1) Don’t use the TV Shows quick setup icon to map to your WMC TV recordings folder.  For whatever reason it does not work, but if you map a “movies” quick link at the TV folder it works great.  Just use the Movies quick link to create the connection and rename the link to TV Shows.  The Icon in Plex on the Roku looks like Movies but says TV Shows and will stream the content.  Just a minor work around. 2) When I first tried to watch a show the video came through but the audio did not.  Go into options and check the audio track.  Plex had set it to a Spanish language feed which did not exist on the recording.  I don’t know why that occurred but you can fix that my changing the audio right there from the interface.  After I did that once I never saw the problem again.

If you have a computer you can use to setup Plex and if you have video content in a supported format like MKV or MP4 (not VOB it’s just a mess to work with here) then Plex will do a great deal to enhance your Roku.  I would also recommend if at all possible using a physical network cable over leaving it all to your wireless setup.  That is just a personal preference.  Wireless will work as well.

Check out this link from MediasmartServer.net for some installation tips on Plex