To Plex or Not to Plex

[mw2014]

I'm still assembling everything I need and have a question about Plex.
I see a lot of people building a FreeNAS for Plex to watch videos.

My FreeNAS will replace my Windows XP computer that uses shared drives for Data, Videos and Music. Basically a storage device.

I currently listen/watch my music & videos using shortcuts on my audio & entertainment center computers (Windows 7) to listen to music using WinAmp or watch the movie with Media Player.

My original plan was to do the same with my FreeNAS box. Will this work with FreeNAS or is Plex necessary?

I did many searches to find information about Plex and they all say Plex is great. I can't find anything saying why Plex is great. Everyone seems to be using it, but that doesn't make it great. The You Tube videos look "cool" but it appears to me more complicated to watch a selected video than double clicking on a shortcut.

I guess I'm missing something about Plex. Can someone explain what the benefit is in using Plex and do I need it?
Thanks

 

[mjws00]

I only use plex for a quarter of what it will do, and it is awesome. In a nutshell it manages large collections very very nicely. Keeps track of what has been watched and not watched. For TV it will show you missing episodes and when things were aired. Not to mention resuming mid show/season etc.

I often like to sort by release date for movies and tv shows. Of course genre and a myriad of other options also exist. You can search titles by actor, director drill down to imdb or traktv.

Of course transcoding, sharing your collection easily anywhere and with anyone are pretty cool. The channels and plugins are slick including the unsupported ones. DLNA is nice. Basically it is netflix, sorted how you want, when you want, with the content you want and a whole bunch more.

You can use FreeNAS as a straight up file server and just double click a file as usual. But as you scale it is VERY hard to keep track of all the little details, Plex absolutely crushes in that space. That is coming from a jaded old school prick who is not easily amused. I don't use it for music or pictures.

You don't NEED it. But once you have it you'll love it.

 

[depasseg]

Do you want to have access to your media anywhere (tablet, phone, PC), whether you are on a high speed local network, or a low speed hotel network? Do you want to be able to sync it for offline use? Do you want to be able to plug a $35 chromecast (or Roku, or Xbox...) and watch easily on your TV?

If the answer to any of these are yes, Plex could be very useful.

 

[EvanVanVan]

I'm still assembling everything I need and have a question about Plex.
I see a lot of people building a FreeNAS for Plex to watch videos.

My FreeNAS will replace my Windows XP computer that uses shared drives for Data, Videos and Music. Basically a storage device.

I currently listen/watch my music & videos using shortcuts on my audio & entertainment center computers (Windows 7) to listen to music using WinAmp or watch the movie with Media Player.

My original plan was to do the same with my FreeNAS box. Will this work with FreeNAS or is Plex necessary?

I did many searches to find information about Plex and they all say Plex is great. I can't find anything saying why Plex is great. Everyone seems to be using it, but that doesn't make it great. The You Tube videos look "cool" but it appears to me more complicated to watch a selected video than double clicking on a shortcut.

I guess I'm missing something about Plex. Can someone explain what the benefit is in using Plex and do I need it?
Thanks

I was thinking the same thing during the year that I upgraded from my WDTV with attached USB HD to a Synology NAS and finally a FreeNAS server. I pulled the trigger on a plex-pass because they were going up in price and personally now I think Plex is well worth it.

I still use my WDTV to directly access the FreeNAS "network share" when I'm at home. But it's very handy (and pretty cool) to have constant access my library on my phone when I'm on the go. I showed it off quite a lot the first few weeks. It's also incredibly easy to give friends and family access to my library whether it's via their roku player, computer and phone/tablet. The fact that it's compatible with Chromecast makes it that much better.

Plex took a little bit to set up, it only sees (aka adds it to the library) media that it recognizes. So file/folder names sometimes have to be specifically formatted (mainly a problem with tv shows). It also can't tell the difference between a 2D and 3D movie. Sometimes it adds 3D to the movie title properly and sometimes there are two identically named movies, but there are workarounds.

Hope that answers some questions.

 

[saurav]

My experience with Plex has not been very promising, so far. For example, I can't play FLAC files from Plex via DLNA (mp3 work fine). I can't even see pictures over DLNA. Well, I can actually see them over DLNA, but I don't have to option to see them sorted "By Folder". I have to see them by some other criteria, like "By Camera", or "By Year", etc. Those takes forever to load the list/thumbnail of pictures.

On the plus side, video seems to work reasonably well. Plus, the ability to update the media index without re-indexing the entire library or restarting Plex is a boon. I haven't been able to get transcoding working yet, but given my other problems transcoding has a lower priority right now.

 

[joeschmuck]

The you have tried to use Plex and it doesn't do everything. It is a nice DLNA service vice using MiniDLNA and it will serve up many different video formats to make them compatible with other devices that are also running a Plex Player. So you can use FreeNAS to share your files as you did with your old Windows box and also use Plex if you want to.

 

[juliavasa5]

I like to sort by release date for movies and tv shows. Of course genre and a myriad of other options also exist. You can search titles by actor, director drill down to imdb or traktv.



______________________
**SignaturE**

 

[sremick]

I've invested in Plex as a solution and I've been very happy with it. But I only care about video files and not DLNA. I love how it handles all the organizing and metadata for my movies and shows, and the myriad of clients for watching the videos on pretty much anything, even remotely when one isn't on our home network.