Plex Media Center

Well, twenty-four hours later, we have more big news to share with you: The Plex Media Server is now available for Windows. (It was actually supposed to be available yesterday, so I apologize to all the people who purchased the Android app and were looking for the download! Synchronizing two major new releases turned out to be a bit trickier than we had thought.)

First, a bit of backstory – when we first started writing the media server, we built it with world class libraries that ensured it would be as portable as possible. Very early on (literally years ago), we had experimental builds running on Linux, and we’d always planned to release it on other platforms when we felt the time was right. Releasing a product on a new platform takes time and energy to support, so timing was key.

When the time was right, we hired some talented engineers who live and breathe Windows, and they worked on the port. One cool thing that happened, common in these sorts of projects, is that in building the media server on a new platform, they fleshed out bugs that had existed on OS X but had never been found. So as a result, the OS X version of the media server has become more stable, thanks to Windows.

Without further ado, I’d like to invite you to download the Plex Media Server for Windows, and take it for a spin. I also want to thank the group who helped us do initial testing, including hkeylm, brent112, bambuhiphop, dtwilly57, JaymzMac, Stoodo, and especially Pete O. You all rock, and we really appreciate your help.

We’ve set up some forums where you can report bugs (after all, which first release of software doesn’t have a few of those?) and I would recommend you start by reading this post, which details how to tweak your Windows system to ensure we can best diagnose issues.

After two consecutive nights of releases, Barkley looks like I feel.

(Before I forget, I want to thank everyone who came down to the Plex meet-up we had in San Jose. We had a great turnout, lots of Plex users new and old came to have some drinks and chat about the past, present, and future of Plex. It was a surreal moment for me personally, on the foggy rooftop of the hotel, Cabernet in hand, chatting with people I had known for years, but never actually met.)

The Plex iOS application has been out for nearly six months now (wow, time flies!) and we’ve been incredibly happy with its reception. However, one of the things that many people continue to ask us is “What about Android?” After all, Android is the most popular platform in the world by numbers, and today, we’re happy to announce that you can now experience Plex on Android (press release here).

That’s right, no longer will you have to endure the mocking by your all-too-smug, black turtleneck-wearing, beat-poetry reading friends who saunter around with their shatter-happy phones you have to hold with winter gloves to be able to get enough bars to make a call with. No, my friends, this is YOUR time.

This first release has a nearly identical feature set to the iOS version. The one feature that didn’t make it in was the remote control, which we’ll be adding very shortly, but until then, I’m sure you’ll be able to entertain yourself with this beautiful little media center in your hand. Also expect to see updates around the larger-screen Android devices, as we’ve focused more on the smaller screens for this first cut. As you might expect, you get all the benefits of our Media Server architecture: you can watch the first part of a movie on the TV, continue on your Android, and seamlessly finish on your iPad. Ratings and view history are available seamlessly from all your clients. Edit your metadata once, see the changes everywhere.

As always, we so much appreciate your support and great feedback. We have a lot more awesome stuff in store for you this year, and we think you’re really going to love it.