Plex Media Center

Well, we promised you a release before the week was up, but to be honest, our weeks don’t really end on Friday. I’ve come to think of the weekend as a nice quiet time to code, actually.

Anyway, you know why you’re here, so without further ado, here’s how to get the new Plex for Android release. These links will only work for PlexPass members:

1. Install the latest Plex Media Server from here.
2. Visit this forum post for details on how to get the app from Google Play or download the APK.
3. Profit!

This is the first release of a brand new codebase, so we expect there will be a veritable cornucopia of bugs. Bring ‘em on (with well-written reports in the forum) and we’ll get ‘em fixed!

Here’s a bonus Friday night photo of Barkley. Check out that sagittal crest.

Ah, the inexorable march of progress. We have three more releases to talk about today, with lots of goodies. And if you’re getting bored of hearing about the media server, Win8 app, and Plex/Web, you’re in for a treat, because the next blog post is going to be about something new, and very exciting. Promise.

That’s not to say that these updates themselves aren’t exciting. We’ve been doing  a lot of work on the next-generation transcoder in the media server lately. Currently in use for PlexSync and the Win8 app, it’ll soon be available for iOS and Android and Plex/Web as well, as it offers many advantages over the old transcoder. For starters, the new version supports burning PGS and VOBSUB subtitle formats, which has been requested for – literally – years. Secondly, it should offer much better performance, stability, compatibility with codecs, should fix issues with A/V sync, and many other things. Last, but not least, it leverages a powerful server-side profile mechanism which will soon be used universally for DLNA, PlexSync, and “live” transcoding. We’re building the most advanced media server on the planet here, and the new transcoder is at the heart of it!

Here’s a full list of changes in the latest Plex Media Server, available from here:

• NEW: Greatly improved (Sync and Win8) transcoder subtitle burning: support SSA and SMI, fix crashes, fix subtitle sync when resuming video.
• FIX: Scanning TV shows near the root directory of a volume didn’t work reliably.
• FIX: Send Accept-Ranges: bytes HTTP header when answering requests for media. Fixes Win8 seeking in media.
• FIX: DTS audio inside MP4 container could be incorrectly identified as mp4a during media analysis.
• FIX: Transcoding certain media files could be pathologically slow. Thanks to Rodger for helping us diagnose the issue!
• FIX: Transcoding video audio from MP3 to AAC would fail in some rare cases.
• FIX: A/V sync issues transcoding Smooth Streaming to Windows 8 Store app.
• FIX: Actor thumbnails weren’t being offered correctly to sync clients.
• FIX: Removed unnecessary logging when running transcoder.
• FIX: Add more logging when Win8 app loopback exemption can’t be added.
• FIX: When a media asset is uploaded, it becomes the default.
• FIX: Sync item status could be prematurely reported as complete.
• FIX: Added iPad mini sync profile.
• NEW: (API) Allow converting SMI to SRT (format=srt).
• FIX: (Windows) Large log files when number of library paths exceeded 64.
• FIX: (Sync) A few issues with sync status not being reported correctly.
• FIX: (Transcoder) An A/V sync issue affecting Win8 app.

Leveraging the new transcoder, and all these other fixes, is the latest update of Plex for Windows 8. It’s taken us a few releases, but at this point media playback support on the app is really super good, and it’s able to play lots of content with remuxing, which (given our support for throttling on the server side), means awesome quality video with minimal CPU usage. Lots of other new stuff, including more keyboard navigation and a cool media information popup, and many bug-fixes.

Plex/Web also got a massive update. A giant, thundering, epic update, featuring a redesigned home screen, greatly simplified navigation, and lots of other goodies. Look at this beautiful new dashboard!

We’ll be back very soon, but until then, I’ll leave with with two photos of Barkley, who has been your faithful Plex mascot for the last five years. The first one finds him as a puppy, with giant paws and a feisty disposition.

As you can see, he’s grown in size quite a bit. (Sweetheart, don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Can you tell this is going to be a great year for everything Plex? Not two weeks into 2013 and we have another three releases for you.

First up, let’s have a look at a really cool new feature in the Plex/Web release that you all should already have, thanks to the magic of auto-update. As many of you already know, PlexSync is cloud and server-based, and thanks to that, you can now queue up media to be converted for any of your devices from the convenience of a browser, no matter where in the world you are.

So you might be at work, and between designing spacecraft or performing open-heart surgery, you’re busy getting your iPad (sitting at home) ready for your upcoming vacation. Not that we at Plex condone ever doing anything other than work, at work. Really.

This also means that you can now use the advanced filters available in Plex/Web and send the results to one of your devices. So you could select “unwatched movies rated PG and released in the last three years”, for example, and this smart filter would continually watch for movies matching that criteria and convert them for your device. Pretty cool, right?

There’s also a cool new “activity” view which shows what your server is working on (yes, we will be enhancing it in the future to show more activity, which many of you have been asking for).

As you probably already know, PlexSync is a premium feature which we bundle with PlexPass.

Switching topics, there’s also a brand new release of Plex for Windows 8 in the store, with a bunch of new things including theme music! Direct play of AVI and MP4 files! PlayTo support! Support for Window Media Center remote controls! And lots more, you can read the full release notes here.

Last, but not least, there’s a new Plex Media Server release, which addresses some issues, including a reboot problem with LG TVs. We’ve spoken with LG, and they say a firmware update is coming which will fix the bug, but we have a workaround for you in the meantime. You can download the new release in the usual place.

• FIX: Workaround for LG TVs rebooting.
• FIX: (Windows) Lots of CPU, giants logs in some cases.
• FIX: An issue scanning sections where the paths had trailing slashes (e.g. W:\).
• FIX: MP4 files with DTS streams had them incorrectly identified as MP4a.
• FIX: (Sync) A few issues with sync status not being reported correctly.
• FIX: (Transcoder) An A/V sync issue affecting Windows 8 Plex app.