Plex Media Center

It’s been about 24 hours since the release, although it seems longer than that because we haven’t gotten much sleep with all the excitement. First and foremost, a massive THANK YOU to everyone for your overwhelmingly positive response to this new release. It’s been an amazing experience for us to finally see this release take wings after being in development for so long. You’ve already queued thousands of items in your myPlex Queues, and one of you even wrote a Safari extension already (thanks, Alex!). Of all the feedback that poured in, this had to be one of my favorite comments:

I just wanted to quickly cover a few of the known issues, and some frequently asked questions, in hopes of helping you with the new release.

myPlex

• Why don’t I have any thumbnails? Some of you are noticing that your server’s sections don’t look as pretty as mine do. Speaking frankly, my sections bring all the girls to the yard. The reason for this is simply that with the many thousands of people who connected their servers to myPlex for the first time today, the thumbnailing jobs are a bit backed up. We’ll be bringing more hardware online shortly to help.

• Why don’t I see/can’t I play my media on myPlex? myPlex is a cloud-based hub for your media, which helps connect Plex clients to Plex Media Servers, but it does not store your libraries (media or metadata).
• I am having issues logging into myPlex/the forums. In order to support single sign-on and scale, we are migrating over accounts from the forums to myPlex. This migration should be transparent and automatic, and it has been for thousands of people. However, a handful of you have had trouble, the primary situation being if forgot your forum password. If you need help, please stop by the Plex Chat and one of our friendly engineers will lend a hand!
• myPlex makes it too easy for me to watch my media, no matter where I am! Sorry, we’ll get right on that.

Known issues

• There appears to be a problem with iOS 4.x, where users are seeing a crash on start with Plex for iOS 2.0. We’re scurrying around to find a device with that version (we’ve all updated to iOS5), so if you’re having problems, the quick fix would be to upgrade, if you’re willing to do so.
• A minority of users are reporting stutter with nearly all video, which we’re puzzled by. We’re in the process of isolating the cause, and you can help by stopping by Plex Chat and sharing details of your setup, or adding to a forum thread.
• Transcoding qualities from the Plex Laika client were wrong (too low), and additionally, transcoding from a server which was not on port 32400 (an automatically mapped one rarely is) would fail. A fix for this one is available as 0.9.5.1; the updated clients are available for download now (no autoupdate for now, sorry!).

Security/privacy

IANAL but these are my common sense notes:

• All communication between clients and myPlex is fully SSL encrypted.
• myPlex doesn’t store any information about your media (files, hashes, etc.)
• myPlex stores five thumbnails from each section (when it gets around to it) but no metadata about items in your library (beyond what you see).
• myPlex acts as a hub, connecting Plex clients and Plex servers, but it is not involved in any communication between client and server (beyond facilitating it).
• myPlex stores URLs and metadata for queued items (obviously), and your progress viewing the items.
• When clients sign into myPlex, they send OS type and version, client type and version, and a unique identifier (random UUID on most platforms).
• myPlex loves you and respects you. myPlex doesn’t wait to call you. myPlex never forgets your birthday.

General tips

• Plex/Nine used to contain client and server together in a single package. For a variety of reasons, the new release has separated out the client (Plex Media Center) and the server (Plex Media Server). This allows you to quickly install just the client on a machine, for example. The new server can simply be dragged to Applications like the client.
• The old and new clients don’t interfere with each other and can both be used on the same machine.
• You can move between old and new server (and back again) without any trouble.
• One thing to note is if you had the old server starting automatically, you may want to disable this in Plex/Nine via Preferences > System > Plex Media Server if you’re going to run the new server.
• There is no need to re-scan, recreate your library, or anything of that nature when moving between server versions. Try the new one out! Make your dog use the old one!
• The new client will work with the old server, mostly, but you’ll be missing features (e.g. TV posters in On Deck/Recently Added). If the server is much older, the new client may not see its sections at all.
• The old client will work with the new server perfectly, but it might be a bit jealous.
• The new client is labeled BETA. It’s very new. Most things should work much better. Some things are still missing, incomplete, or broken.
• There is no auto-update for the new client or server yet, but it will be added soon.

And for Phill, who correctly pointed out in the comments that such a major release warrants an additional photo of Barkley: you, sir, are correct, and we’ve taken steps to remedy this most serious breach of protocol.

OK, I know why you’re here. You want the new releases, and you want them now. Well, you’re in the right place.

Note that as part of the release process, we’ve added new forums (for myPlex, and the new “Laika” client). There is also an amazing amount of documentation on the new release. There are a lot of new moving parts, so we’re sure there may be a few rough edges. Please let us know about them, and we’ll get them smoothed out.

Most of all, though, we really hope you enjoy the new release!

One more thing; as I’m sure you’re aware of, there is a Plex client for Samsung TVs and Blu-ray players. Thousands of people are using it, and it’s quite nice; I picked up a compatible Blu-ray player for under $99 which does 1080p and optical audio out. Oh, and it’s a Blu-ray player.

Anyway, during the Laika development cycle, we worked with the amazingly talented author of the client, Daniel, as he updated the Samsung client to support new Laika features, and upgrade the look and feel of the application. I think the results are stunning:

This is all built in HTML5/CSS and Javascript. Pretty nice, right? The release will be available as early as tomorrow, and he’s working on fleshing it out even more beyond support for video. If you’d like to see it in action, you can check out this screencast Boots put together. It’s a really nice validation of the powerful HTTP/XML API that the Plex Media Server provides.

One more note, the Linux releases will be updated shortly, it takes us a bit of time to build for all the different platforms/NAS devices. You’ll be happy to know that our Linux engineers are working on completely automating the process.

Lastly, a HUGE thank you to all the Plex Ninjas who helped us test this release. Your tireless dedication to helping us track down and resolve issues in the new code, document the new features, your friendly and helpful 24-hour presence in Campfire, all of it was just simply awesome.

Peace out, friends. Love from Barkley and the team. Click Get Plex on the web site to download the new releases.