7 ms·

Plex on the New Apple TV

128 points by chkuendig 11y ago

phren0logy 11y ago
Any news on what containers and codecs don't require transcoding? The new Apple TV ought to be pretty capable.
- simcop2387 11y ago
  Containers shouldn't affect transcoding at all, might mean re-muxing but I'd guess based on what i remember for older apple tvs that pretty much only MPEG-TS and mp4 are supported as containers, and it has to use HLS for streaming. Codec wise I wouldn't be surprised if it was only H264, H265, VP8, and MPEG2/4. I'd give 50/50 on the MPEG2 support though, might be there just because the hardware had it and to ease releases from the DVD era.
  - msbarnett 11y ago
    I'd be very surprised if VP8 were supported at all -- nothing else from Apple supports it. It will almost certainly have to be transcoded for the AppleTV.
    - simcop2387 11y ago
      It's one thing I'm not sure about, given that youtube loves to use it as part of webm.
  - johansch 11y ago
    It can't stream (not transcode/repackage) mkv/h264 etc? No thanks.
    - simcop2387 11y ago
      I don't know for certain. I'm speculating based off previous apple products.
    - gigq 11y ago
      Plex has a feature called Direct Stream that supports this use case: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200250387-Streaming-Media-Direct-Play-and-Direct-Stream https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200250387-Streamin...
    - johansch 11y ago
      Addendum: It can stream mkv/h264 without transcoding quite well. I'm really enjoying Plex on my new Apple TV!
- Veratyr 11y ago
  You mean hardware supported codecs? According to the specs page [0] it's pretty much the same as an iPhone. Standard H.264 <= 60fps 1080p, regular MPEG-4, HE-AAC. The usual MP4 containers. Most of Apple's audio codecs. The most interesting thing is the HEVC support [1] but I'm not sure how useful that will be given the patent situation. There are also rumours [2] that the A8 can deal with 4K. If you mean software decoding, I'm not sure what you have in mind. The more interesting codecs (VP9, Thor, Daala) are too complex to decode in software on such a low power embedded chip. [0]: https://www.apple.com/tv/specs/ https://www.apple.com/tv/specs/ [1]: http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Online-Video-News/Apple-Supports-H.265-But-So-Far-Only-in-FaceTime-on-an-iPhone-6-100392.aspx http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Online-Video-New... [2]: http://www.slashgear.com/iphone-66-plus-a8-chip-capable-of-4k-video-playback-22356949/ http://www.slashgear.com/iphone-66-plus-a8-chip-capable-of-4...
  - simcop2387 11y ago
    Good job finding the actual specs, I didn't bother to look, but it looks like I wasn't far off except in thinking that VP8 and MPEG2 MIGHT be supported. I'm surprised about the lack of H265/HEVC, even if it's not used much now it means that as things progress the ATV2 will end up being unable to support things in the future.
    - arm 11y ago
      Believe you meant the 'ATV4', or as Apple refers to it, the Apple TV (4th generation)¹. ―――――― ¹ — https://support.apple.com/kb/SP724 https://support.apple.com/kb/SP724
  - phren0logy 11y ago
    I was referring to software, as I figured the Apple embedded chips have gotten fairly beefy over the past few years and might be up to the task of software decoding. Thanks for the detailed response.
    - Veratyr 11y ago
      They might be able to deal with some of the older codecs like FLV or WMV but even many laptops struggle with codecs like VP8/9, with some users going so far as to use plugins [0] to disable them. I have a feeling you'd be hard pressed even getting something like 10-bit H.264 (common for anime releases) decoding in software. Things like this have been attempted in the Raspberry Pi community but the last time I checked there was no success. [0]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/h264ify/aleakchihdccplidncghkekgioiakgal https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/h264ify/aleakchihd...
dewski 11y ago
Simplex had the advantage of being on the store day 1, had Plex had their app on the store day one I'm not sure I would've downloaded Simplex. Nice to see this on the App Store.
- rconti 11y ago
  Day 1? You mean Friday 10/30? I think that was the official "launch" date. I ordered my ATV4 in the middle of last week (and was surprised to see they weren't out yet), and it arrives tomorrow. I'm gonna call Plex close enough to "day 1".
  - prawn 11y ago
    Especially given that discovery on actual day one was so poor (no categories, no charts, limited features) that anything not featured was going to struggle a bit. Our app was written up a couple of times alongside Simplex but missed out on a feature despite getting an artwork request and only had a few dozen sales.
    - robgough 11y ago
      There was only one app showing up in search for the word plex. I'm sure that helped too.
- bigdubs 11y ago
  what was simplex? just another developer that built an app to talk to plex servers? was curious when i saw that on the app store what it actually did
  - lobster_johnson 11y ago
    Simplex is a Plex client. Quite good, actually.
- glasshead969 11y ago
  I ordered pretty much minutes after it was available and it delivers tomorrow. Friday delivery required extra 17$, probably not opted by most.
bobbles 11y ago
Can someone with the app please let me know if you can just autoplay tv series with this app? Was annoying not being able to do that on the iOS app.
- asd 11y ago
  Kind of. The only way to do this is by selecting a season and an option to "Play Season X" appears, which forces you to watch the season from episode 1. I think most Plex clients have had this for a while. What I would like (and you too, probably) is to have an option to just autoplay the next episode from whatever is "on deck" similar to Netflix.
  - fnordsensei 11y ago
    Yes, despite a lot of complaints about this behaviour, they seem unwilling to go back to revert back to the days where it simply started playing from whatever episode you had not seen.
zyxley 11y ago
This reminds me of how I wish Plex had a mode to actually manage media files rather than just watching them. I hate manually organizing files, and iTunes despite keeping very nice folder organization doesn't quite work for this purpose (no Season 0 support, no option for years in movie filenames).
- calinet6 11y ago
  Plex doesn't really have much of a notion of files. It prefers metadata that makes sense to non-technical users. While this is at the cost of tweakability, I think it's the right call.
- cavisne 11y ago
  Sick Beard will handle this for you (you can just not hook up a usenet client if you dont need that bit)
  - fsckin 11y ago
    SickRage is a good fork if you're not into Usenet.
  - feld 11y ago
    SickBeard development has been dead for like a year. Have you noticed how awful it has been at finding episodes? SickRage is the fork that has lived on
    - cavisne 11y ago
      True, I actually haven't. I only use SB for new release nowadays (streaming covers most old stuff) so maybe that's why.
    - joshschreuder 11y ago
      There's also Sonarr (https://sonarr.tv/ https://sonarr.tv/) which I really like.
- bmurphy1976 11y ago
ps4fanboy 11y ago
Time will tell if Apple let them integrate with Universal Search API.
- chrisbolt 11y ago
  Tim Cook says it will be open, but did not say when: http://9to5mac.com/2015/10/03/tim-cook-apple-tv-universal-search/ http://9to5mac.com/2015/10/03/tim-cook-apple-tv-universal-se...
  - ceejayoz 11y ago
    https://www.quora.com/Will-FaceTime-ever-be-opened-as-a-standard-as-promised https://www.quora.com/Will-FaceTime-ever-be-opened-as-a-stan...
    - X-Istence 11y ago
      This might be different in that Apple controls the entire thing end to end. Whereas FaceTime they got sued and that may be why FaceTime never become an open standard.
    - cowsandmilk 11y ago
      Unlike what Steve Jobs did with FaceTime, generally, Tim Cook doesn't blindside the company by declaring something will be open on stage without discussing it with the engineers and rest of management beforehand.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
joshstrange 11y ago
Well I was worried Plex was going to push that god-awful xbox one interface they just ruined PHT (Now Plex Media Player) with. I'll hold out on my RasPlex 2 with PHT for now until some of my friends pick up the new AppleTV but both Simplex and Plex's official app look nice. PlexConnect was amazing for what it did and how it did it but was pretty buggy (no doubt not the fault of the creators) and constantly restarting it was a PITA. RasPlex is the best out there right now IMHO (direct play's everything I have) but I'd be happy to go back to AppleTV. I do really miss AirPlay and my family shared photostream as screensaver.
matthewmcg 11y ago
Just installed it and it works great. I had already downloaded the iOS version, so it just appeared under the "Purchased" section on the tvOS App Store.
- tharoldeus 11y ago
  Does it have support for local (or remote) Plex Media Servers? I presently use PlexConnect via a DNS override. Does this obviate all of the present shenanigans?
  - matthewmcg 11y ago
    I'm using a Mac mini on my LAN as the server. I don't have the Plex Pass so I haven't tried using a remote server. The native app is much faster and more reliable than using PlexConnect to replace the Trailers app on the old ATV.
Exuma 11y ago
Can someone answer what is so special about Plex? I have read the descriptions and it just seems very general, boring, and full of buzzwords... "organize your media library", so what? I mostly just watch Netflix, iTunes Movies/TV Shows ... is this going to help me in any way do anything special?
- bwilliams18 11y ago
  No. It's not built for you at all. It's built for torrenters (and usenetters) who download massive collections of files, have them sit on local hard drives, and want easy ways to organize them and play them back. and it does an amazing job of that.
  - mzl 11y ago
    I used to have a large legally obtained CD and DVD collection. Getting a home media server, ripping everything, and using Plex to access is an awesome upgrade compared with physical media. In particular, avoiding physical media that will break for stuff like kids movies is great. Also, managing all the photos we have and take so that they are available on all our devices is great, especially since we are a mixed iOS and Android household. So no, it is not only for downloaders with massive collections of files.
  - mrmondo 11y ago
    This, but I also have lots of completely legit video and audio (audiobooks and music(mostly from bandcamp)).
  - josteink 11y ago
    > It's built for torrenters (and usenetters) who download massive collections of files It's also nice for us who have had a physical media collection (video & music) converted into a pure digital collection and want to be able easily to consume that anywhere, anywhere and on any device with zero friction. Especially local media-sync is useful for long trans-atlantic flights and works much better (and space-efficiently) than just copying the full-fidelity files to the device, which in the end may not be capable of playing them properly at all. Basically Plex is very good at completely eliminating issues regarding playback format and compatibility and ensures whatever is in your library always plays back correctly at whatever target-device you have. I'm not going to deny that torrenters etc probably represent a big portion of the Plex user-base, but I'd like to remind people that actually owning your own media-collection is a still a thing, and I don't see any reason to make software managing such collections a suspicious category to be in.

128 points by chkuendig 11y ago

phren0logy 11y ago

Any news on what containers and codecs don't require transcoding? The new Apple TV ought to be pretty capable.

simcop2387 11y ago
Containers shouldn't affect transcoding at all, might mean re-muxing but I'd guess based on what i remember for older apple tvs that pretty much only MPEG-TS and mp4 are supported as containers, and it has to use HLS for streaming. Codec wise I wouldn't be surprised if it was only H264, H265, VP8, and MPEG2/4. I'd give 50/50 on the MPEG2 support though, might be there just because the hardware had it and to ease releases from the DVD era.
- msbarnett 11y ago
  I'd be very surprised if VP8 were supported at all -- nothing else from Apple supports it. It will almost certainly have to be transcoded for the AppleTV.
  - simcop2387 11y ago
    It's one thing I'm not sure about, given that youtube loves to use it as part of webm.
- johansch 11y ago
  It can't stream (not transcode/repackage) mkv/h264 etc? No thanks.
  - simcop2387 11y ago
    I don't know for certain. I'm speculating based off previous apple products.
  - gigq 11y ago
    Plex has a feature called Direct Stream that supports this use case: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200250387-Streaming-Media-Direct-Play-and-Direct-Stream https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200250387-Streamin...
  - johansch 11y ago
    Addendum: It can stream mkv/h264 without transcoding quite well. I'm really enjoying Plex on my new Apple TV!
Veratyr 11y ago
You mean hardware supported codecs? According to the specs page [0] it's pretty much the same as an iPhone. Standard H.264 <= 60fps 1080p, regular MPEG-4, HE-AAC. The usual MP4 containers. Most of Apple's audio codecs. The most interesting thing is the HEVC support [1] but I'm not sure how useful that will be given the patent situation. There are also rumours [2] that the A8 can deal with 4K. If you mean software decoding, I'm not sure what you have in mind. The more interesting codecs (VP9, Thor, Daala) are too complex to decode in software on such a low power embedded chip. [0]: https://www.apple.com/tv/specs/ https://www.apple.com/tv/specs/ [1]: http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Online-Video-News/Apple-Supports-H.265-But-So-Far-Only-in-FaceTime-on-an-iPhone-6-100392.aspx http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Online-Video-New... [2]: http://www.slashgear.com/iphone-66-plus-a8-chip-capable-of-4k-video-playback-22356949/ http://www.slashgear.com/iphone-66-plus-a8-chip-capable-of-4...
- simcop2387 11y ago
  Good job finding the actual specs, I didn't bother to look, but it looks like I wasn't far off except in thinking that VP8 and MPEG2 MIGHT be supported. I'm surprised about the lack of H265/HEVC, even if it's not used much now it means that as things progress the ATV2 will end up being unable to support things in the future.
  - arm 11y ago
    Believe you meant the 'ATV4', or as Apple refers to it, the Apple TV (4th generation)¹. ―――――― ¹ — https://support.apple.com/kb/SP724 https://support.apple.com/kb/SP724
- phren0logy 11y ago
  I was referring to software, as I figured the Apple embedded chips have gotten fairly beefy over the past few years and might be up to the task of software decoding. Thanks for the detailed response.
  - Veratyr 11y ago
    They might be able to deal with some of the older codecs like FLV or WMV but even many laptops struggle with codecs like VP8/9, with some users going so far as to use plugins [0] to disable them. I have a feeling you'd be hard pressed even getting something like 10-bit H.264 (common for anime releases) decoding in software. Things like this have been attempted in the Raspberry Pi community but the last time I checked there was no success. [0]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/h264ify/aleakchihdccplidncghkekgioiakgal https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/h264ify/aleakchihd...

dewski 11y ago

Simplex had the advantage of being on the store day 1, had Plex had their app on the store day one I'm not sure I would've downloaded Simplex. Nice to see this on the App Store.

rconti 11y ago
Day 1? You mean Friday 10/30? I think that was the official "launch" date. I ordered my ATV4 in the middle of last week (and was surprised to see they weren't out yet), and it arrives tomorrow. I'm gonna call Plex close enough to "day 1".
- prawn 11y ago
  Especially given that discovery on actual day one was so poor (no categories, no charts, limited features) that anything not featured was going to struggle a bit. Our app was written up a couple of times alongside Simplex but missed out on a feature despite getting an artwork request and only had a few dozen sales.
  - robgough 11y ago
    There was only one app showing up in search for the word plex. I'm sure that helped too.
bigdubs 11y ago
what was simplex? just another developer that built an app to talk to plex servers? was curious when i saw that on the app store what it actually did
- lobster_johnson 11y ago
  Simplex is a Plex client. Quite good, actually.
glasshead969 11y ago
I ordered pretty much minutes after it was available and it delivers tomorrow. Friday delivery required extra 17$, probably not opted by most.

bobbles 11y ago

Can someone with the app please let me know if you can just autoplay tv series with this app? Was annoying not being able to do that on the iOS app.

asd 11y ago
Kind of. The only way to do this is by selecting a season and an option to "Play Season X" appears, which forces you to watch the season from episode 1. I think most Plex clients have had this for a while. What I would like (and you too, probably) is to have an option to just autoplay the next episode from whatever is "on deck" similar to Netflix.
- fnordsensei 11y ago
  Yes, despite a lot of complaints about this behaviour, they seem unwilling to go back to revert back to the days where it simply started playing from whatever episode you had not seen.

zyxley 11y ago

This reminds me of how I wish Plex had a mode to actually manage media files rather than just watching them. I hate manually organizing files, and iTunes despite keeping very nice folder organization doesn't quite work for this purpose (no Season 0 support, no option for years in movie filenames).

calinet6 11y ago
Plex doesn't really have much of a notion of files. It prefers metadata that makes sense to non-technical users. While this is at the cost of tweakability, I think it's the right call.
cavisne 11y ago
Sick Beard will handle this for you (you can just not hook up a usenet client if you dont need that bit)
- fsckin 11y ago
  SickRage is a good fork if you're not into Usenet.
- feld 11y ago
  SickBeard development has been dead for like a year. Have you noticed how awful it has been at finding episodes? SickRage is the fork that has lived on
  - cavisne 11y ago
    True, I actually haven't. I only use SB for new release nowadays (streaming covers most old stuff) so maybe that's why.
  - joshschreuder 11y ago
    There's also Sonarr (https://sonarr.tv/ https://sonarr.tv/) which I really like.
bmurphy1976 11y ago

ps4fanboy 11y ago

Time will tell if Apple let them integrate with Universal Search API.

chrisbolt 11y ago
Tim Cook says it will be open, but did not say when: http://9to5mac.com/2015/10/03/tim-cook-apple-tv-universal-search/ http://9to5mac.com/2015/10/03/tim-cook-apple-tv-universal-se...
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  https://www.quora.com/Will-FaceTime-ever-be-opened-as-a-standard-as-promised https://www.quora.com/Will-FaceTime-ever-be-opened-as-a-stan...
  - X-Istence 11y ago
    This might be different in that Apple controls the entire thing end to end. Whereas FaceTime they got sued and that may be why FaceTime never become an open standard.
  - cowsandmilk 11y ago
    Unlike what Steve Jobs did with FaceTime, generally, Tim Cook doesn't blindside the company by declaring something will be open on stage without discussing it with the engineers and rest of management beforehand.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

joshstrange 11y ago

Well I was worried Plex was going to push that god-awful xbox one interface they just ruined PHT (Now Plex Media Player) with. I'll hold out on my RasPlex 2 with PHT for now until some of my friends pick up the new AppleTV but both Simplex and Plex's official app look nice. PlexConnect was amazing for what it did and how it did it but was pretty buggy (no doubt not the fault of the creators) and constantly restarting it was a PITA. RasPlex is the best out there right now IMHO (direct play's everything I have) but I'd be happy to go back to AppleTV. I do really miss AirPlay and my family shared photostream as screensaver.

matthewmcg 11y ago

Just installed it and it works great. I had already downloaded the iOS version, so it just appeared under the "Purchased" section on the tvOS App Store.

tharoldeus 11y ago
Does it have support for local (or remote) Plex Media Servers? I presently use PlexConnect via a DNS override. Does this obviate all of the present shenanigans?
- matthewmcg 11y ago
  I'm using a Mac mini on my LAN as the server. I don't have the Plex Pass so I haven't tried using a remote server. The native app is much faster and more reliable than using PlexConnect to replace the Trailers app on the old ATV.

Exuma 11y ago

Can someone answer what is so special about Plex? I have read the descriptions and it just seems very general, boring, and full of buzzwords... "organize your media library", so what? I mostly just watch Netflix, iTunes Movies/TV Shows ... is this going to help me in any way do anything special?

bwilliams18 11y ago
No. It's not built for you at all. It's built for torrenters (and usenetters) who download massive collections of files, have them sit on local hard drives, and want easy ways to organize them and play them back. and it does an amazing job of that.
- mzl 11y ago
  I used to have a large legally obtained CD and DVD collection. Getting a home media server, ripping everything, and using Plex to access is an awesome upgrade compared with physical media. In particular, avoiding physical media that will break for stuff like kids movies is great. Also, managing all the photos we have and take so that they are available on all our devices is great, especially since we are a mixed iOS and Android household. So no, it is not only for downloaders with massive collections of files.
- mrmondo 11y ago
  This, but I also have lots of completely legit video and audio (audiobooks and music(mostly from bandcamp)).
- josteink 11y ago
  > It's built for torrenters (and usenetters) who download massive collections of files It's also nice for us who have had a physical media collection (video & music) converted into a pure digital collection and want to be able easily to consume that anywhere, anywhere and on any device with zero friction. Especially local media-sync is useful for long trans-atlantic flights and works much better (and space-efficiently) than just copying the full-fidelity files to the device, which in the end may not be capable of playing them properly at all. Basically Plex is very good at completely eliminating issues regarding playback format and compatibility and ensures whatever is in your library always plays back correctly at whatever target-device you have. I'm not going to deny that torrenters etc probably represent a big portion of the Plex user-base, but I'd like to remind people that actually owning your own media-collection is a still a thing, and I don't see any reason to make software managing such collections a suspicious category to be in.