Plex Media Server - How To Consume Your Media In Style

[macca_779]

Im tipping dlna may have moved forward cause ive got 10x ff on a 60' samsung series 8

It seems its hit and miss and depends on device, file type, position of the moon etc. A quick search for DLNA can't fast forward reveals its quite a common flaw.

[lumina ss]

FF button doesnt work but right and left arrow on samsung are FF and rewind

[duaned]

Odd cause I've never been able to on any LG or Samsung TV I've used. Friends have confirmed the same thing (2013-14 TV's too). USB connected directly will work, but not via a DLNA NAS.

I wouldn't call a proper media server "fluff" DLNA is very basic. If thats all you want then fine, I've been there done that and found it extremely limited. But there are others out there that want far more features and thats why I wrote this thread.

I use a Synology NAS and DNLA to stream to my DLNA supporting clients and have no issue with FFD and REW. I use this method because it is simple and reliable. Using Plex, XBMC etc. does my head in.

[macca_779]

If Plex does your head in, you must only have a basic grasp on computers

You can stay out of my thread if it's to advanced for you thanks.

[lumina ss]

Advanced no its full of irrelevant guff. If i want to use a software media server i use universal media server, which is the current enumeration of ps3. I think your last post hit the nail on the head, unless you live your life through your pc plex is over the top

[macca_779]

Advanced no its full of irrelevant guff. If i want to use a software media server i use universal media server, which is the current enumeration of ps3. I think your last post hit the nail on the head, unless you live your life through your pc plex is over the top

That's your opinion. Some people are probably happy using DOS too

[VBhero]

personally I love Plex, the limitations of DLNA was driving me batty, limited to no FF / RR functionality, no transcoding which meant if the file is not in a supported format (ie .MKV is a common one) then it would not play.
Switching to Plex was the best thing I have done, everything plays, I have full FF / RR and subtitle functionality. It is rather simple to set up and even simpler to manage when running. I am not sure where people are getting this idea that Plex is complex to use.
Plex FTW.

[Raptor6L]

Cool thread Macca! Have had a server in a closet and a media centre computer in the lounge for years now. Running the older version Media Browser and Media Center Master on the server, but have been meaning to check out Plex and see what's what.
Not sure if you've seen MCM, but if you're downloading, it's pretty cool. It ties in with utorrent, is highly configurable, it'll keep your series up to date, rename them, retrieve metadata, transfer them to the right location on the server, and you can just set it up to run automatically in the background. Worth checking out!

Cheers
Chris

[macca_779]

Thanks mate. A group of my trainees run a Media Server using Media Browser. One of the boys told me about those abilities to tie in with torrenting. If it supported chromecast and LG TV's I reckon I'd switch as it does seem like a good thing doing a lot of the work in the one application.

I've considered automatic renaming of episodes using "The Renamer". One of the guys at work who we share each others libraries with does that. I haven't bothered yet because frankly I'm rarely dealing with the raw files anymore. But I may still do it anyway

Edit

Just had a quick look at MCM. Seems it supports Plex. So I'll have a better look. Cheers

[Toddler78]

So I have this question for you Macca.

Are you downloading your files as a Zip file?

the reason I ask is that I download min 720p quality for my shows from my preferred site. but they all come zipped. Thanks this this thread I have set up RSS feeds now and have the files downloading to the correct folder, however I am still having to manually extract the file. Have you automated this method yet?

[Toddler78]

So I have this question for you Macca.

Are you downloading your files as a Zip file?

the reason I ask is that I download min 720p quality for my shows from my preferred site. but they all come zipped. Thanks this this thread I have set up RSS feeds now and have the files downloading to the correct folder, however I am still having to manually extract the file. Have you automated this method yet?

[Micks]

Reckon your better off going a good torrent client like qBittorrent they have a built in search engine too! Do all your downloads offpeak if possible!

[bush_basha]

I have finally just downloaded plex, and I'm kicking myself I didn't do it earlier, it's fantastic, no more copying it to a hard drive or usb and sticking it in the TV, lol. (Though in my defence it's the first place with Ethernet wiring haha)
Now to read a little more into the automated downloading and I'll be set

[aussiebbq]

So I have this question for you Macca.

Are you downloading your files as a Zip file?

the reason I ask is that I download min 720p quality for my shows from my preferred site. but they all come zipped. Thanks this this thread I have set up RSS feeds now and have the files downloading to the correct folder, however I am still having to manually extract the file. Have you automated this method yet?

This is what your looking for.

http://torrentinvites.org/f29/automa...torrent-25542/

Easiest way for automatic downloads is RSS Feed. Utorrent can auto download off it once you set it up. Lots of tutorials around

[bush_basha]

Automating your TV downloads.

I was going to do this as a separate thread, but I think it directly adds to the benefit of the plex server having automatic media detection.

Most people probably get their TV shows from a torrent website like piratebay, eztv, bitsoup etc. I used to use eztv exclusively for my TV shows as I liked the My Page feature which allowed you to keep track of what you had watched. Now with plex, that is null and void as it does that locally for me.

Ezrss. The official RSS feed site for Eztv. For those not familiar RSS feeds are used to publish frequently updated info of websites. When it comes to TV shows an RSS feed can be used to keep track of new episodes that come available. Ezrss does an ok job of this, but its not very user friendly when it comes to setting up multiple feeds that need filtering.

ShowRSS http://showrss.info/

I only recently discovered this site and frankly it shits on Ezrss.

With this site you sign up and add the shows you want in your feed with the pull down window. You also set which quality be it HD or SD of the show you want in your feed. The feed only goes back a couple of weeks which is fine. But if you want a whole show thats been on air for a while, you'll have to do that manually.



Once you have all the shows you have on the go added to the list you'll want to get your custom feed. Play with the settings how ever you want here.



Now that you have the feed its time to use it. I use uTorrent as it is the best torrent client out there and it works with feeds very well.

Add a new feed and paste the feed url in. You can give it an alias if you want too. Make sure DO NOT AUTOMATICALLY DOWNLOAD is selected. This is to prevent everything in the feed from being downloaded, as we don't want that yet.



Right click on the feeds box and select RSS Downloader



Filtering is the hardest part of setting up RSS feeds. Its why using the ShowRSS site works so much better than anything else I've used.
All you have to do is add the show name as I've shown here and put an asterisk after the name to wildcard any other aspect of the entry (namely the episode number).
From there you tell the filer where to download the file to. This is where plex will automatically see it and add it to the library.
The other settings are just what I like to use. The smart ep filter prevents double ups which happens when repack episodes are produced.



Thats really all there is to it. With all this running properly you'll have on demand media where ever you are and when ever you want. When that latest Game of Thrones episode comes out at 2:00pm on Mondays, you can duck off to the shitter and watch it on your phone during office time.. Not that I've ever done that, Ive got a 200" projector in the office for that.

My intent when I built my server was to make it as painless and automated as possible. Its taken a while to get it running like this, so I hope there are people that can learn from my development and improve their own media library experience at the same time.

ok so im at this point in trying to put it into utorrent, however my list does not show up its just blank, is there something special that you did to get it to show up, i click the rss downloader and the dialogue box pops up but no list in there like yours has.