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Plex media server on unraid?

squirrellydw

By squirrellydw
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Stokkes Contributor

Stokkes

Posted
Posted

Not going to happen.

 

1) The Plex Media Server code is closed and only the Plex developers have access to it

2) The Plex Media Server binary is OSX only

 

Plex devs have indicated that the future of their product is the plex media server + thin clients (ala Plex frontend). This is how they will integrate into new LG products, how they integrate with the iOS apps for iPhone/iPad and in the future with a Windows thin client. They have also indicated that eventually, Plex Media Server will be released for different platforms, but that day is not here yet.

 

Looks like you'll have to wait a bit.

 

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Stokkes Contributor

Stokkes

Posted
Posted

That's the thought..

 

I would expect a cross-platform version of PMS sometime in early 2011. With the new integration with LG TVs (that connect to PMS for their media), the Plex team will need to break away from being OSX only and at the very least, have a windows version. Hopefully by that time, they'll also do Linux (which they have stated is also the plan).

 

Whether it works on unRAID (slack) is unknown at this time. Seeing as it's closed source, they would have to release binaries that are compatible with slack or allow us to compile part of the code to make it work with our distribution.

 

Point is, lots of speculation right now, so it's tough to pin down what's going to happen. Best to just wait it out and hope for the best. The devs have a lot of other pressing issues on their plate right now.

 

I'm in the same boat as you, I have a Mac Mini running plex connected to my HDTV, and it pains to me to have to keep my Mini on 24/7 in order to access my media via my iPad or iPhone devices. It would be much better if the Mini was just a thin client and I ran PMS on my unraid server.

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BRiT Mentor

BRiT

Posted
Posted

You will have better chance of success on installing unRAID on a full Slackware 13.1+ (Slackware-Current) distro and then installing XBMC.

 

The other items you can try are installing a small UPnP media streamer or installing PS3 Media Server on unRAID. The PS3 Media Server will serve up media and transcode it platforms other than just a PS3, such as an Xbox360, DLNA devices such as BluRay Players and TVs, and I believe even iPhones/iTouch/iPad/iDevices. There's a dedicated thread to it in these forums with detailed instructions.

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Stokkes Contributor

Stokkes

Posted
Posted

Nah, stick with Plex ;)

 

The new Plex/Nine series (while a bit buggy) is showing massive potential.. No wonder LG signed up with them to develop a thin client for their 2011 line of TVs.. The whole client/server infrastructure they're building will prove to be extremely beneficial (and already is)..

 

Sure, I hate having my Mini on all the time, but being able to start watching something on my TV via Plex, stop it, and resume it on my iPad while I'm upstairs or in the garage or in the bedroom or ahem... on the throne, is really neat. The ability to manage media into different coherent sections instead of pigeon holing everything into Movies/TV global sections is also nice.

 

So far I'm loving Plex/Nine.. And yes it will be nice when I can slap PMS on unRAID. :)

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smoldersonline Explorer

smoldersonline

Posted
Posted

This may give some background to the new Plex "structure".

 

First off, for Mac users Plex is truly an awesome application - I'm using it from the moment the dev's separated from XBMC. 

 

I used symlinks with Plex 8 so that I (more or less) had a central database residing on my server (not yet unRAID), with 3 (symlinked) clients in my house. With Plex Nine I am forced to pick one of the clients as the (PMS) hub for the other clients. Potentially, I have now three machines running: server, client 1 (PMS hub) and client 2 (with the TV). Maybe I will have to look into the VMware option.

 

 

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ClunkClunk Contributor

ClunkClunk

Posted
Posted

Just to join in to the Plex/Nine chat, it's different from Plex/Eight.

 

Previously I just had Plex find my SMB shares from my unRAID and autoconnect. Now that PMS needs local shares, I read about autofs, and it seems to work well. Still testing it out though, but so far it seems to avoid me having to re-mount the shared drives every time my laptop comes in and out of my LAN.

 

As for replacing Plex/Eight, it's not going to happen any time soon. There's still no way to edit metadata, and I have a number of shows that need DVD order rather than aired order, and other little bits that Plex/Nine doesn't have right now. I'll keep using Plex/Eight for a few more versions until the WAF - Wife Acceptance Factor is greater.

 

iOS streaming works pretty well from Plex/Nine!

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Stokkes Contributor

Stokkes

Posted
Posted

ClunkClunk,

 

Were you doing smb automounting using autofs or NFS from unRAID?

 

NFS has been causing me all kinds of grief using Plex/Nine (I think the internal mechanism for scanning directories doesn't behave well with autofs/nfs mounts).. I've had success with SMB, but honeslty, with Mac environments, you're better off to go AFP/NFS route as it's faster.

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Stokkes Contributor

Stokkes

Posted
Posted

From my perspective, I believe so.

 

The MySQL centralized library is a welcome addition to XBMC, so don't get the impression that I'm giving it any flak..

 

Here's what I would say are the main differences..

  • Plex Media Server ("PMS") is the main "core" of the new infrastructure and "serves" up media to all the macs connected to it (currently it's Mac only, next year it'll be cross-platform)
  • Media served by PMS is automatically discovered by the thin clients on the network (and from what the devs have said, you may even be able to stream over WAN at a later date) - no configuration is involved.. The media sections served by PMS "automagically" appear in your main menu of your thin client
  • You have can 1 or many instances of PMS on your network, the thin clients will again, automagically detect all the media served by all the PMS instances on the network
  • All metadata, images, information is held within the PMS repository - this provides the ability to allow thin clients such as iOS/Android apps to access the media without storing anything locally
  • The Plex Media Manager (PMM) is a very nice graphical tool that allows you to easily manage your media visually - adding media sections, managing posters, banners, fanart, etc. (metadata editing is coming soon). PMM is again, Mac only, but soon you'll be able to load up PMM on a Mac, Windows, etc and connect to a remote PMS to manage the media located on it.
  • In older versions of Plex (and XBMC), you were forced to organized your videos into either "Movies" or "TV Shows".. This is fine, but you couldn't finely tune it. In the Plex (PMS), you can add sections such as "Documentaries" or "Cartoons" or "Family Movies" and you're not forced to abide by the traditional rules of TV/Movies..
  • You can add custom sections such as "Family Movies" and they automatically get added into Plex.. They may not contain any metadata, but they will appear in the section you've defined in PMS, and you can browse through them, sort, etc. Once the metadata editing comes into function, you'll be able to edit the metadata for your home movies and have them appear in Plex with custom descriptions, images, etc.

 

They may be giving the impression that they're going commercial, but I think it's in part to support their development efforts.. Plex thin client must be open source (due to it being a fork of the original XBMC). PMS does not, seeing as it's written completely from scratch. The dev team is quite small, so it makes sense that they would try to sell their wares to whomever is interested, just to be able to fund this kind of initiative.

 

All this isn't to say that XBMC isn't good.. They both have their advantages/disadvantages, but I'm currently really liking the groundwork laid for Plex/Nine and beyond.

 

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ClunkClunk Contributor

ClunkClunk

Posted
Posted

Were you doing smb automounting using autofs or NFS from unRAID?

 

NFS has been causing me all kinds of grief using Plex/Nine (I think the internal mechanism for scanning directories doesn't behave well with autofs/nfs mounts).. I've had success with SMB, but honeslty, with Mac environments, you're better off to go AFP/NFS route as it's faster.

Autofs, with my smb mounts. It's slower, but since it's only used for TV/Movies for Plex, and a time machine destination the slower speed is a tradeoff I'm willing to make.

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  • 3 months later...
MvL Enthusiast

MvL

Posted
Posted

Little update on Plex.

 

Plex developer Jam posted this over at the Plex forums:

 

@MvL/Jedi: As I said in my earlier post, we have internal builds of PMS for several platforms (including Linux) but can't commit to a date when/if these will be released. Rest assured that remaining OS X-only isn't a long term strategy for us :)

 

You can read the thread over here http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/16434-linux-backend-pms-os-x-frontend-plex/page__st__40

 

I think it is really great for the Mac users when they can run PMS on there unRAID servers.

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MvL Enthusiast

MvL

Posted
Posted

This is great news. I've held off on Plex 9 because of the difficulties in a non-Mac environment.

 

Maybe leave a message over at the Plex forums that we Mac users appreciate a Linux version. Oh i'm not a Mac user yet  :'( but i have a iPhone...best phone ever...

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jamerson9 Contributor

jamerson9

Posted
Posted

This is great news. I've held off on Plex 9 because of the difficulties in a non-Mac environment.

 

Maybe leave a message over at the Plex forums that we Mac users appreciate a Linux version. Oh i'm not a Mac user yet  :'( but i have a iPhone...best phone ever...

There are some people who are running the Plex Media Server on an OS X VM. I'm also considering this idea if I can get UnRaid to run smoothly under ESXi, thus only having one machine which is running 24hrs a day.

 

Again, leave a post supporting a Linux port on their forums if your interested in giving Plex a go. Even in this current beta state, I think it is one of the best media server/client out there. Being able to make your own custom categories is so convenient, compared to being tied down to only TV or Movies.

 

Edit: Went back after writing this to check the on the Linux PMS thread and they say they have in their lab a running Linux port. :)

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  • 3 weeks later...
mikedm139 Noob

mikedm139

Posted
Posted

I'm new to unRaid. Just got my first build up and running and am in the process of transferring all my media from external USB hard-drives to the server. Running Plex/Nine on a Mac Mini attached to my TV and loving it. I think it would be great to be able to run the PMS on my new unRaid box.

There is now a poll from the Plex devs asking for feedback on what Linux distros the community would like to see PMS built against.  Check it out and add your support for unRaid/Slackware here: http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/21662-linux-support/page__view__getnewpost

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