Plex - Playing Video

[bkastner 0]

Okay.... so I managed to get my device to boot to Plex automatically, which is great.

However... when I browse through movies and select a movie it pops up a screen with a description, and there is the option in the upper left to return to movie list, upper right so sync, or if I move down I can select more/less on the description. There is a big PLAY button in the middle of the screen but with the remote I can't find any way to actually start the video. If I switch to mouse mode I can move the curser over Play and start the movie, but with the remote acting as a remote I can't. This is true for Movies or TV Shows.

I am doing this under Shared Libraries as I've shared my library with my parents (who I am setting this up for). I am guessing it would act the same for me as a local user (as I would think the button is the same).

I keep getting stumped with trivial tasks here, and it's driving me nuts.

Anyone using Plex successfully? Any suggestions on how to start videos using the remote (without entering mouse mode)?

[Justin 206]

Sounds like this app was designed for Touch Screen devices. So therefore the reason why only the mouse allows you to press Play, since not all IR Remote functions work on all apps.

I experience the same thing when trying to play TV episodes within Netflix.

You can either keep using the mouse mode to press play, or you can just connect a standard usb computer mouse.

[bkastner 0]

Ahh, okay, thanks makes sense.

Thanks Justin.

[bkastner 0]

Based on your suggestion for the issue I dug through the settings for Plex and you can select it to either be Mobile or TV. Selecting TV gives you access to the play buttons, however it seems to lose some functionality. For instance, I can't see shared libraries anymore, which is odd.

Since this is just for a family member I ended up logging into Plex as myself and can now see all the content under My Libraries.

I have to say, the Plex app is much nicer on Android than devices like Roku, but it's still only a 75% solution - it's not as user friendly as you would hope, but this may be a limitation of trying to build a single app that covers a multitude of device types (some touch, some not).

[Justin 206]

Based on your suggestion for the issue I dug through the settings for Plex and you can select it to either be Mobile or TV. Selecting TV gives you access to the play buttons, however it seems to lose some functionality. For instance, I can't see shared libraries anymore, which is odd.

Since this is just for a family member I ended up logging into Plex as myself and can now see all the content under My Libraries.

I have to say, the Plex app is much nicer on Android than devices like Roku, but it's still only a 75% solution - it's not as user friendly as you would hope, but this may be a limitation of trying to build a single app that covers a multitude of device types (some touch, some not).

Since the release of Android 5.0 L, they have now established Android for TV Based solutions, rather then just Mobile and Tablet devices.

So you should see more developers now upgrading or making separate apps which are meant to be used on a TV.

And since Plex is a widely used app, I wouldn't doubt if we see them update there app for the TV part to make it better.

[stereoguy 0]

bkastner

It sounds like you may not have set up an account for the family member on the plex.tv site, as then you can share your libraries with that user - if of course they are logging in as that user to the plex app on the 520... Also make sure that your server is logged in with your user account and can connect back to the Plex site as well (sounds like that piece is already working for you though).

Plex really does cover most scenarios - including selectively sharing libraries. No need to grant access to everything you own if you don't want to.

For the Android app, it needs to be configured appropriately, including setting up the mode, audio output and telling the app what kind of decoding is needed for connected devices - ie does your tv decode DTS? are you connected to a receiver?

Finally - remember to set the playback resolution for remote use, don't have a box at someones house trying to play something at a 10MB stream if your upload is only 3MB for instance.

Plex could possibly do a better job with detecting some of this, but it all works quite well once its configured.

[Justin 206]

bkastner

It sounds like you may not have set up an account for the family member on the plex.tv site, as then you can share your libraries with that user - if of course they are logging in as that user to the plex app on the 520... Also make sure that your server is logged in with your user account and can connect back to the Plex site as well (sounds like that piece is already working for you though).

Plex really does cover most scenarios - including selectively sharing libraries. No need to grant access to everything you own if you don't want to.

For the Android app, it needs to be configured appropriately, including setting up the mode, audio output and telling the app what kind of decoding is needed for connected devices - ie does your tv decode DTS? are you connected to a receiver?

Finally - remember to set the playback resolution for remote use, don't have a box at someones house trying to play something at a 10MB stream if your upload is only 3MB for instance.

Plex could possibly do a better job with detecting some of this, but it all works quite well once its configured.

Thanks for sharing this info