Introducing Plex for Google TV
It turns out that work on a fully functional myPlex client was not the only thing the Plex for Android team has been up to these days. We’re happy to say that we were one of the 50 companies that Google invited to prepare an app in time for the initial release of Google TV. In fact, some of you noticed us on google.com in their recent promotion for apps on Google TV.
Needless to say we’ve requested a re-categorization of Plex for Google TV as an entertainment app and replaced that ridiculously out of place graphic with something more appropriate:
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- Which of these does not belong with the others?
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- Ah… much better!
Now – we’ve heard Google TV maligned many times over the past couple weeks. We’ve heard it said that the new Google TV is not newsworthy. I admit I was a bit skeptical at first – but I’m here to tell you that we’ve been impressed with how Plex performs on our demo unit. Now honestly I’ve not played with other apps on the Google TV, BUT if nothing else Google TV is worthy because it makes for a great and very responsive Plex client. Overall we think Google TV offers up one of the best Plex client platforms out there in terms of functionality, speed and cost. It’s an excellent choice for hooking up to that ridiculously large flatscreen in the living room, or the more modest one in the bedroom… But hey – Google TV is inexpensive enough – just get one device for each room!
Just a little teaser… A Lens photo Album on Google TV.
We’ve arranged for a quick Q&A session to answer some questions you may have about Plex for Google TV:
Q: Can I get to my local media?
A: Yep – via wifi or ethernet of course.
Q: Does it have support for plex channels?
A: Yep – all the same ones you’ve been able to use from Plex for Android.
Q: So can I resume playback on the Google TV.
A: Yes of course!
Q: Aha! I bet you don’t support myPlex yet – right!?
A: It absolutely comes with myPlex support!
Q: So I can get to remote servers?
A: Yep – you can get to those too. In fact with myPlex support that’s easier than ever since you don’t need to configure port forwarding and deal with all that networking black magic.
Q: Wait – so does that include sections my friends shared with me?
A: Yes – you can play sections that your friends share with you via myPlex.
Get to your sections, myPlex shared sections, recently used channels and more from the Home page.
Q: Including the Queues?
A: Why of course! We know that there’s a very responsible segment of Plex users who would never EVER consider watching amusing videos at work. So of course you’d queue up those not entirely work appropriate videos so that you can plop down on your couch when you get home and watch them there. It’d be irresponsible if we left that out. Queues are an absolute MUST!
You can get to your myPlex Queue from Google TV.
Q: So Plex for Google TV pretty much supports everything that the Plex for Android client supports today?
A: Yes. Well – okay – I admit that we’ve deactivated the remote control. There’s just something odd about trying to control the client on your laptop from a big screen TV. But pretty much everything else is there yes! And of course we have some updates to the UI for non-touch based devices and to ensure that you keyboard wielding folks out there can get around Plex easily.
The Lens displayed with a summary view on Google TV.
Okay – so what’s the catch?
A: The only real catch is that the first release of GTV has very limited HLS support. As you know from my last post (because you were paying careful attention) HLS is what Plex requires to support transcoding.
Q: Uh-oh but Plex has been telling us for years that transcoding is a great thing! What does this mean for us!? What are we going to do!?
A: First relax and take deep breaths. We’re going to make it through this. I admit – I was skeptical about this at first but here’s why this isn’t as bad as it sounds. Plex uses transcoding for two reasons: 1) to reduce the amount of bandwidth consumed by transmitting media across a network and 2) to convert media from a form you cannot play on your device into a form that you CAN play on your device.
Reduction of bandwidth becomes much less important when your media is on your local network. Going over wifi or ethernet you won’t have trouble streaming even 1080p content locally. So we don’t really need transcoding for this. Now – admittedly if you’re sharing your media – you may have some difficulty streaming 1080p video across the network unless you have some monster bandwidth going on (and we know that some of you really do).
Now, converting media is certainly important but it turns out that Google TV has support for a wide array of media containers and codecs. In our testing it played the vast majority of media that we threw at it. We were impressed.
Now – if media isn’t supported there’s one of 4 behaviors you might see:
1. An Error Message – saying that you’re trying to play unsupported media – this is what we HOPE you’ll see.
2. Always Buffering – if you’re buffering for more than 20s or so there’s a good chance that you’ve fallen victim to this. Cancel out of the screen and try another video.
3. Video Only – can happen in the event that you try to play something that Google TV cannot natively support… unfortunately for Plex we don’t always get an indication from the device that there is no video so for now you’ll have to manually back out if this does in fact happen to you.
4. Audio Only – can happen in the event that you try to play something that Google TV cannot natively support. A common one is RAW DTS. For now – if you want to play these onto your GTV you’ll have to convert these to AC3 (or another supported codec) manually.
We of course will be working to eliminate these issues in the near future.
The Movie section on Google TV.
What else is in this release?
Of course we did just release 2.0 but we were able to get a couple important fixes into this (2.0.0.2) release – including:
FIXED: A number of rare crash conditions submitted by users in the field – THANK YOU!
FIXED: An issue where cached objects were reloaded more than necessary. Pages – in particular the Home page should now load faster and there should be less – flicker.
FIXED: An issue where you could get into a perpetual “Loading” state if you didn’t select a server and had a brand new and empty myPlex account.
FIXED: Corrected and clarified a ‘connecting’ message if we’re loading myPlex without an active server selected.
Now – we’ve not released 2.0.0.2 for the mobile client yet but it too will come to the market very soon – these fixes apply to mobile clients only:
FIXED: For Sony Ericsson devices that were force crashing upon startup or during navigation. A big thanks goes out to a kindly Sony Ericsson employee who identified and helped us resolve the issue.
FIXED: Thanks to “Madness” from the Plex forums – we’ve got a fix for the Samsung Galaxy S II / SGH-i777 – which will now play video properly without manual configuration.
A quick note on the last fix mentioned here: It turns out that many of the high end Samsung devices in particular fool Plex. We have no better solution at this time than to track them down one at a time and specifically look for those models to tweak Plex’s settings. If you have a Samsung or other high end device and cannot play video – go into Settings / Advanced Settings and try toggling the setting for ‘Devices Supports HLS’ either on or off to see if that makes a difference. If it does – please let us know (android@plexapp.com) so we can update Plex to better support your platform!
To keep informed on the latest Plex news follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Or tune in to one of our blogs elan.plexapp.com for a wide array of Plex information or darrin.plexapp.com for mostly Android updates.
Enjoy!
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Cool! Nice job Darrin!
Sorry to hear that there is almost no Direct Play, otherwise I’d surely buy one for the bedroom.
This looks amazing. I already have AppleTV but new toys are always welcome. Do you know rough estimate when we might see unsupported video automatically transcoded ? I will be in the US this weekend and If wait is not too long I will stop by BestBuy and pick up Logitech version.
Thanks again for posting very informative and detailed post. Very much appreciated.
Dear lord… I was just pining away for this the other day, and convinced my cousin to pick up a Logitech Revue. “I’m sure Plex is coming… it’s too perfect a match.” He’d been wanting a Roku.
God bless you guys!
Awesome work! Is there a list somewhere of what codecs GTV does support? Do you think there is any chance it would eventually support bit streaming HD audio?
Incredible work!
@darrin – does Plex integrate with the system-wide search on Google TV? If not, any plans to add such a feature?
Awesome work. I’m looking forward to future developments on the platform!
@zAo – Actually we ‘force direct play’ on everything and while not everything plays the vast majority of our content played very well. As mentioned the codec support is quite impressive. Don’t sell it short – it’s definitely worth checking out.
@wally007 – as you probably know transcoding is part of the bread and butter of Plex so it’s already done on our side. As much as we’d like to see it soon – Google would have to speak to when improved HLS support would be available.
@Adam – You know we have nothing bad to say about Roku – it’s a great platform – BUT you haven’t done your cousin wrong. In fact he/she will no doubt be amazed at your ability to predict the future. Maybe you can throw us a bone – and toss out another prediction?
@Nate – Thanks! Actually Google TV already supports streaming HD content. Yes there is a list of codecs – we put a link in the blog above but here it is again: http://code.google.com/tv/android/docs/gtv_media_formats.html
Thanks Mark!
@jm – not yet. We’ve not yet planned what’s next but we’ll certainly be considering it.
Does it need a separate PMS or can it index content on a NAS? If it needs a PMS atm, is integrating a PMS planned feature?
Looks fantastic btw!
@darrin – Any chance we can play dvd rip .iso files with (or without) menu support from our Plex server to the Plex client app on our Google TV?
Nothing to add except, “AWESOME!”
Nice Work Darrin!!
@piy Thanks!
@Evan – sorry Plex doesn’t support playback of .iso files. We’re direct playing everything on Google TV at this point but I strongly doubt that would work. You’ll need to convert it to something from the huge list of supported containers and codecs per the google site.
@Jess – Thanks! To get to your local media you need a PMS though as you probably know you can run PMS on many NAS devices at this point. This said – it is possible to run with just myPlex (no PMS) – which would get you access to your queue and any shared sections. An integrated PMS is not on the roadmap at this point.
What hardware did you test this with? Was it the Revue, the blue ray, or the TV. I am mostly interested in how the Revue works since I would be buying those instead of the AppleTV 2. Don’t get me wrong I think B0bben and his group have done a great job, but why would I want to run an app on a device that I have to jailbreak every time a new firmware comes out when I can just run the app natively. BTW thanks to all the Plex platform coders you guys make the best products out there.
@Scott – Thanks – we worked with a demo Logitech Revue. I hear you about the FW updates – but you have to admit the ATV2 guys absolutely rock! We’ve been super impressed with their work!
Any idea of when the firmware update will be pushed to the Revue? A couple of days, weeks, months, etc.
hi darrin,
can you expand a bit further on the limited support of hls on the google tv? if i have 1080p video shared over myPlex and I don’t have monster bandwidth (particularly for uploads), am I SOL? this all sounds so encouraging and i may just get the google tv (at least for myself) when all this stuff settles down a bit.
@realbaddog – We know what you know… or will after you read this from google: http://googletv.blogspot.com/2011/10/update-on-google-tv.html.
Is there a server repo for Oneiric, or should 11.10 users grab from Lucid?
@uberman – On a local network your 1080p video should play fine assuming it’s in a format supported by the Google TV. If you or your bff are trying to stream 1080p video (which generally starts at some 4Mbps) from a remote location then you will most likely run into limitations on the upload side of the networking pipe (unless you have a really fantastic internet plan or provider). The symptoms are that video will likely stop frequently during playback to buffer. Either converting or transcoding [again transcode is not supported in this version due to aforementioned HLS limitations in the current GTV] to a lower resolution would help the network bandwidth problem. Of course you may find yourself with a new problem – you’ll have a lower resolution image which probably won’t look as good on that nice big flat screen. As you pointed out the upload side is most likely going to be the limiting factor – so if you find yourself in this situation the good news is that it’s your friend that will need to improve his/her broadband plan so that YOU can watch their awesome HD video sections that they so kindly shared with you.
Hello darrin the GTV client looks fantastic great work.
A possible alternative contender for the Google TV Plex client is the Tvix Slim S1 which runs Android 2.2
http://www.tvix.co.kr/ENG/products/Xroid_A1.aspx
This box has hardware acceleration for most formats using the latest gen Sigma Designs 8657 chipset which also happens to be one of the ones Sigma will be using for their in-house XBMC port.
It has DTS audio plus HD audio pass-through support as well so has an edge over the Google TV and most codecs are supported well past Blu-ray specifications.
Is there any chance Plex could work with Tvix and bring the Google TV Plex client to their player (assuming Tvix are receptive to the idea) ?
It would make a great alternative platform, better than the Google TV, but not as expensive as a HTPC.
Thank you.
Thanks for the info darrin. Actually, I’m the one with the local content sharing with my friends. I was just determining whether it was worthwhile for my friends to get the Google TV vs just hook up their computers to the TV and using the desktop clients. I’ll probably get the Google TV for myself, especially because it’ll all be direct played (unlike Apple TV even if they open up the platform for apps). I couldn’t quite tell from the link, does Google TV support DD and DTS passthrough (it seems so, but I’m not quite sure what raw dts is)? Do you have any what Google’s future plans are for HLS? Thanks again.
So – just to be clear. You were running this on the new Google TV 2.0 platform which is just launching, correct?
Sorry if this is a stupid question but I don’t have a Revue and want to make sure I am understanding the situation as I am thinking of getting one just to support your software.
@Suodo – The great thing about today is there are so many great choices for consumers to choose from. We certainly wouldn’t rule out a platform like Tvix is providing.
What we need is a media SERVER for Logitech’s Revue/Google TV. Clients are a dime a dozen, thank you. How about you Plex guys try your hand at putting a Plex media server on Logitech’s Revue? THAT would indeed be newsworthy.
@uberman – I’ll not speculate on what Google’s future plans are beyond what I’ve already shared in previous posts – as I said in my post I sure do hope they get it right. I’ll say this – if your friends want to watch Plex on their TV rather than their computer this is an excellent choice – though of course they’d need to buy the box. The Laika client is great if they already have the computer and don’t mind watching it there – in particular bc you’ll get HLS with that client. If it were me – I’d put PMS on the computer, buy Google TV and get the best of both worlds. Even if they don’t have their own media libraries they can then get channels – CNN, CNET, Vimeo, Revision 5, etc… just my $.02.
@savagemike – To be clear – we ran this on a demo unit that Google sent us which as I understand it was a prototype of the Revue that is just launching. And for what it’s worth – we do still work for beer. Just saying…
@josh – honestly since I’m the Android guy this was much like Greek – I thought maybe you responded to the wrong blog. I conferred with my colleagues and I’m told that you should “hit the ubuntu repo on the linux pms downloads page” – they expect that’ll work for you.
@Sameer Wahab – so you’re saying people don’t really seem all that interested in this?
We kinda think it’s nice to watch media on your Google TV so that’s where we’ve started. Where we will go from there – who knows!?
Is there any support at all for external USB drives? I know the media server is the big sell on it but sometimes I’d rather plug a usb device directly in. The local Media Player reads it fine but I would love to be able to use Plex instead.
May be a dumb question. Why we need Plex Media Server to run on a PC/Notebook?
Could I run just Plex client on my Revue as a standalone app, without the need to connect to Plex Media Server? because I may just plug my usb HDD (containing movies and music) to my Revue; run Plex client on Revue and do whatever Plex client can do.
Will you be able to play files from an external hard drive plugged straight into the box? Or do they have to be streamed?
Well, alright, porting the Plex client to GoogleTV is certainly welcome news, especially since it’s coming from Apple fanbois [sic]. Nevertheless, now that you’ve stepped into enemy territory (yeah, I know, that happened a while ago with the Android client), the team might want to consider making an extra step by porting the server side as well. How about that?
Darrin…one question. I saw the codec support…but have a question since I’m not sure I’m reading it correctly. I have 3 TB of media on my NAS…mostly all encoded to the specs of the “Scene releases” you find elsewhere. Lots of 720P MKV’s with DTS and AC3. Will these files play on the google TV. I have a MAC with Plex and Plex media Server…not the Myplex one yet (should I get that…I will if it will make the experience with on Google TV better). Will these file types play? I saw you said Raw DTS won’t play only AC3. Is raw DTS like DTS-MA or just like regular 5.1 DTS on regular DVD’s. By the looks of the Codec list the Google TV decodes AC3 but only in DIVx, MP4…not MKV…unless I read it incorrectly. So I assume that a mojority of my MKV’s with AC3 and DTS won’t play on the Revue? Is that right? I hope I’m wrong because Plex rocks and I am hooked up through ethernet so bandwith isn’t an issue. Please tell me my files will play. I’ sure many people using plex have many of the same file types I have as well.
@Sameer – Lol – as the guy that heads up Android development I can tell you that in no way do we consider Android “enemy territory” – but yes I know what you mean. Believe it or not this isn’t an entirely new (nor uninteresting) thought – BUT it is not clear to us that this is where our time would be best spent, that these platforms are really all that well suited for a server nor that any of the Google TV manufacturers would even welcome or support such a move. So many awesome platforms out there today aren’t there!?
@Ed, @bthoven, @anthony – wow… you’ve all asked the same question. In this context maybe it seems odd – but at this point we don’t support local media playback… everything is streamed.
@cc – in our testing we’ve found MKVs with AC3 or AAC work well – but you’ll run into problems with DTS. We honestly aren’t sure what is meant by ‘raw DTS’ on the google website so I’m not going to hazard a guess on that. One of our veteran forum guys just wrote up a post to talk about conversion should you run into problems with a video that you absolutely MUST have: http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/32273-howto-convert-your-dts-streams-to-ac3-for-gtv/. Hopefully HLS on the Google TV comes along and we don’t have to worry about such things.
Hey darrin, what about vc-1 encoded mkv files?
Looks like a lot of these BDs today are VC-1 encoded. The google link above says that they support VC-1 (though not necessarily the mkv container
Also regarding HLS, if and when this is supported adequately, I presume we shouldn’t have trouble streaming the VC-1 encoded mkvs as well (since they will get transcoded by PMS)?
Sorry for asking the same question as those other guys! Guess all those comments were waiting to be moderated when I posted! haha
Is there any chance of adding usb hard drive playback at some point? I’m sure a lot of people are like me and don’t want to have their computer on all the time. I was hoping google tv would be the solution to this but I guess I’ll probably have to get a mac mini or NAS at some point after all. Thanks for all your amazing work!!
Hey Darrin,
Any restriction on the VC-1 bit rate (in m2ts format) that the revue or any other google tv box can handle?
One option is to use something like tsmuxer to extract the vc-1 stream from the .mkv and remux into a .m2ts which should be supported (as per the link u posted above)
@Ed – it is possible but don’t hold your breath on this one. At this point a NAS or PC is required for local media.
I was hoping that this would effectively turn my googletv into the equivalent of a boxee box. I want to start Plex, point it at a local SMB mount, and play my media. But since it requires a serverside process running to serve the files, that’s not going to happen.
I hope you will consider including this functionality in a future release. Until then, no sale.
@Rodalpho – The good news is that I believe you can still get a boxee box at a very reasonable price. Now… we rule nothing out in terms of future functionality and feedback from some 5 people on this blog post agree with you so I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.
You’d have to refer to the aforementioned google specs to understand codec limitations.
Yes – Plex should be able to transcode vc-1 without trouble… which GTV would be able to take advantage of if / when the HLS support comes through.
This is AWESOME news! I have a Sony GoogleTV in our master bedroom that I bought refurbished back in August. Got a killer deal on it, but was anxiously awaiting Google’s promised Marketplace upgrade — since without that, it really wasn’t all that superior to the AppleTV box I already owned. (For the price I paid for the TV though, I was happy just having a 32″ LCD made by a major name brand that looked nice on my wall.)
I was frustrated to see the built-in media player it came with couldn’t seem to see/play any of my movie content I had shared out with a standard uPnP client, and wasn’t even considering Plex as an option for it.
When I read you guys did a Plex app for Android with GoogleTV support added, I bought it as soon as I got home from work. I use Plex as the “hub” for all my media on a Mac Pro tower, and it outputs to a DLP projector downstairs. But I’ve always had to run a second progra
I have the Sony Internet TV with Google TV 2.0 and can’t find the Plex App for Google TV. When I search the Marketplace, the only Plex App I see is the $4.99 for the phone. Any ideas how to find it?
There’s only one Plex for Android… perhaps we need to consider a title change?
@King TJ – hopefully the end of your story is that it all worked swimmingly!? Seriously I’m in suspense you need to come back and tell us more.
So does it support .mkv encoded with AC3 or DTS, etc? I read all the comments but could not find out for sure apart from an encoders chart that don’t make much sense to me.
@bertybassett – this one is already answered above: “in our testing we’ve found MKVs with AC3 or AAC work well – but you’ll run into problems with DTS. ” One – piece of feedback for Google is probably to figure out a way to make that chart more human readable – or replace it with some kind of wizard that you can ask if your video format is supported by a given device’s player.
Darrin,
Was really excited to get Plex for GoogleTV, which was my first ever Plex download. I was particularly interested in Plex Channels given its power to add unlimited content from all over the web to the TV. Unfortunately, Plex Channels have not been working for me – (yes we did chat about it, I tried Laika as well and Channels did not work on Laika either). Please help me!
Cheers for the speedy reply. Must have missed it above. Enjoy your release and I hope it makes you a few dollars.
Darrin, please help clarify my understanding. What HW spec and OS version was this demo unit you tested on? Is this something that will be marketed in the future for sale?
Does your statement “Google TV is worthy because it makes for a great and very responsive Plex client” based on this not publicly availble unit running better HW and OS version? Or based on the current Logitech Revue v1 as v2 is not available yet to the public?
I just picked up the Sony Google TV/Blu-Ray.
I can confirm that MKV’s with DTS audio play through the Plex app! I only tested a few files and didn’t watch the whole movie, but my receiver read the audio signal as DTS.
Also, I am having problems with the pause/play feature during video file playback. It doesn’t pause.
Last issue, I really wanted Spotify to work, but it doesn’t show up on Plex for GoogleTV. Any ideas?
Thanks for all the great work!
@Nilly – thanks for the post. Yes – we’ve just gotten reports back that there are issues with pause/play – a fix will be coming soon.
Thanks for asking about channels – more/less you need to choose which channels you want to make available on your device. What you’ll need to do is published in these two posts here on our Android FAQ:
http://wiki.plexapp.com/index.php/Android_FAQ#I_cannot_see_my_favorite_channel_on_Android_-_where_is_it.21.3F
http://wiki.plexapp.com/index.php/Android_FAQ#How_do_I_get_channels_on_my_device.3F
We’ll look into making this process easier in the near future.
bravozulu – please open a post on the Mac Laika forums or Windows Laika forums depending upon the platform you’re currently running upon so that we can help you troubleshoot this issue further. Until Laika works for you channels won’t work on Google TV.
@Madburg – it was a Logitech Revue running pre-2.0 software.
I gather the new “on deck” feature for tv shows and movies is included in the google tv app since there is no mention of it?
Hey Darrin,
I have gotten the Spotify channel to show up on my GoogleTV by disabling capability checking. However, whenever I try to play a song, I get the error message:
“We’re sorry but there was a problem attempting to play [song title]:
There was a problem with media playback.”
Any ideas how to fix this?
Has anyone gotten Spotify channel to work successfully on a GoogleTV?
Thanks!
darrin, I’ve been a fan of Plex and I have been looking for a good Plex client for my TV since streaming to my Xbox doesn’t always work. This looks to be a perfect solution at a good price too!
I have the Android clients already and I think they work great on a phone and tablet, but it would be awesome to see the Google TV client UI looking more like the Laika client UI. I feel like it’s far better suited for a TV screen. Also, I’m not sure if this is planned, but if it’s not integrated into the main Google TV search, having a “type anywhere” search in the client would be awesome as well since we’ll have that keyboard!
Hi Darrin,
What is your take on this:
http://www.googletvforum.org/forum/logitech-revue/3525-logitech-discontinued-revue-now-what.html
Will Logitech Revue’s death stop your development of this plugin? Is Google TV in free fall?
I would love to hear your comment on this.
@positiv – Nothing to worry about in my honest opinion – and yes we’re planning on continuing development on the platform!
Sorry about the vague previous post, I was looking for a yes or no answer on ondeck being included in the google app.
I dont want to import one to Australia if it doesnt have this feature.
@David – on deck is not included YET. And that’s all I have to say about that at this point David.
@Ian – those are good thoughts. You probably already know that we have a great fear of commitment – so we won’t comment on future features other than to say – those sound like great ideas!
@Corey – thanks for the heads up… we’ll be checking into this.
So is it “Plex for Google TV” or “Plex for Android”?
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.plexapp.gtv
I bought “Plex for Android” on my Revue for $4.99 after reading this post. I didn’t see any Google TV version. It has been working “fine.” Now it says an update available but it shows incompatible. And now “Plex for Google TV” is on the market for $0.99.
So did I jump the gun on this? Or is this a fake posting? I’d expect more than 10-50 installs by now.
Nevermind.. the next blog post answered my question lol
@Fernando – thanks so much for your post. You did not jump the gun – we pulled a change-up. Hopefully our temporary price reduction for Plex for Google TV makes it up to you!
Running Plex on Sony GoogleTV. Watched Captain America (1080p) from a .mkv file ripped from blu-ray without much problems (although in the beginning it pause a few times but overall it was viewable). However, other .mkv files I experience a lot of pauses. These fields are 20-30gb in size and currently using my local WIFI connection. I’m running PMS on my iMac. I was initially using Sony’s built-in WIFI and then I switched to connecting to my Airport Express as an access point. That seemed to work better with Captain America. Is there a way I can increase my buffer so these intermittent pauses would go away?
James – we are using the native android media player that ships with the device so we have no control over buffer sizes nor any means (that we know of) to increase their size. You’re right a bump in buffer size might help the player deal with huge spikes in bitrate for HD action movies that might otherwise top out a wifi connection – in particular if your router is trying to handle anything else at the same time. My best recommendation is to try this a hard wired ethernet cable for both the PMS and GTV and see if that helps out.
Thanks Darrin! At this time, hard wired ethernet cable is not possible unless i want the cat5 wire to run from my home office to my media closet which happens to cut across the foyer by the front door. Not the ideal setup. Will have to plan for that later on but in the meantime WIFI is my only option.
James – You might want to TRY the Ethernet setup just to see if that’s going to solve the problem – aesthetics aside. Next suggestion is to transcode to a lower bitrate which no doubt means lower quality… normally you’d be able to setup Plex to accept a maximum bitrate and Plex would automatically transcode for you but because GTV doesn’t support HLS yet we cannot do that. Sorry I’ve got nothing easy for you here.
Not a problem. Darrin, I appreciate all your help on this. As you suggest, I will try the Ethernet setup. Will let you know soon. Once GTV supports HLS, will my issue go away then? Keep up the great work with PLEX!
James – you’re most welcome. Yeah with HLS Plex would be able to do much more to be able to help – e.g. reducing bitrates dynamically and of course play MANY channels that won’t play directly. Honestly though with your situation – try to find a way to get a hard line directly to the TV. I know some people have used power lines to do so. Don’t get me wrong I love the convenience of wifi BUT the reduced latency and throughput of a hard line is generally going to be your friend when you’re dealing with HD content. Good luck!
Is this supposed to have big huge icons (one row of three movies per page)? Using Logitech Revue with second leaked beta. It doesnt look like the picture you posted?
Screenshot:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/535/photozyr.jpg/
How do I stream what I see on My macbook to my GOOGLE TV wirelessly, without doing that using an hdmi cable.
Does plex do that, or is there another google tv app that makes that possible?
thanks,
KC
Peter – the leaked beta isn’t the same SW as the real deal – hence the differences you’re seeing.
KC – yes Plex can stream video to your Google TV if you get the Plex Media Server (free at http://plexapp.com) and Plex for Google TV.
Thanks, I will (continue to) wait for the official upgrade from Logitech, functionality of Plex is spot on no worries there.
Darrin,
I see a couple of days ago on the Plex App for Google tv for the homerun tv tuner device. Now, I can’t find it. Was it taken off?
Thanks
@Rockey – thanks for your post. Honestly I’m not familiar with the device but I can tell you that we’ve made no changes to the marketplace in the last several weeks. If it was there days ago – it should be there today.
Finally got the OTA upgrade to HC on my Revue this morning. The first thing I tried to do was get Plex for Google TV from the market. Unfortunately it says that I don’t have any supported devices. It there a way to sideload Plex for Google TV? Or is there some secret to getting the app on my Revue?
I got the update last night and I went to the market on the device itself, searched for the app and installed it. Works beautifully. My wife and I watched a couple episodes of How I Met Your Mother and then went to bed.
If you try to download apps from market.android.com it says you have to have an endpoint that supports it. I get this on all apps for Google TV from the market site. So like I said, just search for it from the market on the device.
Great job guys!!!
Thanks Ammon!
I just updated my revue to honeycomb and when I try to download plex from the android market (from the revue) it has “not compatible” grayed out when I would download it from. Why is this???
Darrin
I live in a concrete building and streaming content across WiFi doesn’t work very well.
How do I use Plex without a PMS? I read about MyPlex. I have a ReadyNAS NV+ (no PMS on it
), all I want to do is remote mount a directory and read files off it.
Is it possible?
Andrew,
This happens with some apps in the market right after you get the update on your Revue. One of the following fixes should work:
1) Give the market time to sync.
2) If that didn’t work, reboot your Revue.
3) If that didn’t work, from your home screen on your Revue, push the “menu” key -> System Settings -> Applications -> Then click the “check box” next to “Unknown Sources”.
If you use the third option, be wary of what sources you download apps from.
One of these should work for you. Hope this helps.
Isreal Kendall – thanks very much for these suggestions.
@Anand – thanks for the question. The Plex clients all require a Plex Media Server in order to operate. If the remote files are your friend’s and they share their library with you via myPlex (and THEY run a PMS) it is possible that you don’t have a PMS. BUT a PMS has to be involved if you’re using Plex to play media.
GOOGle TV?? I never know that google has a TV, well well, What is this feature about, and how does it work? Really excited to know.
@darrin I just got the Revue updated and got Plex working fine at my house, but I bought it to install at a friends house where everything would need to be transcoded. Any ideas when to have an update with a solution to allow transcoding?
Re. ISOs: I’m confused, because Plex client on the mac certainly does play ISOs; is it supposed to be just Plex for Google TV that has this limitation?
fatmi – I’d recommend you google “Google TV” to find out more…
@Andrew – I’m sorry you’ve stumbled across a known issue. We’ve got a fix in the works.
@Mike – I understand the confusion. There’s a difference between ‘working’ and supported. There are a number of things that you can get to work with Plex that we don’t support. ISOs are one of these things. Use them at your own risk and understand that there may come a day when they do not work on any client. We highly recommend that you move away from them.
Thanks (and for the quick response)! I’ve been spoiled by the mac client, but I
will endeavor to extract the appropriate titles (although probably not as fast as
my son can demand to watch them!).
Mike – I know it can be painful. If you’ve not already you might search around the forums – I bet some have come up with ways to make this move a bit faster and easier.
Hi again! I just tried extracting the title from an ISO using makemkv (ie. as an mkv): I can play it using the revue’s plex app, but I only get audio: video is blank. Per VLC, the mkv contains an MPEG-1/2 stream (mpgv), an AC3 stream and a subtitle 2 (spu). Based on minimal research I believe I should be able to play this (with video). Is there
anything I can do? Thanks!
So I finally updated my GoogleTV and the only thing I was looking forward to was Plex, since I use it on my iPhone/iPad/RAZR. However, I find the current release almost unusable. Why? Because there’s no search nor keyboard support for getting to alphabetical titles. I have over 600 movies, spread across 3 categories. Right now, Plex forces me to scroll through all of that if I want to watch a film that starts with Z.
If it worked like the mobile versions where scrolling was as immediate, this wouldn’t be an issue. However, on GoogleTV, it’s painfully slow. So hoping you guys address this with an update. For now, I’m back to using the Logitech Media Player through folder view. Too bad it doesn’t support many of the codecs that you guys do.
Hi again! Have you stopped taking comments on this thread? I tried again, making an MPEG file using tccat (basically concatenating the VOB files for a given title, again no transcoding), and again the result plays fine in Plex client on my macbook, but I get the same “can’t play” error in Plex app on the logitech revue. Is there some guidance on what sort of media Plex app will play?
@Mike – The guidance we’ve given remains the same as we’ve published in the article above it’s whatever the device you’re on can play natively. Now I realize this is probably black magic and goodness knows that the table that Google published in our link above is probably a bit like greek. BUT a couple quick googles tells me – the Logitech Revue doesn’t support MPEG2 which is the standard way DVDs are encoded. To play these videos you’d need to transcode to another video codec via Handbrake or something similar.
Because of the limited HLS support in the Google TV – Plex cannot yet transcode your MPEG2 on the fly for you so that it will play on your device. Once Google TV does in fact support HLS everything will magically work on the Google TV just as it does on other platforms. Until then – as mentioned above you’ll have to remain conscious of what the Google TV does support and transcode incompatible formats that you want to view on your Google TV.
I realize this is probably not what you want to hear but I hope it helps.
@contempt – yes we agree with you – expect to see significant improvements around navigation in future releases. Note that you should be able to search from the home page.
Thanks for the detailed response! I returned the logitech revue and have bought a sony google tv (NSZ-GT1) to try instead, as it supposedly *does* support MPEG2 (inside both MKV and MPG). Much better
Still can’t play ISOs, but my three MKV (MPEG2) files play, and so does my MPG (MPEG2) file, as hoped! I do have one question (and I realised I should probably ask this in the forum!): the two movies I’ve extracted (from VOBs to both MKV and MPG) are only taking up (what appears to be) a 720×480 rectangle in the middle of my 1080p TV (despite having calibrated google tv for the full display area). This is the same effect I would get on my Plex client (on my laptop) if I selected “view mode” = “original size” (instead of, say, “normal”). But I can’t find a “view mode” option in Plex app on the google tv, so I don’t know how to specify “normal”: is there an obvious way to force a 720p/i stream to upscale to 1080p via Plex app? (Oddly, two 4×3 TV episodes (also from DVD VOBs) do take up the full vertical height, as they should, so it seems to be a problem specific to movies!) Thanks again 
I should have searched the forums more carefully before replying! I see that you have already acknowledged this problem (not upscaling from 720p). However, I can’t find any reference of a solution being actively in the works: is this something that I can expect to be fixed in the next few weeks (or a month or two at most)? If not then it would be good to know, because then I can return the sony google tv as well, and go back to searching for alternatives (I don’t want to though, as I much prefer the android under-pinning to those of roku, boxee, etc.). Thanks again, again
BTW, I was surprised (and a little frustrated) to find that Plex media server does not (any more) support DLNA, so I was unable to try out the built-in media player (without running some dedicated DLNA server alongside Plex, which I’d much rather not have to do). That seems a bit of a backwards step, but I guess there must be some rationales for dropping it
Another question: all my searches tell me that HLS *is* supported by the android 3.1 (honeycomb) update (which I have installed), but I seem unable to select a specific audio track (or subtitle) from within Plex app on the Sony NSZ-GT1. Is there anything that Google needs to add (to the OS), or is there something Plex app needs to add, in order to get audio/subtitle selection working? Thanks!
Google will have a patch with enhanced HLS support – when it comes out the Plex features called out in the Google Marketplace as not working… will begin to work:
“until a patch release from Google is made available with enhanced HLS support (they’ve not yet announced a release date) please be aware:
1. Plex for Google TV will only be able to play media format supported directly by the device.
2. Video Channel support is severely limited.
3. Subtitles will not work.
4. Audio stream selection is not possible (if multiple audio tracks are in your media).”
I hope that helps.
Thanks very much! Is there any public commitment from google to issue that patch? ie. can I calibrate my expectations for it? (I’m trying to figure out whether or not to return the sony google tv, while I still can: if the patch is not likely in (say) the next 3-4 weeks, then I’ll return it, and then buy another (or whatever’s replaced it) when it does come out!)
BTW, re. my other thread, is there any kind of ETA for the Plex app update which will enable upscaling (ie. filling the screen) from 720p on 1080p screens? (I asked in the forum, but haven’t seen any replies yet.)
Thanks again; much appreciate the info
@Mike – Google has given us permission to talk about the coming ‘enhanced HLS’ but not the WHEN of it.
wrt upscaling – I think we did reply in the forums already. We already do that – but there’s no good way to do that automatically for anamorphic video. That said there will be a another Zoom mode – which is now in the Plex for Android release that will be coming soon to the Google TV.
Happy Holidays!
Thanks very much! I’ll hold onto the sony until the last minute
Probably a redundant question, but I’m a technology dummy. I get a message talking about potentially unsupported media on my entire plex video collectionhttps://developers.google.com/tv/android/docs/gtv_media_formats. Is there a quick fix for this? Using the Sony Internet Blu Ray Disc Player. Any information would be greatly appreciated!
@Ben – On the Google TV there is no quick fix for unsupported media formats (though on other devices this is handled automatically by Plex). The non-technical answer is that it’ll come in time. The technical answer: you need to wait for enhanced HLS to be supported by Google TV so that Plex can transcode media as it does on other devices. It is coming but we don’t know when it will be there. You can check our forums for some (technical) work-arounds: http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/forum/105-google-tv/
is there going to be any update to the plex app with the release of ICS to make the interface hold more info i feel restricted that all it shows is 4 shows at any one time can the dislay not be like the desktop apps?
The plug in HD Homerun will not let me play live TV. Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks
Chris – how many cells display is less related to ICS than the relative size and screen density of the device. What ICS device are you on that you feel like the app should be ‘like the desktop apps’?
Rockey – first without HLS support you’re going to have limited support for video channels. Enhanced HLS support just started rolling out – so hopefully it won’t be much longer before you have it. To get answers for plugins you’ll want to visit the forums: http://plexapp.com/forums
I am actually having issues connecting via ethernet my ATV2 jailbroken with plex on my macbook pro.
When using wireless it all works fine, but is sometimes a bit slow. because my MBP lives next to the TV it is no issue having it connected bu ethernet.
But when I do so I loose, internet connection and access to the plex media server.
In network settings it says
“Ethernet has a self-assigned IP address and will not be able to connect to the Internet.”
I have entered my username and password in the Plex settings on ATV2.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
darrin, thanks for all the info. Ive been going back and forth about using the atv2 jb vs just going out and buying the logitech revue. sounds like the revue is good deal without having to keep updating and making changes. Im a simple guy: Is the revue comparable to using atv2? everything I own is apple and I already have the atv2.. just dont want to ruin it!
Darrin – I think what Chris was referring to is that the navigation appears to be the same as it was for a phone. That interface is not really optimal on a TV or tablet as there is a lot of blank screen and on a TV you aren’t navigating by touch.
This would be a no brainer for me if the Google TV version had an interface that looked closer to the desktop version for me to navigate through and if the app could be controlled by my phone running Plex as well.
Sounds like a good one to bring to the forum for Plex for ATV: http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/forum/76-apple-tv-2nd-gen/
azmey1 – given that the revue has been discontinued (sorry for the long delay in my response) – I’d suggest taking a look at the sony blu ray. It’s a pretty good device and the UX is about to get much better.
Ian – we understand completely – and as I’ve mentioned in a number of forums we started working on the TV interface before the Google TV even existed. The wait for it to come to Google TV is just about over: http://googletv.blogspot.com/2012/03/sit-back-relax-and-let-plex-for-google.html
Any update on the support of ISOs on plex
@djtunde – I’m sorry but there are no plans to support ISOs.