Plex / Infuse / Kodi

I recently started using Plex to handle and watch or listen to my personal media. I'm pretty happy with it so far. It's a much better system, for a number of reasons, than using iTunes.

My question is, has anyone else here used any of the alternative media server systems such as (but not limited to) the ones mentioned in the thread title? And if so, do you have any thoughts on them or any comparisons you might be able to make between different them? What some are better or worse at, what some allow you to do that others don't?

Before I get too invested in using Plex, I want to try to figure out if it's the best suited to my uses. I currently host all my media on an external hard drive connected to a Mac Mini. And I watch on various iOS devices or Apple TVs throughout the house. But I want to be using something that works across platforms - on Android devices and Rokus and Chromecast-able and so on. I stream from outside the network sometimes, but not very often. And I may eventually get a decent NAS drive to host and serve my media, so it would be an advantage if the platform could run on those. That last part isn't a deal breaker as I'm fine with continuing to host and serve my media from the Mini, it stays on 24/7 regardless.

Any thoughts anyone might have would be appreciated.
 

meddauna

Member
Plex is the most user friendly version of what you're trying to do and streams quite easily to a Chromecast or Fire Stick, unfortunatly, what you see is what you a get and it's generally not free. Kodi is significantly more configurable but you have to have third party scripts/apps to do many things like streaming to a chromecast (I use the Android app called Yatse that lets me cast) and requires a dedicated HTPC running to to be able to cast around to different devices, Plex is just a background process on your file server.

I actually use both. I much prefer the interface of Kodi and I use Kodi on my main TV, people are always blown away by it. Once it's set up it's fairly user friendly, you can get a cheap IR remote for it or use an app on a phone/tablet to control it. I use plex on pretty much everything else, I just find it's easier to cast around to my chromecast, fire stick, tablets, phones with plex than Kodi.

http://lifehacker.com/home-theater-software-showdown-kodi-vs-plex-1746501974
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
I actually use both. I much prefer the interface of Kodi and I use Kodi on my main TV, people are always blown away by it.



what do you use for a Media PC

I have been looking for a replacement for my WDTV since the HD died last yr.
Right now I use a laptop and VLC
 

TWL

Kernel panic: Aiee.......
It's a bit pricey, but I've been using a QNAP TS-453 Pro NAS the past 6 months. I run the PLEX server on it and use the PLEX app on my HDTV and/or TiVO's. I've used a variety of different media devices and configurations over the past 10+ years. This is the best I've used so far.
 
what do you use for a Media PC

I have been looking for a replacement for my WDTV since the HD died last yr.
Right now I use a laptop and VLC

I still use my WDTV as my primary media player, but if you follow their forums you'll find the last few firmware updates left the unit pretty screwed up and they've pretty much stopped supporting it. The WDTV is great in that it handles so many different media formats. All my stuff is in ISO format on a 5tb USB drive.
 

GopherM

Darwin was right
I've been using Kodi for just a couple of month and really love it. You do have to load addons and repositories but once you get it up and running it is really great. When you select a TV show or movie to watch you will be presented with multiple options (channels) to choose from and some may play an episode of a TV series one time but not the next episode. It is no problem though, you just back out and pick another option. There are a lot of videos on YouTube that will coach you through the setup. This is definitely one of the better links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P83wCoIKsX8

Give it a try. It's free and if you don't like it you haven't lost anything but some time.
 

meddauna

Member
what do you use for a Media PC

I have been looking for a replacement for my WDTV since the HD died last yr.
Right now I use a laptop and VLC

I have my gaming PC next to the TV that I use as my file server/plex server/kodi/gaming machine connected to the receiver with an HDMI cable.
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
I still use my WDTV as my primary media player, but if you follow their forums you'll find the last few firmware updates left the unit pretty screwed up and they've pretty much stopped supporting it. The WDTV is great in that it handles so many different media formats. All my stuff is in ISO format on a 5tb USB drive.


I started running into MKV Files that the WDTV could not play, locally or streaming from my file server ... but it was a good device while the hard drive lasted
 

koan00

Member
The media server currently used in our house is serviio. My server is a non-standard linux installation, so my parameters for acceptance are probably bit different that most. If plex offered more generic linux support, I might check it out.

Regarding the WDTV live and MKV, any decent media streaming server should have profiles for common devices and change its behavior accordingly. For example, for non-supported media:
1) If possible, trick the client into playing it
2) Failing that, remux the file into a supported container/format
3) Failing 1-2, transcode the file to an appropriate format for the client.
 
For anyone interested....

My WDTV was aging. I was hitting maximum external disk size limits, problems with the library not updating properly, really poor support for BD disks, media not supported, not only no longer available to be purchased, but all software support has been dropped for a couple years now, even the WDTV forum I was a member of is gone.

If you keep your own local library, you're probably aware of a product called DVDFab. I've been using it for years, great product. That company has now released their own version of a media play called the DVDFab Movie Server. It's based on v5 of Android, and can support up to 8TB of internal disk space, 4k video, but the disks can be removed and substituted, so there is virtually no limit to file storage. I just spent the past few days copying over my library of 5TB worth of movies with very few issues, and all resolvable. This product is light years beyond the WDTV.

Still experimenting with it, but it's handled everything I've thrown at it. The library function works great. Solid hardware base with lots of I/O options. I even used my old WDTV over WiFi to access the movies and play them using the Movie Server for the library. Flawless, and that's saying something because the old WDTV had real issues streaming over WiFi. It will play just about anything but was specifically designed to be used in conjunction with the DVDFab ripper software. You can rip a movie on your PC and have the ISO file delivered directly to the Movie Server over your network where it will pull in all necessary meta info.

The toughest part about the Movie Server is getting one. Not sold locally, so had to order it directly from China. Because of the price and country, my credit card got frauded a few times before we got it to go thru. But a week later I had it.

https://www.dvdfab.cn/movie-server.htm
 
Last edited:
FYI to anyone that might have purchased the DVDfab unit. They made an upgrade to the software and released it a few days ago.

It's awful. Plagued with library and scraping issues. I've been trying to recover my library for 4 days. If you have this unit, do not upgrade the software. I've been in touch with DVDfab, and they acknowledge library issues.

I asked for a link to the old software, and they provided it and instructions for restoring the old version.

Software upgrade issue aside, it's been a very solid performing movie server.
 

Misfit

Lawful neutral
Terranium is my go to now. I have to adjust the audio speed on every feed but it works much better than Kodi IMO.
 
Top