Plex

[9/27/16]  Finally installed the Plex Server on my laptop so I can watch Plex at my mom's place.   (Actually I watched the premiere of Kevin Can Wait which is free on Amazon Video [and itunes] and I was kind of interested in the second episode.  Anyway...]

Scanning photos on my laptop.  Takes forever (and is still going).

First thing I installed was the CBS channel.  You have to do it on the computer (right-click on the Plex Server icon in the lower right on the computer, you'll probably have to click the ^ to see it.  Then Open Plex...).

Didn't see CBS when I opened the Plex Classic app on the Roku, but it showed up in the newer Plex app.  However the videos don't play.  It starts to play.  The progress circle stops at 13% and keeps spinning.  Then some minutes later, I get an error message, like video not available or in wrong format.

In the meantime, to check if something was wrong with the Plex installation, I installed the Twit channel.  And it seemed to play fine.

Try again.  This time I tried Big Bang Theory and it started to play after a long time waiting to load.  Then after a few seconds, it started to buffer again and now is stuck at 33%.

Now it started again, but keeps pausing to buffer.  And now it seems to be playing better, pausing to buffer less and less.  Maybe Plex needed to settle down (from processing so many photos).  We'll see how it performs next time.  No captions though.

Actually most of the Plex channels that I'm interested in are already on the Roku (though some require cable verification).  CBS was the main one I was interested in, since access on streaming boxes is limited to CBS All Access subscribers.

I think I'd be better off just re-subscribing to CBS All Access.  The thing is that when I subscribed, the shows I mostly watched were Supergirl, Limitless, and CSI: Cyber.  And now Supergirl has moved to The CW.  And Limitless and CSI: Cyber were both cancelled.  (Supergirl and Limitless reruns are now on Netflix.)  So there's not much reason for me to re-subscribe.  I had been watching Scorpion and NCIS: Los Angeles.  But lost interest last season (mainly because I had other shows I wanted to watch more).

And now I see I can watch CBS Shows On Demand at my mom's place through the TWC app on her Roku TV.  So I guess this turned out to be mostly an academic exercise.

Watching Kevin Can Wait, episode 2.  Keep waiting for Deke to show up...

[7/22/16] OK installed Plex Classic.  Still no subtitles on Fox, but subtitles worked on NBC (Heroes Reborn).  But have to toggle it off then toggle it back on (from the * menu).

Switch back to Roku 3.  Nope, no still subtitles on Plex.  But they worked on Plex Classic (on NBC, still have to toggle off then toggle on).

Try Team Coco, Conan full episodes.  No subtitles.  However subtitles work when watching using Nowhere TV.  So very limited success with subtitles using Plex Classic.

[7/21/16] Notice that Plex has a new interface (because I was watching a youtube video which says you can install the old-style interface).   I guess it's OK, but I notice that it doesn't support captions, whereas the older Plex supported captions on some channels (for example, ABC used to support captions -- see below).  So I disconnected the Roku 3 and connected up my old Roku HD.  Nope, I see Plex got updated to the newer version.  So no captions.  Disappointing.

I wonder if the old-style interface supports captions?  Maybe I'll try later.

[9/7/15] Tried out Plex on the Fire TV.  Connected fine, but you gotta pay $4.99 to watch more than a minute.  No subtitles on Fox.  But I guess this is one way to watch CBS on the Fire TV.  Though with no subtitles (on both Roku and Fire TV).

[9/6/15] Tried out the new Plex client on Roku (supposedly now free, but it was always free for me.  Apparently I was grandfathered in.  Or because I installed it before they started charging).

Yep, the design looks more modernized.  And I noticed a Fox channel.  So I installed that and it worked with captions.  Tried HGTV Canada (since Kodi has it).  But evidently it's blocked.  Looked for DIY (also on Kodi), but evidently it's an unofficial app.  Also noticed HGTV and DIY is now gone from Hulu.

And now I see some episode from HGTV and DIY (as well as Food Network, Travel Channel, Cooking Channel) are available on ulive.com (directed from hulu.com).

[6/8/15] installed the USA Network channel on the Plex app on the Roku, so I could watch Mr. Robot.  It works and has captions!  (Apple TV has a USA Network app, so you can watch there too.)

[3/18/15] Started playing with Plex again, finally tried renaming some of my Dog Whisperer videos according to plex convention, repointed to the folder location (I had moved it), and it showed up.  And the .srt subtitles worked.  At least on the video I tested.  I guess I'll play some more later.

Also last week (3/10) tried out again some of the channels I had installed months ago after not really using Plex for a while.  Most of them still work.  Here's the results:

CBS works, but no captions (watched Scorpion)
ABC works with captions (Castle)
NBC works with captions (Parks and Recreation)
The CW works, but no captions (The Flash)
CNN partially works with captions
HGTV works with captions
TheWB doesn't work (not surprisingly since the website no longer is functions)

Tried removing TheWB Channel from the media server and couldn't.

I don't see some of them as officially available now.  Looking at the TV category, I don't see ABC, NBC, TheWB.  Not Fox either, though Fox News is on (as well as CNBC).  Apparently only CBS and CW are now official channels.

Let's try some more

Team Coco - works with captions (only two full episodes available) / also available on Nowhere TV
Youtube - the app isn't supported, then it worked, partially anyway
CNet - app isn't supported, but it worked
PBS - not supported, but partially works (Nature videos didn't play), no captions (but what's this direct stream/transcode instead of play?  ok can change it in playback options)
NFL Network - works, no captions
TWIT - not supported, but works
Spike - able to access the menu, but can't find any videos that work

wasn't getting captions on ABC, changed direct stream/transcode to automatic (don't know why it changed in the first place) and got the captions back.

Not sure if Plex is still free as I'm using the old Plex installed on my old Roku HD.  But I'm not going to touch it since it's working.

[5/18/13] With the success (sort of) with installing iTunes so I could get apps on the iPad (more like I needed to set up my iTunes account) and xferring some photos to the iPad, I decided to try Plex too (the other item on my to-do list).

The main reason I wanted to get Plex was to view Hulu on the Roku.

Looked at this link, but when I installed Plex it looked like a newer version and didn't have a preferences section.  Or at least it wasn't labelled preferences.  And didn't get a sign up button.  (Well now I see a signup section for My Plex.)

Anyway, I ran the server and when I went to the Plex app on the Roku I could see that it found my iTunes music.  So I knew the computer and Roku were talking.  So I figured I didn't need to sign up for an account.

Then I added the Hulu channel on Plex.  I could see the shows on the Roku, but the show wouldn't play saying it was unavailable (but it ran when I went directly to hulu.com on the computer).

I tried twit.tv and that worked pretty good.  Youtube worked too.  But some other channels didn't work so well.  Timing out and going too slow.

PBS seemed to lock up the roku and it rebooted.  But later I got one of the videos to play, but not very smooth.

CBS didn't work very well with Star Trek timing out and Letterman taking a long time to load.  But ABC seems to work quite well.  Oddly the picture starts out blurry but then clears up after several seconds.