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.

free movies and TV on the Roku

If you have a Roku, you know there's a lot of channels you can add.

Most notably, a lot of movies and TV shows for free.  Admittedly, I don't watch them all that much since I subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.  And have access to HBO, Showtime, Starz, Epix, FX, etc.

But if you're cheap, I guess you can get away with just watching free stuff.

So here's the best of them that I found.

Probably the most well-known is Crackle.  They're owned by Sony so feature a lot of Sony movies.  Taking a look at the current lineup, they have movies such as The Hulk, Underworld, Resident Evil, Johnny Mnemonic, Conan The Barbarian, The Nutty Professor (1996), Look Who's Talking, Groundhog Day, Stripes, Beverly Hills Ninja, The Blues Brothers, A League of Their Own, Jerry Maguire, And TV shows such as Seinfeld,  All In The Family, Married With Children, I Dream of Jeannie, Mad About You, Fantasy Island, Sanford (but not Sanford and Son -- they used to have it -- I see Sanford and Son is now on Starz), The Three Stooges.

CW Seed has shows that were on the predecessor to CW, the WB Network.  They don't have a huge selection, but what they offer is pretty decent.  Among their selection: Birds of Prey, Constantine, Mad TV, The O.C., Vixen, Whose Line Is it Anyway (every episode).  They even have a couple of feature length animated movies: Justice League: Doom, Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths.  They used to have The Flash (the original one), but it's no longer on.  I remember they also used to have Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. So they do rotate their shows once in a while.

For sheer volume, it's hard to beat tubitv.  I wouldn't say most of the shows are hits or even known.  But there's a lot of them and some of them are recognizable.  Among the current selection is Whose Line is it Anyway? (TV - seasons 7-10 -- they have them all at CW Seed), Star Trek: Nemesis, Legally Blonde 2, The Secret, Fargo, Searching For Bobby Fischer (this is the first time I've seen this available for streaming), AeonFlux, Five People You Meet In Heaven, Hoosiers, Heaven Can Wait, Inherit The Wind, Sahara, Sky Captain and the World Tomorrow, .  So there are some well-known movies, you just have to search for them in the mass.  For example in the Dramatic Movies category there are 614 movies!   Supports subtitles, but if you have an older Roku, you might find it very slow in loading.

Ovguide.  They have 235 movies in the Featured category.  None of which particularly caught my eye as something I might want to see.  Well they have Battle for the Planet of the Apes (which was the fifth and final entry in the original Planet of the Apes series).  They have 390 shows in the TV Shows category.  The Nature of Things sounds interesting.  We The Economy, The Jack Benny Program (not that many episodes), Tai Chi for Beginners, Heaven On Earth, The Red Skelton Show, World of Discovery, The Bob Hope Show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.The Heckle and Jeckle Show, The Three Stooges (cartoon),

popcornflix.  Let's see what they have.  Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown.  Silver Hawk (Michelle Yeoh),  Designing Spaces (TV series -- taking a long time to pull up -- I'd say it's stuck).  Some interesting documentaries some of which I previously saw on Netflix: Fast, Sick & Nearly Dead, Welcome to Macintosh, Earth Songs, What the Bleep Do We Know?  The Flaw.  Supports closed caption.

Shout Factory TV.  A bunch of MST3K.  A Night in Casablanca (Marx Bros), Africa Screams (Abbott & Costello),  Car 52 Where Are You?  Dennis the Menace,  Father Knows Best.  The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.  The Red Skelton Show. The Marx Brothers TV Collection. A bunch of old Jackie Chan movies (City Hunter, Crime Story, Police Story, Police Story 2, Battle Creek Brawl, etc.).  And a bunch of Steve Martin specials:  Not to mention: The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour.

premiere.  The Jackie Robinson Story.  My Dog Shep.  Rescue from Gilligan's Island. Ozzie and Harriet, The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, The George Burns and Gacie Allen Show, The Lone Ranger.

Gravitas.  Fat Sick & Nearly Dead.

SnagFilms.  Expedition Blue Planet.  Barack Obama: The Power of Change.  And tons more (that I can live without).

Docurama.  10 Questions for the Dali Lama.  A Small Act.  Hungry for Change.  My Dog.  Forgiveness.

Documentary Depot.  [now with a modernized interface].  Ellen Degeneres: All Of Me.  Steve Jobs - Consciously Genius.Wild Horse, Wild Ride.  The Beautiful Truth.  Losing LeBron.  Going to the All Documentary category, there are now 1434 shows.  No captions.

FilmRise is one that I took off earliy.  Looking at it now, I see Highway To Heaven (with Michael Landon), Heaven On Earth, World of Discovery.  I Am is also on here.  Maybe I'll keep it on now.

When I checked four months ago, the series We the Economy was on several of them.  Now I don't see it, which is odd because it was supposedly distributed for free.  Well, I guess I can still catch it on youtube.  It's also on vimeo.  And I guess, still on itunes.  No captions except for a free episode on Amazon.

EndemolShineInternational (aka Shine Now).  Retrieving...  [The next day, still Retrieving... I guess I'll delete it then.]

a cure for blindness?

One in every 200 people on Earth can’t see. But amazingly, a cure for blindness is now in sight.

-- via Bill Gates