This has truly been a year of discovery—finding new ways to give, connect, learn, and listen. Now, having made it to the season we so affectionately refer to as Plexivus, we can take time to celebrate these breakthroughs and (perhaps most importantly) the commonality they all share: togetherness. To quote the late Japanese writer Ryunosuke Satoro, “Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.”

With that, let’s take a look back at 2023.

To Boldly Give

As a team that spans the globe, we believe we are responsible for always finding ways to give back on both a local and a global level. This past August, we announced a brand new giving initiative: The Plex Theater of Dreams Grant. As lovers of cinema and loyalists of independent theaters, we created the $100,000 grant to lend a helping hand to one deserving local movie theater, and in turn, the community it serves. After all, there’s nothing quite like going to the movies.

Never having developed a grant before, this was truly a labor of love. Once we established the details of the grant, we set out to spread the word to local theaters in the US who would be eligible (reaching out to over one hundred!) Then came the really hard part: the application review. So many deserving theaters submitted applications that had us reaching for the tissues—each with a unique story and need. In the end, one stole our hearts, and we are beyond excited to announce the very first recipient of our grant: The Little Art Theatre from Yellow Springs, Ohio. We even made a little film about it.

Be sure to watch to the end, it’s the best part.

To Seek Out New Connections…

This year marked a major milestone in the evolution of Discover on Plex: we can now Discover Together. More than ever before we are living up to our vision to empower real human connection by bringing people and entertainment together.

Not only is Plex the place to find what to watch next no matter where it lives, but now it’s the place to find your friends, make new connections, and share more about you and the movies and shows you love most. We’re not just an app, we’re a community of fans, growing larger every day.

If you haven’t already, explore what’s new with Discover, give your profile a glow-up, and make a friend, or two, or more. Because at the end of the day, we consider a movie recommendation from a friend even more valuable than a Tomato Score.

…And Improved Search Results

Perhaps equally as important as a review of a movie or show, is your experience trying to find it. Though we unveiled Universal Search on Plex in 2022, we continued our quest to perfect the experience, conducting research studies and working together with our metrics team. Turns out, the way you search has changed, which means we needed to change too. We combined the power of our design and engineering teams to create a new and improved search experience, which we debuted just in time for Pro Week.

Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, but if you didn’t notice it, don’t be embarrassed. A truly great search experience is one that you might not even notice, because you’ve just found what you’re looking for, faster.

To Explore New Conversations

Next to Plexivus, our second favorite time of year is dedicated to the users that have been with us from the beginning. We’re talking about Plex Pro Week. Now with three years of Pro Week under our belt, we’re already back in the kitchen, cooking up ideas for 2024.

What made this Pro Week perhaps the most exciting yet, was our first ever “Fireside in the Forums” event. Not your average fireside chat, this week-long event created space in the forums for various members of the Plex community to interact with engineers and thought leaders inside Plex, sharing ideas and feedback. Were we anxious? A little. Was it worth it? Absolutely. In fact, we’ve already made improvements to some existing Plex Pass features as a result of the Fireside. Not a “one and done,” this event is just one of many to come as we fulfill our pledge to stay more connected and engaged with our personal media pros.

In case you missed it, or want to relive it, we’ve got a recap with all the highlights.

Plexamp: The Free Frontier

(Re)born almost on the Fourth of July this year was Plexamp, our highly rated custom-built music player. Originally an idea sparked from our combined passion for music and Plex, it was one of the early fruits of Plex Labs—the place for employee passion projects and community creativity. And now it has made its debut as a fully supported app, free for all. They grow up so fast…

Of course, we did reserve a few of our favorite Plexamp features for our Plex Pass members. Here’s more on what’s changed.

The Voyage Continues

As we say goodbye to this year, we also want to say “thank you” for being part of our crew. None of this would be possible without you and your passion for entertainment. We hope that like us, you’ll take some time to appreciate all that you have accomplished (because you deserve it) and perhaps take even more time to rest. Come January, it’ll be time to get back out there and find something new to discover, together.

From all your friends at Plex,
Happy Plexivus

The post 2023: A Year of Discovery appeared first on Plex.

Since that day, millions of users have used Discover to see what’s new and trending from all of their selected services in one streamlined view. We’ve finally found relief from the streaming struggle with the newfound ability to create one universal Watchlist, browse curated recommendations, and watch trailers for new releases—all from the comfort of our Plex app.

But still, we knew there was more to Discover. A missing link that when found, would make Plex unlike any entertainment platform available. Turns out, that missing link was you. And your friends. And the Plex community at large.

Eureka! Discover is better together.

The Importance of the Water Cooler Effect

We can all agree that we love seeing a Fresh Tomato score, but nothing compares to those IRL conversations on Monday morning (remember those?) where we stand around (instead of working) and review—mano a mano—what we watched all weekend. Let’s call it the Water Cooler Effect.

Rob, Michelle, Ana, and Deepak are all watching [insert show here] and now you’re feeling the immediate, burning need to watch it too.

Sure, our curation is done by real humans, and our recommendations span the services you watch most, but add in the stuff your friends are watching and rating? That’s gold, Jerry! Gold!

It Started as a Beta, Now We’re Here

Inspired by the Water Cooler Effect, we set out to create the next evolution of Discover: enabling users to search for and add friends on Plex, and integrating this connected activity right into the app experience. The result was unveiled as a beta to a group of power users last July, and after many months of friending, sharing, commenting, and profile tinkering, it’s ready for entertainment fans everywhere.

Give Me the Short Version

Starting this week, when you log in on any of our major platforms, including Roku, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, iOS and Android mobile devices, smart TVs, game consoles, and the web app, you’ll be given an overview of Discover Together, why you should give it a spin, and what settings will give you the best experience. Don’t worry there won’t be a test later.

Now for the fun part. Head over to Discover, where you’ll see that three new tab options have arrived next to Trending: Activity, People, and Profile. We’ve summarized here what each tab has to offer.

Want a Deeper Dive? Thought You’d Never Ask

Settle in as we break down these fresh new tabs.

Profile

It’s new, it’s improved, it’s basically your player card for the Discover Together experience, showcasing your streaming stats. Here you can:

• See totals of what you’ve watched since joining Plex, broken down by Movies, Shows, and Episodes
• Share a little bit about yourself—like where you’re from, a short bio, and, if you’re so inclined, a website URL
• Control who sees each item in your profile—like your Watchlist, your Watch History, your ratings, and even your friends list

Just remember, the more you give, the more you’re gonna get back in return.

People

When it comes to finding friends on Plex, the People tab is your best friend. It’s never been easier to search for and add friends. Simply type in a name, location, or interest to look for folks you know.

Prefer to have us make some recommendations for you? No problem. Check back here often to see who you may know and want to connect with, based on your network and their privacy settings. This tab is also the spot for seeing the full roster of your current friends.

Activity

This is where all the action is. The water cooler, if you will. Here you’ll see what friends are:

• Watching
• Rating
• Discussing
• Adding to their Watchlist

Yes, all of your friends are watching The Fall of the House of Usher.

Note: To have the activity include events related to content on a personal Plex Media Server, you’ll need to first enable watch state syncing. Keep in mind that how you watched your content is private. Check out this support article to learn more about what data is collected to make this work.

For every item in your activity feed, there are several actions you can take related to the title featured, including:

Mark as Watched
Add to Watchlist
Comment by clicking on the comment/reply button. Clicking on “comment” will open up a new page expanding the thread

Now let’s say you’re viewing a specific title in the Plex app—in this example you’re one of the few people on Earth who haven’t yet seen John Wick 4. You can now see and select activity info to find out which friends are watching, rating, and Watchlisting the movie. Awesome, huh?

Let’s take it one step further and say that now you’ve also watched John Wick 4 (making you very cool) and want to share it with the rest of your friends who haven’t yet seen the movie. First, select the share option, then select which friend(s)—or ALL friends—you want to share with, and finally, add your message.

These messages shared to selected friends will not be visible in the activity feed to all of your friends, but only to the friends you have chosen to share with.

As Always, You’re in Control

It’s up to you which of your activities your friends can see on Plex. You can update your settings at any time. There may also be instances where you would prefer to see less activity from a friend, or there’s an account you want to disappear altogether. Mute and Block to the rescue.

Mute

When you mute someone (they won’t know, btw), you’ll no longer see their Watched, Watchlisted, or Rated activities in your activity feed. You will continue to receive any messages they share with you, and they’ll still see your activities in their feed.

Block

Blocking an account will unfriend them, prevent them from seeing the content on your profile, or searching for you. You’ll no longer see their activities, they won’t see yours, and you can no longer share messages with each other. Access to any libraries you and the blocked account granted to each other will be removed.

For more on Mute and Block, check out our detailed support article.

Live Long and Discover Together

The best advertisement for this exciting addition to Discover isn’t an ad at all—it’s personal experience. So go ahead, give it a spin. We’re excited to see what you think. Plus, there’s even more to come (but that’s for next year.)

We could go on and on about settings and nerdy nuances that take more space than this celebratory blog announcement has to offer. But when you’ve got time for some light-ish reading, we’ve got the hookup for you. Check out any of these support articles for Discover Together.

• Discover Source
• Activity Feed
• Profile
• Share and Report
• Friends/People
• Mute & Block

The post Discover Together: When the Sequel Lives Up to the Original appeared first on Plex.

What a jam-packed week so far! There is some fantastic content from search to servers, so when you’re done here, refill your popcorn and check out all the in-depth sessions featured in Pro Week 2023.

Did you know that we actually kicked off the festivities last week with our first ever “Fireside in the Forums” event? Not your average fireside chat, this week-long event created space in the forums for various members of the Plex community to come together and share ideas, concerns, and interact with engineers and thought leaders inside Plex!

We know that there have been some gaps in communication and areas that we could have done better. The question was, how do we create a fun and exciting event, when we have a recent history and perception of avoiding engagement and communication?

Sometimes the best way to move forward is to just light the fire, grab a comfy blanket, and grab a seat, fireside!

Oh, and did I mention the hot chocolate? It was delicious!

The first toast that we need to make is to thank our passionate community who not only listened to us, but jumped in and posted, asked, and made the entire Fireside a fantastic event. We should also raise our cups and thank the Plex supporters who jumped in to answer questions and help make this a success.

And now that the cups are emptied, the flames have died down, and the embers are starting to cool, let’s take a look back at some of the best of the Fireside in the Forum chats!

—-

Did you know that Plex is a fully remote company? The discussions kicked off with a great question around how we deal with different continents and time zones. While a lot of organizations had to learn these skills quickly in the past few years, we were working remotely before it became cool to work remotely. This includes some amazing asynchronous workplace tools, recording meetings, and a big focus on communication!

We had some great discussion around accessibility which is an area that we are always looking to improve. As well as around improving where ad breaks occur when streaming from our free Movies & Shows since getting an ad dropped in in the middle of a huge plot twist is just as frustrating to us. (We have some pretty innovative efforts underway to improve this for everyone!)

It was great to call out that there are no plans to remove photos, but we do need to decide on what is next for this great feature.

While we have no current plans around providing our own Plex-branded hardware, we are going to continue working to support playback on all kinds of different devices and you never know what fresh new ideas are going to pop up during a hackathon!

It was also great to get a chance to talk about some big initiatives that we have been working on around quality and consistency in our apps. This also includes some very persistent and tenacious bugs that were brought up! These have been invading Apple TVs, NVIDIA SHIELDs, and smart TVs and we are calling in the exterminators!

And then there is Plexamp! What a response here. This app got all kinds of chatter going on around the fireside. It was fantastic to hear all of the responses and ideas coming from people who enjoy this amazing music app. This includes giving a big congratulations to Plexamp who “graduated” from being a Plex Labs project into the wider world of a fully supported app. It basically decided the lab was too small, declared itself to be free (literally, blog post here), and moved out. They grow up so fast…

In other Plexamp news: “yes” to plans for improved downloads, “no” to current plans for Apple watch support, and a very vague-yet-exciting sounding tease around headless Plexamp!

Let’s not forget about some of the other great Plex features. How about the Watchlist? What a great way to have a universal tool for collecting and viewing titles that you would like to see. A great feature—but it could be better! How about we consider adding more filters to make finding things on your Watchlist even easier? Or what about those pesky shows whose order is always wrong—yup, we are working on providing alternate orders there as well!

We aren’t done yet! How about personal media? Let’s talk server baby!

First up: Do you DVR? We do! And we are always looking to improve this awesome feature. Similarly, offline usage is another area that is on the roadmap. Also, while ebooks aren’t on that roadmap, we haven’t given up on audiobooks!

But we aren’t done yet! Local file metadata is definitely on our list and while we are not going to be updating our current python version, what we have in mind to replace them should create some fantastic new opportunities to interact with the development community!

Oh yeah, not one, but TWO more things here! We’re continuing to work on improving video downloads! This is an important area for us to improve. And finally, we heard you loud and clear and video playback speed controls are definitely on our roadmap!

We even found some time to sprinkle in some release news for things like Plex Dash and even tease a big search release a day or two early (here and here—and don’t miss the Pro Week blog post about it!).

Finally, we get to the end here and that might bring up the question: what’s next? We have big plans! Some of these were covered here in the Fireside chat. We know we have work to do, but the first thing to know is that Plex Media Server and our personal media efforts aren’t going anywhere and are still a core area for Plex! Like Mark Twain famously said, “Reports of [our] death have been greatly exaggerated!”

We couldn’t truly wrap up this event without taking one more opportunity to say thanks. Thank you for participating in our Fireside in the Forums chat and for loving Plex. You are awesome!

About Kevin

A Director of Engineering at Plex, Kevin has been an avid user and part of the community for over 12 years. He has grown his server solutions from a modest Xbox with XBMC to the point of being the de facto IT go-to for friends and family.

About Schuyler

Schuyler was one of the earliest employees at Plex and has helped grow and evolve the product and engineering teams through the past decade+. He’s a keen problem-solver and believer in people-first technical leadership. Over the past several years, his media consumption has taken a sharp turn toward kids content.

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The post Plex Pro Week ‘23: TLDR; Our First Ever Fireside in the Forums appeared first on Plex.

About Shannon

Shannon Morse is an online content producer who emphasizes security and privacy, and consumer technology. As an entrepreneur, Shannon’s goal is to inspire others to live life to the fullest while not sacrificing their identity, ethics, or privacy. She has reviewed hundreds of consumer tech products and uses her platform to promote diversity in information security and technology sectors, and advocates for women in the industry.

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Want a deeper dive? We’ve got you covered:
Backing Up Plex Media Server Data
Move an Install to Another System
Running a Plex Media Server on a NAS
NAS Compatibility List
Choosing a CPU for Your Server
Using Hardware-Accelerated Streaming

Need to start from the beginning? Here’s how to get your server up and running:
Intro to Plex
Quick-Start Guide to Server Set-Up
More on Plex Media Server Installation

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About Tim

Software engineer and content creator, Timothy Stewart, aka Techno Tim, is a full stack software engineer, content creator, and a HomeLab enthusiast. Tim creates fun and easy-to-follow tech content on YouTube, hosts a community live stream on Twitch, and shares tech-related content on all social platforms. With a passion for all things tech, Tim enjoys diving deep into a technical topic, and teaching it along the way.

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Want a deeper dive into Live TV? We’ve got you covered:
Live TV/DVR Setup
Supported DVR Tuners and Antennas

Need to start from the beginning? Here’s how to get your server up and running:
Intro to Plex
Quick-Start Guide to Server Set-Up
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About Hugo

Self-proclaimed media hoarder, for almost a decade Hugo has been contributing to Plex’s ecosystem in one way or another, and evangelizing it to friends before that. From sunny Portugal, he leads the Personal Media team’s efforts on being the best platform to curate, enjoy, and share your own content.

More Support

Need to start from the beginning? Here’s how to get your server up and running:
Intro to Plex
Quick-Start Guide to Server Set-Up
More on Plex Media Server Installation
System Requirements

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