Yes. You can get certain NAS devices that can run the Plex server on board or else you need to have a PC on the network running as a server. You don’t have to leave it running all the time, only when you want to use it. That’s not as useful though, I agree. I already have a server set up to handle my media library so for me it’s a no brainer.
I use a Nvidia Shield TV for Plex Media Server. It can hardware transcode 4 streams simultaneously, uses a vanishingly small amount of power, and is also the best streamer box available for any price, assuming you don’t need iTunes support.
It can act as a media server? Wow. I had no idea. Suddenly it doesn’t look all that expensive anymore.
Yep, it does a fantastic job. They added that functionality around a year ago.
Anyone try the variety of over-the-top TV services?
With The Americans ending soon I tried YouTube TV earlier this week to watch the show live, instead of the day-after with my season pass.
My experience was…not good. The picture quality was terrible, but even worse was the audio quality. Using the YouTube TV app on my Xbox One X it sounded like super-tinny 2.0 audio that really cheapened the whole experience. Is this the norm for these services or is it just a problem with YouTube TV?
I find the picture and audio quality on YouTube TV to be excellent, and the fast-forward/rewind to be very responsive. I do have a very high end set top box though.
My complaint with YouTube TV, and the reason why I would never consider subscribing to it, is that they replace pretty much all non-sports/news/ABC DVR’d shows with VOD versions in a couple of hours, and they force you to watch commercials on VOD.
I’m currently on a Sling trial and have noticed the video being subpar for basketball (pixelation when there is fast movement) but no complaints about the audio.
That’s a shame about YouTubeTV. They’re next on my list to trial.
If you only watch sports or news, or don’t care about commercials, and don’t watch Scripps/Discovery channels, it’s probably the best option.
The Expanse is a better example than The Americans for my example above.
I watched both shows live (or 15-20 minutes delayed) on YouTube TV the night they aired. I also have a season pass for both through the Microsoft Movies&TV thing on my Xbox.
I just rewatched The Expanse through my season pass and the quality bump from YouTube TV was like night and day. Picture quality was extremely crisp, and sound was so much incredibly better. It was like going from Netflix streaming from 5-10 years ago to watching a Blu-ray today. But even 5-10 years ago Netflix streams had much better sound quality.
Not sure if it’s a probably with YouTube’s Xbox app or whatever, but man I’m definitely not staying subscribed.
I noticed the same thing exactly. I signed up for the 7 day trial just to bump The Expanse live Nielson numbers and I specifically noted the Amazon version of the episode looked and sounded SO MUCH better.
I think the Expanse with all its dark space scenes is probably a worst case for compression, but even so…
I tried watching The Expanse “live” via the SyFy website versus on hulu, and I gave up. I could not understand the dialogue.
No CC?
How insensitive! You know very well that YakAttack cannot read.
I am pretty sure I have a neurological speech-recognition issue. I can hear things well, and I can repeat what I heard, but my CPU is a bit laggy when decrypting the contents. Therefore I always CC and I have done so the last 20+ years.
It is possible the last 20 years of relying on CC are the actual reason I have trouble deciphering speech. That bit of the brain has become lazy.
In theory I could start watching without CC and train back as a test, but there’s other parts of me that are lazy.
I also watch stuff with captions pretty regularly. Luckily, YouTube TV didn’t have a problem on that front.
Not on my phone I can’t.
I’m now subscribed to a free trial of PlayStation Vue, to watch the finale of The Americans and the next episode of The Expanse. Here’s hoping the sound quality is better than YouTube TV!
[edit] lol we’ll see how this goes. I can’t even fucking sign in to PlayStation Vue since I keep getting stuck in a sign-in loop. gg sony
Not sure which device you’re using, but a PSVue account counts as a content provider for apps like FoxNow and SyFy.
I rarely use the PS Vue app itself (mostly for CBS shows), as I can watch on-demand versions of most shows on specific channel apps instead. FFing a DVR recording is basically the same sort of effort as occasional ads during the on-demand version (while kinda annoying, it’s still less ad-time than original/traditional broadcast).
I was trying in both Chrome and Edge browsers, and got the same login loop.
Luckily my PS4 is working fine.
An update: Looks like the terrible sound quality in The Expanse might be due to the video feed these services are getting rather than because of the services themselves. PlayStation Vue sounded absolutely terrible too, not just YouTube TV. Horribly compressed and tinny 2.0 audio, music that was completely drowned out by sound effects, dialog that was sometimes inaudible, etc.
Yuck. I wonder if this is because of SyFy or some other reason?