For DVDs, I make ISO files (via AnyDVD) that play directly via the WDTV media player to TV and appear as DVDs w/menus, etc.įor BD, I rip to ISO w/AnyDVDHD and then make mkv using Bytecopy for TV viewing via WDTV. OK, that explains things, although I have read in more than one place that the defacto standard today is h.264. Will update as I discover warts or good things. Plex does not seem to have the fussiness regarding video codecs that started my little adventure. I can access my categorization by going to “folders.” Or I can use the Plex categorization. Although I have categorized them in folders on the DL4100, Plex also categorized them. I went to a TV and started DLNA and there it was, “PlexMediaServeronWDM圜loudDL4100.” And there were all my movies. From that point it was pretty automatic as the application quickly discovered and loaded all my movies and home videos.Īt this point I’m mostly interested in streaming movies to several TVs in my house on my CAT6 network. It took me about 15 minutes of fiddling around on the Plex dashboard before I stumbled on the “add library” button. I had the most difficulty pointing the application to my video files. Mostly I just went with the apparent default settings. Does anyone know?Įstablishing settings was pretty easy. My presumption is that it will update automatically on the DL4100. So I gave up without fooling around with it. I downloaded it but could not install it. However, when I first launched it from the DL4100 dashboard, it told me an update was available. I installed Plex Media Server without too much difficulty. I don’t know if this is a general phenomenon or one limited to my system and equipment. Additionally, DVDs ripped to MKV files do not stream well to my TVs as well as the same DVDs ripped to MP4 format. At least with the Twonky media server, Blu-rays ripped to MP4 files exhibit discontinuous panning scenes. When I learned that, it was a simple matter to go into the new version of Leawo Blu-Ray Ripper and select H.264 as the video codec for MP4 files.īTW, for my purposes I have learned that Blu-Ray discs are best ripped to MKV files and DVDs to MP4 files. All the MP4 files I had made after the 1st had used the MPEG4 codec. When I used that program I determined that all the DVDs I had ripped before July 1st (when I upgraded to new version) had used the H.264 codec. Leawo has a program that allows one to examine a video file and determine its parameters. But in the older version it apparently defaulted to H.264 and in the newer version it had defaulted to MPEG4. What Leawo did was to allow the user to select the video codec. I personally have both…and use both…and I find myself using Plex more than Twonky and that goes for the entire family as well. I would recommended just trying out both, though there isn’t much to try with the Plex unless you’re paid, but most often times than not the pretty interface will win you over to pay for a subscription. There are a ton of more pro’s and con’s to both …but it really boils down to your preference and style of use. However, with PLEX unless you pay for the subscription, it’s useless because it only plays for 1 minute before it stops on your mobile device. Whereas with Twonky if you were to just rip your DVD and place the file on your server, it will do just that, which in 99.9% of the cases that’s all we really want. It has a much prettier interface that does all the decorating for you in terms of retrieving all the metadata, movie covers etc…all for you. (In the event you’re in an area that doesn’t have LTE and your stuck on 3G for example…you can decrease the Mbps accordingly to accommodate for the crappy signal, in hopes to prevent buffering…) On the mobile app, you can also select the quality to maximum and or as low as 1Mbps and it looks great even on the lowest setting. mkv file to your server, Plex will then do it’s magic in converting that to whatever it needs to for it to play on your device. If you are a casual user who wants to just stream media from your Computer or NAS (you can choose your server) to your Mobile Devices / Phablets etc… with the ease of not having to worry about any file conversion, Plex is a great choice as it does all the transcoding for you. (Without the metadata) But most don’t care about having all the info about the DVD as if you’re watching “Avatar,” you’ll probably know that well…you’re about to watch “Avatar.” LOL
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