Medai browser vs Plex

[Magnus33]

Both let you stream your media to devices from your nas.

Plex .
Been around for a long time and supports a wide range of os's and devices.
Lots of features.
Good at transcoding able to handle up to three streams in some cases.

Cons :
Of late development has been more about meeting the bottom line then putting out a solid product.
Attitude is take what we give you and shut up rather then help of late.
Development is something of a mess with the merging of the android clients

Media Browser
Not as old as plex so its the new kid comparatively.
Better parental control features and other features plex just doesn't have.
Can do live tv from a pc with a tv tuner.

Cons.
Transcoding although good can only do about two streams compared to plex three.
Interface needs a little tweaking


In all it seems plex has lost site of what made it good and is pulling a boxee by ignoring its buyers.
Media browser on the other hand seems to be more interested in keeping the buyers happy then meeting some release date.

What are you thoughts about them?

 

[ThomasDK81]

Well, those are your opinions.
I don't agree.
Plex is all I need and I am happy with the new features.
I am also happy with wide support of platforms and clients. (Andriod TV will be supported, from the start, which is a great move).

 

[nick779]

Media Browser gave me all sorts of headaches when trying to add media. As much as I wanted something lightweight, Plex has served me much better,

 

[danb35]

Good at transcoding able to handle up to three streams in some cases.
(snip)
Transcoding although good can only do about two streams compared to plex three.

Where do these apparently-arbitrary numbers come from? Unless there's a hard-coded limit (which there isn't in Plex, or at least not one that's low enough to be relevant), Plex (and I expect Media Browser) will transcode as many streams as resources allow. If you throw enough CPU and other resources at it, Plex can do 4, 5, 6, etc. streams. If you starve it, it may not be able to handle one.

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

I only ever used Plex in testing but transcoding to an android device always worked great for me.

Once MediaBrowser became a thing on FreeNAS I stated testing that because I prefer open source where possible so I know it will be around for a while and I can contribute to development where there's features I want. I recently deployed MB and will discuss its Pros/Cons ( though I can't comment much on Plex).

Pros
* Kodi integration is pretty decent, better than Plex's but still wish it was officially supported
* Membership to get Syncing is only $40, I believe the android client added syncing today

Cons
* transcoding to android isn't as good as Plex's (but still usable)
* no notifications from SickRage/CouchPotato. Plex has partial support for this (can be told to scan its library), but not full support like Kodi

####
I hope to work on the notifications at some point, its on my ever growing to-do list

 

[Magnus33]

I only ever used Plex in testing but transcoding to an android device always worked great for me.

Once MediaBrowser became a thing on FreeNAS I stated testing that because I prefer open source where possible so I know it will be around for a while and I can contribute to development where there's features I want. I recently deployed MB and will discuss its Pros/Cons ( though I can't comment much on Plex).

Pros
* Kodi integration is pretty decent, better than Plex's but still wish it was officially supported
* Membership to get Syncing is only $40, I believe the android client added syncing today

Cons
* transcoding to android isn't as good as Plex's (but still usable)
* no notifications from SickRage/CouchPotato. Plex has partial support for this (can be told to scan its library), but not full support like Kodi

####
I hope to work on the notifications at some point, its on my ever growing to-do list

Where do these apparently-arbitrary numbers come from? Unless there's a hard-coded limit (which there isn't in Plex, or at least not one that's low enough to be relevant), Plex (and I expect Media Browser) will transcode as many streams as resources allow. If you throw enough CPU and other resources at it, Plex can do 4, 5, 6, etc. streams. If you starve it, it may not be able to handle one.

There based onaverage hardware and on the same hardware plex transcodes some what better. As for plex current state thats not merely my opinion its got people demanding there money back.
Pkex made some mistakes of late putting money over customers.
Hopefully they get it together and treat the buyers with respect.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

I totally disagree. I have found the Plex community to be very very helpful. The only people I've seen demanding their money back were people with very unrealistic expectations, misunderstandings and some total assholes. Also Plex has a great app on the smart TV and runs very well on a cheap raspberry pi also. Nowadays parental control is in place and works very well.

"Average" hardware doesn't exist btw. But maybe Plex transcodes I little more efficient, I don't know.

I've used media browser and I liked it, but I found Plex to better suit my needs.

 

[Magnus33]

I totally disagree. I have found the Plex community to be very very helpful. The only people I've seen demanding their money back were people with very unrealistic expectations, misunderstandings and some total assholes. Also Plex has a great app on the smart TV and runs very well on a cheap raspberry pi also. Nowadays parental control is in place and works very well.

"Average" hardware doesn't exist btw. But maybe Plex transcodes I little more efficient, I don't know.

I've used media browser and I liked it, but I found Plex to better suit my needs.

Your confusing the community with the actually plex company itself.
Plex over the last few months has been merging plex pass and plex android into one client which has created a huge mess.

There been upgrade issues where the system wont recognize already paid for apps.
Library and transcoding has become broken in many areas.
Plex crashes nearly as often as it runs now.
Hell merely scrolling through the library can crash it now.

Before you would get some unrealistic people wanting their money back but now its long time users and supporters of the project that are angry.
Look at the forums, facebook or twitter everyone seriously pissed off now and the dev are saying nothing or that its not broken.
Even people in the google play store that give it a decent review are still complaining about the near total lack of customer service now.

They broke things and it looks like they did it for a schedule and money rather then waiting tell it was ready .

Also average hardware does exist as not everyone buying the latest and greatest.
People buy what they can afford which most often has you middle of the road performance which gets the job done or do you think they are benching freenas or plex on the fastest rigs out there?

 

[Magnus33]

Hmm something very wrong over there actually.
Not a single response on facebook, twitter posts are being deleted and the dev in the forums are totally absent.
Something up!

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

OK, so the problem is only with Android sticks I understand correctly? Nothing to do with the regular Plex app on the phone i suppose? Never had a problem with that, I don't use android TV sticks, so I don't know. But it does seem like there are some real problems here.

Even if you don't buy the latest and greatest hardware, 'average' still doesn't exist. Same price, different hardware, very different results.

Anyway, if you don't use the Android sticks, Plex is still a great choice I suppose and the problems will be solved I'm sure. Remember Windows 8.0 and is't issues? I think a solution will come.
Still think with all the platforms they support and all the apps I can use I still prefer plex over Media Browser. But, use cases vary.

But I do hope people affected with the problems start seeing some answers and fixes soon

 

[cyberjock]

I'm very confused by the comments you made Magnus33. I've been using Plex since before Plexpass existed. It's been pretty freakin' stable for me. There's been a build or two on the server that wasn't 100% stable for me, but they usually had it fixed in less than a week.

I have a Roku 2 and I was having a problem with certain videos on my Plex server. I have an overabundance of resources on my server so I wouldn't have expected the problem. I found a thread that was similar to the problem I was having and asked if it has been fixed. A developer responded to the forum post just a few hours later that it had been fixed and he was unaware of any open issues like the one I was claiming. Someone else reported experiencing a similar (but not quite the same, so not sure if they are related). The same developer responded that if either of us could provide some debug logs they should be able to figure out what the problem is and fix it. The other guy provided some logs and a sample of the video file in a bug ticket. A dev then made a few comments in the ticket and said that they have received a log along with a short video clip showing the problem and are investigating.

I've never heard of:

- posts being deleted
- people asking for refunds
- devs being "absent"

My personal experience has been the exact opposite of what you claim. Not saying you are wrong, just that I've personally experienced the opposite.

Frankly, asking for refunds is just stupid. When you buy a software package from a given place, if the quality goes down months or years later, you do NOT get a refund. If you bought into plexpass without testing the software first, that's your own stupidity for doing that. If you are upset because because you bought a lifetime pass, I won't feel bad for you either. No large company anywhere lets you buy a lifetime license for a product like Plex does.

I've never heard the accusations that posts are being deleted. I'm not really going to try to search for it because anyone can make those arguments and finding evidence isn't worth my time (we even delete some posts here that are so stupid they shouldn't be on the forums).

As for the devs being absent, I disagree. They were very active. In fact, if you think about it, I got a response from a dev on the plex forums and the devs of FreeNAS do NOT hang out in the forums. So if you are going to make the comment of the devs being absent, then FreeNAS is clearly doing much worse in that category.

I haven't used an android stick myself. Just the Windows and Linux clients, two Rokus, my phone and a tablet.

 

[Magnus33]

That's the thing there nothing about this that requires you to believe me.

A simple check of twitter shows that its all plex now and not a single user comment now.
Facebook is now full of posts with no answers at all and the forums are a mess with pissed of people wanting answers.

The brunt of it is felt by the android users but its spilled over into mac, freebsd and server issues although thankfully not as bad yet.

Now this isn't a witch hunt for plex i use and love the product but the sudden attitude from them and messed up software is just wrong.

Compared to media browser its the one huge difference between them now.
Media browser has a issue they jump right on it and respond to questions and posts.


Maybe the other forums at plex are still getting some love but the android forum is a wasteland.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

It's not the only difference though ;)
But it seems bad indeed. Don't know what's going on, but i am sure glad i don't have an Android stick. Have not ran into a single issue yet, running servers on Windows, Linux and FreeBSD, and clients on 2 different Samsung tv's (one very old), 2 different Android phones, iPad, Raspberry Pi B and Raspberry Pi B2.

 

[jasn]

Another vote for Media Browser. I agree with Josh's point regarding the open source approach to Media Browser definitely being an advantage.

After reading the thread, and being at the decision point myself as to which to use in order to stream content to our IOS devices, I installed Media Browser and it's worked well. We use WDTV boxes on our TVs, so it's really just something for our phones/tablets. I had initially had issues because I couldn't stream content from ISO images, but since I'm starting a library re-rip anyway, I've decided to re-rip to mkv, and the content streams well using that container.

The only thing that seems to get stuck is the library rescan updates to the IOS client, (specifically for existing content when I deleted the ISO and replaced it with an MKV, not net new content). The way I fixed it was to delete the server entry in the client, and then add it back, and it updated the library correctly.

Jason

 

[Magnus33]

Media browser been getting working updates on a fairly regular cycle where android get ignored for ages on plex after a major change over.

Plex has finally started working on the android client again and the sheer number of bugs that where in the new client was staggering and still growing.
What where they thinking releasing a mess like that when it wasn't even something that could be considered beta.

Looks like greed overriding common sense over there now.

Every product has a bug or two but what company releases a product to the public with 70 plus bugs and calls it stable?

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

The number of bugs on itself tells us nothing. For example, take a look at how many bugs were there after the release of FreeNAS 9.3.

 

[cyberjock]

The number of bugs on itself tells us nothing. For example, take a look at how many bugs were there after the release of FreeNAS 9.3.

You have been banned for your insolence! ;)

 

[SmallGuy]

You have been banned for your insolence! ;)

Yes, this is completely unacceptable. And for the record, there isn't any FreeNASpass for sale.;)

 

[Magnus33]

You have been banned for your insolence! ;)

Tar and feathering? :)

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

Sorry, i get grumpy when i don't get my cookies.

Why no FreeNASPass? Make people pay for nightly versions on Android. And linux of course, just to make this guy happy :p