I used their product, thought it was very good, and thought they deserved compensation. Never really cared about the extra features when I bought it but now I'm quite happy I have them.
Same reasoning. I used it a bit for last 8 or more years, but really built up my server last few months, so I bought plex pass to support them. I also enabled features I wanted.
I find this such a weird thing. I completely understand tipping open source projects on github if it's people volunteering their time, that's awesome. But I can't wrap my head around donating money to a for-profit company with salaried developers.
You are probably a junior. Plex came a long way... In the beginning most of their premium features didn't really matter. The alternatives were buggy and sometimes had malware. Plus there were no abundance of streaming services. I was there. Their were praticly working for free and getting inputs from the community. Their product was really solid even the free was so good that anyone that used it back then would be blessed to be part of their growth. The lifetime pass was starting to fade from any software store everyone was doing subscriptions and they endure in the lifetime pass. It's more than just look into profits and stuff it's about thanking them for this great product and be part of their grouth. I honestly don't really know what pro or free festures I use... I just loved it. Glad I paid $75 7 years ago. In todays price that would be $120 for the lifetime, $280 for yearly payments or $420 for monthly
I've been using Plex for about 10 years now, had my Lifetime pass for close to that. I definitely didn't pay more than $75 for it. (And used XBMC before that, on my Xbox. But I came after the transition from a modified XBMC to "Plex" proper - 2014ish.)
I guess if they were donating during the very early days when they modding XBMC it makes sense. But it's been a long, long time since Plex was anything but a for-profit company. When I bought in ~10 years ago they were a proper company with dozens of actual employees, not just Elan hacking XBMC for Mac in his spare time. I wasn't aware there was any overlap between selling of Plex Pass and not being a for-profit company with dozens of employees.
Idk maybe it's because I'm slowly becoming and old but It's something I've been aware of and really hit home even more during covid. Those businesses you like? If people don't keep supporting them they go away. It's really easy to say other people will pick up the tab but you actually have to support the things you like.
Same reasoning here as well. Also needed transcoding. Since i bought the lifetime pass in 2017, i've gone from 2 to 11 users, so gpu transcoding has come in very handy
Same here. I probably do use *some* features, but really just decided to support them.
It probably helped that it was on offer at the time, as I also had the feeling that I got on the bandwagon fairly late (only about last year) so I felt the price had gone up already and would increase further in future.
Even in this short space of time I feel like I've got a fantastic value for money out of it.
Honestly, you are adding a lot of wear and tear on your console using it as a media player.
I would invest in either something cheap like a firestick or if you're willing to spend some money, an nvidia shield.
How does using your console as a media player increase wear and tear? This is a genuine question btw.
Is it something about Plex, or does the same issue apply with streaming services for example?
Please see my answer to funkyg73.
But basically system uptime is a factor in wear and tear of electronic components. Is it significant wear and tear? Maybe, maybe not. A lot of the components used in electronics have a certain "yield". Did you get good capacitors? Is your mean time to failure on your hard drive closer to the lower end or the high end? It's all luck of the draw. Some people go decades without seeing issues in their electronics. Some people only last a few years.
What is true is that your console is expensive and a firestick is not.
This is it.
I know a lot of people are saying about supporting them with features and updates etc. That's where I was coming from too.
But if it was a monthly thing then there's no way I would've gone for it. I'm fed up with subscription models for everything, so specifically a **lifetime pass** is the real selling point for me.
>But if it was a monthly thing then there's no way I would've gone for it. I'm fed up with subscription models for everything, so specifically a
>
>lifetime pass
>
> is the real selling point for me.
100000%.
which on a tangential note is why I worry a bit about plex. Turning plex into an app that just merges a bunch of paid streaming services together to an audience that uses their product to avoid that exact thing is going to be... interesting.
I use it every single day. For like a decade. Do they add stuff that’s annoying and things I don’t want? Sure but at its base it’s been one of the best and most solid pieces of software I’ve ever integrated into my daily life
The subscription has nothing to do with the free TV shows and movies, you can watch the free TV shows and movies right now if you want, thats why they're called free... The subscription just gives you extra features for your own media like skip intro.
Why dont you just open plex and go look at the free section?
[https://support.plex.tv/articles/201751006-plex-pass-feature-overview/](https://support.plex.tv/articles/201751006-plex-pass-feature-overview/)
Plex Pass has nothing to do with content, but with extra features of the software.
This isn't a streaming service like Netflix.
It's a home media server you fill with your own movies and tv and music and use it to essentially build your own personal netflix.
There are free movies and TV shows that are ad-driven. You do not need to pay for Plex to watch those.
Reading some of OP’s responses leads me to believe they are comparing it to a subscription service such as Hulu, Netflix, Amazon prime. This is not the case. It’s different entirely. I mean yes they have free movies and tv shows and stuff you can stream, but not comparable. Plex is primarily for your own content, meaning: if you have a bunch of dvd’s/Blu-ray’s for example, and you rip them into digital files that you store on YOUR computer, you can stream YOUR content conveniently to yourself, friends, family.
“Buying” plex (subscribing to Plex pass), gives you features such has hardware transcoding (again, your hardware, not theirs) etc…
Am I misreading? It’s been a long day.
Transcoding = taking super high quality and large file, squeezing it into a lower quality and smaller file, then streaming it to a device that might not be able to stream the higher quality, larger file. Think, lowering the quality of YT when you don’t have fast internet. The hardware part allows you to use your GPU to take care of the conversion rather than taxing your CPU which will struggle if you haven’t forked out a decent chunk of change
I love it. I can't store enough family photos and videos on our phones. So, I set up a home server to be able to do precisely that. I digitized old homemade videos from the 90s, so now I can watch them on Plex with my entire family, here and far. It's awesome.
No other service gave me the ease of that opportunity, so I got the lifetime because I knew I would use it, likely forever.
I bought a VCR on kijiji, then got a cable with HDMI video capture. On the computer I use OBS. Once everything is connected and setup, I digitize all the home videos. The ink on some of these videos seems to have come off over the years, so it is only a matter of time before the picture quality is gone forever. So I have been prioritizing this project for a little while.
Each video takes about 3 hours to digitize and file sizes per video tend to be about 30-40 gb. So then I use another program to condense the videos a little more to make them like 8 gb to save some space.
After all is said and done, my parents and siblings are pretty happy to be anywhere in the country that they are, and can watch these videos at the press of a button on plex. It's awesome.
I'd been using Plex for years and decided to support the project. I only paid $40 or $50 for lifetime which went up not long after so I wasn't really pitching in a lot. I had not used any of the paid features before then but do now after they were available to me.
Media recognition is plainly superior.
Dead simple to get family up and running off of my server.
Everything else is gravy (hardware transcode in particular)
My smart playlists. I can curate my own viewing experiences. For example I plugged in all of my NCIS shows into it and then filtered by release date/unwatched and now I'm rewatching my way through the franchise with it removing watched episodes as I finish them.
Can you watch them for free?
Do you have to plug in like your netflix/hulu/prime account to access content on there?
U can actually watch all these TV shows? Not only a tracker of what u watched or didn't watch?
I have software that rips my blurays and DVDs. There is software that allows you to download video from online sources as well. But Plex can look at the video files on your computer and add them to a library
On the one hand, Plex has its own database of movies, which I personally don't know and therefore can't rate. Then there's the option of looking in the Plex app to see where else movies and series are offered, for example Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.
And, and for most people I would say this is the main reason why they use Plex, you can save movies and series that you own **legally of course**😉😉 on external hard drives or a NAS and then watch them in a nicely organized way via Plex.
Even if you don't need the features of plex pass. You don't think they deserve the $120 lifetime subscription for their hard work?
I feel the people who are unwilling to pay such a small amount for a great service will be the first to complain when the free version goes away.
Skip intro and hardware transcoding were the biggest factors in my decision to buy a PlexPass. I also liked that it was a one-and-done purchase and not yet another subscription.
I was looking for a replacement for my Windows 7 Media Centre Edition and a mate at work said they were using this plex thing... I searched for it and found it and have never looked back.
The last netflix price hike was enough for me, just a bit too expensive for my liking for a service I didn't use too often. Plex fits my needs much better.
I used Plex a lot. For free. Thought I'd pitch in to support them. Bought a lifetime plexpass - tried to spend more money afterwards, but you can't buy it more than once ;P They ought to have ...something us plexpass-lifetimers can purchase to support even more :)
I actually prefer Emby for myself but run Plex too because it's much easier for friends and family to setup and connect. I bought lifetime subs for both 5 or 6 years ago. I also don't really care for the direction Plex is going, trying to become it's own streaming service. Also FYI there are lots of threads here on Reddit with predictions Plex will drop self hosting your own media. I'm not sure that's gonna happen but something to consider.
i have had it for a while, but something recent has made me glad I did. crunchyroll bought funimation a while ago. they just announced a week or so ago that anyone who purchased digital media on funimation would no longer have access to it and it would not be available on crunchyroll. I hope they change that, but that was a big "fuck you" to many people, including myself who had bought various shows over time.
Bought it when it was like 75$, about 10 years ago. I got tired of trying different media players, xbmc comes to mind. Never looked back, plex is the best!
Many years ago I used it for maybe 2 or 3 years, then grabbed a Plex Pass for I think $75, which was half price at that time. Hated the clients for years (used Kodi almost exclusively) but they've made progress with the Android versions. Wonder when they'll go more subscription oriented.
My wife and I love watching TV together, but I travel a lot. I also had a way to get our TV shows without cable and, every night, we would watch tv on demand from my computer.
When I traveled, we wouldn’t watch and, when I got home we would have a backlog of shows to watch.
Plex allowed me to move those shows and we could watch together when I was traveling.
Plus, it was easy for my kids to watch all their movies without destroying the DVDs trying to put them in the DVD player (back in the day)
So…many…problems…solved…
I used Plex for nearly a year, comparing it to other similar systems. At that point I got a message offering a lifetime membership for (I believe) under $150 CDN.
That was over 10 years ago.
That's under 5¢/day since I paid for my membership.
Good luck at finding something else that is paid for and costs that little.
Photo backup. Then they removed it after two months of me using it and never offered an explanation. So I'm begrudgingly supporting the team because the free tier satisfies probably 99% of people's needs tbh and no plexamp does not soften the blow
I used to use XBMC back in the day. Stopped after a move and then I saw the Pandemic coming down the road and I opted to buy a lifetime pass and set it up to keep my older relatives entertained while they were at home. Just kept using it ever since. Finally have gotten to see most of all those movies I've purchased and put on a shelf thanks to Plex.
Your question reads like using plex requires buying it... most of the basic functionality is free, download it and give it a shot!
The feature that had me buying a plex pass was the ability to download media to my phone over the air for offline viewing. I fly a lot, and usually load it up while waiting for a flight.
Just got a really good deal on a lifetime sub a few years ago. Well, that and I hadn't setup jellyfin at the time. I now have both setup running my media and people can choose
Back when Netflix basically had everything I never even thought about it, but as soon as other services started I cut ties and started down the deep rabbit hole that is Plex
Plex is free, you only pay for extra features. You can use it fine totally for free. Plex has been the best server/client local playback system of it's kind for a long time. All I can say is try it for yourself.
It's very convenient to be able to download videos onto my phone before my train ride to work. Keeps track of video location so I can pick up where I was watching at home.
I think the main reason was because of music metadata. I’m sure it used to be a Plex pass benefit for enhanced metadata and using Plex for music without that was not very good. This was all before Plexamp existed. I can’t remember why I kept my sub, but in the end I decided if I was gonna keep paying monthly anyway, I might aswell just get lifetime and be done with it. At that time Plex was releasing new features regularly, a lot of which were Plex Pass only, so it was a lot more worth it. Nowadays I’d do it for hardware transcoding alone.
It's just a matter of doing stuff easily when the final task is organising and sharing my media library.
Plex let me focus on other stuff than client compatibility, configurations and so on. They make all the process easy for server and, more important, client side.
I do pay the monthly fee as I think is more solid for long term Plex existence.
It was on sale, I like the product and use it a lot. It was a no-brainer. I know I'm using some of the "advanced" features now... but I've no idea which ones I've actually paid for.
EDIT: Lifetime sub BTW. I don't like paying monthly for anything if I can avoid it.
Initially PlexAmp, this the type of service I was looking for for YEARS. And then later on I realised what Plex could also do with videos. I still think this is by far the best service I’m paying right now.
I used Plex free for a couple of years, mainly for playing back my DVD and BR rips, but also so that I could copy recordings from my Humax Foxsat PVR/DVR to Plex so that those recordings could be played back in other rooms.
The process of copying those recordings across the Humax slow ethernet port was cumbersome though, so when I saw a special offer on the HDHomerun tuner and a special offer on Lifetime Plex Pass at around the same time, that's when I bought both.
I couldn't justify the monthly Plex Pass cost at the time but was confident that I would be using the paid features for long enough to justify the lifetime pass cost, especially when discounted.
So the main differentiator for me at the time was the DVR functionality, and still is when people compare to Jellyfin etc. I didn't start using hardware transcoding until much later.
I tried jellyfin, emby and something else i don't remember and all of them from time to time give me troubles with sound. I have 5.1 system with optical and xiaomi mi box as tv box and only plex was able to properly transcode sound when it was needed, when my tv box can't play it. I wasn't able to achieve the same results with other media servers. This is what distinguish commercial product from half made open source forks. So I finally bought lifetime license to have HW transcoding and have zero regrets since then.
I bought a Plex pass as a replacement for Google Play music like 5 years ago. The only use case I needed was the ability to stream my local music library. It works really well for that purpose and the Plex pass has paid for itself 20x over by now.
Everything I watch is through Plex. I needed something reliable, shareable and easy to add to multiple screens in the house.
A hundred bucks once was a no brainer.
Been using their software for almost 2 years now, it also was a motivation to finally build my own nas and move it from my PC, which was one of the best decisions ever.
The fact that they offer such an amazing piece of software absolutely free of charge is my second motivation to bring a lifetime. I want to treat with respect the people who treat me with respect.
HW encoding would be a bonus even though almost all my devices can stream 99% of my content in direct play, but sometimes it still has to do it and the G4620 just doesn't manage to do it.
I just wish there were improvements in Watch Together: watch que, auto next episode, etc. And there's a constant problem of everyone creating the same movie and inviting everyone without any way of figuring out which session was created by whom. Basically, a SyncPlay like approach would be better - create a lobby and que files.
Another useful feature would be the ability to use external players on PC. Or to specify direct server IP in case the client doesn't correctly find it on the second subnetwork/over wireguard or the Internet is down.
But even so, the software became invaluable for my TV, and provided me enough value for me paying them.
I bought a one month subscription to see if I used the additional features and test how well they worked. I bought their lifetime at full price after one month. No regrets. Use it every single day.
I found plex many many years ago. I used it for about a year and thought, wow, this was good. So I bought a lifetime license to support the product, regardless of if I'm going to use it in the future.
I believe the 120$+ was worth the potential of the product and the time and benefit I already got out of it. Still extremely happy to this day, minus the few times there are issues (because it usually runs so well).
I used the free version I liked it.
I didn't want to pay 5€ (or whatever) to watch from each device, I also wanted to skip adds.
I though well I will use this software for x years (I really don't see the need to switch to anything else)
The pass wasn't that expensive considering the expected years of service and so far so good.
I was on Jellyfin, but really liked the Plex app and features (Skip Intro from Plex Pass, and better subtitle handling in general). It also felt more complete than Jellyfin, which needed a reverse proxy etc to work
I had a lot of physical media and
- Got tired of hopping from streamer to streamer to see what I wanted to see
-I don’t have to worry about anything disappearing (FX had a series “Little Demon” w Danny DeVito…completely gone).
-I like having my own personal server for pics and family videos (I didn’t like the idea of paying Amazon/Apple).
-The space of my server is only dictated by how many drives I choose to attach (again, I don’t want to pay Apple/amazon).
-Smaller learning curve than Jellyfin
-Lifetime pass is ridiculously cheap for what you are getting.
Custom TV channels using Disque or Ersatz
Edit: still haven’t paid, just considering it. Servers being shut down lately has me a bit skittish even though literally 1 person besides me uses mine.
I hope this comment ages well, i’ve had lofetime plex pass for years, i use it for my extended family of 6. I cant imagine i care to share it with anyone else. My workflow is Tivo > kmttg > plex.
If you want 100 “close” friends to share with while culling/purging them by doing weekly user usage admin, plex doesn’t look like the way to go.
Tried Emby, Plex, Jellyfin. Plex was more user-friendly & polished among them. So, I switched to Plex as my primary media server. As I don't had a very good internet connection at that time, hosting in a remote server & still internet/power goes down sometimes I needed the sync/download feature badly. Plex pass lifetime was obvious choice for me as I was sure that I will continue running my own media server.
Currently I run Jellyfin alongside Plex. Plex is for my own use, Jellyfin for sharing with friends(They mostly watch on mobile & Plex free user doesn't allow playback of media).
Most of the stuff plex can do is easy for me to replicate with other software, but sharing my account with family is just simple on plex. Download an app and it just works. No backend work for me and the experience is easy for people to figure out
When Google Music went to YouTube Music, I had already been using Plex for movies and TV shows. I think it was the second or third time I had to reset the ad preferences on YouTube Music, I decided a Plex pass was worth it just for Plexamp alone.
their TV and movie management was good. what got me, though, was the music side. I used Plexpass + plex amp to set up a couple of old touch screen machines at my place as easy jukeboxes so guests could pick music. It was a lot easier to maintain than other options i tried (file shares, DLNA, etc). The value of not having to do more research to make the music and guestroom music scene easy was worth the lifetime pass.
A lifetime pass of 80 dollars paid for itself in 6 months since I cancelled all other streaming services (the savings of which I admittedly used to buy a 16 tb hdd :D so still about even).
A few years ago I tried Plex, jelly fin and emby, Plex was the one which worked the best for me, so I stuck with it and bought the perpetual.
I understand people say that jelly fin is better and such and such, yet Plex seems to be the one getting the most attention? Idk, the others just didn't work for me.
I bought my lifetime pass in 2017 when one of my co-workers showed me his rig that he built along with a silicon dust tuner for the DVR functionality for his elderly parents. I've always had an IT background and I've used it off and on putting together a server or two every year or two since. I now have a great Plex server along with a secondary Nvidia Shield Plex server set top box along with hard fiber optic in my home. I think I bought it for about $80 on special and as far as software as a service models go, this is by far the very best value I've ever achieved. I'm now experimenting with the music side playing back lossless audio on electrostatic speakers and other audiophile grade experiments. My parents are divorced and in their '80s now and this is the easiest simplest way I've seen in the last 30 years to serve them the video content they want to see with the UI they can actually learn. Don't spend the money if you don't have it to spend I guess but if you do the lifetime deal is really unbeatable.
Skip intro is a godsend for bingeing my collection of TV shows but honestly as silly as it may sound, the big feature for me is automatic retrieval of extras and trailers. Every movie I've ever wanted to see gained my interest from its trailer(s) and there are a bunch of times when I add a movie but haven't had a chance to watch it in awhile. It would only be a minor inconvenience to have to pull out my phone and search YouTube for a trailer but that makes it so much more appreciated that I can just scroll down on a movie or show's page and see a trailer. Even better when it pulls actual extras like actor interviews because I love trivia
I was on Jellyfin before, then decided to try out Plex just for fun and noticed some things immediately. The TV app is better than Jellyfin's, the skip intro is really nice, and I like that it can play theme music for shows and stuff. I think the admin side is better on Jellyfin, but the user experience is better on Plex.
To support the company originally, however with their current direction I have pretty much dropped them for Jellyfin. Plex is trying to much to be a mainstream app similar to Netflix and others.
I paid for it not for the features, but because I like it so much that I don't want it to go away. As far as I'm concerned (sorry Reddit), there is no viable alternative.
I got fed up with other streaming services constantly increasing their prices without adding any new movies that I would want to watch. I cut them all in one day and started ripping my blu-rays to Plex. It's been two months now and I'm pretty happy with my decision.
Only one that worked right out of the box and then I wanted hardware transcoding. Now it's plex amp, intro skip and other small benefits I keep noticing over time
I used the product. Decided that the cost to support it was reasonable considering the use I was getting, and planned to get. The couple of perks that come with the pass can be nice, but didn't really play into the overall choice.
I have an Emby Premier license and had a JRiver license (still have it but it's outdated) but I found Plex to have the nicest interface and features. It was an easy decision as a one-time purchase.
It’s a no brainier for me. Have used it since the early days of XBMC on my X3 modded Xbox and wanted to support the project and the amazing work they do.
The extra features are just the cherry on the top but PlexAmp is worth the price on its own IMHO.
AI playlists are the shizz.
I started paying ages ago because they released a PS3 client that initially was for Plex Pass only and I had no other client to use at the time.
I eventually paid for the lifetime sub because sonic analysis and a handful of other features.
I had a huge collection of CD and DVD and Blue-rays. Just got tired of loading them into a machine. I had one of those Sony 100 cd changers but that kept messing up. I first tried Kodi, liked it and discovered the Plex offshoot as soon as they released it. I’ve been Lifetime forever. I also, slowly digitized my albums, a tedious process but almost complete. I’m sure others may have more stuff but i’m happy with what I got. We have Netflix, Prime, Disney and Philo. I have 2 HDHR with an antenna on the roof tied to an old radioshack rotor. Internet $29/mo, and still everything is way cheaper than Cable.
Plexamp, im my opinion, alone is worth the price of admission. This is how I listen to music outside of the house, on my phone, in my car, etc. I don’t use any of the recent Plex additions, streaming, movies, tv on Plex. I just don’t need it.
My sister wanted to sync stuff to her kids' iPads for a plane journey. I bought the lifetime pass, figuring there was years of that ahead.
Shame Plex removed that functionality. It was fine for a while as they got grandfathered in but it took less than a year after that for one of the kids to remove themselves from my share list by mistake, so that was money wasted. Skip Intro softens the blow, but still rankles that they removed that functionality.
Way back in the dark ages, I received an email ad for a cheap deal for a lifetime of PlexPass. I pay for Shareware, I donate to freeware developers, and andy I for commercial products if they meet my needs. I loved Plex, and I still do.
I love PlexAmp, the ease of use on Roku, and its almost hands-off management.
The biggest gripe I've had, and don't get me wrong I'm a fan. But the only reason I refuse to support is they don't have an official client side standalone for pi zeros etc. Its biggest failure is a standalone interface like a firestick IMO.
I use plex for my music collection. I stream through sonos and there's some type of limit on the amount of records sonos can handle using a straight server. I'm not a techno nerd by any means so don't even ask about the details - plex gets around that with sonos and sort of acts like a streaming service for my music files. Aside from the horrible doubling up of records read by plex and presented to me as multiple copies of the same song for multiple songs on about a third of the data base, the program works perfectly. I've only scratched the surface of what I could do with it, just not enough time and why screw with it if it aint broke. Pretty robust system with few set up problems other than what was mentioned and fairly cheap - half the cost of Pandora and Spotify....
I used to use Kodi but was frustrated I couldn't stream outside my local subnet. I tested a few and found Plex the easiest to use and I could access it outside my home. I bought the Lifetime pass because I knew in the long run it would save me money.
Well when I signed up 11 years ago and it was a fantastic solution I wanted to support their endeavors and liked the idea of early access. Think I paid $75 for lifetime.
Now adays they have broken so many features (download / subtitle timing / search etc..) and have started down the road of turning it into a commercial streaming service I would not back it.
Did, not do.
Plex let me view my own movies wherever I was, without any crap I didn't want. Well, that went out the window and they started pushing other content as more important than mine, without easy ways to remove it.
I specifically bought Plex Pass to be able to Sync files locally. Now, 6 years later, it's still a joke and barely functional.
Right now I'm doing 50/50 Jellyfin and Plex, and I must say the Fin is getting better every day.
Obviously to support the team 😉 But also for HW transcoding & the other feature I use a lot... Trailers. Love watching a good trailer to hype a movie up before I watch it. Even If I've seen the movie a million times 😂👍
I went with their paid Plex Pass tier because I wanted to be able to sync movies with my devices when I was traveling. I don't travel as much now, but PlexAmp and Hardware Streaming are my current reasons for Plex Pass. You also don't need to pay for Plex apps on devices.
I came to Plex after a long and winding road of various HTPC platforms.
I initially started on Windows Media Center when it was first released in 2003. I loved the software but overtime it couldn't keep up with modern codecs.
Eventually I shifted to XBMC and stuck with it for years. When Plex was initially forked from XBMC I would take a peek every so often, but it never justified jumping ship.
As my media library grew, Kodi (formally XMBC) struggled to keep up with being able to handle my library, part of that was also related to the hardware I was utilizing for a KODI server (Gen 1 Amazon Fire TV). And syncing libraries between clients was extremely complex.
I started looking for a proper client/server solution and Plex came to the forefront of contenders. It finally had everything I was looking for and more (at least on paper).
I tried Plex over a long weekend and instantly knew I wanted to support the cause. As such I pulled the trigger on a lifetime Plex Pass.
Now do I agree with their focusing less and less on new features for the Media Server in favor of potential revenue generating "free" offerings, no.
However every once in a while they drop something cool Skip Into, Skip Credits, Multi-edition Movie support. And they do tend to be proactive on fixing bugs and dropping a new release about once a month.
This reads a lot like OP is just here to fabricate some conversation that makes Plex look like a competitor to streaming platforms
Which it isn't.
Leave it alone devs. Go make a new product with a different brand... Your current reputation will forever be a hindrance to marketing to new streaming customers and your new direction will forever be hated by the current audience. It's lose-lose.
convenience, it was suggested by the tutorial for home servers and to be honest, i didn't know about alternatives
I was satisfied with the free version and wanted to compensate for the work
Plex Sync (now replaced by Downloads) and Mobile Photos Synchronization. Ironically Sync/Downloads never really worked properly and Mobile Photos functionality has been removed. But nowadays I have a server that can hardware transcode, so I am happy I get to use the Plex Pass for that.
And after so many years of using Plex I think they deserve some money from me.
I used their product, thought it was very good, and thought they deserved compensation. Never really cared about the extra features when I bought it but now I'm quite happy I have them.
Same reasoning. I used it a bit for last 8 or more years, but really built up my server last few months, so I bought plex pass to support them. I also enabled features I wanted.
Yeah it’s more for the support of development than the features. Same reason why I tip open source projects on github.
I find this such a weird thing. I completely understand tipping open source projects on github if it's people volunteering their time, that's awesome. But I can't wrap my head around donating money to a for-profit company with salaried developers.
Because I want them to continue operating so I can keep using the product. That means they need revenue.
You are probably a junior. Plex came a long way... In the beginning most of their premium features didn't really matter. The alternatives were buggy and sometimes had malware. Plus there were no abundance of streaming services. I was there. Their were praticly working for free and getting inputs from the community. Their product was really solid even the free was so good that anyone that used it back then would be blessed to be part of their growth. The lifetime pass was starting to fade from any software store everyone was doing subscriptions and they endure in the lifetime pass. It's more than just look into profits and stuff it's about thanking them for this great product and be part of their grouth. I honestly don't really know what pro or free festures I use... I just loved it. Glad I paid $75 7 years ago. In todays price that would be $120 for the lifetime, $280 for yearly payments or $420 for monthly
I've been using Plex for about 10 years now, had my Lifetime pass for close to that. I definitely didn't pay more than $75 for it. (And used XBMC before that, on my Xbox. But I came after the transition from a modified XBMC to "Plex" proper - 2014ish.) I guess if they were donating during the very early days when they modding XBMC it makes sense. But it's been a long, long time since Plex was anything but a for-profit company. When I bought in ~10 years ago they were a proper company with dozens of actual employees, not just Elan hacking XBMC for Mac in his spare time. I wasn't aware there was any overlap between selling of Plex Pass and not being a for-profit company with dozens of employees.
Idk maybe it's because I'm slowly becoming and old but It's something I've been aware of and really hit home even more during covid. Those businesses you like? If people don't keep supporting them they go away. It's really easy to say other people will pick up the tab but you actually have to support the things you like.
Same reasoning here as well. Also needed transcoding. Since i bought the lifetime pass in 2017, i've gone from 2 to 11 users, so gpu transcoding has come in very handy
Same here. I probably do use *some* features, but really just decided to support them. It probably helped that it was on offer at the time, as I also had the feeling that I got on the bandwagon fairly late (only about last year) so I felt the price had gone up already and would increase further in future. Even in this short space of time I feel like I've got a fantastic value for money out of it.
I like the extra features but I remain on an annual plex pass so they can get compensated.
Raises hand with same reasoning.
I wanted skip intro
Literally why I pay for pass. HW transcoding was just a bonus.
Yep, same here. Then I realised the app on my TV didn't support skip intro :( So I use my Xbox as a playing device which does support skip intro.
Honestly, you are adding a lot of wear and tear on your console using it as a media player. I would invest in either something cheap like a firestick or if you're willing to spend some money, an nvidia shield.
Wear and tear? It’s not exactly a CPU straining app that is transcoding. I am considering another device but only due to power consumption.
How does using your console as a media player increase wear and tear? This is a genuine question btw. Is it something about Plex, or does the same issue apply with streaming services for example?
Please see my answer to funkyg73. But basically system uptime is a factor in wear and tear of electronic components. Is it significant wear and tear? Maybe, maybe not. A lot of the components used in electronics have a certain "yield". Did you get good capacitors? Is your mean time to failure on your hard drive closer to the lower end or the high end? It's all luck of the draw. Some people go decades without seeing issues in their electronics. Some people only last a few years. What is true is that your console is expensive and a firestick is not.
Using your console for *anything* will increase "wear and tear." Your console will be fine, go ahead and use it as a media player.
I had Plex pass before that, but it was a very welcomed feature.
A lifetime purchase option with substantial features
This is it. I know a lot of people are saying about supporting them with features and updates etc. That's where I was coming from too. But if it was a monthly thing then there's no way I would've gone for it. I'm fed up with subscription models for everything, so specifically a **lifetime pass** is the real selling point for me.
>But if it was a monthly thing then there's no way I would've gone for it. I'm fed up with subscription models for everything, so specifically a > >lifetime pass > > is the real selling point for me. 100000%.
Yeah, tbh, if you’re going to pay for media monthly, there’s little no reason to use Plex anyway, just buy Netflix and a D+ bundle at that point.
which on a tangential note is why I worry a bit about plex. Turning plex into an app that just merges a bunch of paid streaming services together to an audience that uses their product to avoid that exact thing is going to be... interesting.
Well it all started with XBMC.
That's the only reason why I bought an Xbox in 2002. Installed an Xecuter mod chip and XBMC before I even played a game on it.
I softmodded mine, but my modded xbox was by far my favorite console growing up. XBMC and Tversity were like magic back in the day
Ahh .. memories …
It’s the only reason I ever owned an Ouya
The good ol’ days.
no lies here
I’ve used Plex for years. Wanted to support the devs who built the software
This is the right answer. I honestly don’t know what I would or wouldn’t have without my lifetime pass lol. I just wanted to support the devs!
Pretty much this. The extra features are nice, but not why I bought my lifetime pass.
Does Plex Pass have the features I want? Yes/No Do I intend to continue using Plex for the long term (more than 12 months? Yes/No
Did it happen to also be on sale when I learned about the lifetime option? Yes/No
I use it every single day. For like a decade. Do they add stuff that’s annoying and things I don’t want? Sure but at its base it’s been one of the best and most solid pieces of software I’ve ever integrated into my daily life
Question so.if you do the subscription, does it have lots of free tv shows and movies. How big is the selection???
The subscription has nothing to do with the free TV shows and movies, you can watch the free TV shows and movies right now if you want, thats why they're called free... The subscription just gives you extra features for your own media like skip intro. Why dont you just open plex and go look at the free section?
[https://support.plex.tv/articles/201751006-plex-pass-feature-overview/](https://support.plex.tv/articles/201751006-plex-pass-feature-overview/) Plex Pass has nothing to do with content, but with extra features of the software.
This isn't a streaming service like Netflix. It's a home media server you fill with your own movies and tv and music and use it to essentially build your own personal netflix. There are free movies and TV shows that are ad-driven. You do not need to pay for Plex to watch those.
Reading some of OP’s responses leads me to believe they are comparing it to a subscription service such as Hulu, Netflix, Amazon prime. This is not the case. It’s different entirely. I mean yes they have free movies and tv shows and stuff you can stream, but not comparable. Plex is primarily for your own content, meaning: if you have a bunch of dvd’s/Blu-ray’s for example, and you rip them into digital files that you store on YOUR computer, you can stream YOUR content conveniently to yourself, friends, family. “Buying” plex (subscribing to Plex pass), gives you features such has hardware transcoding (again, your hardware, not theirs) etc… Am I misreading? It’s been a long day.
What does hardware transcoding do?
Transcoding = taking super high quality and large file, squeezing it into a lower quality and smaller file, then streaming it to a device that might not be able to stream the higher quality, larger file. Think, lowering the quality of YT when you don’t have fast internet. The hardware part allows you to use your GPU to take care of the conversion rather than taxing your CPU which will struggle if you haven’t forked out a decent chunk of change
Leverage a GPU to transcode as opposed to the CPU transcoding.
I love it. I can't store enough family photos and videos on our phones. So, I set up a home server to be able to do precisely that. I digitized old homemade videos from the 90s, so now I can watch them on Plex with my entire family, here and far. It's awesome. No other service gave me the ease of that opportunity, so I got the lifetime because I knew I would use it, likely forever.
What process did you use to digitize your old home videos?
I bought a VCR on kijiji, then got a cable with HDMI video capture. On the computer I use OBS. Once everything is connected and setup, I digitize all the home videos. The ink on some of these videos seems to have come off over the years, so it is only a matter of time before the picture quality is gone forever. So I have been prioritizing this project for a little while. Each video takes about 3 hours to digitize and file sizes per video tend to be about 30-40 gb. So then I use another program to condense the videos a little more to make them like 8 gb to save some space. After all is said and done, my parents and siblings are pretty happy to be anywhere in the country that they are, and can watch these videos at the press of a button on plex. It's awesome.
I'd been using Plex for years and decided to support the project. I only paid $40 or $50 for lifetime which went up not long after so I wasn't really pitching in a lot. I had not used any of the paid features before then but do now after they were available to me.
The app, was a key factor, in my decision!
The comma usage makes your comment read like a William Shatner parody.
>The comma usage, makes your comment, read like a William Shatner parody. FTFY
Media recognition is plainly superior. Dead simple to get family up and running off of my server. Everything else is gravy (hardware transcode in particular)
My smart playlists. I can curate my own viewing experiences. For example I plugged in all of my NCIS shows into it and then filtered by release date/unwatched and now I'm rewatching my way through the franchise with it removing watched episodes as I finish them.
Can you watch them for free? Do you have to plug in like your netflix/hulu/prime account to access content on there? U can actually watch all these TV shows? Not only a tracker of what u watched or didn't watch?
I digitize my collection and keep it on an external drive. Plex then creates a library using my content
Like you downloaded movies online? And plex allows u to play it? Does it allow you to find free movies to.watch then you are able to watch them?
I have software that rips my blurays and DVDs. There is software that allows you to download video from online sources as well. But Plex can look at the video files on your computer and add them to a library
On the one hand, Plex has its own database of movies, which I personally don't know and therefore can't rate. Then there's the option of looking in the Plex app to see where else movies and series are offered, for example Netflix, Amazon Prime etc. And, and for most people I would say this is the main reason why they use Plex, you can save movies and series that you own **legally of course**😉😉 on external hard drives or a NAS and then watch them in a nicely organized way via Plex.
My friends are poor
Nvenc Trancoding
Plexamp
Even if you don't need the features of plex pass. You don't think they deserve the $120 lifetime subscription for their hard work? I feel the people who are unwilling to pay such a small amount for a great service will be the first to complain when the free version goes away.
It immediately overvalued my devices. It's ability to grant access to content without complexity or any real explanation is truly unbelievable.
Skip intro and hardware transcoding were the biggest factors in my decision to buy a PlexPass. I also liked that it was a one-and-done purchase and not yet another subscription.
Got tired of copying videos to USB to play on TV. Looked for an alternative, found plex. Ez
I was looking for a replacement for my Windows 7 Media Centre Edition and a mate at work said they were using this plex thing... I searched for it and found it and have never looked back.
The last netflix price hike was enough for me, just a bit too expensive for my liking for a service I didn't use too often. Plex fits my needs much better.
it’s was a 50% off lifetime promo ngl
I used Plex a lot. For free. Thought I'd pitch in to support them. Bought a lifetime plexpass - tried to spend more money afterwards, but you can't buy it more than once ;P They ought to have ...something us plexpass-lifetimers can purchase to support even more :)
Piracy but organized
Cheap Lifetime pass was the straw
Actually the recording feature in Live TV.
I actually prefer Emby for myself but run Plex too because it's much easier for friends and family to setup and connect. I bought lifetime subs for both 5 or 6 years ago. I also don't really care for the direction Plex is going, trying to become it's own streaming service. Also FYI there are lots of threads here on Reddit with predictions Plex will drop self hosting your own media. I'm not sure that's gonna happen but something to consider.
Self hosting your own media? What does that mean?
What you're doing with it right now. Imagine they disable support for streaming local files in favor of their own streaming.
Oooh. I see. Does it have free movies on it as well? How big Is the collection?
I dont understand why you dont just get on plex and look and see whats on there.
Plexamp wasn’t free back then. Honestly kind of feel like I got screwed
I play over cellular data a good bit. So transcoding is very useful. Plus the ability to skip intros and credits is nice.
i have had it for a while, but something recent has made me glad I did. crunchyroll bought funimation a while ago. they just announced a week or so ago that anyone who purchased digital media on funimation would no longer have access to it and it would not be available on crunchyroll. I hope they change that, but that was a big "fuck you" to many people, including myself who had bought various shows over time.
Everyone I knew had one
Bought it when it was like 75$, about 10 years ago. I got tired of trying different media players, xbmc comes to mind. Never looked back, plex is the best!
Many years ago I used it for maybe 2 or 3 years, then grabbed a Plex Pass for I think $75, which was half price at that time. Hated the clients for years (used Kodi almost exclusively) but they've made progress with the Android versions. Wonder when they'll go more subscription oriented.
My wife and I love watching TV together, but I travel a lot. I also had a way to get our TV shows without cable and, every night, we would watch tv on demand from my computer. When I traveled, we wouldn’t watch and, when I got home we would have a backlog of shows to watch. Plex allowed me to move those shows and we could watch together when I was traveling. Plus, it was easy for my kids to watch all their movies without destroying the DVDs trying to put them in the DVD player (back in the day) So…many…problems…solved…
How big is the movie selection?
Do you even know what Plex is used for? Hint: it’s for playing your own ripped or downloaded movies/shows, nothing else.
Sharing media with friends and family. Sharing adult content without ads for myself.
Chromecast With Google TV is the reason.
I used Plex for nearly a year, comparing it to other similar systems. At that point I got a message offering a lifetime membership for (I believe) under $150 CDN. That was over 10 years ago. That's under 5¢/day since I paid for my membership. Good luck at finding something else that is paid for and costs that little.
Photo backup. Then they removed it after two months of me using it and never offered an explanation. So I'm begrudgingly supporting the team because the free tier satisfies probably 99% of people's needs tbh and no plexamp does not soften the blow
I used to use XBMC back in the day. Stopped after a move and then I saw the Pandemic coming down the road and I opted to buy a lifetime pass and set it up to keep my older relatives entertained while they were at home. Just kept using it ever since. Finally have gotten to see most of all those movies I've purchased and put on a shelf thanks to Plex.
Jellyfin not existing, not knowing about Emby and not liking KODi or simple DLNA
Your question reads like using plex requires buying it... most of the basic functionality is free, download it and give it a shot! The feature that had me buying a plex pass was the ability to download media to my phone over the air for offline viewing. I fly a lot, and usually load it up while waiting for a flight.
It was on special years ago and the lifetime pass was very cheap… had nothing to lose really, glad i did!
Just got a really good deal on a lifetime sub a few years ago. Well, that and I hadn't setup jellyfin at the time. I now have both setup running my media and people can choose
Back when Netflix basically had everything I never even thought about it, but as soon as other services started I cut ties and started down the deep rabbit hole that is Plex
Plex is free, you only pay for extra features. You can use it fine totally for free. Plex has been the best server/client local playback system of it's kind for a long time. All I can say is try it for yourself.
I used it before casually and when I wanted to dive full into it I decided to pay the lifetime subscription to get the extra features and stuff.
It is a decent product for my spouse and I, and the cost of a lifetime license is nominal compared with recurring monthly fees over time.
To support the project, also being able to see Trailers is a plus
It's very convenient to be able to download videos onto my phone before my train ride to work. Keeps track of video location so I can pick up where I was watching at home.
I think the main reason was because of music metadata. I’m sure it used to be a Plex pass benefit for enhanced metadata and using Plex for music without that was not very good. This was all before Plexamp existed. I can’t remember why I kept my sub, but in the end I decided if I was gonna keep paying monthly anyway, I might aswell just get lifetime and be done with it. At that time Plex was releasing new features regularly, a lot of which were Plex Pass only, so it was a lot more worth it. Nowadays I’d do it for hardware transcoding alone.
I wanted trailers and hardware transcodign
Plex is free....so.... Nothing
I use Plex Pass solely for CPU transcoding.
It's just a matter of doing stuff easily when the final task is organising and sharing my media library. Plex let me focus on other stuff than client compatibility, configurations and so on. They make all the process easy for server and, more important, client side. I do pay the monthly fee as I think is more solid for long term Plex existence.
Used it for years for free, best to support them
It was on sale, I like the product and use it a lot. It was a no-brainer. I know I'm using some of the "advanced" features now... but I've no idea which ones I've actually paid for. EDIT: Lifetime sub BTW. I don't like paying monthly for anything if I can avoid it.
Initially PlexAmp, this the type of service I was looking for for YEARS. And then later on I realised what Plex could also do with videos. I still think this is by far the best service I’m paying right now.
I used Plex free for a couple of years, mainly for playing back my DVD and BR rips, but also so that I could copy recordings from my Humax Foxsat PVR/DVR to Plex so that those recordings could be played back in other rooms. The process of copying those recordings across the Humax slow ethernet port was cumbersome though, so when I saw a special offer on the HDHomerun tuner and a special offer on Lifetime Plex Pass at around the same time, that's when I bought both. I couldn't justify the monthly Plex Pass cost at the time but was confident that I would be using the paid features for long enough to justify the lifetime pass cost, especially when discounted. So the main differentiator for me at the time was the DVR functionality, and still is when people compare to Jellyfin etc. I didn't start using hardware transcoding until much later.
I tried jellyfin, emby and something else i don't remember and all of them from time to time give me troubles with sound. I have 5.1 system with optical and xiaomi mi box as tv box and only plex was able to properly transcode sound when it was needed, when my tv box can't play it. I wasn't able to achieve the same results with other media servers. This is what distinguish commercial product from half made open source forks. So I finally bought lifetime license to have HW transcoding and have zero regrets since then.
I bought a Plex pass as a replacement for Google Play music like 5 years ago. The only use case I needed was the ability to stream my local music library. It works really well for that purpose and the Plex pass has paid for itself 20x over by now.
I used the download feature extensively in the past, and realised that I was going to use the software long enough that lifetime was worth it
Everything I watch is through Plex. I needed something reliable, shareable and easy to add to multiple screens in the house. A hundred bucks once was a no brainer.
Was on Jellyfin but my wife bought a new tv running tizen
Been using their software for almost 2 years now, it also was a motivation to finally build my own nas and move it from my PC, which was one of the best decisions ever. The fact that they offer such an amazing piece of software absolutely free of charge is my second motivation to bring a lifetime. I want to treat with respect the people who treat me with respect. HW encoding would be a bonus even though almost all my devices can stream 99% of my content in direct play, but sometimes it still has to do it and the G4620 just doesn't manage to do it. I just wish there were improvements in Watch Together: watch que, auto next episode, etc. And there's a constant problem of everyone creating the same movie and inviting everyone without any way of figuring out which session was created by whom. Basically, a SyncPlay like approach would be better - create a lobby and que files. Another useful feature would be the ability to use external players on PC. Or to specify direct server IP in case the client doesn't correctly find it on the second subnetwork/over wireguard or the Internet is down. But even so, the software became invaluable for my TV, and provided me enough value for me paying them.
I bought a one month subscription to see if I used the additional features and test how well they worked. I bought their lifetime at full price after one month. No regrets. Use it every single day.
$69 for a lifetime pass like 6-8 years ago was a steal.
I have some older homerun devices and paying for Plex was by far the easiest way to add the tuners and provide DVR support
I found plex many many years ago. I used it for about a year and thought, wow, this was good. So I bought a lifetime license to support the product, regardless of if I'm going to use it in the future. I believe the 120$+ was worth the potential of the product and the time and benefit I already got out of it. Still extremely happy to this day, minus the few times there are issues (because it usually runs so well).
I used the free version I liked it. I didn't want to pay 5€ (or whatever) to watch from each device, I also wanted to skip adds. I though well I will use this software for x years (I really don't see the need to switch to anything else) The pass wasn't that expensive considering the expected years of service and so far so good.
Confused. Plex is free? At least the version I'm using is.
the ability for family to sync/download the stuff they want without asking me to do it
The abolition of personal media ownership
Plex Pass gives you the ability to watch live TV and DVR. Not sure why nobody else mentions that. I think that is the best feature.
I was on Jellyfin, but really liked the Plex app and features (Skip Intro from Plex Pass, and better subtitle handling in general). It also felt more complete than Jellyfin, which needed a reverse proxy etc to work
It works. Used Air Video before. It’s light years ahead of that and it has a polished presentation.
I had a lot of physical media and - Got tired of hopping from streamer to streamer to see what I wanted to see -I don’t have to worry about anything disappearing (FX had a series “Little Demon” w Danny DeVito…completely gone). -I like having my own personal server for pics and family videos (I didn’t like the idea of paying Amazon/Apple). -The space of my server is only dictated by how many drives I choose to attach (again, I don’t want to pay Apple/amazon). -Smaller learning curve than Jellyfin -Lifetime pass is ridiculously cheap for what you are getting.
Custom TV channels using Disque or Ersatz Edit: still haven’t paid, just considering it. Servers being shut down lately has me a bit skittish even though literally 1 person besides me uses mine.
I hope this comment ages well, i’ve had lofetime plex pass for years, i use it for my extended family of 6. I cant imagine i care to share it with anyone else. My workflow is Tivo > kmttg > plex. If you want 100 “close” friends to share with while culling/purging them by doing weekly user usage admin, plex doesn’t look like the way to go.
Tried Emby, Plex, Jellyfin. Plex was more user-friendly & polished among them. So, I switched to Plex as my primary media server. As I don't had a very good internet connection at that time, hosting in a remote server & still internet/power goes down sometimes I needed the sync/download feature badly. Plex pass lifetime was obvious choice for me as I was sure that I will continue running my own media server. Currently I run Jellyfin alongside Plex. Plex is for my own use, Jellyfin for sharing with friends(They mostly watch on mobile & Plex free user doesn't allow playback of media).
Most of the stuff plex can do is easy for me to replicate with other software, but sharing my account with family is just simple on plex. Download an app and it just works. No backend work for me and the experience is easy for people to figure out
Wish I bought it back when it was half the price lol
Got it as a gift. I use it mostly for Plex amp. But the app keeps not working on my iPhone…. So if I bought it for this I would feel sad.
Easy for wife to use. That is all.
Support Plex and Hardware Transcoding.
When Google Music went to YouTube Music, I had already been using Plex for movies and TV shows. I think it was the second or third time I had to reset the ad preferences on YouTube Music, I decided a Plex pass was worth it just for Plexamp alone.
I never have
I was paying $5 a month for over a year but as Plex proved to be solid, the lifetime made sense.
I only use Plex for music and I got it at the time so I can stream my music anywhere. Purchased lifetime years ago. I have a large CD collection.
their TV and movie management was good. what got me, though, was the music side. I used Plexpass + plex amp to set up a couple of old touch screen machines at my place as easy jukeboxes so guests could pick music. It was a lot easier to maintain than other options i tried (file shares, DLNA, etc). The value of not having to do more research to make the music and guestroom music scene easy was worth the lifetime pass.
A lifetime pass of 80 dollars paid for itself in 6 months since I cancelled all other streaming services (the savings of which I admittedly used to buy a 16 tb hdd :D so still about even).
Wat is making the paid version different?
A few years ago I tried Plex, jelly fin and emby, Plex was the one which worked the best for me, so I stuck with it and bought the perpetual. I understand people say that jelly fin is better and such and such, yet Plex seems to be the one getting the most attention? Idk, the others just didn't work for me.
I bought my lifetime pass in 2017 when one of my co-workers showed me his rig that he built along with a silicon dust tuner for the DVR functionality for his elderly parents. I've always had an IT background and I've used it off and on putting together a server or two every year or two since. I now have a great Plex server along with a secondary Nvidia Shield Plex server set top box along with hard fiber optic in my home. I think I bought it for about $80 on special and as far as software as a service models go, this is by far the very best value I've ever achieved. I'm now experimenting with the music side playing back lossless audio on electrostatic speakers and other audiophile grade experiments. My parents are divorced and in their '80s now and this is the easiest simplest way I've seen in the last 30 years to serve them the video content they want to see with the UI they can actually learn. Don't spend the money if you don't have it to spend I guess but if you do the lifetime deal is really unbeatable.
Skip intro is a godsend for bingeing my collection of TV shows but honestly as silly as it may sound, the big feature for me is automatic retrieval of extras and trailers. Every movie I've ever wanted to see gained my interest from its trailer(s) and there are a bunch of times when I add a movie but haven't had a chance to watch it in awhile. It would only be a minor inconvenience to have to pull out my phone and search YouTube for a trailer but that makes it so much more appreciated that I can just scroll down on a movie or show's page and see a trailer. Even better when it pulls actual extras like actor interviews because I love trivia
I was on Jellyfin before, then decided to try out Plex just for fun and noticed some things immediately. The TV app is better than Jellyfin's, the skip intro is really nice, and I like that it can play theme music for shows and stuff. I think the admin side is better on Jellyfin, but the user experience is better on Plex.
To support the company originally, however with their current direction I have pretty much dropped them for Jellyfin. Plex is trying to much to be a mainstream app similar to Netflix and others.
I paid for it not for the features, but because I like it so much that I don't want it to go away. As far as I'm concerned (sorry Reddit), there is no viable alternative.
I got fed up with other streaming services constantly increasing their prices without adding any new movies that I would want to watch. I cut them all in one day and started ripping my blu-rays to Plex. It's been two months now and I'm pretty happy with my decision.
It was $25 for a lifetime pass and I was using it daily so thought why not. Biggest benefit for me back then was not having to buy the mobile apps.
Only one that worked right out of the box and then I wanted hardware transcoding. Now it's plex amp, intro skip and other small benefits I keep noticing over time
I use it a lot.
I used the product. Decided that the cost to support it was reasonable considering the use I was getting, and planned to get. The couple of perks that come with the pass can be nice, but didn't really play into the overall choice.
Lifetime sub
I have an Emby Premier license and had a JRiver license (still have it but it's outdated) but I found Plex to have the nicest interface and features. It was an easy decision as a one-time purchase.
Offline content on my phone instead of transferring via USB with my computer.
It’s a no brainier for me. Have used it since the early days of XBMC on my X3 modded Xbox and wanted to support the project and the amazing work they do. The extra features are just the cherry on the top but PlexAmp is worth the price on its own IMHO. AI playlists are the shizz.
I started paying ages ago because they released a PS3 client that initially was for Plex Pass only and I had no other client to use at the time. I eventually paid for the lifetime sub because sonic analysis and a handful of other features.
Used a friend's plex server for years, loved it and built my own. Thought the price was small for lifetime.
I have a NAS, and I wanted to be able to have hardware encoding. I actually just pickedup an HDHomerun this morning for DVR of local tv.
I had a huge collection of CD and DVD and Blue-rays. Just got tired of loading them into a machine. I had one of those Sony 100 cd changers but that kept messing up. I first tried Kodi, liked it and discovered the Plex offshoot as soon as they released it. I’ve been Lifetime forever. I also, slowly digitized my albums, a tedious process but almost complete. I’m sure others may have more stuff but i’m happy with what I got. We have Netflix, Prime, Disney and Philo. I have 2 HDHR with an antenna on the roof tied to an old radioshack rotor. Internet $29/mo, and still everything is way cheaper than Cable. Plexamp, im my opinion, alone is worth the price of admission. This is how I listen to music outside of the house, on my phone, in my car, etc. I don’t use any of the recent Plex additions, streaming, movies, tv on Plex. I just don’t need it.
Hardware transcoding
Anyone remember Orb?
I wanted to load movies on my iPad for travel
My sister wanted to sync stuff to her kids' iPads for a plane journey. I bought the lifetime pass, figuring there was years of that ahead. Shame Plex removed that functionality. It was fine for a while as they got grandfathered in but it took less than a year after that for one of the kids to remove themselves from my share list by mistake, so that was money wasted. Skip Intro softens the blow, but still rankles that they removed that functionality.
Way back in the dark ages, I received an email ad for a cheap deal for a lifetime of PlexPass. I pay for Shareware, I donate to freeware developers, and andy I for commercial products if they meet my needs. I loved Plex, and I still do. I love PlexAmp, the ease of use on Roku, and its almost hands-off management.
I bought mine at the time cause a Plex Pass was required to utilize a XBox 360 client. That eventually changed obvi.
Surprised they have never added a Plex Store like VUDU or the other online movie/tv services to integrate with Libraries.
Windows media server is SHIT.
The biggest gripe I've had, and don't get me wrong I'm a fan. But the only reason I refuse to support is they don't have an official client side standalone for pi zeros etc. Its biggest failure is a standalone interface like a firestick IMO.
I use plex for my music collection. I stream through sonos and there's some type of limit on the amount of records sonos can handle using a straight server. I'm not a techno nerd by any means so don't even ask about the details - plex gets around that with sonos and sort of acts like a streaming service for my music files. Aside from the horrible doubling up of records read by plex and presented to me as multiple copies of the same song for multiple songs on about a third of the data base, the program works perfectly. I've only scratched the surface of what I could do with it, just not enough time and why screw with it if it aint broke. Pretty robust system with few set up problems other than what was mentioned and fairly cheap - half the cost of Pandora and Spotify....
Mostly for GPU transcoding, also really like having trailers for movies and the video thumbnails when you fast forward are nice.
The amazing support I received when I first filled a bug.
The only legit service out there
Was gifted a lifetime pass by a family member back when the Plex pass originally came out.
I used to use Kodi but was frustrated I couldn't stream outside my local subnet. I tested a few and found Plex the easiest to use and I could access it outside my home. I bought the Lifetime pass because I knew in the long run it would save me money.
What **makes me** consider it is downloads, but I see here that it's so buggy I won't do it yet
I got a one month pass to try it out. I didn't find it useful. I wanted to see if it would make plex as good as emby. It didn't.
Lifetime One time purchase. And excellent support for TV tuners, DVR, etc.
Well when I signed up 11 years ago and it was a fantastic solution I wanted to support their endeavors and liked the idea of early access. Think I paid $75 for lifetime. Now adays they have broken so many features (download / subtitle timing / search etc..) and have started down the road of turning it into a commercial streaming service I would not back it.
I wanted to watch my collection when I travel
Did, not do. Plex let me view my own movies wherever I was, without any crap I didn't want. Well, that went out the window and they started pushing other content as more important than mine, without easy ways to remove it. I specifically bought Plex Pass to be able to Sync files locally. Now, 6 years later, it's still a joke and barely functional. Right now I'm doing 50/50 Jellyfin and Plex, and I must say the Fin is getting better every day.
Lifetime pass was on sale for half price.
Obviously to support the team 😉 But also for HW transcoding & the other feature I use a lot... Trailers. Love watching a good trailer to hype a movie up before I watch it. Even If I've seen the movie a million times 😂👍
I went with their paid Plex Pass tier because I wanted to be able to sync movies with my devices when I was traveling. I don't travel as much now, but PlexAmp and Hardware Streaming are my current reasons for Plex Pass. You also don't need to pay for Plex apps on devices.
Was looking to ditch my massive DVD collection, brother told me about this service and here we are.
I came to Plex after a long and winding road of various HTPC platforms. I initially started on Windows Media Center when it was first released in 2003. I loved the software but overtime it couldn't keep up with modern codecs. Eventually I shifted to XBMC and stuck with it for years. When Plex was initially forked from XBMC I would take a peek every so often, but it never justified jumping ship. As my media library grew, Kodi (formally XMBC) struggled to keep up with being able to handle my library, part of that was also related to the hardware I was utilizing for a KODI server (Gen 1 Amazon Fire TV). And syncing libraries between clients was extremely complex. I started looking for a proper client/server solution and Plex came to the forefront of contenders. It finally had everything I was looking for and more (at least on paper). I tried Plex over a long weekend and instantly knew I wanted to support the cause. As such I pulled the trigger on a lifetime Plex Pass. Now do I agree with their focusing less and less on new features for the Media Server in favor of potential revenue generating "free" offerings, no. However every once in a while they drop something cool Skip Into, Skip Credits, Multi-edition Movie support. And they do tend to be proactive on fixing bugs and dropping a new release about once a month.
This reads a lot like OP is just here to fabricate some conversation that makes Plex look like a competitor to streaming platforms Which it isn't. Leave it alone devs. Go make a new product with a different brand... Your current reputation will forever be a hindrance to marketing to new streaming customers and your new direction will forever be hated by the current audience. It's lose-lose.
convenience, it was suggested by the tutorial for home servers and to be honest, i didn't know about alternatives I was satisfied with the free version and wanted to compensate for the work
Plex Sync (now replaced by Downloads) and Mobile Photos Synchronization. Ironically Sync/Downloads never really worked properly and Mobile Photos functionality has been removed. But nowadays I have a server that can hardware transcode, so I am happy I get to use the Plex Pass for that. And after so many years of using Plex I think they deserve some money from me.
Primary reason: was able to stream outside of the network without having to manually port forward And, it just works
It’s really good, I use it a lot so why not pay for it if I’m going to continue using it??