**[Feature Request] Make it possible for other services(Netflix, Spotify, HBO, iTunes) to integrate into Libraries, to create an unified TV experience
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This would change the world of consuming media, people are getting more and more tired of using a different apps for each services or media they consume. And people are looking for a way to collect them all, since Netflix, HBO, Spotify and more are still cheaper combined than some of the satellites TV bundles.
So here is my suggestion, create and interface/api for 3. parties services like Netflix, Spotify, HBO, iTunes and many other so they can deliver content to Plex.
So how would it work?
In your Plex account you would add your accounts that you have with a content supplier like Netflix or iTunes.
When you browse your Movies library all that content would be added, so when you searched for an movie you would get the movie, and then choose either to play it from local, a streaming service or rent/buy it.
This would also mean for other categories like music, small clips and last but not least LiveTV.
As more and more streaming services also include LiveTV with the ability to browse using an EPG, with the added possibility to start shows even before and after they are “aired”, and choose to start the current “LiveTV” at the beginning of the show or at current timestamp.
PS LiveTV must not be confused with a tuner card, I mean over the internet.
Need to add amazon primes instant video, amazon music and hulu plus. It would of course need you to put in your account info to the server before giving access to each but only have to do once would be awesome. Having the apps with in plex with the ability to transcode to any device would be nice. Having this on xbox one would be nice also (needs channels).
You just have to create a plugin that retrieves stuff from this list (even just a text one), create a movie profile for each (such as if it were a movie file), then redirects you when you press play.
I’d be happy to just have channels that work, but I feel like the ideal way to do this would be to create a library plugin architecture.
A Library in Plex already constitutes an indexed source of files that is searchable. The bedrock source is filesystem files that are scanned by Plex, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be some other source.
For example, I use beets to organize and tag my music. Beets also offers a web plugin with an api. Other applications can make use of this API, for example, mopidy has a mopidy-beets plugin.
Mopidy is a decent example as it also has other plugins for services like spotify and google music that allow it to search those services and play content from them.
I can imagine a “Spotify” library type for Plex that would take a user’s credentials and allow searching.
I suppose one downside would be that credentials for such external sources should be different for each Plex user. I wouldn’t want my family altering my spotify play counts and screwing up my recommendations for example.
Same for Netflix. I would want individual Plex users to need to authenticate with Netflix, so their plays affect their own accounts.
Keeping service authentication separate would also play nice with the services, so that I’m not somehow enabling 50 people without Netflix/Spotify/Google Music accounts to use those services without paying for them.
You can’t redirect from inside of Plex. You would need to use the application for each provider on what ever device you are using.
Something like this would be far easier to implement if everything was web based but it doesn’t work this way on devices.
With a device such as Shield TV and the different apps loaded it can scan everything to find your show/movie you are searching for and it supports voice search as well.
I got paid subscriptions for ViaPlay, Netflix, C More, HBO Nordic and Tidal. Wow… If I could finnish my 80 TB server + integrate that + my cableTV to Plex. It would be an ultimate PLEX experience.
It’s not that easy. If you find something on Netflix, how do you play it? Plex doesn’t support DRM so there is ZERO chance it could play it naively. It would have to open a different client and without the ability to pass in the movie/show episode to play it’s a no go.
This type of thing could be done in the web interface but on Andoid, iOS, etc it would be problematic at best.
Your best bet if this is what you want is to get a device that can search these services and already support that feature. For example on my ShieldTV I can search for Top Gun and probably find it on several movie services as well as my Plex system. Even better is that I can use voice commands to do it.
Netflix would never allow this, either. Nor any of the other pay services. They want you to use their client app, which means their front end to the media. A third party app such as Plex wouldn’t play in those pay service’s sandbox.
I suspect that using something like this would violate those service’s ToS and would result in a banning or suspension.
Whilst I accept and understand some of the problems highlighted with this, that’s what software development is about… resolving / simplifying problems. And yes I do realise it’s not just technical issues, but possibly rights and commercial ones too, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be overcome.
@“MikeG6.5” said:
Netflix would never allow this, either. Nor any of the other pay services. They want you to use their client app, which means their front end to the media. A third party app such as Plex wouldn’t play in those pay service’s sandbox.
I suspect that using something like this would violate those service’s ToS and would result in a banning or suspension.
PlayOn works… It’s a little crude in that you have to navigate a folder hierarchy to find something to record, but if they can access the API and process DRM on pretty much every single streaming service out there, why can’t Plex do it? And they have been operating for a decade without causing ToS issues for anyone (Ive had it for 3 years, no issues).
Play on doesn’t circumvent DRM in the way you think. PlayOn actually plays the media back in real-time and copies the screen to a file (screen capture). It’s very CPU intensive and prone to errors with no ability to start where you left off.
Has their been any movement on this? I understand 3-5 years old and much has changed in the streaming model. I know Tivo and the Tivo Streaming Stick offer this, so I can’t imagine it would be that difficult to implement anymore. I would be really nice to see the purchases I’ve made on Vudu or Amazon or Youtube, as well as find movies on Netflix and other services I subscribe to.
Early 2021 clean-up: obsolete (Plex no longer supports content channels/plugins); major streaming platforms tend not to license their media to other providers
