‘Tandem Playback’ to several clients

Hi Guys,

Since this feature has grown in demand, and since we've spotted three different requests with very similar requirements, we are consolidating the three posts into this one. Here is the current feature requirements as we see it now.

Interesting idea, I don't think I would use it, I make my family pause and wait for my return.

@ OP : BTW, This is called a Tandem-Play Feature or Broadcast Playback feature.

Thanks! And does this exist in Plex?

Also, I was joking about going to the bathroom (which may or may not be used), but it may be a party where you want TVs everywhere to have the same movie/video stream going, or a public place, or just kids in different rooms. 

I definitely see a use case for it. In the car when my kids (2) wants to watch the same movie on two tablets and I wish to control the playback and outputting the audio through the car stereo system - i.e. using 3 devices. It would be excellent. A master/slaves kind of setup

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+1

Plex is already syncing play-states. So shouldn't be hard to implement, or ?! 

 definitely see a use case for it. In the car when my kids (2) wants to watch the same movie on two tablets and I wish to control the playback and outputting the audio through the car stereo system - i.e. using 3 devices. It would be excellent. A master/slaves kind of setup

Thats a really great idea! 

Btw. isn't it already possible to send the Plex-Audio through Bluetooth to a Speaker-System? I'm not sure.

But what i really see in this Feature is to use it like Samsungs "Group Play". Play the same Sound from multiple Smartphones and not just one, while you outside and hanging out with friends.

maybe even with a votable playlist ?!

and btw. guys, like the first post ! this is how the devs look at it.

Just to give some added incentive.  Deployed military people would use this all the time, in conjunction with desktop syncing.  Just to give you an example, when I was in Iraq I would download movies from a file server we had at work and then when I'd get home at night I'd have my girlfriend queue up the same movie in Netflix at home in the states.  We'd start the movie at the same time and chat over IM while we were watching the movie.  I know all kinds of people that would do this with their families and friends and stuff just to stay connected to life at home.  Also, sometimes we'd throw the webcam on just so we can see reactions and stuff to be a little closer to actually sitting in the room.  It'd be awesome if the chat stuff was integrated, but I guess priority wise there are other chat clients you could use (although integrated in plex would be much more awesome).  I also mentioned the local desktop sync feature because there's no way I could stream a movie over my crappy internet connection in the desert, but I could plan out what we were going to watch over the next few days and set those things to sync while I was at work.  That way I might be able to watch a movie or two, or maybe a few shows every day.  

Thinking about this... I think I would totally donate my time to make this happen (I'm a software developer in my day job, so I could totally help with this.) and I'm sure there are probably other developers our there that feel the same.

If this is ever implemented, it likely will not be for any outside clients, local network only. If it does go for outside clients, it won't ever sync up exactly to one another but always be a few seconds off.

orionshock, if a Movie is already synced/downloaded to two tablets, why shouldn't it be possible to play both in sync?

same goes for songs and onling-streaming from PMS.

For local clients it's easy, PMS just outputs a MPEG TS stream on a local multi-cast IP & tells the clients to play it. For the most part, if the timing scheme works the way it is supposed to, it should be just fine and have less than a 1 second delay. Granted, if your streaming at 4mbps over wifi, it could cause alot of congestion.

For over the internet, it's more problamatic, as you can't just arbitrarilly use a multi-cast IP there. You would have to do multiple single streams to each device. Im betting 9/10 times there will be a 2-5 second delay with those clients and will never sync up perfectly.

Technically, if we were using Multicast it would ALLEVIATE the wifi scenario you mentioned, right? a single 4mbps stream would hit multiple devices. I still think this is going to be painful. different devices have different codec requirements so it would probably have to be multiple single streams... but so what? bandwidth is bandwidth - you would certainly have to have enough for this to work.

i'd think multicast would be cool for scenarios where you have multiple devices of the SAME capacity - tvs in classrooms, pgothager's kids, multiple MAC front-ends.

So... Multicast on Local streams (so anyone can join) and Unicast for remote users, each with their own transcoding. Easy peasy. For users that have Sync'd content, even easier! just sync commands - play/pause, etc...metadata only.

A.

@ OP : BTW, This is called a Tandem-Play Feature or Broadcast Playback feature.

I enjoy my_kid_will_be_named_PLEX's 'poo-mode' name better...

Sadly I didn't implement poo-mode ( unless you have a Roku in the bathroom or wherever you may poo ) -- but here is a working example (roku only) of what can be done on clients - http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/79897-rarflix-modified-roku-channel/page-8#entry472379

Would like to see this feature as well, both for local clients and remote.  Even if remote client is off by a second, that's much better than both people playing the pause/countdown/play game.

You already can if you are the PMS owner. Shared users cannot see the now playing, just like they can’t see it in plex/web wither.

The trick is just to have you shared user start the video and then you can sync. Or you can both login as the same PMS owner.

Edit: thought this was about the Roku at first. I take back my statement if you are asking about other players.

Let's be honest... we've all had to go to the john while the family/group was watching a movie. You have the whole "bio-break" thing and the mood just dies down.

Wouldn't it be awesome to start up plex on your iphone/ipad and get a message "MovieX being watched on deviceX. Would you like to start this client in 'poo-mode'?" If Yes, then whoop-de-doo, you've got a sync'd stream and you can just take your time, laugh from the john and all that and not inconvenience others.

Then you just come back like nobody noticed (yeah, because nobody uses their iphone while on the toilet; that would be nasty) and don't have to ask "What did I miss?"

Hello.... I have just raised a Suggestion for a Feature Request and I am told it is similar to your request. I debated and argued and then I saw that it is similar. 

I would like to combine my request with yours but would like some minor adjustments

My request is here https://forums.plex.tv/topic/92288-idea-for-feature-mirror-streaming-to-multiple-players/

I like the word sync dropped from the title because it is inferring PlexSync, Synced data. I realise now it has nothing with synced local data but I would prefer if we used a different word - don;t know if 'mirrored' is ok - but have a think. And if you agree to make a change to the title please click Report and ask Forum Admin to make the change

The other change is the media types and my request was everything not just videos - so music or video or even photo slideshow if feasible.

And the last thing - it is probably to do with my lack of sense of humour but i don;t like the references to 'poo-mode' and would like the request to be taken seriously by the plex team !

Let me know what you think and I will kill off the other request if you are happy to make the changes.

yeah i agree with sa2000, this feature would be great for everything... i'm thinking having all clients in the house have a tv series going so you don't miss a thing from room to room... or playing music to all clients in the house for a party... hell even music videos would be cool... abit like they do in the gym where every screen displays the music video so you don't miss a single scene of Nicole Scherzinger rolling around like a super hottie she is...

Topic change to : " ‘Tandem Playback’ to several clients "  & collapse from 2 other threads to here :)

Thank you. 

I will work on on some text to summarise the request taking all 3 sets of input. I will PM it to the others before asking for it to go in the first post.

Love this idea. When I first found out about Plex, I thought it was one of the already existing features. Was sad to see it wasn't but still very impressed with all the features that do exist!