Game changer:
The latest blog post The Endless Summer with Plex and Western Digital implies media can be loaded to a 3TB WD device, versus sync, to serve to mobile clients while on the go. Explaining syncing, transcoding, and optimizing to the wife is futile; portable Plex for the win.
@FesterHead letâs hope that. What is the international Price for the WD MyCloud Pro? Couldnât find it yet.
With a 13 hour drive coming up next month, and two kids, Iâm really interested in the WD My Passport Wireless mentioned in Plexâs Endless Summer blog post and on Engadget today.
At the end of the Plex post itâs stated that âThe Passport Wireless Pro, on the other hand, cannot transcode, and needs media to be in a compatible format (it can Direct Stream)â. This isnât a deal killer, but it definitely makes this less desirable than I originally thought, since the videos in my library are in many different formats.
Assuming that I only need to display this media on iPads, what would be the best format to re-encode my video? I assume I can use Handbrake to do this on my Mac? Is there a good Windows encoder? My PC is faster than the Mac Mini I use for Handbrake.
(let me know if I should just start a new thread for this)
Thanks!
m.
UPDATE: I found the answers in the Plex FAQ regarding the My Passport Wireless device
Ordered a 3TB WD My Passport Wireless device today. Looking forward to loading up up and taking it on fishing trip to Alaska and long weekends in Hana.
Update: WD device works well. Transferred a couple dozen movies and TV show series to it [~1 TB via USB and home PC] and had three devices streaming at the same time on the 6+ hour plane trips and six devices at the cabin; next trip will load more.
Device gets warm and the more users connected the quicker the power drain. Kept device plugged in to USB port on plane [Alaska Airlines] and at cabin so no data on how long the battery lasts.
Note; still had several synced movies âjust in caseâ but didnât need to use.
ANOTHER +1
I hope an improved Sync v2 comes out soon! Sync to Unlimited Amazon Cloud is the whole reason I paid for lifetime Plex Pass. I chose âOriginalâ during sync but Plex is unnecessarily transcoding files; which may take months, literally.
Itâs very important that the sync feature just uploads copies of the media I have rather than spend months unnecessarily transcoding it! Or if absolutely necessary, just remux (I use MKV, but apparently sync wants web optimized MP4).
I mean an old 800kbps 480p x263 video with 128kbps 2ch MP3 audio doesnât need to be converted to 1000kbps 480p x264 video with 196kbps 2ch AAC audio, thatâs 200mb bigger, now does it?
There absolutely needs to be a âdirect copyâ option that just shows a warning, âSome copied content may not play properly on all devices. If you find a video that doesnât play on your device, you can try using an external player or remove the file and allow sync to transcode the file instead.â Problem solved!
@rckoegel +1 direct copy with a warning. This is the ONLY reason, I bought Plex Pass. Good thing I opted to try it out for a month and didnât pay for a year or lifetime.
Forcing transcoding is a joke to begin with. Even for cloud sync, audio is being transcoded. I didnât ask to do this so rather shouldâve made this an option then a must. I encode my files to be compatible on all devices I play them on so I have no need for transcoding. I seriously feel this is pulling money out of peopleâs pockets. This is requested for quite some time and you guys just do not care to what you users are saying. Very big letdown.
Please add the ability to sync without transcoding. Adding a direct link that looks similar to the advanced option but instead of custom quality just show the available files for the item being synced. For example if a movie has 3 different files because Iâve already converted the 4K video to 1080p and 720p then I should be able to select which one I want.
If it doesnât play it doesnât play thatâs on me. All my media is payable on my phone and tablet as is and yet when I go to sync even by selecting the highest quality settings it always wants to transcode!
Please fix this.
Please add this option. There surely is no need to transcode every video file in order to syncâŠ
Whatâs the reasoning behind the need to transcode mp3 files?
Agreed with this idea, was hoping it would be possible but apparently not⊠many devices we are syncing too can play our files fine.
I also agree.
For instance, Infuse does the job seamlessly (in minutes) for very large files.
Being Sync my only reason for a Pless Pass, I hope & ask you to include this in the pipeline soon.
@vh202 said:
Whatâs the reasoning behind the need to transcode mp3 files?
Seriously? They do this? Sync was the only premium feature I wanted, but it looks like its been over-engineered to be pointless. Under-engineered iTunes clearly still has a purpose for syncing content to iDevices.
Oh well, software continually evolves and Plexâs Transcoding dooms it to obsolescence. Maybe the devâs need to attend âTranscoding Anonymousâ as it seems they have OTD 
No lifetime pass at -20% for me then.
@convertapple said:
@vh202 said:
Whatâs the reasoning behind the need to transcode mp3 files?Seriously? They do this?
@MovieFan.Plex said:
If you are trying to sync an mpeg2/mp3/avi file, you will never be able to sync that without transcoding.
This was why I was asking the question, mp3 makes zero sense to need transcoding
Oh what. Did I say mp3? I meant mpg. It should not be transcoding mp3. If it is, I would love to get a PMS and client log.
+1 add feature please
+1 I need this feature
You canât just +1 for this. there is a link in a prior post where you can vote on it. +1 is just nothing.
