First off been using Plex for a few years now but only as a Media server playing my personal media (primarily downloaded, ie; copied DVDs put in my iTunes media library) usually via the Plex app on a Roku or an Ipad.
Just moved up to Plex Pass and activated Plex Cloud. Successfully uploaded a movie and linked my cloud storage to Plex and the movie shows and plays on Plex Cloud. (Can’t believe I got it to work, LOL). Now the questions (or perhaps clarifications).
1 Putting media on the Plex cloud enables me to view it with the PC off, correct? such as on my phone, iPad or even on a Roku.
2 If media is on the cloud I can view it over wifi while the PC is off (or on if using the media server library) while not on my home wifi network.
3 Can I sync media from my Media server to an off line device (such as where there is no wifi) for future viewing?
I know there are many other features available but these are the main interests I have at present.
Thank you in advance.
1 yes
,2 yes
3 no, sorry cloud doesn’t support syncing. For that you need still your local server.
@OttoKerner said:
3 no, sorry cloud doesn’t support syncing. For that you need still your local server.
I think I need to state this more precisely:
Syncing content to a mobile device is possible. The device can then be used offline to watch the synced content.
Only the Plex Apps for Android, iOS and the Windows App store Plex app support syncing.
But Syncing cannot be started from the “cloud” server. Only the ‘regular’ Plex server (the one which runs at your PC at home) supports this.
Side note: don’t be confused by the other type of Sync: “Cloud Sync”. This is a different way of providing content to remote devices where your local server transcodes the content to a generally compatible format and then uploads it to a supported cloud storage provider.
Plex clients can then connect to this cloud storage to watch this content.
But you can’t switch audio tracks or subtitles. All is fixed and almost all “cleverness” of the normal Plex server is absent.
Thank you, I understand, on a side note I have my media server installed on a Desk top PC and I also have a Windows laptop. I am trying to install the Plex app on the laptop and when I do it sees the desktop and cloud media no problem, however, it doesn’t see media local to the laptop. I am having difficulty finding a way to set up the local media as an additional library. Any suggestions?
Should I install Plex as a media server on the laptop or will that create a conflict with the PC server?
Thanks
You would need to share your folder so as that folder is visible over the network on the PC that holds PMS. If this is done over WIFI, due to your laptop being connected to that, it could be troublesome. A humble suggestions would be that you now start to plan to hold all your media files on a NAS or such, attached to your router (with cable, as would your PC holding PMS). To me, that is a much more viable long-term solution than starting to add shared folders from various sources and/or start creating several PMS instances.
@bcultra said:
Thank you, I understand, on a side note I have my media server installed on a Desk top PC and I also have a Windows laptop. I am trying to install the Plex app on the laptop and when I do it sees the desktop and cloud media no problem, however, it doesn’t see media local to the laptop.
You can use @Peter_W 's suggestion and add the drive of the laptop as a seconfd library to your “PC” Plex server.
But you can also install a second Plex server onto your laptop.
The key to successfully setting up a second server, is to ‘sign out’ the web browser before starting the installation program:
Open the web browser on the laptop, go to https://app.plex.tv/desktop and sign out of your Plex account
then access your locally installed plex server with the URL http://127.0.0.1:32400/web or http://localhost:32400/web and complete the initial setup.
