trying to decide whether i want to keep Plex Pass (and if i actually even need it).
have looked thru the “benefits” and based on that i think there are only 3 or 4 that i would need to double check if they are of any use to me (all the others are definitely not)
Dash Control - is this saying that if you don’t have Plex Pass you don’t get access to the server dashboard?
Hardware Transcoding - i believe this refers to the “Use hardware acceleration when available” option in the server settings. my server runs on a Synology DS1019+ with my 2 primary playback devices being Nvidia Shields (connected to HDR/DV supported TVs), i don’t believe i ever have a need to transcode, so if i don’t have that setting am i likely to be impacted at all?
Skip Intro - no great loss, certainly not worth having to pay for
HDR Tone Mapping - related to the “Enable HDR tone mapping” setting in the server settings. I believe this option isn’t even supported on Synology NAS anyway, and i believe the shields are able to tone map anyway.
from all the advertised Plex Pass benefits those are the only ones that i would have ever used (if they were available to me)
so if i cancelled Plex Pass would my experience be worse?
I know i’ll get responses saying that Plex Pass pays for more than just the listed features, but from what i’ve seen it’s certainly not contributing to keeping the base plex service working as good as it should. bugs exist in the clients that are not getting fixed, or getting fixed and then re-appear further down the line.
Plex Dashboard → Now Playing is available to all users. Other parts of the dashboard require a Plex Pass. See Server Status & Dashboard.
If you do not transcode video then you do not need hardware accelerated video transcoding.
You will most likely need this if you want to stream remotely, especially if you’ve limited uplink bandwidth or the remote client has limited download speed.
Not supported if running Plex Media Server directly on the Synology.
This is possible if running Plex Media Server in a Docker container on the Synology.
The next question I’d ask you is what format are your files, and what subtitles? The shield can run most anything thrown at it, but I believe it still has to transcode if you use image subtitles. PGS/VOBSUB subtitles are image subtitle formats, rather than straight-text. These are typically taken from Blu-Ray/DVD ripped files, as those players support those image sub formats.
So if you use subtitles a lot (typical in foreign films, or anime), it’s worth looking into if your subtitles are image-format. If so, a transcode is unavoidable. Then, the Synology isn’t too bad at non-HW-transcoding, but you may only be able to transcode one show at a time. I had a DS 918+ for my server, and it worked ok for one stream. But one night I accidentally disabled direct-play (I don’t know how), and we watched two streams at once on it. We had a lot of buffering, as the CPU maxed out and was unable to maintain two transcodes in real-time. The 1019 is likely to be a similar CPU (too lazy to look it up).
If you want to test, you can disable HW transcoding on your server for a bit to see if normal use of the server you run into any problems. Your NAS’s CPU usage will skyrocket (when transcoding), which may put more wear and tear on it than you expected.
Plex pass can be used to freely unlock mobile devices (iOS phone/ipad app, Android phone/tablet app) without having to pay $5 in that store to unlock them for use. Also, the specialized music player app, PlexAmp, I think requires the Pass to be used?
The only other Plex Pass feature you didn’t mention is DVR capabilities. I assume that by not mentioning it, you do not have a DVR, so that’s fine too. I got myself a DVR, so the pass is required, but at this point the intro skip alone paid for the pass to me, let alone being able to use the mobile apps for offline/downloaded video viewing while I travel. I bought a lifetime pass, so I never have a recurring payment.
On Plex Android clients, SRT, VOBSUB, & PGS subtitles direct play.
ASS subtitles are currently unsupported and force a video transcode. However, Plex is adding ASS subtitle support to the Android clients. Unknown when it will be released (discussed in this thread).
One other thing to remember is that the Shield Pro can run Plex Media Server. It also has hardware acceleration enabled by default, no Plex Pass needed.
You could run PMS on the Shield, using SMB mounts to access the media on the Synology NAS.
The Shield will not transcode & tonemap 4K HDR, but might work quite nicely for transcoding 1080p SDR for remote devices.
It is not a problem to have multiple Plex servers on an account, so you could still run PMS on the Synology if desired.
good god no! what a horrible idea
i believe in using the correct device for the correct task, and running PSM on shield (whilst is possible) is always a non-starter IMO.
i’ve yet to encounter a need to transcode, as the shields can direct play just about anything, and the shield itself is able to tonemap, but again i can’t see when that would be needed as both shields are connected to TVs that support HDR10 and DV
Don’t forget that plex pass also helps pay the paychecks of people responding in these posts to help you and others. Plus it’s only what, $47/year which is less than a tank of gas these days.
well so far i’m noticing no difference now that Plex Pass has expired.
strangely, even though the “skip intro” feature is supposed to be Plex Pass, i still have access to it, i’m guessing it will stop working on content added after Plex Pass expired?
other than that i’m happy to have the £3pm in my pocket rather than Plex’s seeing as i got virtually nothing of any value for it.
Interesting about skip intro. I’m sure the intro markers won’t generate for future added content. But I’m curious to know if you have shut down / restarted your server since lapsing. Perhaps it takes a boot without the pass to disable most features (I thought I hear rebooting the server is suggested when ADDING the pass to see all features).
