Unsophisticated Plex user here, with hopefully an easy question. I’ve been using plex server on my windows machine for years to stream music on plexamp android. Recently downloaded PlexAmp for Windows on the same device that runs the Plex Server.
When I play music on PlexAmp on this device, is it streaming the music? Or is it playing locally?
Thanks
All Plex clients are fetching the media from the server. Even if that server is running on the same machine.
Thanks for the quick response! Is that then different if I play straight from the plex server?
I have a separate music player I’ve used, but would be great to centralize my meta data.
There is no “straight from the server”.
Even the local web app is separate from the server thing, network-wise.
Ok. So in laymen’s terms, when I open either the local web app or plexamp it is going out of my house picking up the data on the server and coming back around to the house.
There is no way for me to open a plex player that hits my local files directly and vice versa play my files locally and update the meta data. To ensure that all my tagging and play counts are other meta data are centralized, I would need to use one or the other.
That’s not necessarily a problem, but seems unnecessarily complex and will some fidelity on my higher quality audio.
Appreciate your patience.
That depends.
If your local network is set up correctly, and there is no problem with “DNS rebinding protection” in your router, then the plex client will hit the local (LAN) address of your server first. Which means no data is routed through the internet.
Only if one of the above is not correct, clients will first hit the published address of your server, and if that fails too, will use Plex relay as last resort.
Metadata have nothing to do with the type of connection between Plex client and Plex server.
That as well is only an issue if you have very low bandwidth restrictions on your internet connection. As long as your internet upstream, the server settings, and the player settings all allow the full bitrate of your files, then the player will get the full quality.
Thanks for the detail. This is really helpful. The only clarification I have is that when I say “meta data” what I mean is that if I use a local player, like MusicBee, because I can play the files locally, then I am using 2 different programs. If I rate something on MusicBee, then that rating sticks with the metadata in MusicBee. It does not transfer to Plex. Similar for play counts.
Unless there’s a way to keep them in sync. But it sounds like using plexamp at home is fine, so long as my bandwidth is fine, which is. Except when my kids are separately playing computer games.
Thanks, again!
