Can the Plex Media Player App keep the browser & user interface on one screen while displaying the playback full screen on a secondary monitor?
If not, this would be a GREAT feature to add to the Plex Media Player PC apps (Windows & Mac).
The primary monitor would contain the media browser interface & plat/stop/pause controls.
The secondary monitor would only show playback (in full screen). If nothing is being played, the secondary monitor could either show a blank screen, a user-configurable logo, or the desktop.
I want this dual screen support feature because I would like to use Plex in a more public environment, like in a church worship or classroom setting. There, I don’t want the audience to see or be distracted by the user interface. They should ONLY see the video on screen.
Thus, the operator tech would see the primary monitor with the user interface and playback controls.
And, the audience would only see the secondary monitor with the video playback.
That is a good potential work-around. And I will certainly try that out.
But, I would still prefer the dual screen configuration to be natively supported in the Plex Media Player app.
That way there is little or no upfront setup needed, and it would work like PowerPoint’s presenter view.
Thus, the user could just:
launch the app
play a video
the video appears on the secondary monitor.
Using the web app & PMP, the steps are more complicated:
Launch PMP on the audience screen.
Make PMP full screen.
Open a web browser & load the Plex web app.
Connect the web app to PMP (need to choose the right ‘remote display’).
Play a video.
The video appears on the PMP screen.
Granted, that is only a few more steps. But it requires more know-how to get right.
PLUS, and more importantly, the first two steps (launching PMP & making if fullscreen) can be observed by the audience, and I don’t want that distraction. I don’t want the to know how the video is appearing on the screen, I just want it to appear.
I just tried the suggestion above on my laptop (no access to dual screens at the moment).
BUT, I’m unable to connect the web app to the windows app.
Thus, the web app is the remote control. The windows app is the display.
When I click the cast button in the web app, it does not list any devices.
It only says ‘Cast…’
When I click ‘Cast…’, a popup appears that says “No Cast destinations found. Need help?”
See attached screenshot. Plex web app is on the left side & Plex Windows app is on the right.
Please don’t use the Windows UWP app. It hasn’t been updated in several months.
Download Plex Media Player from above. It is free.
It also takes a while until all remote control destinations are found.
You might have to reload the web app in your browser if you started it before PMP.
And you might need a Plex Server in the local network. Testing this with only a remote plex server may not work.
(The plex server doesn’t need to have actual media on it. It just needs to be present in the local network.)
I also recommend you to do this on all Windows computers involved (be it server or client):
I did not realize there were different windows apps. I uninstalled the old one and downloaded and installed the new one, but it would not connect either.
I think the issue might be that I am trying this remotely without a local Plex Media Server.
I’ll give it a shot locally and see if that works better.
Thanks for all the help!
OttoKerner’s suggestion in the second post above works pretty well.
But, I still would rather have native support for dual screens in the Windwos PMP app for all the reasons I stated here.
Also, I ran into this bug using dual screens, which is a major issue:
