I've thought for a long time that Plex should implement a synchronized playback feature. There are several use-case scenarios in which this would be useful.
- When viewing on a TV and using a phone or tablet as a remote, the headphones connected to the remote could be used while viewing the TV's picture. This would alleviate the need for dedicated wireless TV headphones.
- It would allow a loungeroom to be laid out like a sitting room, with two couches facing a coffee table from opposite sides. A television could be mounted on each side of the coffee table or on the wall above each couch for separate viewing/gaming, but media could also be experienced together while maintaining optimal viewing angles for all seats. This would be highly advantageous for families with children, as it would alleviate the need for a separate room for kids to watch separate media. Likewise it would alleviate the need for a separate sitting room, as face-to-face communication is possible when the TVs are not in use, unlike a traditional media room.
- If synchronized playback could be enabled for remote streaming (outside LAN), a traveling worker could watch a movie or TV show with their family. This could also be useful for viewing family photos and videos (piano recital etc) with a parent stationed overseas.
This is a feature in Airplay, so with Plex's new music features and efforts to usurp iTunes's monopoly, a synchronized playback ability could help make plex more competitive.
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This feature would be awesome. Over time I am starting to collect old Android tablets and iPads. It would be great to set these up in different rooms like you mentioned. My use cases are below
1. I start watching a movie in my Man Cave with the wifey and have to go to the bathroom. I could grab my phone, open plex, and see what clients are playing in my home and click on anyone playing and have it synchronized up. I would not have to pause and have her wait for me.
2. I am cleaning my house and have old tablets spread through the house that I could see what is on TV. As I move from room to room I could see what is on Plex.
I imagine with networking latencies, transcoding issues, and wireless issues that this would be a bit tricky to get perfectly synchronized but if it can get close <500ms it would be amazing.
Awesome idea, I would like to see it implemented.
This would be a great feature with some more uses and benefits. Just like music distribution, video distribution would be great. An additional stream would also allow implementation of ‘ambilight’ where it’s not currently possible (Smart TV, USB smart devices. I guess server load would increase but not worse than different streams would already cause. Lastly if Plex ever supported live TV from whatever source this would stream simultaneously too and not suffer the nefarious delays experienced with different sources.
Just set up my first Plex MS…and discovered that I can only stream to one playback device at a time. Wow. My goal (and unfortunate understanding of Plex) was that I could use the PlexMS for whole-home audio, syncing playback to multiple devices via wifif…not just one-at-a-time device playback. Have I missed something?
I vote for this too. Having a girlfriend in another state, we often watch Netflix together. Maybe it’s a niche feature but I think it would be amazing. Even Netflix doesn’t allow this though (well, you can start at the same time, but it’s easy to get out of sync).
