I’d love this as well.
I would love to see this feature implemented. The synced playback with friends (Party Mode) was my favorite feature on Netflix for the Xbox 360 before it was taken away.
Please setup this feature. It’s the only way, me and my wife can watch content with subs.
Looking forward to this. Currently using rabb.it to watch together (which works just fine) but it would increase the quality of the video if we could just stream directly from the server.
Would love to see this implemented. One of my best friends moved to another country and we’d like to continue watching our favourite series together/in sync.
+1 We have Roku Tv’s in every room of the house, would like to use plex for whole home audio !
One of the very few features still missing from plex. I am hopeful! Would significantly help watching synced with friends.
While this would be an interesting feature I can see way too many complications in implementing it. Display side latency alone would make this impossible. I have an HDMI splitter coming out of my living room receiver to my living room TV and my Kitchen TV. This way I can walk between the two rooms during a show and do dishes or whatever. The living room TV always lags behind the kitchen TV by several seconds, sometimes up to ten seconds, even though it’s on the shorter cable. The display itself does post processing on video input. How would you compensate for this?
You can actually play in tandem if you all sign on to the same account.
Create an account lets say make the user name tandem (just so this user does not have Admin authority)
Two or more people (or devices) log on to that account.
One location starts a media file.
The subsequent locations start the same media file.
Plex will give you 2 options
1 Start at the beginning
2 Resume
On the subsequent locations hit resume.
The subsequent locations will start where the first location is at.
Users can keep joining the party and if they all hit resume, you will all pretty much be in sync within reason.
There is latency issues but not too bad.
Works for me around my house in different rooms and across different physical geo-locations.
Latency over remote connections is a little worse depending on any transcoding requirements or network latency but it is workable and mostly achieves what coding tandem users would do.
Just a thought.
Maybe give that a try and let us know how that works for you.
John
@“Kris Damon” said:
While this would be an interesting feature I can see way too many complications in implementing it. Display side latency alone would make this impossible. I have an HDMI splitter coming out of my living room receiver to my living room TV and my Kitchen TV. This way I can walk between the two rooms during a show and do dishes or whatever. The living room TV always lags behind the kitchen TV by several seconds, sometimes up to ten seconds, even though it’s on the shorter cable. The display itself does post processing on video input. How would you compensate for this?
I like the idea of a calibration tool with a mobile app using the mic to determine how long between an arbitrary “server time” and when the sound actually comes out of the device speaker to arrive at the listener’s ears. Store that as an offset the client could then use. Maybe start with a manual offset slider (add 25ms delay on this device) like what is already available for audio-video sync.
LOL
No reason for coding this as it already is possible to watch in tandem.
Why code something that already works…
Geees
Would love to see this feature more for whole home audio than for video. Working on the house, cleaning, etc… it would be nice to have the same music playing downstairs that is playing upstairs. Being able to select multiple devices to “cast” to, add and remove them at will, would be incredible. Finished in this room? Just remove the device from the “cast to” list and add the next room’s device. This def. gets my vote for a needed feature.
I would also love to see this feature implemented. Our house has a Plex client in each room. Would be great to be able to kick off music on them all at once during a party!
@jjrjr1 said:
LOL
No reason for coding this as it already is possible to watch in tandem.
Why code something that already works…
Geees
What do you mean by it already works? Just that the system can do it or that here is already an option?
@jjrjr1 said:
You can actually play in tandem if you all sign on to the same account.Create an account lets say make the user name tandem (just so this user does not have Admin authority)
Two or more people (or devices) log on to that account.
One location starts a media file.
The subsequent locations start the same media file.
Plex will give you 2 options
1 Start at the beginning
2 Resume
On the subsequent locations hit resume.
The subsequent locations will start where the first location is at.
Users can keep joining the party and if they all hit resume, you will all pretty much be in sync within reason.
I don’t think you understand the feature people are requesting. The idea is the ability to play back to multiple devices simultaneously. True, you can approximate this feature by pressing “play” at the same time, but the syncing won’t be perfect and it is annoying to press play in multiple locations at the same time (just the sort of thing computers are good at and people are bad at). It is also annoying to have to locate the media on each device. Multiply annoying by the number of devices on which you are attempting simultaneous play back.
I did not say “Hit play at the same time”
What I said was select the same movie you want to watch with someone else and when it comes up it will give you the option to start at the beginning or resume.
If you hit resume it will start playing in the same spot the other users are at.
You can’t get any closer in sync than that.
This is because Plex just thinks you want to start where you left off. In this case where you left off just happens to be where the other folks are in the stream. Plex does not know you are in a different location or on a different client. It just thinks you had stopped the movie somewhere else and are just re-starting it from where you left off. Plex does not know at that time it is already playing it to another client,
This is predicated on the fact every one in the “Movie Party” log in with the same user ID.
That was why I mentioned create a single user id for times you want to sync play. Everyone log in with that same ID. By doing this you can have several folks watch the same movie in sync.
There will always be latency issues since many factors can cause a slight “out of sync” condition in any case. Things like different persons on different bandwith connections or different transcoding requirements or just plain network latency if the users are remote.
I do it all the time here so I can go from room to room in my house and the same movie is playing on all devices I have logged in. And BTW that is on multiple devices simultaneously… Roku 4, Android Tablet, LG TV with Plex App, Xbox, PS4, and Plex Web. Each device, in fact, usually started several minutes apart by hitting resume not start at the beginning. The result is many different devices (Different BW and Transcoding requirements) playing the same content synced within 5 seconds or so. (It helps to up the transcoder buffer time)
I also am able to watch any movie in sync with a friend who is a remote user on my PMS over 5k miles away. Worse case has been 15 seconds or so out of sync with him. (I am in Los Angeles he is in Orlando… Can’t get much more geographically separated in CONUS.)
It works as well as if there were coding done just so folks with different user ids could do the same.
So… by doing it the way I suggested eliminates any reason for special coding to be implemented.
But you might be right, I might not understand what is being asked for here. But for me I AM able to play the same content to multiple devices to any where in the world (On an internet connection) and be IN SYNC within reason…
Or maybe you did not understand what I was suggesting. I sometimes am unable to communicate ideas very well.
Oh and BTW, I think that folks won’t need to actually search for the movie playing (which is not very hard anyway) it might show up in “Continue Watching” but I have never thought to check that. It probably does, so it will be on the dashboard of most players anyway…
I did not say “Hit play at the same time”
What I said was select the same movie you want to watch with someone else and when it comes up it will give you the option to start at the beginning or resume.
If you hit resume it will start playing in the same spot the other users are at.You can’t get any closer in sync than that.
This is because Plex just thinks you want to start where you left off. In this case where you left off just happens to be where the other folks are in the stream. Plex does not know you are in a different location or on a different client. It just thinks you had stopped the movie somewhere else and are just re-starting it from where you left off. Plex does not know at that time it is already playing it to another client,This is predicated on the fact every one in the “Movie Party” log in with the same user ID.
That was why I mentioned create a single user id for times you want to sync play. Everyone log in with that same ID. By doing this you can have several folks watch the same movie in sync.
There will always be latency issues since many factors can cause a slight “out of sync” condition in any case. Things like different persons on different bandwith connections or different transcoding requirements or just plain network latency if the users are remote.
I do it all the time here so I can go from room to room in my house and the same movie is playing on all devices I have logged in. And BTW that is on multiple devices simultaneously… Roku 4, Android Tablet, LG TV with Plex App, Xbox, PS4, and Plex Web. Each device, in fact, usually started several minutes apart by hitting resume not start at the beginning. The result is many different devices (Different BW and Transcoding requirements) playing the same content synced within 5 seconds or so. (It helps to up the transcoder buffer time)
I also am able to watch any movie in sync with a friend who is a remote user on my PMS over 5k miles away. Worse case has been 15 seconds or so out of sync with him. (I am in Los Angeles he is in Orlando… Can’t get much more geographically separated in CONUS.)
It works as well as if there were coding done just so folks with different user ids could do the same.
So… by doing it the way I suggested eliminates any reason for special coding to be implemented.
But you might be right, I might not understand what is being asked for here. But for me I AM able to play the same content to multiple devices to any where in the world (On an internet connection) and be IN SYNC within reason…
Or maybe you did not understand what I was suggesting. I sometimes am unable to communicate ideas very well.
Oh and BTW, I think that folks won’t need to actually search for the movie playing (which is not very hard anyway) it might show up in “Continue Watching” but I have never thought to check that. It probably does, so it will be on the dashboard of most players anyway…
Simply people do want to be “IN SYNC within reason…”, They want to be “IN SYNC”. I don’t have a use case where there an issue for me either, but hey, doesn’t stop other users from wanting/needing it…
Get serious. They will never be able to get sync EXACT.
Think about it. Not to mention network latency, which cannot be avoided, the fact that one user will require transcoding another might need a different transcode output and another might be able to direct play.
I cannot see ANY way EXACT sync could be accomplished given those factors, and many others like router hops… etc.
For those reasons is suspect there is no percentage in it for Plex to write code just so folks can watch in sync from different user ids.
It does work now and you guys can have it now if you just have the “Commune Movie Party” using the same user ID…
Get serious. They will never be able to get sync EXACT.
Think about it. Not to mention network latency, which cannot be avoided, the fact that one user will require transcoding another might need a different transcode output and another might be able to direct play.
I cannot see ANY way EXACT sync could be accomplished given those factors, and many others like router hops… etc.
For those reasons is suspect there is no percentage in it for Plex to write code just so folks can watch in sync from different user ids.
It does work now and you guys can have it now if you just have the “Commune Movie Party” using the same user ID…
There’s a difference between exact and what we have now. If Chromecast audio can do it nearly exact, then Plex can too.
Again, that’s not my request, I don’t need this and don’t understand why people want it, but I’m not judging people’s desires or needs.
PS Plex could handle network latency by measuring it and delaying the slower stream by the difference… Transcoding delays the start, but once started it doesn’t matter.
@KarlDag
OK… If you say so.
It works fine for me. At least as you mentioned Chromecast being NEARLY perfect.
Also IMO, I think transcoding will have an effect as each transcoded stream could be a different bit rate. That is why I suggested a LARGE transcode buffer to mitigate this.
As I am sure you understand, that is the only way it could be done since if they all just tapped in to the same running stream, that stream will not necessarily play on all devices wanting access. EACH instance would require it’s own unique stream.
I am really not kidding you. It works very acceptably using this method. However there are many variable and those would still exist if enabled for separate IDs.
Cheers
