As a new user of Media Server software (other than a pristine iTunes library and before than WMC as loyal as can be until the maintenance just became too much), PLEX is the easiest, almost most intuitive piece of software in the HT space I've found since WMC and the marriage of tuners and PCs started with a decent GUI. That said, I've done the lifetime membership, bought the iOS and Android apps for friends, honed my library and doubled my TV library due to being able the leverage the file in any format and not worry about formatting and tagging it. I love this software and it has achieved everything I've hoped to accomplish in this hobby since I started in 1998. That was this week with PLEX...
But now, in my apartment with PLEX everywhere (got a new FireTV just to make the WAF easier) - I find that with the size of the library I have - it's easier if I control the media until I can break down my 3 buckets of media into digestible chunks (Movies, TV Shows, Music - 890, 8000 and 75,000 respectively). So the use case is applicable in many scenarios. As I can see, so far:
Allow for an "expert user" to control the media on behalf of many user groups including the elderly, children, advertising prospects, etc., where control of many screens/speakers by one individual is warranted
Party Mode where many individuals can contribute to a "combined experience" where requests queue (think cartoons or obviously audio) - as an overlay of tandem playback consider some ability to vote on upcoming tracks by ad hoc users (say guests at the party) to vote on upcoming music/video
Cleaning the House Mode - ever want to put on that movie you know by heart in the background in your office, living room system, kitchen speakers, bedroom system, home theater and on your phone so you can move about and take your mind off the drudgery? - Tandem Playback across many devices, controlled by one (or by any of them)
As an earlier comment stated - control of audio on several "personal" screens with streamed and centralized audio with centralized control - like in a car with kids (think a car of your child's freinds - all with iPhone/pod whatever going to a website and all getting the same movie for a long car ride and can do headphones or car stereo - but you control playback...
But right now? I just want whole house audio because I can't exactly figure out how to use AirPlay to do it with an AppleTV, two iPhones, two Macs, PCs and a Surface - I want this to work.
Just chiming in - I would love this as well as a newly acquired PlexPass member, I'm hoping to see this as one of the "so many cool things" promised that are coming down the pipe. :)
This is just what I'm after Plex!!.. I see this is request has been open for some time. I would love to see Plex give this upgrade a dollar value and we see if it can be crowd source to see the true plexpass member support required to get this developed. I'm more then happy to make some $ do the talking if it gets a set development time frame. is this opinion shared, Maybe such paid developed features remain plexpass only? Love some feedback.
I forgot to add,I see some technical difficulties for this to work across ALL devices however on a local network wouldn't most people who want to sync TV's for movies/tv as an example all be running suitable hardware. I think it would be fair enough for a design that is aimed at local network devices with that support the selected format that is chosen to be used, For a start at least.
I travel for work every month, and would DEFINITELY love this. Currently my girlfriend and I try to watch through facetime and it sucks. Hoping this comes to fruition!
been watching the Halle Berry series Extant... tandem playback is featured a lot in that future setting... one part in one of the episode Halle Berry's character plays a video file to every picture, mirror, and screen in a room... moment i saw it, i was like, "now that's the future of media i want, playable content on virtually any surface"... tandem playback in plex would bring up one step closer to that future :)
Ive been an XBMC user back since I was running it on an original XBOX on a tube television. I've tried tons of different media centers and always went back to XBMC, that is until I came across Plex. I have seen this app grow from something simple to something superb.
This feature would be icing on the cake. The thought of being able to run around the house cleaning while having the same music or video playing absolutely blows my mind. I do hope this feature sees the light of day sometime soon. I cant wait.
A related idea, although I'm not sure it's worth starting another thread:
Dual-play, where a signal for two separate videos is passed to a passive-3D display allowing two users with differently-polorized glasses to view different streams. Would require a second audio device (hence the relation to tandem playback).
