I’ve been a long time user of plex for years and have been using the PS3 app to stream from my PC over a wired connection to my TV.
Outside of the occasional performance problem with the PS3 app (all well known and documented) it works flawlessly.
However, for 2 days last week I lost internet connection from the ISP provider. This does not happen often but when it did I could then not use plex on my PS3 app as Sony forces you to have an active internet connection while connected to plex even though I running on a local network.
So, my question. My TV is an older Sony Bravia without SmartTV functions which is why I use the PS3 to view the content. What would be the cheapest (and best) solution I could buy that will always allow me to use plex, even without an internet connection on my local network viewing on my TV.
- A Roku
- a Raspberry Pi 3 (running either ‘PMP embedded’ or ‘Rasplex’)
Both are excellent choices as Plex clients, because
a) both support manual server connections (you simply type in the local server IP address, so they are not relying on plex.tv for finding your server [like the PS3 must do])
b) the ‘Direct Play’ abilities of both devices exceed that of the PS3 by far, which is good for your server (it transcodes less often=less CPU load) and for the quality (transcoding reduces quality)
Super, thanks. Roku appears to be a good option for me. Thanks for the speedy response.
thanks @OttoKerner & @nighthawke for your suggestion. I picked up a roku 3 in the past week and its a huge improvement over the PS3 app both in functionality and performance. Should have asked this question months ago as I can see myself never using plex through playstation again.
