Roger Fingas
Making use of its Watchup acquisition, Plex on Tuesday announced a new feature for its media streaming software, Plex News, which assembles a personalized video montage based on a range of global sources.
In setting up the option, people are prompted to choose topics of interest — such as "Politics & Government" or "Science & Technology" — as well as provide a location, including ZIP code in the U.S. The company has forged agreements with over 190 media companies worldwide, such as CNN, CBS, Sky News, Deutsche Welle, and Tribune Media. Local news is available in over 80 percent of U.S. markets.
Each montage, called a "Newscast," consists of several clips that are each a few minutes long. When watching people can choose to follow or mute sources and topics, which helps to customize future Newscasts, or search by channel, category, or topic.
The feature is free but ad-supported, with ad breaks coming every 7 to 10 minutes or 3 to 4 clips, depending on the duration of videos.
Plex's director of Product and Growth, Jason Williams, told TechCrunch that the company is interested in bringing in live news feeds. Plex already supports live TV, but only for people with digital antennas and tuners.
Plex News is available today to Plex Pass subscribers, and will reach the free versions of Plex over the course of the next two days. Apple device owners can watch via Apple TV, iPhone, and iPad — other supported platforms include Roku and Android devices.
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6 Comments
I wonder if Apple will make a TV version of the News app? Like this but with customizable sources. Anything from TMZ and celebrity gossip to CNN and politics etc.
Hum. Perhaps only tangentially related, the Mohu Airwave shows on the Best Buy site for $150 and available to ship October 8. Nothing on the Mohu site to confirm that, but BB claims "exclusive."
$150 is perhaps a tad rich. But...as always...options are good.
I'm very cautious about Plex these days.
The Plex App for ATV has had problems with video stuttering ever since they released it two years ago. You just can't reliably stream high res video from your personal library.
Huge complaints on their forums (forums are hidden unless you pay to be a PlexPass holder) and a heap of additional analysis done by the Users when it was realised that Plex were more interested in adding new features rather than fixing core functionality. It's a beautiful looking app... but oh, so many problems.
Love my Plex, but ads? Thanks, no, that's why I don't watch live television unless it's the BBC (though admittedly I'm lucky in that I've got that option here in the UK).
As for video stuttering, I've no problem with that and most of my library that I throw at it is 1080p (AC3 or DTS), stuttering would be annoying to say the least, sorry to hear some are experiencing that.
I still use Infuse for some content, Plex doesn't do as well for files that aren't released tv shows and movies because they're so library oriented (which is great for that type of content).