Plex may take on Roku, Amazon, Apple & others with ad-supported movies & third-party subscriptions

Best known for its apps serving up locally-stored media, Plex is reportedly jumping into the world of ad-supported movies, as well as selling subscriptions to outside services.

For the new content, the company may be building off a recent partnership with Tidal, allowing people to pay $9.99 per month for a bundle including both Plex Pass and Tidal's music catalog. New transaction functions had to be built for the arrangement.

The company is "in discussions with rights holders and content providers," according to a recent report by TechCrunch. Plex users can already stream online news, podcasts, and Web shows, but these are all free.

Roku has enjoyed some success with the Roku Channel, an app exclusive to its platform with a small selection of ad-funded movies. The approach attracted the attention of YouTube, which recently began emulating the formula.

Amazon helped pioneer selling third-party subscriptions with Channels, which lets Prime members add subscriptions to networks like HBO and Cinemax. The advantage is the ability to get on-demand content from multiple services within Prime Video, instead of having to switch apps to find a particular show or movie.

Apple is rumored to be working on its own equivalent of Channels as a companion to over $1 billion in original movies and TV shows. Combined with hardware sales, outside subscriptions could help pay for the costs of the original content and pave the way for a paid first-party service, though Apple is allegedly searching for "tent pole" shows that would draw in the public, much like "Game of Thrones" on HBO or "Stranger Things" on Netflix.

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15 Comments

elijahg 2823 comments · 18 Years

About 5 years ago

Plex is near enough the only reason I use my AppleTV, its great. Auto processing of TV shows and movies and on the fly re-encoding to the correct format. Apple's "computers" app is crap. It needs exactly the right format and needs iTunes running all the time on an awake computer. Bonjour sleep proxy doesn't work reliably with iTunes or the computers app either. It'll be interesting to see Plex's TV offerings, if they ever come to the UK.

Apple's current stance is that they're only going for family-oriented politically correct shows, which might be nice for some, but won't be quite the revered "tentpole" that the likes of Game of Thrones, Walking Dead and Orange is the New Black are.

exceptionhandler 377 comments · 13 Years

About 5 years ago

elijahg said:

Plex is near enough the only reason I use my AppleTV, its great. Auto processing of TV shows and movies and on the fly re-encoding to the correct format. Apple's "computers" app is crap. It needs exactly the right format and needs iTunes running all the time on an awake computer. Bonjour sleep proxy doesn't work reliably with iTunes or the computers app either. It'll be interesting to see Plex's TV offerings, if they ever come to the UK.

Apple's current stance is that they're only going for family-oriented politically correct shows, which might be nice for some, but won't be quite the revered "tentpole" that the likes of Game of Thrones, Walking Dead and Orange is the New Black are.

I tried out plex on a NAS, and all I can say is meh. It kept prompting me to sign up for a plex account even though I didn’t want to, and all my content was on my NAS. Regarding keeping iTunes always on, don’t you have to keep plex server always on? Don’t see much of a difference there. Just get and old Mac and have be your “iTunes server”.

ive not watched the other 2 titles, but GoT i could take it or leave it. It’s one of those that I probably won’t ever watch again, or will admit to anyone in person that I have watched.

elijahg 2823 comments · 18 Years

About 5 years ago

exceptionhandler said:

elijahg said:

Plex is near enough the only reason I use my AppleTV, its great. Auto processing of TV shows and movies and on the fly re-encoding to the correct format. Apple's "computers" app is crap. It needs exactly the right format and needs iTunes running all the time on an awake computer. Bonjour sleep proxy doesn't work reliably with iTunes or the computers app either. It'll be interesting to see Plex's TV offerings, if they ever come to the UK.

Apple's current stance is that they're only going for family-oriented politically correct shows, which might be nice for some, but won't be quite the revered "tentpole" that the likes of Game of Thrones, Walking Dead and Orange is the New Black are.

I tried out plex on a NAS, and all I can say is meh. It kept prompting me to sign up for a plex account even though I didn’t want to, and all my content was on my NAS. Regarding keeping iTunes always on, don’t you have to keep plex server always on? Don’t see much of a difference there. Just get and old Mac and have be your “iTunes server”.

ive not watched the other 2 titles, but GoT i could take it or leave it. It’s one of those that I probably won’t ever watch again, or will admit to anyone in person that I have watched.

Oh weird, I have had it prompt me once or twice, but its only on major updates. Only like once a year. You do have to keep Plex server running all the time yes, but there are plenty of devices it runs on without needing a full-blown computer; plus it runs in the background rather than a desktop app. I run a Plex server on a Pi, and there're NAS devices with it too such as yours. I used to run iTunes on an old Mini, but it required restarting iTunes so often to make it work I gave up. A Pi also uses a couple of watts, whereas older Mac minis are around 50w.

They're really highly rated by most, because they're unusual, different and interesting with good plot lines. Family-oriented stuff tends to have a very simplistic storyline and is a bit mundane in my opinion, certainly not particularly notable - which Apple needs if it wants to start off with a bang.

davgreg 1046 comments · 9 Years

About 5 years ago

Plex yes, ads in any form - no.

Seems everyone is determined to push ads in your face. I see ads as the scourge of our time, from “naming rights” to in app advertising. Even PBS which gets tax money and billions in tax exempt donations in the form of memberships, pushes “enhanced” underwriting- code for advertising.

There is no free lunch and I do not mind paying for ad free content. I do not want to pay for content and be served ads.

Mike Wuerthele 6901 comments · 8 Years

About 5 years ago

allmypeople said:

exceptionhandler said:
Don’t see much of a difference there. Just get and old Mac and have be your “iTunes server”.

.

I went all-in with iTunes for this purpose in 2008 and have been building regret every year iTunes has had a horrible update.

If you're into Film/TV/Home movies, iTunes has only become more irritating to use and Apple doesn't seem to care.

elijahg said:

Plex is near enough the only reason I use my AppleTV, its great. Auto processing of TV shows and movies and on the fly re-encoding to the correct format. Apple's "computers" app is crap. It needs exactly the right format and needs iTunes running all the time on an awake computer. Bonjour sleep proxy doesn't work reliably with iTunes or the computers app either. It'll be interesting to see Plex's TV offerings, if they ever come to the UK.

I have been considering Plex. Any other impressions? I spent hours with Apple tech trying to solve why my ATV wouldn't wake up my computer to play files. Never fixed that.

I love the ATV but iTunes does absolutely nothing to improve my ability to organize media. The program (and dev team, i guess) seem OBSESSED with wanting to make it "pretty" rather than functional. Can you access your media on Plex when you're outside the home or do you have to download the content off your network ?

Odds are the ATV not waking up the Mac is because of your network gear not passing the wakeup packet correctly. That may not be better with Plex -- but it's easy to try as the app and server are free. If you pay for the flex pass, and your upload speed on your internet connection at home is beefy enough, you can access the media outside your home.

There is a lot to this. I have a combined iTunes/Plex/Infuse setup here in the bunker.