Life of a Geek Admin

The Daily adventures of a true geek administrator

Life of a Geek Admin - The Daily adventures of a true geek administrator

Tag Archives: Internet Streaming

How to install Plex Media Server 0.9.6.6 on CentOS / Fedora / RHEL

In an earlier post we covered installing Plex Media Server 0.9.6.3 on a Windows 7 system. In this post we’ll cover how to install and configure on a Linux system, CentOS 6.2 to be exact, but this process can be used on Fedora / and RHEL as well.

First make sure you meet the system requirements.

System Requirements:

  • 1.6 GHz processor (2.4 GHz dual core for 1080p transcoding).
  • 256 MB RAM
  • Gigabit Ethernet recommended for HD streaming.
  • N.B. Flash and Silverlight video playback is not supported on Linux.

Installation is very simple. It is just a matter of adding the repo to the server and importing the key.

Create the plex.repo definition in /etc/yum.repos.d with the following contents.

[PlexRepo]
name=PlexRepo
baseurl=http://plexapp.com/rpmrepo/release/$basearch/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1

Import the GPG key

$ rpm --import http://plexapp.com/plex_pub_key.pub

Then install it with this command:

$ yum install plexmediaserver

Now start the Plex Media Server

$ /etc/init.d/plexmediaserver start

Once the startup is completed open a browser and goto http://localhost (or systems ip):32400/manage/index.html

Click on any of the Add Media to you Library icons to add your content for the devices to see. Change preferences from the many options available.

Look for future posts on customizing Plex Media Server and adding DLNA profiles for some of the many devices that can connect.

Currently Plex Media Server runs off older init scripts. there is a post in the Plex forums with a way to use the newer systemd here http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/43464-clean-systemd-scripts-for-fedora-17/

 

Plex Media Server v0.9.6.6 / Plex v0.9.5.4 / Plex for iOS v2.5 Released

Great News !! Plex Media Server v0.9.6.6 / Plex v0.9.5.4 / Plex for iOS v2.5 has been released and here is the laundry list. You can download it here http://wiki.plexapp.com/index.php/Downloads and look for a future post on installing and configuring on Linux as well as some custom DLNA configs!

If you’ve experienced an issue with TV scans missing posters or other artwork, somewhat randomly, this has been fixed; we’ve been experiencing increasingly heavy traffic with all the new users, so we had to bulk up our infrastructure!
Movie matching should be more accurate and much faster; we now have a fully automated system which improves the agent matching over time based on the anonymous data sent back. Pretty cool, right?
We’ve pushed quite a few updates to the agents to fix non-ASCII poster/subtitle filename issues on Linux, metadata for personal show scanning, and a number of other issues.
We released a new version of Plex for Android, with fixes and a few new features. The update for Google TV is coming shortly!
We’re in the process of pushing a new release of Plex for iOS today to Apple, should be available in a week or so. Fixes and goodies abound, and to be nice, here’s a full list of changes you have to look forward to:
NEW: Home screen sections can be re-ordered or hidden. Yay!
NEW: Background art while browsing. Pretty!
NEW: Easier to read list view when browsing by folder. Useful!
FIX: High bitrate content will correctly transcode instead of attempting Direct Play (thanks, majortom!)
FIX: Media deletion & progress reporting works when using myPlex without publishing servers.
FIX: Network addresses are resolved earlier to make playing media on remote clients more reliable.
FIX: Easier method for adding friends.
FIX: Crash when attempting to set a user rating for an item with no community rating.
FIX: Crash marking a show (un)watched.
FIX: A few layout & graphical issues.
We also have a new Plex Media Server release for you, with a number of improvements, which can be downloaded from the usual place (and shortly from auto-update):

NEW: Added (advanced) preference for specifying location of Aperture/iPhone XML paths. The preference is ApertureLibraryXmlPath for Aperture and iPhotoLibraryXmlPath for iPhoto. Yes, we’re going to have an easy way to get at these advanced preferences soon.
NEW: (Linux) Allow syslog logging via environment variable PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_USE_SYSLOG. This has been requested for ages.
NEW: (API) Massive performance improvement for players that ask for paged data (e.g. for Roku). If you have large library sections, you’ll notice a big change; with 1000 items, the page requests are 6 times faster.
NEW: (API) Added /library/sections/X/{sorts|filters} endpoints for advanced filtering.
FIX: Sidecar (e.g. SRT) subtitle files work again. Sorry, that was a bad regression.
FIX: (Windows) Upload speeds from the server were artificially slow in some cases. We’d gotten sporadic reports over the months that upload speeds seemed limited, and we finally managed to track down the issue. The upload speed will now max out your connection, and will take much less CPU as well.
FIX: A crash when scanning for plug-ins when permissions are wrong.
FIX: (Mac) Fix some Aperture photos not displaying properly.
FIX: Library timeline could generate blank items occasionally.
FIX: Web interface didn’t show added and deleted items properly when scanning.
FIX: Don’t pass back bogus blank content ratings.
FIX: (Linux) DLNA icon and server name were missing on some platforms.
FIX: When overwriting plug-ins, files that don’t exist anymore are deleted.
FIX: Handle 302 as well as 301 redirects in the image transcoder.
FIX: When scanning files that had already been scanned, they didn’t end up with thumbnails.
FIX: Certain image formats (TIFF, BMP, PCX) didn’t get thumb nailed.
FIX: Fixed sleep prevention, OS X (and possibly Linux) should sleep now.
FIX: (Windows) Fixed a crash on start.
FIX: (Synology) DLNA to PS3 wasn’t working.
FIX: (DLNA) Memory leak in DLNA server process.
FIX: (DLNA) Fixed PS3 audio dropouts by transcoding to stereo for now in the profile.
FIX: (DLNA) Fixed evaluation of limitations.
FIX: (DLNA) Fixed AAC audio not playing to PS3.
FIX: (DLNA) Build-in profile now supports Samsung SmartTVs (thanks, holzi!)
We also have some fixes in a new release of the Plex Laika desktop client:
FIX: Update RTMP to 2.4
FIX: Fix for connectivity issues when PMS isn’t running locally (thanks to elwertk).
FIX: Playback of interlaced H.264 content (MBAFF) was broken (thanks to elwertk).
FIX: Use the same user agent as earlier in Plex/Nine.
FIX: Add the Plex language and version headers.
FIX: When forced transcode was enabled, playback could fail for local files.
FIX: Support for chained indirects in channels.

Streaming the Internet with Roku HD

Recently I felt the need to stream Internet content and update my Toshiba 19″ Flat panel to the latest century and on a friends recommendation found the Roku 2 XD. The Roku 2 XD is one of four models, It is a stylish small form factor box that plugs in either standard RCA cables or HDMI.

Each Roku 2 XD player comes with:
IR remote
2 x AAA batteries
A/V cable
A/C Power adapter
Getting Started guide
30-day money back guarantee
90-day hardware warranty

For my installation I will be connecting using the HDMI connection. An HDMI cable does not come with the Roku2 so you have to supply one of your own. Connect the cable to the Roku and the TV and plug in the power and you are ready.

The Roku will prompt you to connect to the site and register the device. Create an account and enter in the device code prompted on the screen and the Roku will display the screen of available channels.

Now that the Roku is registered you can choose from the channels or you can activate any accounts you have like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus. When you register these channels you will be required to register the device as well, which will require an internet connected device (tablet, netbook, laptop, etc…) to login and input the code the Roku displays.

Now lets get back to the Roku. Using the supplied remote you are presented with several buttons that make navigation simple and easy.

Roku Remote Buttons

A = [BACK] Return to previous screen
B = [HOME] Return to Roku Home Screen
C = [OK] Select an option from the menu
D = [UP] or [DOWN ] Move up or down; [LEFT] or [RIGHT] Move left or right
E = [REV SCAN] Rewind, scroll left one page at a time
F = [PLAY/PAUSE] Start or pause playback
G = [FWD SCAN] Fast forward, scroll right one page at a time
H = [OPTIONS] View more options
I = Quick launch button
J = Quick launch button
K = Quick launch button

The quick launch buttons will vary, mine are Netflix, Pandora and Crackle.

The menu is simple , a scrolling list of the channels is set before you. You can add by going to the channel store and selecting from a wide selection. Some are free and some are pay. You can also add other channels from Roku private channel site http://streamfree.tv/apps/roku-private-channels/.

Overall I am impressed with the Roku HD and will be adding more at my home and I recommend it for those of you look to add streaming to your TV’s

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