Plex comes in two parts…. the server and the client.
You point the server part at your medial library, which it catalogs and downloads metadata for (album covers, genre info, movie summaries etc).
The plex client reads the content from your server, and displays it on your screen, with a nice user interface.
The Server can be your computer, or it can run directly on your NAS. The benefit of having it run on your NAS (which is typically always on, and connected to the network) is that you don’t have to have your computer running in order to watch a movie.
The client can be installed on your smart tv, or an apple tv box, ipad or whatever – it basically just allows you to play content from your server.
You can also have a one-box solution… These are basically mini-PCs that run both the server and the client, and are typically connected directly to your TV.
I’ve only been using Plex for a little while. I use my macbook as the server (pointing to the media library on my NAS), and run the client on my apple TV.
What I like:
It’s stable – much more stable than Apple’s itunes homesharing
The interface of both the server and client is (on the most part) better than that on iTunes/apple TVs. Particularly for movies and TV shows
What I don’t like:
My NAS is quite old, so I’ll need an upgrade for it to be able to run plex server directly – which means that i still have to have my laptop open and running.
The photos and music interface on the client isn’t great
Ultimately – i haven’t spent any money, or much time trying out Plex, and find that it’s a really good solution for me. My advice would be just to try it out on your existing hardware – assuming you have something that will serve as a server (computer) and a client (smart TV, set top box etc), before going out and buying anything new.
Hopefully thats helpful
