Plex isn’t exactly the novelty for the tech buff. The media player has been available for some time now, becoming a must-have app for Samsung and Roku devices. Even for Apple TV, the Plex app has been available for years now, but only for jailbroken devices.
Seeing as Apple’s latest generation devices are getting considerably more difficult to jailbreak, the creators of Plex took it up one notch and came up with a version of their app that works on Apple TV 2 and 3 without requiring a jailbreak.
Seeing as Apple’s latest generation devices are getting considerably more difficult to jailbreak, the creators of Plex took it up one notch and came up with a version of their app that works on Apple TV 2 and 3 without requiring a jailbreak.
The PlexConnect release is definitely the kind of breakthrough we’ve been waiting for. The free command-line tool allows you to access content via the Plex Media Server on your Apple TV, all that without jailbreaking your devices.
Learn How to Install PlexConnect
It is an amazing feature that marks a significant shift in the world of Apple TV, although for now, at least, the need for command knowledge in Terminal is a turn-off for most users. But seeing as the tutorial on how to install PlexConnect is easy to follow and it enhances the whole Apple TV experience without being required to jailbreak it, it’s all worth the bother.
“The brainchild of Baa, roidy and f00b4r, it’s a super clever little hack which allows a rich, fully-functional Plex client on un-jailbroken ATV2 and ATV3 (1080p!) devices” reads the announcement published on the Plex blog earlier this month. It works by masquerading a program on your computer as the Trailer App to give you acces to your library on the Plex Media Server. It does all this just by changing one setting on your Apple TV.
The Plex blog reads it took them “less than 2 minutes to install and get it running”, although we reckon for the Terminal novice it will take around 10 to 15 minutes. But that’s just time to make sure you’re correctly following the steps.
The PlexConnect hack is basically an app and a server that uses XML and Javascript, feature that makes it easier to develop new functions and widgets for. It features a new transcoder which enhances the subtitle performance on ATV 2 and 3. There’s also support for AC3 5.1 (with remixing and transcoding from DTS) and for iTunes DRM’ed video files. The PlexApp Blog reads PlexConnect will also provide support for myPlex soon enough.