Plex media center

Media files like photos, videos, and music can quickly absorb gigabytes of disk space. Then there is the option of viewing or listening to these files on multiple computers. You carefully copy the necessary files to your second computer, or create a shared network folder that anyone can access.
Another option - which has the added benefit of providing you with no fuss, an attractive user interface for viewing and accessing your media collection - is the Plex server.
Plex simplifies the process of sharing and managing media content on your home network and, thanks to free plug-ins, you can access your content from anywhere in the world via the Internet.
In 2011, Plex learned to work not only on Mac OS, but also on Windows and Linux, and even Android.

Installation is simple: install Plex Media Server on one of your computers, usually the one that will be the home server or contains most of your media content, and when it is turned on you will have access to its contents via the network or even further through The Internet.
To configure, select folders (more than one folder can be allocated for each type of supported media content: photos, music, movies / videos and recorded TV shows), select additional plugins to add support for online services. Server configuration is done using a web browser: just go to “http: // localhost: 32400 / manage”.

The Plex Mac server version also contains client software, so you simply copy the distribution of the server and install it on your Mac OS computer, and then use it as a client.
The client interface is navigated using the keyboard or the Apple Remote (you can enable mouse support through Settings> System> Input Devices). One tip: after installing and configuring on a Mac client computer, go to Settings> System> Media Server and disconnect always works to save system resources.

Installing the application on Android and iPhone is even easier, just download the client for the mobile device, install it, register access to the main server and that’s it.

The desktop and mobile client provide a great, easy to browse interface for everyone with a media collection, complete with various online databases (Wikipedia, Amazon and TheMovieDB). It looks like this: you upload a movie, music to Plex, and the server itself already recognizes what kind of content is and displays a brief information on it. He also works with music. It is possible to prohibit scanning files for him, and specify the information manually.

You can configure access to the server from anywhere in the world via the Internet.
The server is installed, the ports on your computer open, the ports on the router open (if there is one). And it's all! Now you can open your favorite collection of music anywhere in the world where there is Internet.
It goes without saying that access to multimedia via an Internet connection will be slower than on a home network, and can be expensive if you use a 3G phone connection.

Plex Media Server is free to download on Mac OS (OS X 10.5.8 or later), Windows, Linux.

The software part of the server is written in one of the most powerful Python languages. In the process of operation by me for more than a year, errors, glitches were not noticed.

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