Hello and thank you for choosing My Plex Server. This exclusive service is provided only to a select few individuals and is free of charge! It is also maintained by one person in my spare time and literally running off a few computers in my basement, so it may occasionally stop working for a few hours or days or (hopefully not but maybe) forever. Sorry! If you want 100% uptime, pay for Paramount Plus.
The below is my best attempt at a quick start guide, the official support page is available here
How do I watch stuff?
- Make a Plex account and log in to the website
- I will email you a link. If you can’t find it ask me for it again. Click on the link in that email and follow the steps to create an account, you can use a username and password specific to Plex or use your Google account among others.
- Once you have an account, go to plex.tv on your phone or computer and click Sign In in the top right corner.
- Go to your TV or whatever device you want to watch things on, then download the Plex app there
- (click here to get the app for your phone)
- If you have a smart TV or Roku-type device, you can search that device’s app store for Plex and download it.
- Note: If you are using a Comcast box (maybe others as well) it will only let you watch official Plex streaming content and not my personal collections that I share with you. If you see a message about that, you’ll unfortunately need to either:
- Plug a computer into the TV
- Use some kind of screen mirroring or casting from your phone or computer to the TV
- Get a roku/chromecast/Android TV box to use instead of your cable box
- Log into Plex on your TV
- The first time you open the app, you should be prompted to go to plex.tv/link and enter a code. Do this on the device you logged into in step 1.2
- (Optional) Adjust the playback settings to Original Quality
It keeps freezing every few seconds or telling me my connection isn’t good enough!
How do I fix it?
Change your playback quality to 1080p and if that doesn’t work to 720p. Official instructions are here with additional info here (start from step 3 under Getting Started).
What is the problem?
I usually download stuff in 4K (UHD or Ultra High Definition) which means every second of video is between 40 and 100 megabytes of data (so a 30-minute episode of TV is between 1 and 3 gigabytes). This doesn’t really matter for me because my TV is on the same network as my server so the data doesn’t have to go very far or leave my house, but since you are watching in your house the data has to go out over the internet to you. 1080p (High Definition) video is between 3 and 6 megabytes of data per second and still looks pretty good while being much easier to send over the internet. I’ve started downloading or creating 1080p copies of things I only have in 4K, and my server will also do that conversion in real time if you try to watch something in 1080p that only exists in 4K on my server.
Add a new TV show or movie to Plex
If you want to watch something specific that isn’t already available:
- Go to requests.nathanielf.com and click “Sign in with Plex”
- Use the search bar at the top to look for the movie or TV show you want to add
- Once you’ve found something you want, click “Request.” You’ll see that the show has been “requested” and its status will change to “available” once it has been fully downloaded and processed in the background.
Watch Plex in the Kitchen (if you are my parents)
You need to “cast” from your phone or computer to the Chromecast in the kitchen TV. Using the Comcast remote will not work, even though a Plex app will appear it doesn’t let you access the movies and TV shows stored on my server.
- Open the Plex app on your phone or go to the website on your computer
- Search for or navigate to the thing you want to watch, then start playing it on your phone or computer and pause it.
- Select this icon: It will likely be in the top right
- Select “Kitchen TV” (or whatever is there that looks right) from the list that pops up
You should now see your media playing on the kitchen TV.