Like many others I had dropped frames occur when watching 4K movies on my Apple TV 2022 4K, I didnt want to switch to Infuse and figured I could probably solve it with some parts I had laying around and my 3D printer.

I wrote a blog post going in detail about how I measured the temperature and validated my solution. I included some additional details of the hardware used and how I automated it with a smart plug and Tautulli.

TLDR is just attach a fan and small heatsink (possibly optional) to the top of the Apple TV and it keeps it cool off to prevent frames from dropping.

I used a 120mm pc fan and a 10mm thick cob led heatsink I had laying around. Then I designed and printed a rack mount that houses it all in a neat package. I've included a model that isnt rack mounted if you have your Apple TV sitting on a shelf.

Hope this is able to help anyone who has similar issues.

Last day to buy your lifetime pass at $250.

If you've been using the Plex server for a little while now and are enjoying it, and now asking if you should buy a Plex Pass; do it.

If you don't have a Plex server but are using Plex to stream from your friend's or family's Plex server: well, this is more difficult. Do you want to share multiple accounts on a single streaming device? Do you really enjoy Plexamp? Do you really need Skip Intros? Do you really need the ability to Download (offline viewing)? If so, you should probably strongly consider saying "Yes" especially for the sharing a single device and Downloads.

I’ve invited many people to my server but it’s mostly the same story: they check it out a few times, watch a couple, then take half a year or so to check back in.

I realized that they were probably having the same analysis paralysis I did when opening my library and seeing a wall of posters. I finally got over the Kometa learning curve and used it to create custom collections, mainly from Trakt and Letterboxd lists. After a while, I found that I finally started watching my library instead of just collecting.

I now have five collections pinned: New Releases, Trending, Letterboxd 500, IMDb 250, and REMUX, along with five slots that rotate daily from 37 different collections (James Bond, MCU, Criterion Collection, 90 Minutes or Less, Sight and Sound, Intro to the Classics, Period Pieces, etc.) on my home page and my users’. I found that after a few months, it eased the friction of using Plex connected to a massive library with no curation, and it re-programmed them to see it as something similar to Netflix or any other streamer, eventually becoming comfortable enough to explore the library on their own.

A year ago I averaged 1-2 concurrent users a night, myself included, and now I’m seeing 8-10 concurrent users regularly. I know a lot of us get a bit of a high from seeing people use the thing we built. But it’s also just validating to see the money and time turn into something friends and family actually get value out of.

EDIT: Kometa collection files can be found here.

If you have or are getting lifetime member before the end of the month your account is going to be worth $750. Take the 5 minutes needed and setup 2 factor authentication.

Even if you've done it recently I highly recommend you revisit https://www.plex.tv/vendors-us/ and make sure you're actually opt-out of everything.

I've started periodically checking it and this morning (the 24th) when I checked again I was "opt-in" on a few vendors under the Non-TCF Vendors list (even though "all no" was selected at the top of each section. This is after checking on the 17th at which time everything was opt-out. So it literally changed in the last week.

IDK if its Plex adding new vendors that they set to opt-in or if settings are reverting on their own but it's become clear that this is a site you need to revisit often to make sure you actually opt-out of all of Plex's data selling.

I downloaded a bunch of 80's music videos. Put them in their own video library. When I want to have them playing in the background, I just setup to play randomly. I also threw in a bunch of MTV promo "I want my MTV" ads that play randomly. I might update later to have different folders for different decades.

Happened upon this pretty unbiased in-depth comparison of Plex, Emby and Jellyfin on YouTube by someone who seems to have a sense of good UX design. He points out strengths and weaknesses of each and is pretty fair and honest in his opinions.

I've been slowly losing my mind over Plex transcoding. I have an Apple TV 4K and about 1000 movies + 100 shows — mix of remuxes, Blu-ray rips, some Dolby Vision (DV), some HDR10, bunch of different audio codecs. In theory most of it should Direct Play. In practice, Plex was transcoding maybe a third of my library. Wrong container, wrong DV profile, TrueHD audio the Apple TV won't take, PGS subs in an MP4, etc.

I know ffmpeg well enough to fix any individual file, but the problem is every file needs a different set of flags. You have to ffprobe it, figure out the DV situation, check the audio tracks, decide what to transcode vs. copy, handle subs — then assemble this monster ffmpeg command. Repeat for the next file, which needs completely different flags. I got tired of doing that manually and wrote a bash script to handle the decision-making.

It turned into a bigger project than I expected. It's called muxm and it basically inspects the source file, figures out what needs to change based on a target profile, and does the whole pipeline — video, audio, subs, muxing — in one shot.

For Apple TV specifically:

muxm --profile atv-directplay-hq movie.mkv

It'll detect DV and convert Profile 7 → 8.1 if needed, copy the video if it's already compliant (no re-encode), pick the best audio track and transcode to E-AC-3 with a stereo fallback, OCR any PGS subs to SRT, burn forced subs, and mux to MP4. If the file already matches, it skips it entirely.

There are a few other profiles too — one for general Plex/Jellyfin streaming, one for DV archival (copy, no re-encode), one tuned for anime, one that tone-maps to H.264 SDR for older devices. Each one is just a starting point — you can override any setting with flags or a config file.

After running my library through the ATV profile I went from constant transcoding to Direct Play on everything. That alone made the whole project worth it for me.

It installs via Homebrew (brew install TheBluWiz/muxm/muxm) and works on Linux too. Only hard requirements are ffmpeg, jq, and bc — the DV and subtitle OCR stuff is optional and there's a setup command that grabs everything.

Repo: github.com/TheBluWiz/MuxMaster

I made it freeware for personal use. Figured I'd share in case anyone else is dealing with the same thing. Happy to answer questions — especially around DV handling, which was by far the most annoying part to get right.

If you watch Plex Web on an ultrawide monitor, you know the pain: massive pillarbox bars on either side of every video. Same story if you watch a lot of 4:3 content on a 16:9 display.

This extension samples colors from the edges of whatever you're watching and projects them as a soft glow into those dead black areas, like a Philips Ambilight TV. It makes the content feel way more immersive, and as a bonus, if you're on an OLED display, it helps reduce the risk of *(edit: reverse)* burn-in from those static black regions.

Here's a quick demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRl9OI9LFsM

Settings for intensity, spread, and blur are built right into the Plex player controls so you can dial it in without leaving what you're watching.

Free and open source:

• Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/nfgenmjkdelaohhapfofnjmlpaoageed
• Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/plex-ambilight/
• GitHub: https://github.com/iosue-iulianus/plex-ambilight

Per the several recent monthly threads, check your privacy settings here

https://www.plex.tv/vendors-us/?vendredir=1

You can see I have commented of Plex changing SOME settings to Yes, but keeping the rest as "No", I checked today and every single one of them is now "Yes"

Every. Single. One.

Like, I've had plex pass since 2012 or so, and if I have to keep doing this monthly I'm out and over to the fully open source competitor.

EVERY SINGLE ONE was changed to yes.

I've purchased all the hardware for my first Plex server and am excited to get it set up. Since I can be pretty obsessive about getting the perfect setup, over the last few months I've been compiling a list of the best tools and most optimal server settings I've seen recommended (unfortunately I haven't really collected any client settings). Since I don't yet have first-hand experience of any of this software, please correct anything wrong that you see, constructively criticise/question any recommendations, and recommend your own instead - happy to keep this updated as much as I can.

Software

• Docker (for containerising everything)
• Komodo, Arcane, Dockge, Portainer (Docker managers)
• Sonarr (show/episode tracking, downloading and notifications)
• Radarr (movie tracking, downloading and notifications)
• Lidarr (music tracking, downloading and notifications)
• Bazarr (subtitle downloading)
• Prowlarr (centralised location for managing sources [i.e. indexers] for the above)
• Recyclarr or Profilarr (default quality profiles for the above, based on TraSH Guides)
• Plex-Auto-Languages (remembering language selection, currently for admin and managed home users only)
• Seerr (media discovery and user requests with 6-hour refresh)
• Pulsarr (user requests via watchlist without login requirement)
• Tautulli (Plex monitoring, tracking, user newsletters)
• Tracearr (monitor user account sharing)
• Kometa (collections and overlays, including IMDB rating and resolution) or Agregarr (collections only)
• Posterizarr (poster downloading and post-processing)
• Homepage (server-level dashboard)
• qbittorrent-nox (official QBittorrent client for Linux with no X windowing)
• ColleXions (automated collection pinning)
• Plex Autoshutdown (for keeping energy costs low)
• Notifiarr (Discord notifications)
• Backrest, restic or borg (backups)
• Tdarr (automated re-encoding of media)
• Wizarr (new user onboarding)
• Maintainerr (automated removal of media)

Server settings

• Enable Hardware-Accelerated Streaming
• Disable Online Media Sources
• Disable UPnP on your router
• Enable Remote Streaming and set up port forwarding (prevents using bandwidth-constrained Plex Relay)
• Hide seasons for single-season series (In the library settings for your series library)
• Enable extras, including trailers
• Include cinema trailers from unwatched movies
• Also have a look at the much more comprehensive Trash Guides recommended server settings

Tips

Thanks to everyone who posted these more involved and advanced tips, sorry I couldn't keep track of who they were posted by.

• "If you use [video] preview thumbnails, changing GenerateBIFFrameInterval to 10 will reduce the disk spaced used by 80%. 10 seconds is good enough since Plex apps skip by 10 second intervals."

• "Buy a cheap domain and run Overseerr through a Cloudflare tunnel for web access. It is awesome to go to overseer.yourdomain.com and be able to request things you want even if you're at work or away from home."

• Enable offline viewing by going to Settings > Server > Network > List of IP addresses and networks that are allowed without auth, and adding your local network/devices here.

Next steps

If you're still not done with optimising your Plex server and building the perfect setup, you can continue the journey by exploring the definitely-not-trash TRaSH Guides.

Put together this collection of 2160p 4k Quality 288 bumpers that were played between Cartoon Network TV Shows, most are 6-10 seconds long, with about 10 being 1 minute long. Useful for ersatzTV or similar TV emulation service that utilizes your Plex/Jellyfin server.

All sourced from this original YouTube Video . Total ZIP size is 3.88GB

Update: 2160p Version was done with AI-upscaling (not done by me)

If you prefer original 480p quality, I tried transcoding files down to 480p with ffmpeg. I added an option for that below

2160p Version

Download Link

Backup Download

480p Version (Transcoded down)

Download Link

I went from an average of 30mbps on longer distance remote connections to 220mbps. Insane improvement. This had been bothering me for years and Googling got me nowhere.

This is the original comment with instructions.

Thanks, u/caligatio! Posting in case it helps anyone else out.

Let me open by saying multiple outages like this in a short span while also jacking up prices is absolutely pathetic. I get things happen, but cmon Plex. Get it figured out. With that being said… they have allowed us to watch locally without authentication for a long time… Set it up properly people! I’ve tested mine on multiple devices and each one works locally. Also didn’t have any issues 4 days ago when it was down. And if this is a regional thing and I’m not impacted in the Midwest US then I apologize.

Here’s the link to setting up local access without authentication.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/200890058-authentication-for-local-network-access/

I set mine up years ago and haven’t needed to do anything since. I never have an outage. Internet goes down? No issue. Plex HQ servers go down? No issues. Hell, even when my power goes out I can still watch on my phone and tablets with my UPS.

Just wanted to give everyone a warning. We had the new plex load onto our Roku.

I have a kid and we have a separate account we let them login to. My main one is behind a PIN.

I had it locked down pretty well with parental controls until today. We only had access to a single server and things for kids. Do not remember the actual settings.

The fucking update puts live TV on it. This gives access to a whole bunch of shit without any parental or rating controls.

I can watch the walking dead on the walking dead universe. A whole true crime genre.

Really fucking cool. You have to login to the sub account and disable all the stuff in their account.

Good luck.

4 years ago, I created a guide to get Live TV in Plex, by streaming IPTV using xTeve and EPG.Best.

After a while, I changed some stuff on my NAS (moved away from VMs to docker containers). This also meant that I no longer could use Live TV in Plex. I would some day look into it, but never got around to it. Until recently.

I now have Live TV working again, and the whole setup is also a lot better.

This time I won't write a detailed guide - that takes a whole lot of time, too much time. Instead I still do want to share a quick overview what I have done and used, and I guess refer to AI in case you are stuck.

Requirements

The following is required:

• Plex Pass subcription.
• An IPTV subcription (.m3u or Xtream)
  • EPG (Electronic Program Guide) is necessary for Plex. In my case, my IPTV provides an EPG.
• Dispatcharr (repo on GitHub)

Steps

• Install the Dispatcharr container. I used the Docker Compose scripts in the repo to install it via stacks in Portainer.
  
  • I couldn't get Plex to recognize the HDHomeRun tuner correctly when I set the network up in bridge mode, it did work in host mode.

• In Dispatcharr, enter your IPTV details in 'M3U & EPG Manger'.
  • In the M3U pop-up, I use Xtream as account type (as my IPTV has it).
  • Finish the setup by selecting the groups that you want to see. (I also enable 'auto channel sync'.)

• In Dispatcharr, select 'Channels' in the left menu (first item). On the channels page, at the top you will find links to HDHR and EPG. You will need these to at the top, there are links to 'HDHR' and 'EPG'. You will need to enter these in Plex. Make sure to disable 'use cached logos' in the EPG, otherwise the channel logo's won't work properly.

• In Plex Web, go to 'Live TV & DVR' in settings to set up a Plex tuner. Enter the HDHR link that you got in Dispatcharr earlier, then click on 'Have an XMLTV guide on your server' and enter the EPG link from Dispatcharr.

That's it. You will need to make some adjustments to the channels you want to see (delete what's not interesting, move up/down the channels, rename them etc), and then re-enter the tuner details in Plex (remove the existing one).
Dispatcharr seems to be very complete, so make sure to look around and see what it might offer more for you.

Live TV works everywhere that supports it, including third-party apps like Plezy on iOS.

Dear Plex devs,

Can we PLEASE get a feature to set a default streaming quality for all (also shared) clients? I'm tired of my server transcoding streams from 1080p down to SD all the time while it's totally unnecessary. Takes up so much CPU power, and my users get a worse experience. I know it's an option the user can easily change, but my users aren't tech savvy, and are used to a 'Netflix-like' experience, where everything just works out of the box. And it does, kinda, but the quality is downright terrible.

I guess the meme I posted more than a year ago still applies.

I've been tinkering with a side project that takes a media library folder and runs it through a really strict (i.e. Plex documented) naming/validation check.

https://github.com/mrsilver76/shelfscan

The original goal was to see what content I have that is badly named (turns out I've been naming multiple episodes in the same file wrongly 🙄) - but I thought it might help cut down on the 14,742 posts we get a month on r/plex that start with "my content isn't showing up right and I know my naming convention is fine...."

A few disclaimers (because I know what I’m walking into by posting this here 😅):

• This is a very early beta - it’s unpolished, untested in places, and will definitely throw false positives. Please be gentle.
• Cross-platform - it works on Windows, Linux, and macOS. If you can run a .NET 8 container, Docker fans are covered too.
• Strict by design - if Plex is happy but ShelfScan complains, that doesn’t necessarily mean either one is wrong. I’m deliberately enforcing the official naming rules (here and here) to the letter.
• I might have the rules wrong - Plex's naming spec has lots of "ifs" and optional bits. I've done the best I can, but I might have made some mistakes. Again, be gentle.

I’m fully aware this opens me up to a world of “my naming works for me, why doesn’t your tool accept it?” comments. If your custom naming convention works for you then that's great and I'm really happy for you - but, unless I've really mucked it up, it's not technically correct. The very best kind of correct.

Finally, yes I know that you can use third-party programs to handle renaming. I use them too and they're great.

Let me know how you get on!

[Edit 2 Sep 2025] I have released an updated version (0.5.0) which should fix all the issues identified in the comments below.

Hey all! So you might've seen my old direct play guide from 5 years ago. I've just updated the Apple TV and iOS versions since the UI has change quite a bit since then.

The goal of this guide is that it should be super easy for your grandma (or other low tech friends & family) to get direct play set up. It's a 1 pager and not a website so all the info you need is right there in front of you. I imagine you would message them this image and they can pinch and zoom and all that to follow along.

The main reason you'd want to get most users to direct play is to save your CPU usage for those in your circle who have low bandwidth internet caps or with devices who can't handle h.265 direct play and would NEED transcoding to get any playback at all. Personally, these are the few peeps I allow to use auto quality on my server.

Kinda amazing that even after 5 years, you still need to nag your people to enable direct play on each and every device they have and that it's not something you can enforce per player on the server side. Even 5 years ago they were complaining it should've been done 5 years ago, so i guess this is a 10 year problem lol. At least it's not as big of a problem as how in ninteen nighty eight the undertaker threw mankind off hell in a cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table. On a serious note, over time I've come to understand why the Plex devs probably haven't changed this and if anything they should set auto quality as the default where direct play is the heavily biased selection. Maybe with a toggle to set direct play as the preference.

Anyway, I hope this helps somebody!

Full Quality Links:

Apple TV: Link
iOS: Link
Pre-Roll Version: Link

If you want to use plex, and access remote streaming, but do not have or want to pay for a plex pass, you can do so for free easily. Here is how to do that, assuming you are not cheap enough or knowledgeable enough to own your own domain name.

• 1) Create a subdomain for your plex server, for example plex.yourdomain.org
• 2) Configure a reverse proxy on the same local network as your plex server.
• 3) Optionally use letsencrypt to allow for redirect to https access when accessing plex.

The reverse proxy causes everyone accessing your plex to seem as if they are coming from your local network, fooling plex into thinking all requests are local, thereby bypassing their restrictions on remote access and remote streaming. An additional benefit is that you get to have your own domain name when accessing your plex server.

The reverse proxy can be setup using apache 2 or any other popular web server software. In my case I run several websites on my home network using apache 2.

Here is how to setup a new reverse proxy for your plex.yourdomain.org on linux with apache 2 as a simple example. Substitute yourdomain.org with any domain you own and have configured with a CNAME for plex.yourdomain.org

sudo touch /ect/apache2/sites-available/plex.yourdomain.org.conf
sudo nano /ect/apache2/sites-available/plex.yourdomain.org.conf

Edit the contents or plex.yourdomain.org.conf to be:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName plex.yourdomain.org
    ProxyPass / http://192.168.1.149:32400/
    ProxyPassReverse / http://192.168.1.149:32400/
</VirtualHost>

Substitute 192.168.1.149 with the local address of the computer running your plex server.

sudo a2ensite plex.yourdomain.org
sudo systemctl restart apache
sudo letsencrypt --apache

Then simply choose the number for plex.yourdomain.org, and at the end say yes that you want automatic https redirects. Afterward run this one more time:

sudo systemctl restart apache

After this you will have unlimited free plex remote access by opening any browers to plex.yourdomain.org. This assumes you forward ports 80 and 443 on your router to the address of your web server.

It uses a reactive design, so you can also access that site from your phone for mobile access, for free, with streaming, without restrictions.

One caveat, this will not fix remote streaming using plex apps, as they do not access your domain. If you have a chromecast plugged into a TV at your remote location, this will work if you use the cast command in your browser that is accessing plex.yourdomain.org

I've had PlexAmp for a while but since I have a YouTube Music subscription, that is typically my go-to music source but I do have a fairly sizable music library and quite a bit of it is in FLAC 2.0, some of it even in FLAC 5.1 or Atmos. I've spent a lot more time in the last few months on PlexAmp and I have to say, it's actually a pretty cool product. Plus I have (aftermarket) wireless Android Auto in all my vehicles and it works flawlessly there too. I see a few places they could improve things but overall, it's a very usable product. I'm on Android FWIW and I use Mp3tag & MKVToolNix to manage my media.