Plex Just Got Even Better!

Plex brought us an early Christmas present - they just jam packed this holiday season with new releases! A few weeks ago, I built a new Plex server on my NAS and I have been loving the faster speeds to access my library of videos from all of my devices, in a user interface that just makes a lot of sense for entertainment. But that’s not the only thing I’ve been using lately. Plex is sponsoring this episode, which is awesome because I geek out about Plex Pass at home, and I use it everyday, so I love the opportunity to tell y’all about how I’ve been using it too!

First off, for those of you not familiar with Plex Pass, it's like the VIP pass to your personal media experience. With it, you get early access to new Plex features, beta releases, and a bunch of exclusive perks. But now we’ve got some new goodies called Power Pack!

Plex recently introduced a bunch of new features that you may not know about yet, cuz some of these were released pretty quietly, so I’ll run through all my favs and show you how I use them! If you’re interested in giving Plex Pass a try, there is an excellent end of year sale going on right now so you can get a great deal when you sign up!

So last time I discussed Plex on my NAS, I showed you a few lil demos, but it was mostly about setting up your own server at home - which is something I’ve been using since I moved to Colorado. Plex Pass gives you access to a huge library of movies and TV shows on top of your own library, and the new updates make it even easier to use.

Some of my favs include skipping intros and credits with just a couple of clicks. And if you're like me, I travel a lot for work, the power to download your favorite media for offline viewing is a game-changer. I’ve never had to pay for wifi on a plane because I always have entertainment downloaded and ready to go.

But the big news is the Power Pack updates that Plex has rolled out in response to user feedback. These updates give you a better viewing experience, and honestly, a lot of these features are things I didn’t even know I was missing til they introduced ‘em, and now I don’t want to live without.

One of those updates is the ability to automatically rewind content when you resume playback. No more guessing where you left off—Plex does it for you. And speaking of skipping, now you can automatically skip intros, credits, and even ads! Let me break down the details for you.

So first up is this Rewind on Resume feature, available with Plex Pass. Let’s say you pause your content for an extended period, and when you come back, Plex restarts playback at the interval you chose before the pause.

You can customize this feature with a default of none or select from various preset intervals between 1 to 30 seconds. I tend to pause long videos while I’m making dinner for example, and I like that I can come back and resume a few seconds before I paused to refresh my memory. For example, while I’m watching Broadchurch, I have this set to rewind by 3 seconds when I resume the show.

Skipping intros is so dope. Like if you’re binge-watching a show and you’re sick of an intro song, Plex Pass users can choose to automatically bypass the intro sequence without lifting a finger. And it’s customizable - like you can disable the Skip Intro button entirely, show it manually (which is the default setting), or go all-in with automatic intro skipping. I love that, because I get kinda annoyed when I have to click that button for every single episode of a show. Anime intros tend to be pretty long… so I generally pass over those.

One of the functionalities Plex Pass has is a DVR feature so you can record shows from TV. If you use the DVR recordings, skipping annoying ads just got so easier. Plex Pass lets you choose whether to skim over ads manually, automatically, or not at all. And you can Disable the Skip Ads button, show it manually, or let Plex automatically bypass those pesky ads. It’s totally your choice!

The same goes with credits! You can decide whether to automatically skip credits, show the button manually, or disable it altogether and just let Plex leave those out for you!

So a lot of those features have to do with getting you into your shows faster. Not wasting time. To skip the intros or credits, the show you’re watching will need to have intro or credit markers in them so Plex knows to skip them. Also, these features only work with content that you own on your server, and not with any of the available content that is free to stream on Plex, so that is something to keep in mind.

Same with choosing what to watch next. Users get a little screen that shows you what’s "Up Next" when a video finishes. And this is customizable too. You can choose when to see the "Up Next" screen—right after the video finishes or during the final credits. Only on Android TV for now, but Apple TV is catching up {?} soon {?}!

Watch This Next

Watch This Next

This one I find kinda hilarious because it reminds me of falling asleep while watching anime every night as a teenager. It’s called Passout Protection. By default, there's a timer to prevent continuous playback after your current video ends and you can adjust the timer to your liking—never prompt, after 1 hour, after 2 hours (the default setting), or after 3 hours. So that way you won’t wake up from your slumber to a really loud Gundam intro… oh but turn on the skip intro option then you won’t hear the loud music either! Ha! WIN!

Lastly is this cool Autoplay Countdown Time. With Plex Pass, you can customize the timer between videos when the "Up Next" screen appears. Set it to your preferred countdown time—immediate, 5 seconds, 10 seconds (default for mobile), 15 seconds (default for TV), 30 seconds, or 60 seconds. So you can Plex and Chill as long as you want! I set mine to 5 seconds so there’s very little wait time in between episodes.

A lot of these new features came from Plex listening to feedback. That’s pretty cool and we get to see real updates that add customizations even if it’s for a small subset of users. I’d love to know what feature is your fav or if the sky was the limit, what would you like to see Plex do?