Plex is an application useful to set up and manage your own media center, and connecting several devices within your network (or outside of it) to your home server, to stream media and enjoy your content wherever you are. In this regard it is similar to Emby, and you could compare both to find out their strong and weak points against each other. In this article we tell you about the changes introduced on the Plex Server 1.2.1 release. [Read:Plex vs Emby: A Comprehensive Comparison]
Plex lets you install channels, in order for you to be able to get interesting content. You can also enjoy your media library collection, and there are options to do it even if you are not at home. Some of the channels let you listen to music from independent artists around the world, such as the Plex SoundCloud Channel. Others let you look at live TV streams; this is the case of the Plex FilmOn Channel.
This Plex Server release is available for Plex Pass members and contains various improvements over the previous Plex Server version 1.1.4. With the release of Plex Server 1.2.1 , Plex gets the addition of a new feature called "Streaming Brain". This new feature will allow things such as limiting bandwidth on WAN uploads, or showing a reason for disconnection whenever your client loses connection with the server. It will also make it easier and more reliable to broadcast to different users from your server. Also with this release, the Plex Web interface is updated to Plex Web 2.9.3. You can see the complete list of changes on Plex Server 1.2.1 below.
New in Plex Server 1.2.1 release
New Feature - Streaming Brain.
(Streaming Brain) Preference for limiting bandwidth on WAN uploads. Limits can be per-stream and total.
(Streaming Brain) Playback session termination reasons are sent to the client and displayed to the user. This may require an updated client.
(Streaming Brain) Removed 'Prioritize streaming transcodes' preference. Background transcodes such as Sync, Media Optimizer, and video preview thumbnail generation are always prioritized behind streaming transcodes, and will pause completely if the simultaneous transcode limit is reached.
(Streaming Brain) Removed 'Cloud Sync upload speed limit' preference. Sync traffic automatically scales based on streaming WAN usage, and uses whatever bandwidth is left unused.
(Web) Updated Plex Web to 2.9.3.
(Relay) Allow multiple connections from PMS to relay servers. (#4894)
(Windows) Localize installer for Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese locales. (#5189)
(Linux) QNAP x64 packages for the new QTS 4.3 64bit firmware.
(Search) Duplicate results from different libraries now indicate the library of origin. (#4949)
(Search) Treat searches using a single non-ASCII character the same as a single ASCII character. (#5319)
(Linux) Local Media Agent errors when paths/files contained non-ASCII characters. (#5470)
(Linux) Fixed Readynas RN2xx build to work on ReadyNAS OS Firmware 6.6.0 (#5512)
A number of user-reported server crashes. (#5042) (#5459)
You can read more about these changes in the Plex Official Forum. If you're interested in finding out a good device to stream from your Plex server, you could take a look at the best Plex client devices and see if any of them suit your needs.
Install or upgrade Plex Server
You can follow the instructions in our guide to install Plex Server on Windows, if you use that operating system. Alternatively, stay tuned for more guides to install Plex in other devices such as Plex server on NVIDIA SHIELD. Enjoy managing and streaming your media with Plex Server!
Alejandro is an electrical engineer, working as a software developer and part-time writer. He has a passion for technology, languages and games, and has been around the web since 2004.
