Almost immediately after Google TV’s software update added the ability to download and install custom applications, a major new capability appears by way of a Plex client. For those unfamiliar, Plex is an excellent, full-featured media server and organizer. Initially, it was developed for Mac OS X, but a Windows version is now available as well. As a stand-alone product, it allows viewing of saved video content in a wide variety of file formats as well as supporting plug-ins to provide an integrated UI for viewing streaming video content from various websites. However, it also supports streaming the content to remote Plex clients, either on your LAN network or over the internet.
The Google TV capable Plex client marks the second time in the last six months that Plex added support on a device that already supports video streaming. (It was previously offered as a free client for Roku boxes.)
Theoretically, a Google TV should be able to view streaming content offered by any media server supporting the uPnP/DLNA protocol. Unfortunately, there appears to be small variations in the standard that cause incompatibilities. (I know personally, I’ve been using a free DLNA streaming server product called TVMOBiLi. My Samsung plasma TV streams video from it without any issues, but my Google TV can’t see a listing of any shared content after it makes the initial connection with it.) Plex uses a proprietary method of streaming its content, but one that works quite well and includes the ability to transcode some video formats into others on the fly, ensuring compatibility with devices that can’t handle the original formats.
The Plex client for Google TV sells for $4.99 in the Android marketplace (same price as their iOS client). Currently, its developers say Google TV lacks support for Plex’s full video transcoding capabilities, but they don’t expect this to pose a problem in most cases. Generally, a Google TV is used on the same LAN with a Plex media server, so transcoding video to compress it for internet transmission isn’t an issue. Remote laptop support was also deliberately disabled, since Google TVs already have their own remote controls. Otherwise, the client is fully functional, including support for the new “myPlex” service that supports a universal video queue. The queue remembers where you left off watching content on one device, so you can pick up where you left off on another device.
If you own a Google TV, adding a Plex client (and Plex server on an available computer in the house) is worth serious consideration. You get an excellent UI for browsing and playing back your online video collection (and even your iTunes music library, if you allow Plex server to share it), but no duplication of Google TV’s own functionality for the live television and TV guide capabilities it has built-in. Google themselves liked it enough to invite the developers to prepare Plex for the initial Google TV marketplace launch and $4.99 is a small price to pay for the boost in functionality.
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