Plex Raises Premium Subscription Prices for First Time in Decade (www.plex.tv)
- Reference: 0176772885
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/03/19/1928245/plex-raises-premium-subscription-prices-for-first-time-in-decade
- Source link: https://www.plex.tv/blog/important-2025-plex-updates/
The price increase applies to new and existing subscriptions, with the exception of existing Lifetime Plex Pass holders, the company said.
[1] https://www.plex.tv/blog/important-2025-plex-updates/
Clarifying on Remote Streaming (Score:3)
Per TFA:
> IMPORTANT NOTE FOR CURRENT PLEX PASS HOLDERS:
> For users who have an active Plex Pass subscription, remote playback will continue to be available to you without interruption from any Plex Media Server, after these changes go into effect. When running your own Plex Media Server as a subscriber, other users to whom you have granted access can also stream from the server (whether local or remote), without ANY additional charge—not even a mobile activation fee.
so if you have a Plex Pass that remains active (including lifetime) any subscribers you have can still stream from your server without having to purchase a Plex Pass.
Re: (Score:1)
Its not about the streaming itself with their license. Youre basically paying for the online presence of your server that lets you use the Plex app on your streaming boxes, the liveTV and DVR software and program guide, and a few other features. Using the non-licensed media server limits you to a web player for playback.
Plex = Subscription-Ware (Score:1)
Yes, some of my friends were telling me about Plex and how you can install it on your own server as an app and then use it. But I looked at it once and refused to use it because I knew that it's going to get monetized and become subscription-ware.
I helped my friend fix a problem on his Plex server at home streaming in his home to another television that was too slow because his local connection was fast, but his local server was trying to transcode everything in real time slowing everything down to a crawl
Re: (Score:2)
That's why I shifted to Jellyfin. I don't think it directly supports remote streaming - but that is likely solved with some dynamic dns tricks.
Re: (Score:2)
I ditched Plex ages ago when I noticed it was phoning home. What it was phoning home about, I never checked. I just went with Jellyfin which has been juuuuust fine along with a VPN into my network for remote access. (you can of course expose the web interface, if you like, but I don't). The worst thing about Jellyfin is that the music playing app on the Roku is lacking some features, but I can live with that. The mobile app is excellent.
Re: (Score:2)
Jellyfin doesn't have an easy way to use it on the most popular brand of TV
I would have already switched, but I have a Samsung TV
Re: (Score:2)
It doesnt transcode if you record your shit in the right format to begin with.
Re: (Score:2)
It transcodes based on the available bandwidth and the decoding capabilities of the client device (like if you're still rockin' an old Android tablet that can't do HEVC). Technically, you can have multiple copies of the same content on your server if you don't want to use real-time transcoding, but depending on the size of your media library, that can eat up a lot of drive space.
Some people are also just kind of masochistic and don't mind watching 700mb H.264 rips on their 4k TV, so their content streams e
Re: (Score:2)
I always do H.264/265 1080p and use AC3 or EAC3 for the surround. A vast majority of streaming boxes support that. I use handbrake for the encoding and MakeMKV for the ripping. I did find doing h.265 at 1080p resulted in much better upscaling from my tv.
Re: (Score:2)
Or you can use hardware transcoding on any recent Intel or Nvidia GPU and not care.
My Plex server has a GeForce 1050 in it, shared into the docker container. Transcoding 4k streams is child's play and makes the CPU go from 3% to 5%. Oh no!
Re: (Score:2)
I would imagine 4k files are quite huge. I rip 1080p and sometimes use h.265 on the really big files to reduce the filesize. But I do have like 460 movies I ripped from Bluray. I found a decent h.265 rip at 1080p upscales really nicely.
Re: Plex = Subscription-Ware (Score:2)
Can't do hardware transcoding without a Plex pass.
Re: (Score:2)
Quite a few years ago one of my friends asked if i wanted access to his Plex server. Even back then, the mobile app was paid. I said "yes" to my friend just to be polite, and then never used it beyond the free trial.
I think at the time I was still using a modded Xbox with XBMC (which later became Kodi) connected to the TV in my living room. That Xbox actually seemed fine until I upgraded from the 40" 720p plasma TV to the 55" 4k TV that I have now.
No one escapes death (Score:2)
And no one escapes inflation.
I never saw the value in Plex (Score:1)
I've got a home media server and use Kodi on a mix of Fire Sticks and Onn (Walmart's rather inexpensive Android TV device) boxes with the TVs in my household. There's no need to do any real-time transcoding since the heavy lifting can be done just fine by the playback hardware (my content is a mix of H.264 and H.265).
From what I understand, Plex somewhat simplifies making your content available to devices external to your network, but anytime I've actually wanted to watch something away from home, it's jus
Re: (Score:1)
> "anytime I've actually wanted to watch something away from home, it's just been a lot simpler bringing a portable NVME drive with me and not having to worry about the unreliability"
^ This
I don't get why it is such a big deal. It takes just a little forethought and a few minutes to throw on some interesting content. And I have so much space on my tablet, phone, and Linux laptop, I just have local copies of ALL my music and photos on each one. An occasional sync and done. No/slow/bad network? Who car
Re: (Score:2)
Conversely Kodi would absolutely murder Plex if they would ever finish their central library feature
So what are the pros and cons of Jellyfin folks? (Score:2)
So any body have any idea on what the pros and cons of Jellyfin are versus Plex?
Re: So what are the pros and cons of Jellyfin folk (Score:2)
Jellyfin gives you a highly configurable system that is free and open source.
Plex offers compatibility with more equipment out of the box as well as flexibility in what you can use as a server - a nvidia shield TV works well as a plex server and client apps are available on many smart tvs without having to sideload.
There is also plex TV, which is a free streaming service along the same lines as pluto.tv.
I terms of performance and capability for playing your own media I'd say there isn't a lot in it. I think
Re: So what are the pros and cons of Jellyfin folk (Score:2)
Jellyfin uses far more ram on the server, doesn't have an app on my TV and the mobile app can't keep subtitles in sync with the video.
On the other hand, it will do hardware encoding with paying a subscription.
Another Product Wrongly Given Open-Source Creed (Score:1)
Joining the Raspberry Pi and the Unity gaming engine, we have yet another baffling commercial product/service touted by an army of brownoser influencer sycophants. Seeing where they are...and to think that I might have accidentally had coffee with them. : (
Ouch (Score:2)
Glad I got a lifetime pass when I did then. Inflation marches on and profit-price spirals continue elsewhere.
Re:Ouch (Score:4, Informative)
As the new prices don't kick-in until next month, it would be a good time to get a lifetime pass for anyone considering it.
Re: (Score:1)
Doesn't sound sustainable to me unless the business model is based on mostly recycling old content. I can actually imagine deliberately limiting new content to what they can "profitably" afford, but mostly it looks like a way to waste time with the wastage fraction rising over time. My time may not be worth much, but I still feel like I'm wasting it almost every time I actually look at a TV program or video. (I do listen to some, which sometimes triggers a look at the screen.) And not feeling interested eno
Re: Ouch (Score:2)
Their free linear tv service, which is actually pretty good IMO as far as linear tv goes, is ad supported, so I reckon that can continue for a while, especially considering e.g. Netflix gets higher ARPU on their lowest price tier.
Re: (Score:3)
So you dont know what a Plex media server is or does then.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe.. maybe not. First of all: this looks like corporate enshitification. Even the existing $4.99/month is a bit high for a service that is not much system resources on the service side. It's basically paying $60 every year for a piece of software that would traditionally be a one-time payment. For example: Windows 10 Home cost about $60, and that cost gets you set for several years at least until the next major upgrade.
It's sketch that their cost of maintenance for a piece of software that i
Re: (Score:2)
Don't worry, I'm sure they are already working on a plan to rescind those lifetime licenses. They just doubled the lifetime 'plan' and upped the annual plan by 60%. That's not a company looking out for their users. They are in squeeze mode, and they will either continue squeezing until the last drop, or they just want to generate some extra cash now to clean up the balance sheet for some takeover by a company that will do it.
Main question is when and how. Perhaps they'll allow you to use some old 'unsupport