Really disappointed with the EX2 apps

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud EX2
1

I’ve been playing around with some of the apps on the EX2 and frankly they are really disappointing; much like the stuff you get with a new Windows Laptop; trial version or simply badly written software.

1, QuickFynd Server is a trial app.
2. Milestone Arcus only has 2 license (which are not really licenses per se but just a limitation of 2 cameras)
3. Plex Media Server requires some kind of subscription and on the client side TV it requires a monthly fee also.

The main grievance one is the Milestone Arcus Surveillance App of which streaming doesn’t work on my Safari (ok fine) but trying to record the 2 license that is allowed was a pain in the neck even though I could see that two of my cameras were streaming, I could not save.

When I tried to see how much each camera license was when clicking “buy license” it told me that my App software is out of date of which I had just downloaded it from the App store.

48 PM
48 PM583×381 45.3 KB

yeah right… so after extensive fooling around without any recording, I decided to give up.

Tried out Transmission which told me that a file eta was 7 days when it only took 10 minutes on my Mac. Delete.

Tried out Plex Media Server and of course it would cost me $7 a month for the Plex App on my Sony TV, so scratch that.

The only useful apps that really aren’t Apps are DLNA and iTunes server which after extensive scanning of 100 mp3s, which also seems to keep my EX2 awake, showed up nicely on my Sony STRDN1080 receiver for streaming and itune Server showed up in my iTunes.

Of the 16 apps not including DLNA or iTunes Server, none of them were useful. However I am comparing Apples to mandarins, Apples being QNAP, of which to be truthful I didn’t buy the EX2 for its apps but I had always thought they were a bit more extensive.

Perhaps the few web apps might be useful someday like the phpMyAdmin, Joomla or phpbb which will make my EX2 into a web server.

2

Completely incorrect. I have never paid one dime for Plex. Most of it is free, although there are premium optional features that do cost and are subscription based. The Plex website explains it all.

With the FREE part of PLEX I can have it:
Compile the media files on my NAS and I can stream it all to my Roku,Amzon Fire TV and to my iPhone, IPad.

It can even stream this stuff remotely and I can enjoy music and movies using the Safari browser.

How is this for free?

1 Like
3

ok as I rushed through the testing I saw subscriptions on both sides, however with your post, thank you for that, I went back and linked my Plex accounts and committed my EX2 plex server to be my one and only… and now I’m watching a plex movie… which is coming from… my connected USB My Book Duo…

interesting…

k… I’ll need to check out plex to my iPhone and Safari too…

Thank you…

pfffft… Playback on this device is limited until the app is activated: you can remove playback restrictions by purchasing a plex pass, or with a one-time purchase.

Activate costs $6.99

ok fine… works but limited… you have to scroll all the way down to skip this…

pfffft… in order to play on the iPhone I need to activate the app for $6.99 otherwise guess what the limitations are… 1 minute of play time… like what the… delete delete… delete… remove… uninstall…

So I loaded it up on my Apple TV… monthly 6.99, yearly $53.99, and lifetime $209.99 or until the company folds in 2 year…

Yeah… I don’t know…

Perhaps someday… I do need to get all my media organized as right now it is all on the big 20TB ex2 mixed alongside with my photos, ebooks and junk… Perhaps moving all my photos over to the My Book Duo and only my media stays on the EX2 Ultra serving Plex.

4

OK, I stand corrected, there were small charges for the APP from Apple Store. Big deal. I am not averse to buying an app – many of the good ones cost money.

Anyway. I have app on iPhone and 2 iPads. I believe I paid once for iPad and put it on second one at no charge.

I think the app for Roku and Amazon Fire TV did not ha charge. Blame Apple for the highway robbery.

So get your EX2 organized so you can better use it!

5

true that good apps are worth it and Plex does look nice but you can’t blame Apple for the charge as it is Plex that is asking for the $7 and not Apple. Apple gets 30% of it.

I am currently using Air Video HD server which runs on my Mac mini beside my TV, which allows me to stream my whole My Cloud without restructuring, scanning or compiling my media library. I can stream to my iPhone and iPad while on the road.

The WD Cloud app also allows me to click on any movie file and VLC starts up on my iPhone so there is that too.

Lastly I use Infuse on my Apple TV at which all I need to do is point it at My Cloud as a whole and it groups the episode files together and presents it to me like Netflix does.

However I will spend some time testing out Plex and see how much work I will need to go full Plex around here :stuck_out_tongue: but seriously I hate the fact that there are subscriptions everywhere and that alone is enough to make me uninstall everything.

Thanks for your input…

6

The one thing that I absolutely need on my EX2 is for it to sleep when it isn’t in use.

My EX2 hasn’t been sleeping for a few days now, so I started turning off services like the iTunes server, the Arcus Surveillance APP and finally the Plex server.

It was the Plex server keeping the device awake. I have 4 movies and about 100 MP3. So it seems to be a choice of a sleeping EX2 or an EX2 that is on 24/7 running Plex.

7

One benefit of a NAS is “no computer needed, nor even turned on” to enjoy my media, so the last thing I want or need is a computer near my TV; even a small Mac Mini. I do keep the older iPad close by neat TV for streaming music from NAS to play via BT or google casting, and to use apps/devices like Chromecast.

Don’t get the wrong impression, for the most part I never was a big fan or user of Plex. In fact, I even insulted it a few times in these forums for being an overblown and storage hog app. But recent usage during the past few months shed a new light on its utility.

In fact, I recently posted a glowing report on a cool feature of Plex and Alexa working together. I posted a link all through the NAS section of the forum In case you did not see the post.
Here is the link:

So, do like I did and spend some time with Plex, because it can grow on you.

8

An EX2 is a mini computer featuring a Marvell ARMADA 385 1.3GHz Dual-Core SoC along with 1GB of DDR3 RAM. Unfortunately it is a very underpowered computer at that; one that takes a week to “transmission” a file.

The main difference is that the Mac actually sleeps and wakes on lan only when I access the Air Video app. Also because I can remote into it, I have various programs running on it which is better than the Apps that you get on an EX2.

I completely understand why you are enamoured with Plex. A cursory glance at Plex shows it is the media organizer that we have been waiting for since the very first days of having a hard drive full of media. We always wanted the Netflix/Apple Media display with movie summaries and previews with trailers.

The problem with Plex is that if you want all the features you will need to subscribe.

Take for instance, I decided to add my 100 test MP3 to Plex and up pops this selection of

Create a premium Plex music library.
Access to the best artwork, artist bios, album reviews, and more
Smart mixes based on track or mood
improved music recognition and matching

Create a basic music library

Of course I would like to create a premium Plex Music Library and when I clicked on it up pops

21 AM
21 AM584×372 21.8 KB

Yeah right… my new Sony TV is filled with in-app purchases too

So I had to create a Basic Music Library and there are no Album covers… yup… very basic… square boxes with my album name. Perhaps I should have infused it with my iTunes metadata?

With all this said… I mentioned infuse for my Apple TV and it is a subscription at $13/year or $60 for life. It does exactly what Plex does summarizing movies, groups episodes together to provide a single season thumbnail. Great little App.

The major differences are

  1. that it converts the format on the fly,
  2. it doesn’t scan the whole hard drive for media, only when you navigate into the directory and it groups your movies together.
  3. wakes up the EX2 when in use and leaves my EX2 alone when not active.
  4. provided me a whole month trial time with no limits which basically sold me as I used it (without all these limits that tempts you with create a premium music library and then pops up saying “AHAH not until you give me money!!”
  5. cheap one year of service for only $12

Don’t get me wrong that I am totally against Plex as it seems to be the killer app that I’ve been looking for all my life, but so far with all the nagging request for subscriptions, it really encourages me to click on the uninstall button.

I’ll keep adding media to Plex and let it grow on me.

BTW I’m guessing that you will be offering me a discount code for the Plex subscription in which you will get your commission :stuck_out_tongue:

9

JUST SAY NO! when pop up appear about subscriptions. They eventuality stop. I have no need for the advanced feature offered by the pass. and will not buy one. I find graphics and IMDB movie data here intrusive and a waste of storage space. Also not crazy about Infuse for same reason. Infuse is only on my iPad, and i sure do not want that ■■■■ using up my iPad storage.

Anyway, you have all my points, so we can cease and desist now. I am surprised you had no comments about the post link I gave you.

10

what kind of comments would you like me to make :stuck_out_tongue:

here is one… pfffffffft… I am not an Alexa fan

hey plex doesn’t play mkv?

26 PM
26 PM696×258 46.7 KB

Wow… I almost activated my iPhone copy and was thinking about a yearly subscription for $65…
60% sold then I realized that I’m missing SOME of my .mkv movie files…
man…

11

No comment other than: We do not live on the same planet. What a sour attitude you have. Don’t make me wish I had not tried to help.

hey plex doesn’t play mkv?

Hey, I don’t care. That’s why I have a WDTV, use Kodi, MrMC, etc. I have plenty of same movies as mp4 for remote using (like with Plex) . Duh.
Adios, mi amigo.

12

I know…

Adios

@mike27oct… ok the answer to the perplexing missing files is this…

TV shows, which has seasons and episodes, are not recognized under Movies (some do but then you get this mess of individual TV shows), but if you drop the TV shows into the TV folder and rescan, they are picked up provided that they recognize the tv show name. Plus they are all collected into a single thumbnail by season and episodes.

So you have done a great job in selling it by motivating me to dig deeper otherwise I would have just discarded it.

Now to debate whether I should subscribe for a year or just activate it.

My Thanks

13

Use it AS IS for a month, learn its quirks, then make your decision to subscribe or not. Like I said, for what I want from Plex, FREE use is fine for me.

And loose that sour attitude. Look before you leap.

1 Like
14

Yes, it is Plex. I noticed that a few years ago, and when I turned off Plex things got a lot calmer. Way back when, I hardly ever used Plex I kept it off and only turned it on if I wanted to use it. Once I wanted to use it more I kept it on and searched Plex settings for way to calm it down.

I found it was scanning way too often as the default, so I changed it to scan if any change is detected and only do a daily scan.This had a calming effect, I found the control in Settings/Library.

Let me know if you find others you may change.

15

Yes, that has been bothering me all day today as I had to turn off Plex yesterday night due to rampant activity on my EX2 all night. With my TV off and no other devices accessing my Plex account, my EX2 was gurgling all night long with a flurry of internet activity flickering on the ethernet switch LEDs.

All this activity started after mapping a WAN port for iPhone testing. Prior to my mapping, when I turned Plex OFF the EX2 would sleep, now it doesn’t sleep at all.

This really concerns the sour side of me as I am very vigilant on all devices that doesn’t sleep at night.

I can hear the gurgling of my hard drive all night and my EX2 fan would ramp up to 8000 RPM. This happened several times through the night as I sat at the computer beside the EX2. I had to run my script that turns down the RPM of my Fan.

I suspect that even turning off Plex on the Apps menu, something is still running which means that I need a script to kill it. In addition we might need to turn off the port. Not sure what is going on but I don’t know if I want my main EX2 to be a Plex server. This is all fine and dandy on a Test EX2 that contains only the music that I want to listen to and movies that I want to watch; perhaps this might be the extent that I will use Plex.

I am on the fence at the moment on how much I trust Plex. With a port open to the internet and a Plex server that has basically categorized all my data, I am dubious, very dubious just like I’ve been dubious about the WD servers for years.

16

In addition to turning off Plex, the ports must also be turned off for EX2 to sleep.

17

I do not want to mess with ports. If settings in Plex do not quiet it enough I would just turn it off completely in NAS.

18

In terms of APPS: I kinda view “apps” on the EX2 in the same way I view “channels” on a Roku Stick or apps in the various iOS/Android app stores:

I view apps with suspicion, and don’t try to run anything unless I have
(a) a good idea what the app does
(b) a good idea that the app will work.

I generally don’t have enough time on this earth to waste it on useless software shoveled out on various products.

In terms of PLEX, that is an APP I do use.
I can’t test it at the moment, but I am pretty sure PLEX will stream MKV files. I am pretty sure that I have done this in the past (using a PC as the server).

HOWEVER, to stream MKV files, the server needs to transcode the file to the user. I am pretty sure transcoding from the EX2 ultra is a bit problematic because the processor is too weak. It is impossible from a Passport Wireless Pro. . . so now I generally just PLEX handbrake-converted files. This also has the advantage that I can use those files directly on a tablet, or using a TWONKY server.

For PLEX, it is free to stream to a PC or to stream to a ROKU stick. . .and that’s all I need. I know you have to pay to stream PLEX to an IOS or Android Device. Being “cheap” when it comes to software, I have chosen not to do that. ESPECIALLY because I find that my Android and IOS devices can readed my “converted” media files using the twonky servers on my EX2 and passport wireless gizmos.

One could argue that you don’t really need PLEX at all if you have a decent twonky setup. . .there is merit to that argument. Plex does have the advantage of being able to stream across the internet. . . which really does work.

But my internet connections have proven flaky enough that I now just travel with the media files on a hard drive (the Passport wireless Pro if I am determined to stream, or a standard 4TB device if I simply use the files directly to a PC). I also go back-and-forth on whether or not I REALLY want my home network to have exposed internet ports.

As for compatibility with Apple TV for media- - - I gave up on that. Closed architecture is for the birds. Just as easy to stream to a Roku stick.

For Music. . . its a bit different game than for movies because of playlists and short songs. At this point… . . I use an ipod streaming to a stereo via airplay (Apple TV on one system; a Denon receiver with Airplay on the other). At home, I have used windows media player streaming to the Denon receiver - - > works well enough; although I tend to use the ipod just for ease of use. I avoid iTunes when I can because of the closed architecture.

In terms of PLEX and drive sleep: I have not seen this problem; although I think I looked for and found a setting early on to prevent PLEX from scanning my libraries I think that did the trick. It’s not like I add content THAT often that I can’t initiate the appropriate twonky and PLEX media scans manually.

1 Like
19

and yes it does play MKV files. To ensure that Plex recognizes all your files, you have to carefully organize them in Movies or TV Shows when adding them to Plex.

  1. TV shows has to go into the TV Show folder so they get grouped together as Season and episodes.
  2. Movies can go into the Movie Folder which is a one to one category; no grouping.

If you drop a mixture of movies, tv shows and others into a movie Folder, it really gets confused. TV shows are un-grouped with individual covers. Series with uncommon names like “2 of 9” are treated like a Movie file and finally some never makes it into the viewing selection of cause unknown.

yeah… not happening… :stuck_out_tongue:
I’ve been an Apple TV guy since 2010 and I had to painstakingly convert movies into .MP4, stuff them into iTunes, just so I can play them on my TV.

However luckily Plex does play 1080P .MKV directly from the EX2 Ultra without any problems. I’ve only tested it out on an evening of watching a bunch of Plex shows streamed to Plex on an Apple TV 4k.

Ports needs to be turned off and Plex OFF in the Apps Menu before sleep will ensue.

My personal summary,
I like it a lot but it takes too much effort in organizing my media files. I just want to drop everything into Plex and say, here go look at my files and organize it,

Currently I do use Infuse for Apple TV for $12/year and it does it in real time as you navigate into the folder of movies. Suddenly covers of the movie shows up, description is added and so on. TV Shows are grouped together so if you have a bunch that has S02E08 formats it is grouped with similar TV show names.

Plex might be my future, like if I did that for a complete EX2 media center, it would be my dream of having a personal Netflix/Apple media center.

20

After all this Plex discussion, I have decided to keep Plex turned off in my WD DL2100, because there is only one thing I find it useful enough for to use it from time to time. That use is so I can say, Alexa, ask Plex to play music by a certain artist (example: Alexa, ask Plex to play The Beatles) After which a random mix of the artist’s tracks from the My Cloud begin playing to my stereo directly from an Alexa Dot, or via the Roku if I want to see the list of tracks being played. This feature is pretty cool, although I also have other ways to play music from NAS.

I never use Plex to play videos/movies. I have better devices for that,like a WDTV (which I got in 2011 and have never needed to transcode any videos so I can play them) as well as via Amazon Fire TV with Kodi app that also plays any format of video, too.

I also can easily turn Plex back on by using the Dashboard running in the Safari browser on an iPad.

I came to this conclusion after ramping down the Plex scan setting which reduced the frequency of scans, but not by enough. Plex works the NAS drives too hard constantly, but it doesn’t at all if Plex is turned off.

BTW, here is a link to a recent post of mine if anyone wants to set up “Plexa” to play music via voice commands:

1 Like