A big day for media streaming company, Plex. What used to be a simple, Mac-only media streaming service has transformed into one of the most functional, attractive multi-platform media consumption apps on the market.
By installing the server program on your Windows or OS X machine, you can stream content to any of your mobile devices — or another desktop device, through the client — such as Android, iOS, Windows Phone and now BlackBerry PlayBook. Each app is available to download for $4.99.
In addition to a new web-based content viewer called Plex/Web, which was previously only available to monthly-subscribing PlexPass members and has now been made public, the company updated its iOS app to include a much-requested feature. PlexSync allows users to cache content onto their iOS devices for viewing without an internet connection. The feature is apparently coming to Android phones and tablets in the coming weeks, and the company won’t comment on when the Windows Phone app will be updated.
PlexSync is available for PlexPass members during the beta period, but it will be a separate premium feature when all the bugs are worked out. The media server deals with the correct transcoding, and provides album/movie art as well as intelligent timing; it will stop the process if you decide to stream a video, for example. PlexSync also works with content outside of your local PC: it can sync video from various Channels such as Vimeo and YouTube. The company has also opened a PlexSync API for developers to make the feature even better.
Plex has also released a BlackBerry PlayBook app for the long-suffering tablet. Available for $4.99, it looks to have many of the primary features of the other apps, but lacks the up-to-date feature set of the iOS app.
Download Plex for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and PlayBook.
Via: GigaOm
