Internet TV on WMC7 extenders!

[BCloud]

Its Back baby!

After searching the web with no answer, pure nerdy obsession, and a fierce determination to not to pay for Xbox Live; I've managed to come up with a workaround to get Online content back on WMC extender!

WMC is enabled for DLNA by default so I knew there had to be a way! On the plus side, what ever Plex can queue should be viewable in WMC!

What you will need:

-A valid Plex account
-Plex media Server with desired plugins and dlna enabled
-Tubecore (full or trial) installed on your WMC7 machine.

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Setup Steps:

1) Install your WMC extender (Google it!)

2) Install Plex on your WMC7 HTPC and your desired plugins, and enable DLNA (browse plex forums, and youtube for setup details).

3) Install Tubecore (Trial or full version).

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Open Tubecore and select Plex-media server


Select video


Select Video Channels


Tada! Online content in WMC!


Enjoy!

Cons:

-The Plex netflix plugin is a launcher and does not work within WMC. whatever plays within plex should work within WMC from my testing so far.
-The HULU plugin for plex does not work. It does however work within the plex browser. But I was unable to get it to work. This may be due to hulu discontinuing Rss support. (you guys are welcome to give another crack.)

[lithium630]

PlayOn would give you access to Netflix and Hulu, but it's not free.

[barnabas1969]

Nothing really new here. You can do this with TubeCore + PlayOn as well. Netflux/Hulu used to work in PlayOn, but it kinda sucked (because it's DLNA). I don't know if Netflix via PlayOn works anymore, because I cancelled my PlayOn account. Netflix playback would break occasionally (because Netflix would change something) and required an updated to the PlayOn server to get it working again.

[BCloud]

Agreed, Playon does offer those services, but for me as a cord cutter it defeats the purpose to pay for anything. Free is the key!
I will however pay for the full version tubecore though.

Plex to my knowledge has more flexibility than playon. You can queue content from the web with plex it, access your content on your mobile or web browser, WMC extender, and not to mention all this is free.

[lithium630]

Most of what I watch comes from Netflix and Hulu. The quality of PlayOn streams suck though. How is it with Plex?

[BCloud]

Most of what I watch comes from Netflix and Hulu. The quality of PlayOn streams suck though. How is it with Plex?

Quality is varied based on your plex video players settings. Mine is set for 1080p 8mbps on LAN, and 720p 4mpbs over the internet. For me playback looks close to TV quality. You can also adjust the buffer size in the tubecore settings to improve play back smoothness.

- the plex netflix plugin I've found is a launcher for netflix.com.
- the plex Hulu plugin is able to find the video but fails to play.

[IownFIVEechos]

Could someone be kind and explain to me the way the tubecore works? I looked at the webpage and did not get a clear understanding? Is it the middle man to allow the WMC to talk to Plex? And once all this is talking nicely will it show up on extenders (xbox and echo?). And can I get MLB on it? As well does it offer a web browser too? And have you tried to PlexSync yet? Can you Sync a WTV recording right to the ipad and android device with no issues? Thanks, I am not current on this topic.

[barnabas1969]

TubeCore is simply a DLNA client that runs in Media Center (even on extenders). It will allow you to play audio/video from any DLNA server on your network.

[BCloud]

According to plex forums it support most formats including WTV and dvr-ms playback. However it does appear to have a hard time pulling metadata from dvr-ms files. Another thing I've found is that tubecore does not offer a search function. It would be 4 stars for me if it did.

[IownFIVEechos]

Great, thanks guys for the response. Does anyone know of a place that lists all the available plug ins for Plex?

[IownFIVEechos]

I found what I needed from my previous post. Sounds like I should install it to see what's available. But can a user who has an echo let me know if they have been successful in using PLEX onto the echo?

[BCloud]

Great, thanks guys for the response. Does anyone know of a place that lists all the available plug ins for Plex?

A lot of the plugins can be found within Plex. Some can be downloaded and added manually.link You would then need to restart the plex server application. Here you can also find the hulu plugin.

[werds]

So not having looked too hard at this... would Netflix be easily navigable using a remote control in this use case? And not by a hardware geek or one of our ilk... I mean by my wife who is happy that WMC is basically a souped up Cable Box... (as little learning curve as possible)

Useability is the only thing slowing me from adding most of these cool plugins for use

[BCloud]

So not having looked too hard at this... would Netflix be easily navigable using a remote control in this use case? And not by a hardware geek or one of our ilk... I mean by my wife who is happy that WMC is basically a souped up Cable Box... (as little learning curve as possible)

Useability is the only thing slowing me from adding most of these cool plugins for use

Netflix does not work in this setup, please refer to the OP. the netflix plugin is launcher for the website. WMC doesn't have a built in browser to support this.

[werds]

Netflix does not work in this setup, please refer to the OP. the netflix plugin is launcher for the website. WMC doesn't have a built in browser to support this.

Darn missed that part as I stopped reading as soon as I saw the netflix icon lol...

[BCloud]

For those that use Amazon prime I've found the Plex plugin. I haven't tried it yet. So I'm eager to see if it works.

Link

[barnabas1969]

@werds: If you pay for a PlayOn subscription, Netflix works via TubeCore. It's a very clunky interface though, and not very reliable. I tried it for a year, and it stopped working so often that it wasn't really worth the bother. I ended up just buying BD players that had Netflix apps on them for all the bedrooms.

[IownFIVEechos]

Would this setup make sense?

1.) For live tv and dvr I still use my working echos.
2.) For things like Amazon Video/hulu/Netflix/mlb.tv I invest in the roku 3, I then put the roku PLEX channel on a Plex server and I can access my DVR'd wtv files? Two small devices.

[lithium630]

Roku is definitely the way to go for streaming. I used the plex client to watch recorded tv while on vacation. Not 100% reliable but it worked pretty well.

[BCloud]

I'm working on a HULU workaround right now. For that same reason. I would hate have to buy another device when all us consumers want is everything we love in one spot. I'll have it posted today.