With “Discovery”, Plex has now received an exciting new function that unites all streaming services.
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Plex brings all streaming services together under one roof
© Plex
There’s bad news and good news for Plex users these days. The bad news first: Plex is scrapping podcasts and web shows, making them unavailable after April 15, as reported in this developer post.
the
good news
But the thing is, Plex recently rolled out a new beta feature, Discovery, that gives users convenient access to all the content available on streaming services. In the Plex interface, users can use it to get an overview of the series and films that are available on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Apple TV+, Disney+ and other providers. In Germany, providers such as EntertainTV, RTL+, Sky Go, Sky Ticket and Alleskino are also taken into account.
Of course, you have to own or pay for the subscriptions for the individual services, and the apps of the streaming providers must also be installed on the device used (e.g. Android TV or iPad). The advantage of Plex Discover (Beta), however, is that users can choose from and search for all the content available on the streaming services in one interface.
All content from all providers under one roof
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Plex shows which streaming providers have films and series available
For example, you can use Plex search to search for the movie “Spider-Man 3”. In the search results, Plex will then show you where you can watch, buy, or rent the movie with your subscriptions. In this example, the movie is available through Amazon Prime Video, so clicking on the Prime Video icon will open the Amazon Prime Video app or website and you can start watching immediately.
If you search for “Vikings” via Plex Discover, you will learn that the series is included in the subscriptions of Prime Video and EntertainTV, among others. Alternatively, you will also receive information on where and at what prices the seasons of the series can be purchased.
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Plex shows the highlights of the subscribed streaming services
On the Discover Hub page in the Plex interface, the user will find all the new series and movies available on the services to which they are subscribed. In addition, the user finds out which films and series are currently particularly popular on Netflix & Co. All of this content can then be placed on a watchlist, which can be accessed on the home page via the new “Watchlist” tab.
Discover is available in the free version of Plex
Discover already works very well, as our first tests show. The function is still in beta and therefore needs improvement, but a good start has already been made. So far, for example, all content descriptions only appear in English. Here and there we also found that Plex Discover showed films as not available on our subscribed streaming services, although they are already available in Germany on Netflix or Prime Video, for example.
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The Green Knight is very well available with an Amazon Prime Video subscription
An example: The film “The Green Knight” with Dev Patel, which is well worth seeing, has recently become available here on Amazon Prime Video. In Plex Discover, however, the film was only offered to us for purchase on Amazon Video, Apple TV & Co.
But these are just teething troubles that will be resolved over the next few weeks. Discover (Beta) is already available with the free version of Plex. If you want to use Plex with more functions, you can buy the Plex Pass, which costs 5 euros per month. Various functions for film and series fans are added here, such as the option of downloading the content stored on the Plex server to local devices across all platforms so that you can also view it without an Internet connection.
