Roku Channel Review - Plex Parental Controls Are (finally) Here!

 

  Late on the night of November 24th, I received a notification via email. It had finally happened. Plex finally announced long overdue parental controls. The folks at Plex even admit it themselves - these controls are years overdue. But alas, they are here. For those like myself who use Plex as their primary media server and have little ones in the home who shouldn't have easy access to some of the content, this is big news. In January, I wrote about what I feel is an excellent alternative known as RARflix which I still use to this day. Though effective, RARflix requires establishing multiple Plex accounts, and sharing the portions of your Plex library that you want those accounts to have access to. You can then password protect any or all of those profiles using your Roku remote. Again, this works once all set up. But the fact is, Plex users shouldn't have to go through this type of setup. There should be native parental controls.

   Plex pulls this all together with a new feature called Plex Home. Simply select "Check For Updates" via your Plex server icon and it should grab the latest version, 0.9.11.4 (although thanks to the auto-update feature built in it should have already updated on its own). You'll then need to grab the Plex Test Chanel for Roku. It is important to note here that to take full advantage of this new awesomeness, you need to be a Plex Pass subscriber.

   Quick and simple: 1. The server updates. 2. You add the Roku channel. Boom - done! On top of that, Plex did an excellent job making the user setup as simple as can be via the server UI - a process they refer to as Creating A Plex Home. A very common sense approach: add a user, name the user, and if you want it to be a secured user enter a PIN. On the Plex Home website, there's an example Home setup that illustrates this effective simplicity.

   Once completed, my setup looks like this:

   As this is new, it is not without at least on shortcoming. Oddly enough, the shortcoming is on the most important screen - the login screen itself. Not sure about anyone else, but I have one son in particular who likes to play the "I bet I can guess your password" game. As such, he often tries to sneak up on me to try to figure out the PIN and/or password for my cell phone or tablet, or the current PIN for RARflix. Thus, the problem with the current Plex PIN entry screen is that anyone can see your PIN as you are entering it because you have to navigate to each number on the keypad to select it:

   For the sake of Roku users, perhaps Plex will want to adopt a different approach. As for RARflix, the password is setup via the Roku as an admin user and is actually a directional pad combination (ex. - UP, DOWN, DOWN, UP, LEFT). Thus when entered at the login screen, there is no visible keypad but a blank area that displays asterisks as the directional pad is used:

   Other than that, I have had no other issues with this new setup. I applaud everyone at Plex for finally bringing this much needed feature to the most important element of my cord cutting universe!

   Have you created a Plex Home? If so, please share your thoughts on it below!

'Tis The Season For Online Safety

  In this age of online everything, perhaps one of my favorite things is online shopping. I often say it was invented for men - most guys like myself don't get all too excited about hopping in the car, driving somewhere, and shuffling around a store trying to buy 1 or 2 things. With online shopping, from the comfort of where ever I happen to be at the moment, I can snag what I'm looking for and in most cases have it by the next day.

   And during the Christmas shopping season, online shopping is the perfect tool for the consummate procrastinator - which I'm at times guilty of being myself. And speaking of shuffling around a store, what bigger pain is there for a guy like me than shuffling around a store with wall-to-wall glassy eyed Christmas shoppers?

   It doesn't take an accounting genius to recognize that online shopping is huge business. According to the statistics portal Statista, retail e-commerce sales in the United States alone jumped from around $42 billion in 2002 to around $210.6 billion in 2013.   As one can imagine (or learn by simply watching the news), a considerable percentage of this revenue comes during the holiday season with popular shopping days such as Cyber Monday and Black Friday. As per the norm where big money is concerned, so comes the criminal element circling like hungry sharks waiting for the chance to feed on unsuspecting victims. The holiday shopping season is often the feeding frenzy time for these criminals.

   Without question, online attacks and threats are nothing new. But with the ever-growing amount of private information being shared online for multiple reasons, with shopping being perhaps the most popular among them, I feel that it's important for everyone to have some basic guidelines and tips for navigating the waters as safely as possible. First off, one needs to know what to look out for.

Phishing

  This particularly nasty (and actually pretty genius) form of threat typically involves legitimate - looking websites that trick people into sharing user names, password, or other sensitive information. The hope is that you won't realize you're not actually at "Bank of ____" 's website and will unassumingly provide this information. Then, they can use this to log into your real accounts and....well, I think you get the picture.

Online Scams

   I often joke about how I actually don't need to work another day in my life, given the amount of money that has been entrusted to me by every Nigerian prince that ever (not actually) existed. I use GMail, and thankfully its filters work effectively enough to provide me with a very entertaining spam folder. But as time goes by, these attempts grow more and more sophisticated. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center lists dozens of variants on email and online scams - from fraudulent automobile auctions to online dating schemes - in its annual Internet Crime Report. In 2013 alone, more than a quarter of a million complaints were submitted related to online scams. But hey - you're young and savvy. This is somewhat old news and you've warned your parents and grandparents, right? Well, consider this: one fifth of scam victims last year were younger than 30. 

Massive Data Breaches

   

    To be clear, my intent isn't to scare anyone away from Internet use. In fact, I'm often questioned about personal online safety and security. As I assist with explaining the risks and tactics to stay safe, I try to reiterate that these same risks have existed long before the Internet, often in greater proportion. I also try help people understand that the truly serious, "professional" hackers are not after you particularly. The fact is, the vast majority of these individuals are very smart and aren't going to risk getting caught committing a crime over your personal information only, which may not amount to anything of value to them. Simply put - why risk jail time stealing one person's info when you have the same capability of harvesting tons more?

  Recent hacks of Home Depot, Target and other major retailers have led to millions of credit card numbers being compromised.  Hackers turn around and sell these numbers and information on a black market to anyone who might be willing to buy them. Sometimes, these numbers and forms of information aren't directly tied to individuals but can instead be used to establish fake identities that can be used to harvest hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit, which has a damaging affect on the overall consumer market.


   So with these and other threats out there looming, just how do you protect yourself? First and foremost - DON'T BE PARANOID. Truth be told, throughout the years I've serviced many PCs that had crashed due to people doubling up on anti-virus this or that, every other firewall, and multiple anti-malware packages. Just remember, the Internet isn't "out to get you". Instead, employ a bit of vigilance -

• Look carefully at any website you're considering purchasing from. Be on the lookout especially for poor spelling and grammar. 
• Look for incorrectly placed characters - for example, a zero (0) placed where and O should be such as "Home Dep0t".
• Be especially careful when bargain hunting. A website selling a brand new iPhone 6 for $200 is more than likely not a safe place to provide personal information to.
• Pay attention to website names. Remember - all websites reside in "domains". The most common of these domains is the ".com" domain. This domain stands for "commercial", thus most of your trusted retail sites will have this domain suffix. For example - if you're trying to purchase something online from Walmart, yet the website reads something odd like "www.walmart.krq", don't proceed!

   Another effective tool is two-factor authentication. Most major banks nowadays (mine included) require this when you first log in from a computer that you have authenticated or added to a trusted device list. This often works by the institution sending you a text to your phone number on file, or an email to your email address on file. After entering this number you are usually prompted to register the device you're on (if it's your personal device that you plan on accessing with in the future), or to just activate for one time use (if it's a device that you're using just once - i.e. you're using a computer at your Public Library). This particularly effective in a case where your user name and password may have been stolen. As for email accounts, Google takes this a step further with Google Authenticator .

   These tips should help you protect your personal data by being mindful of your online activity. But what about those merchants your choose to do business with? After all, what happened with the likes of Target and Home Depot was not due to any fault on the consumers' part. Don't be afraid to ask these merchants exactly HOW they are storing your customer data. Some may do so in-house, while others do so on secure servers. And if you know of a start up merchant who is looking for a secured solution, please don't hesitate to provide this information to them. After all, malicious online activity does not only hurt the consumer, it can also cause permanent damage to a merchant's reputation.

   Overall, don't be afraid to swipe up some good online deals. Don't be paranoid by shopping online - I do a large percentage of my shopping online. But please be mindful of what sites you're visiting. If things look somewhat odd, chances are something is wrong - trust your gut instinct. Try to stick to reputable, well-known sites like Amazon. But most of all, have fun and enjoy this holiday season!

  Do you have any online safe shopping tips? Please feel free to share below!

In Defense Of Tablets

   Before I begin, let me point out that this post will be a form of obvious self-justification. With the recent announcement of the Nexus 9, I asked myself, "do I really want to part with my much-loved Nexus 7?" After all, it has been somewhat of a journey for me to get to it in the first place.

   I started with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, back in the days of Android Honeycomb. I quickly grew a hatred of Samsung's TouchWiz and began searching for an alternative. At the time there was much chatter about the first generation Nexus 7. I wondered if I could give up a 10-inch display for a 7-inch one. After all, I reasoned, half of the point was to have the ability to use the same apps I use on my cell phone but with a larger, more beautiful display. Fortunately for me, a close friend purchased the Nexus 7 and allowed me to take a test drive. I quickly fell in love, sold my Galaxy Tab 10.1, and grabbed the Nexus 7. I was so happy that I did.

   For me, the 7-inch form factor offers the perfect amount of screen space without the extra bulk of the 10-inch display. This is most useful when doing things like reading in bed - for me, 10-inch tablets are just simply too large for this. This explains why, when looking to get away from TouchWiz, I first considered the Nexus 10, but ended up with the 7.

   I quickly noticed that I was spending more time on my Nexus 7 than on my phone. Although I could install and run nearly every app on my phone that I could on my 7, for me the screen real estate made all the difference. This was especially important when it came videos  - a'la YouTube or Netflix for example. As for me, I literally hate watching videos, much less movies, on a cell phone screen. Yes it's awesome and cool that we've come this far technologically that this is even possible, but watching anything longer than a short clip on a phone is literally painful to me. I have friends who talk to me about the high amount of mobile data they consume monthly by doing so - it's beyond how they watch so much on a cell phone screen.

  I also noticed that my desktop / laptop usage had plummeted as well. Since I do most things using cloud computing tools such as Google Drive, over time I've found less and less need to be planted in front of a PC or laptop. I could do nearly everything from my Nexus 7.

   Then, it evolved.... Then came the 2013 Nexus 7. I promptly sold my first generation device to cover the purchase price of this new hotness. Front-facing camera and, thinner, lighter. I've been more than satisfied with it.

   As we reach the latter half of 2014, I've been by hearing more and more chatter regarding waning interest in tablets regardless of their size. As more and more devices are released entering the Phablet arena, it seems that many people - especially those in the tech community - no longer see the need to own a tablet. In fact, this point has been brought up more than once on one of my favorite Net Casts - TwiT's All About Android - by hosts Ron Richards and Gina Trapani. Each have noted a lack of interest with pretty much any news regarding new updates or new releases of any tablet.

   Truth be told, I kind of felt the same recently with my newly acquired Oppo Oneplus One. I even posted about the fact that, once I got it, I noticed that I was spending more time on it and ignoring my Nexus 7. However, the fact is that once the "oooo- shiny!" effect of the Oneplus wore off, I went back my to my normal self: using my phone as a phone primarily and using my tablet for everything else.

   Bottom line for me is simply this - yes I will be selling my 2013 Nexus 7 to cover the cost of getting the new Nexus 9. Yes I still think tablets have a place in the mobile device arena primarily for the usages I listed above: specifically, the fact that I simply can't watch videos of any significant length on a cell phone or phablet, and I feel the same when it comes to the use of productivity tools. I still feel the 10-inch form factor is a bit too big, and the 7-inch is near-perfect. Could the 9-inch (well, actually 8.9-inch) display be the true sweet spot? Well, I will find out because I will be purchasing the Nexus 9. Not to mention, I didn't even talk about the awesomeness that is Android Lollipop....

  So where do you stand with tablets? Do you think they are a dying breed, or do you look forward to each new incarnation? Please feel free to comment below!

Roku Channel Review - Media Browser (A Worthy Plex Contender?)

   I've said it before, and I'll say it again - one of the most crucial elements in the Cord Cutting lifestyle is a feature-rich, yet easy to set up and navigate media server. Yes, there's the ever faithful Netflix with its second-to-none library of movies and TV series and original content, as well as the likes of Hulu Plus, Crackle, and the ever expanding Vudu. Each has their strengths and weaknesses. For example, my experience with Crackle was lack-luster from day one - commercials I can live with when it comes to free content, but the cut-ins of the commercials were always horrible. I would often get slapped with a commercial while an actor was mid sentence. To me, Vudu is essentially a video rental store. No real harm there if you're the type that likes to watch everything on an on-demand basis, but that simply isn't for me. In my opinion, Hulu Plus is the worst of all. Pay a monthly subscription fee to watch commercials that I can't skip? No thanks.

   But, what of the content you own that these providers don't have? What of your favorite TV shows for which you've set up some form of DVR capability on a designated PC? Again - you're going to need a media server!

   By now I think it's obvious that my favorite recommended media server is Plex. It is robust, easy to use, and its configuration requires no coding knowledge on the user end. Plex is "out-of-the-box" ready to use. Like all things, it does have its short-comings, though most are minor in my opinion. For example, fast-forwarding and rewinding could be improved to show real-time views of current media position as Netflix does. The greatest short-coming is the long-overdue, much requested parental control feature. Plex says they are working on this, but as of date, this still does not exist. I touched on this in my January post "Plex Parental Controls....Sort Of", in which I also provided information regarding an alternative solution known as Plex RARflix that I still use to this day.

   But all this time that I've been using Plex, I couldn't help but wonder, "is Plex all there is?". I've just found it hard to believe that in this day and age, Plex is the only easy to use, robust media server available for multiple platforms. To be clear: I'm not questioning whether or not Plex is the ONLY media server. I know of many media servers. I'm questioning whether or not there are other media servers that are as simple to use and deliver the same punch as Plex. So, I went on a mission - to find a worthy Plex contender. I even went into this mission with the mindset that I was going to replace Plex with ____.

   I started with some criteria (Mission Objectives, if you will) -
 
     1. The media server must be simple to download and install on my hardware. No hosted downloads - the server's developer should be reputable enough to make the .exe available 1st party.
     2. The media server must have an understandable, fairly easy to use configuration UI for setup and server maintenance.
     3. Since I'm a Roku Cord Cutter, the server must have a Rocku channel.
     4. The Roku channel must have a sensible UI for navigation and viewing.
     5. The server must deliver content to the Roku channel in the best resolution possible.

   Using those 5 points alone, I was able to eliminate many media server offerings without even actually testing them.  I did try out Serviio, which has been around for some time now, but found its configuration and plugin installation process cumbersome and time consuming. Also, I had to access it using Roku Media Player as there is currently no Roku channel as of yet.

   All said and done, the closest contender I could find was Media Browser. Though not new to the media server arena, Media Browser only recently released its official Roku channel from beta (Mission Objective #3 - - met!).

   The directions for downloading and installing the Media Browser server on your hardware are clear and simple, with the install for Windows being the simple, familiar .exe format delivered directly from the Media Browser website (Mission Objective #1 - - met!).

   As for picture quality, Media Browser delivers stunning 1080p viewing with no annoying buffering issues. (Mission Objective #5 - - met!).

   The server configuration UI is fairly simple and easy to navigate. It's rather minimalist, which I like - no flashy emoji-type icons, 3D effects or otherwise annoying splash screens or pop ups. However, I did find an  odd quirk with the Plugins section - specifically, when attempting to add any plugin from the MB Classic plugins section. Whenever trying to add any of these plugins to Media Browser, I keep receiving a rather uninformative error message that simply states "This plugin must be installed from with in the app you intend to use it in".

 Now, considering the desktop heavy origins of Media Browser, I kind of get what this error message is referring to. However, in the realm of the Cord Cutting Roku user, this error message is pointless and quite frankly confusing. After all, I am installing it form within the app I intend to use it. Since this error happens with every plugin from this section, I personally find it useless to include the MB Classic section if these plugins cannot in fact be used. Simply put, if these plugins can't easily be added to Media Browser (and many of them are pretty cool, so I was pretty disappointed), then what's the point of listing them there?

   The biggest selling point for me on the configuration front has to be where I feel Plex has dropped the ball - as mentioned, Parental Controls. The Media Browser UI makes it plain simple to set up multiple user accounts and assign what content these accounts should have access to. It also makes it very simple to add passwords to these accounts if you so wish. And these are actual passwords. PlexRARflx accomplishes this with direction pad arrow entries, but Media Browser gives you the full qwerty keyboard. I understand that there are those people who hate using this keyboard on Roku because it can be time consuming making entries, but I personally have no issue with it.

   I configured 2 user logins - one main, password-protected Family login that contains all media content, and a Kids login with no password protection that contains only our children's content as I did with Plex RARflix.

   As mentioned, if The Allen Family (the main, Family login) is selected, the password that I set via the server UI must be entered to have access to its contents.

    So I have to say Mission Objective #2 is pretty much met, with the exception being the rather cryptic MB Classic plugin error.

    This brings us to Mission Objective #4, which I purposefully saved for last. Unfortunately, this is where things begin to fall apart. To quickly recap, Media Browser's download and set up is great. Media delivery / picture quality is great. Server UI is great, barring the odd plugin error presented when attempting to add those from the MB Classic section. However, the Roku channel itself needs a lot of work. Granted, this channel is fresh out of beta, so hopefully there will be updates to clean things up.

   First and foremost, one of the biggest issues I've found is with metadata and content images. Media Browser comes defaulted with The Open Movie Database and TheMovieDb for metadata downloaders. For images, there is TheMovieDb, FanArt, The Open Movie Database, and Screen Grabber. There are a few additional plugins available (I added Last.fm), but it still seems as though Media Server can't pull in complete data as efficiently as Plex. So, for a lot of the content in my library where Plex has full, complete listing information, Media Browser does not.

   For example - seeing as we are in the Halloween season, I thought I'd add a classic favorite of mine: "Pumpkinhead".  Plex immediately displays as this -

   While Media Browser gives me this -

    Sadly, this is true of a very large percentage of the content that both servers have access to - from my TV shows to movies - while Plex displays complete art and information, Media Browser often only shows system icons with no titles or any other descriptive information to know what content the icon represents, or a picture from a random scene from the content. While Plex seems to simply "get it", Media Browser seems to be expecting me to do more - either try to download some other plugin, or create my own - in order to tell it how to "get it".  Simply put, no matter what content I add to my designated media folders on my hardware, Plex immediately has the correct artwork and content description while Media Browser has unfortunately failed to do so on a large percentage of my content.
 I also find Media Browser's "Jump In" feature to be not very user friendly. It offers side-scrolling navigation (which I publicly plead for every developer to stop using!) that's grossly over-sized, and quite frankly childish looking. I really don't understand the decision to add this as it only helps amplify the need for a drastic UI makeover.

   On the plus side of the Roku channel, Play From Scene option is pretty awesome but it too has an unfortunate drawback. Though it allows you to pick a chapter starting point for any of your content, and it loads almost instantly, there is no picture art representing the channel you are selecting - only system icons. Thus, you pretty much have to peck around to find the chapter you're looking for when using this feature. Plex does not have this feature - if you want to start from any point besides the beginning, you have to fast forward until you get there (there also is no picture art representing the scenes), and I've found that this can sometimes cause Ples to freeze up if you do it too many times on the same title. 

   Overall, I have to report Mission Objective #4 as not met. I do understand that this is the initial release out of beta, so I only hope the short comings I've pointed out only continue to improve with time. Because truth be told, if Media Browser can get the wrinkles ironed out that I've mentioned here, I could personally see myself replacing Plex with it as my media server. After all, with its tight integration with WMC, Media Browser also offers another huge advantage over Plex - direct server integration of live TV.

   On a final note, I do want to point out that there is a Media Browser app   currently listed in the Google Play Store for $4.59. Considering it's odd quirks I've pointed out, and the fact that I got the Plex app for free, I've passed on the Media Browser offering. Not to mention that I get a pretty robust experience simply navigating to the website via my mobile device browser. 

   I know this review may come across somewhat bias and Plex-promoting. However, please don't forget - out of other media servers I looked at, read about, and tested, Media Browser is the only one that I feel is poised to best Plex in the streaming arena. With a little more time and polish, I don't think it will have much of a problem doing so.

   Are you using Media Browser? What are your impressions of it? Or, do you know of another media server I should check out? Please feel free to share below!