Mediaboss Marketing

We all have our guilty pleasures, and for many of us, they come in the form ofmovies, TV shows, or videosthat are, shall we say, ofquestionabletaste. Privately, you may relish in the Real Housewives ofinsert city name here, terrible B-rated Sci-Fi flicks, scandalous Anime, or compilations of kittens in knitted bodysuits(hey, were not here to judge), but were willing to bet you arent interested in sharing this stuff with your curiouschildren, taunting friends, or worse, your judgemental mother-in-law. For those who use Plex as a media server, this has been a problem the software has lacked any kind of parental controls or privacy measures, so when you grant someone access toyour collection, you share your entirecollection the good and the bad. But recently Plex announced a new feature coming to itssoftware, called Plex Home,whichmakes it possible to pick and choose exactly who sees what through its media server.

Related:Chromecast shines even brighter with new Plex features

Announced on its blog, Plex says that Plex Home has been over two years in the making, and that it aims to bring fine-grained parental controls and more to users by moving server managementto its Plex web app. Users will now be able to easily specify exact content ratings accessible by all theirfriends and family. It is important to note that some basic Multi-user features and Now Playing features will be available to anyone who uses the free version of Plex, but the really good stuff will be limited to Plex Pass holders. Recently, Plex hiked up Plex Pass rates, and they are now as follows: $4.99/month, $39.99/year, and $149.99/lifetime.

Whats the good stuff we refer to? For one: Label-based sharing will make specifying who can see whichcontent extremely easy. For example, you could choose to share only certain family videos with your parents and in-laws, and share only your recently-acquired Miles Davis box setcollection with your jazzer buddy.

Managing content forthose living in the home in which Plex is hosted will also be made extremely easy, especially for those kids whodont have a username, email, or password. Plex promises switching between users will be extremely quick, and that PINs will only be required where specified. So, for instance, those under 13 in the home would be able to access their approved content by simply selecting their profile, not additional actions needed, while accessing Dads account will require the use of a PIN as a password.

Finally, Plex promises access to any of the apps that come with a Plex Pass for everyone in the home. This should come in useful for those in a single home that operates separate Roku accounts, or those who opt to use several different kinds of media streaming hardware, such as the Google Nexus Player, which requires users to have a Plex Pass if they want access to Plex at all.

Related:Google Nexus Player review

Just chalk this up as one more reason to choose Plex as a media server, and perhaps the most compelling reason to throw a chunk of change down for a paid subscription. Plexs development has always been user-driven, and this is yet another example of its developers answering its supporters call.

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Plex will now let you keep your private videos hidden with new Plex Home feature