Production

PLEX: The Best Kept Secret for Your Digital Entertainment Library

Plex Media Server, I believe, is the best kept secret when it comes to your Digital Entertainment Library.

This is a tool that I use to organize and access my entire digital media collection. Movies, TV Shows, home videos, photos, content that I produce for churches and ministries – everything – any digital media is stored and accessed through my Plex Media Server.

It’s a tool that organizes your digital media and allows you to access that media from any device, anywhere.

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Scott Hancock, the Vice President of Marketing at Plex. You can listen to my full interview with Scott below.

Let me tell you how I use Plex and some ideas for using the service in Church Media and just for fun.

For Church Media:

1. You could use the server to store and organize all your B-Roll that you shoot. From your pastors’ sermons, worship services, b-roll for your produced projects. It’s a great way to organize and see what you have so you know where to find it on your drives.

2. You can store all your photos on the server. So if you have a photographer that goes around your church snapping great photos for you, you can store and organize all your photos where they are easily accessed and viewed by anybody, anywhere. So if you have someone that needed to view photos or content, they don’t have to be at your desk or you don’t have to transfer files around. They can easily pull up their Plex server or app and view that content.

3. Store and access your pre-service music. Plex can easily store your music and anyone can access it to create playlists and view all the metadata associated with your music.

4. You can easily play your media content on any device and even cast it to TVs and other screens using Google Chromecast. All your media can be stored in one central location and anyone can access from wherever they are. No need to move drives or files around. You can stream content to your screens with ease.

Here are some ways to use Plex for fun:

Confession time – I have an embarrassingly large movie collection. It took me quite a bit of time to do this,
 but using the software Handbrake, I ripped every movie and TV show I own on DVD and BluRay to my computer and stored it on an external hard drive as a digital file and named each in the way that Plex reads it. I downloaded the Plex Media Server for free from plex.tv.

Then I organized my movies and shows and can access them literally from anywhere in the world. As long as my computer is on, PLEX pulls the file
 from my external hard drive and streams it to any device. I even use the PLEX app on my iPhone with Google Chromecast and cast anything in my library
 to my TV or any TV 
that has a Chromecast. Let me give you an example – if I’m visiting my family for the Holidays and we want to watch a movie that I have at home. That’s easy, we use the $35 Chromecast on the back of their TV, and I pull up the movie on my Plex app, and cast it to their TV. I’m hundreds of miles away and it beautifully streams to their TV. It’s my own personal Netflix.

Vizio and other SmartTVs also have built-in PLEX apps. In this scenario, you wouldn’t need Chromecast, you can just access your digital library right from your TV.

This is a really great tool that is consistently getting more and more useful. Plex.tv is the website to go to, to get started. Seriously, check it out today.

CARL BARNHILL
Creative Director / Owner
[twelve:thirty]media | Columbia, SC
twelvethirtymedia.com

Carl Barnhill has served on staff at some of the largest churches and organizations in the country. He served as Media Director at Precept Ministries International, directing the television and radio program Precepts for Life with Kay Arthur, broadcasted to over 98 million homes around the world. He served as Video Production Director at Pinelake Church in Brandon, MS, where he produced media content for four campuses, as well as led volunteer teams.

He most recently served as Video Coordinator for Newspring Church in South Carolina. Newspring has 10 campuses across the state with a weekly attendance of over 35,000. At one campus alone, the number of consistent volunteers serving in media production tripled, under his leadership.

He currently serves as Creative Director and Owner of [twelve:thirty]media, a company that serves churches and ministries all over the world through motion graphics content and church media coaching.