Plex Media Server Driver Installation and Usage Guide Revision: 3.0 Date: Monday, July 10, 2017 Authors: Alan Chow
Contents Overview... 3 Features... 3 Why use Plex Media Server?... 4 Process in a nutshell... 5 Change Log... 6 Important Notice... 6 Driver Installation... 6 Setting up Plex Media Server... 7 Adding the driver to your project... 10 Programming Example Scheduling a library update.... 13 Additional notes... 15 Example Finalized Movie Import... 16 Licencing... 17 Summary... 17 STEP 1 - Creating your project on drivercentral... 17 STEP 2 Purchase driver licence... 19 STEP 3 Install and activate the drivercentral cloud driver... 20 STEP 4 Install Chowmain driver... 21 Page 2
Overview Control4 s movie management system was designed to handle DVD changers and as such only works well with DVD folder type structures. Unfortunately the majority of today s video containers are not DVD folders and as such cannot be catalogued easily with Control4. This makes creating and managing a Control4 movie library tedious and time consuming task. As such Chowmain has made movie management so much simpler with the Plex Media Server solution. The Plex Media Server is software designed to catalog and distribute your movies and music. The software can be installed on windows, linux, mac osx and even on specific NAS drives. The Chowmain Plex Media Server driver parses the Plex Media Server database for a list of its movies and grabs the meta data and cover art for all of the movies it finds. It then inserts it into the Control4 network file storage driver as if the driver scanned it itself. As such the driver will work with any media player that supports movie playback from Control4 s navigator interface. This includes the Control4 media player, network EVA8000/8000, dune media players and more. Please note that the driver can only parse what Plex Media Server can catalog. As such containers such as ISO s cannot be catalogued. Features Integration with any Plex Media Server Ability to sort out which files go with the network file storage driver set up. Movie Cover Art Movie Meta Data Page 3
Why use Plex Media Server? Chowmain s Plex Media Server driver provides a cost effective method of automatically managing your movie s with Control4 s database. This provides a solution that only requires a supported NAS drive/computer and a media player for playback from Control4 s navigator user interface. You no longer need to manually update the meta data for each movie. Page 4
Process in a nutshell Start Log into Plex Server Add Section Select Movies For section type Add Folder Configure Plex Media Server per instructions Add Plex Media Server Driver Configure Network File Storage Driver per instructions Add Network File Storage driver Are there more folders to add? Yes No Follow instructions on scanning movies in Plex Media Server Wait for Plex to Scan Has Plex finished Scanning? Yes Proceed with Plex Media Server Import No Finish So why do you need to add in a Plex Media Server driver and a Network File Storage driver for each folder share? This is because of the way Control4 handles shares. There are two portions to each movie. The folder share location and the movie path. The driver unfortunately can only manipulate the movie path. This means that when Control4 sends a PLAY_FILE command it will send the wrong path. To combat this we truncate the path in front of the movie share location to make it fit in with the folder location. Page 5
Change Log Version #20141119-19-NOV-2014 Converted from C4I to C4Z filetype Version #20140922-22-SEP-2014 Plex Media Server now resizes images before sending to Control4. Huge reduction in CPU and memory usage plus MAJOR speed improvements. Version #20140312-12-MAR-2014 Optimised for processing improvements. Added Update functionality. Updated to pick correct movie path for movies with multiple copies Version #20140224-24-FEB-2014 Added Stop Import Command. Made improvements in error checking for when people add in the wrong ip address or webserver Version #20140218-18-FEB-2014 Initial Driver Release Important Notice This driver is designed on Plex Media Server version 0.9.8.18.290-11b7fdd. Though Chowmain aims to ensure that the driver is kept up to date with API changes it is recommended that you do not update the version of software if it is in working condition. Driver Installation 1. The driver you have downloaded will be in a zip file. Double click on this file to open it in your preferred zip program (WinZip, WinRar, etc.). 2. Extract the c4i file to the My Documents\Control4\Drivers directory. If you are using Windows 7 or 8 this will be extracted to the Libraries\Documents\Control4\Drivers directory. 3. You are now ready to add and configure the driver via the Composer Pro software. Page 6
Setting up Plex Media Server The following section details set up Plex Media Server to work with the Chowmain driver. It is assumed that you have already installed Plex Media Server on your preferred device. 1. Visit the Plex Media Server URL. 2. Click on the + symbol to Add Section 3. It will prompt you for the type of media. Select Movies Page 7
4. It will prompt you for a Name. Type in a suitable name for your section. 5. It will now prompt you to Add folders. Click on the Add Folder button Page 8
6. If you are using Plex Media Server on windows you can type in the samba folder share in the form of \\IPofDevice\folder\ Note in the screenshot below our example is \\192.168.1.200\HD movies 1\HD movies\ However If you are using Plex Media Server on any other platform you will need to select a local or mounted drive. IMPORTANT Make sure you take note of the folder paths you have entered in as this will be used in the driver 7. Click on the Save button 8. Click on the Refresh Library button 9. It will take some time for Plex Media Server to download all the meta data and cover art for all your movies. Make sure that you have waited until this is completed first before setting up the driver. Page 9
Adding the driver to your project IMPORTANT Before undertaking the installation of the driver please follow the licencing steps outlined at the end of this document. 1. Launch the Composer Pro application and connect to your project 2. Click on System Design 3. Click on My Drivers 4. Add in the Network File Storage driver 5. Select the Network File Storage Driver. Set up the location of your file share and click on the Connect button. 6. In the System Design page select the Search tab on the right hand side. Page 10
7. Select Plex as the manufacturer. 8. Double click on the Plex Media Server driver to add it to your project 9. Highlight the Plex Media Server driver on the left hand side. 10. Enter in the Plex Media Server IP address or Hostname. Also change the port if the port is on a non standard port number. Note: It is recommended that Plex Media Server be placed on a static IP address or have a reserved IP address for stability purposes. 11. Type in the Folder Location that you wrote down in the Plex Media Server setup section. If you have multiple Folder Locations then you will need to add multiple Network File Storage drivers and multiple Plex Media Server drivers. NOTE that the Folder Location has to be exactly the same what was set up in Plex Media Server. The driver will truncate the folder location from the path and append the Network File Storage driver path as the prefix. As such it is important that i) You have the folder location mapped as a samba network share that is visible on your network ii) You type in the correct Folder Location that corresponds to that share. Page 11
12. Select the Network File Storage driver you added in previously. 13. Click on the Actions tab. 14. Click on Import Plex Library. NOTE: The Plex Media Server driver takes up A LOT of resources. As such every time you import the Plex library your system will slow down. As such it is not recommended that you import a library on a regular basis. It may take an hour or so to import a large library so you may want to schedule an import. 15. The Lua Output window will provide you feedback with what movie it is injecting into the Control4 database. 16. Congratulations you have imported your movie library into Control4. Repeat steps 1 to 15 for each share you want to add to Control4. Page 12
Programming Example Scheduling a library update. Library updates are not an automated process unfortunately due to the lack of outbound notifications from Plex Media Server. Library updates can be scheduled using the scheduler agent. It is the same as an import however the difference is that the driver will not reinject movies that already exist into the database. The benefit of this is that it speeds up the update and it will not modify any changes to the meta data in the media tab in composer that you may have made. Alternatively this programming action can be tied to a timer or a custom button. 1. Click on the Agents tab. 2. Click on the Scheduler Agent (If you do not have it you will need to Add it in) 3. Click on the button 4. Enter a meaningful name for the schedule. Page 13
5. Set the time to a time when the system is not going to be likely used (eg 3am) 6. Set it to Repeat daily or weekly. 7. Click on the OK button 8. Click on the Programming tab. 9. Under Device Events select the Scheduler event. 10. Select the Movie Library Import event you just created. 11. Under the Device Actions side select the Plex Media Server driver 12. Click on the radio button labelled Device Specific Command 13. Select Update Plex Library in the drop down box. Page 14
14. Drag the green arrow into the script section. If you have more than one Plex Media Server driver continue on. Otherwise congratulations you have setup the Plex Media Server driver. 15. Click on the Plex Media Server driver under Device Events 16. Select Scan Finished in the drop down box 17. Under the Device Actions side select the Plex Media Server driver 18. Click on the radio button labelled Device Specific Command 19. Drag the green arrow into the script section. 20. Repeat Steps 15 to 19 for each Plex Media Server driver. Please take care to not create a loop. Otherwise you will crash and overload your Control4 system. Additional notes Though the driver performs a pretty accurate import of the media it assumes that Plex Media Server has the correct meta data. If it is incorrect you can adjust it within Composer s Media tab. However once it is imported into the database it will not re-import unless you perform a Import Plex Library. This function will clear the existing library and re-import everything from scratch. It is advisable that you perform this if your Plex Media Server library is reset or if heavy changes are made. Due to the large file size of the cover art files stored in Plex Media Server you will find that Control4 s processor usage will increase during a library import or update. We have optimised this to the best of our abilities however you may need to utilise the Stop Import command or action in cases of emergency. Page 15
Example Finalized Movie Import Page 16
Licencing Chowmain drivers require a valid licence to use the driver. Drivers can be purchased from our distributor drivercentral however all Chowmain drivers come with a 7 day trial. We recommend that prior to purchasing a driver that you test the driver out to ensure that it will work with your hardware and will meet your requirements. The licencing procedure is broken down into 4 steps. A summary of the steps are below along however we have also provided detailed steps if the summary is not sufficient. Summary 1. Create your project on the drivercentral.io website (This will generate a specific token which you will use in the next step) 2. Download, install and activate the drivercentral cloud driver in your project (Only once per project. Use the token generated in step 1) 3. (Optional) To try a driver, simply download it and install it in your project 4. To purchase a driver: a. On drivercentral, purchase a license and register it to your project b. If the driver is not already installed in your project, download it and install it c. If necessary, use the cloud driver s Action: Check Drivers to force licence download to the project. STEP 1 - Creating your project on drivercentral 1. Visit http://www.drivercentral.io 2. Log into your driver Central dealer account. 3. Visit the Project Portal 4. Click on Create Project Page 17
5. It will prompt you for a project name. Type in a meaningful name for your customer s project 6. Click on Create Project 7. Click on the project we just created to expand the project 8. Take note of the Project Token as this will be used in STEP 3 when we install the drivercentral cloud driver. Page 18
STEP 2 Purchase driver licence 1. Visit https://www.drivercentral.io/chowmain-ltd/ and find the product/driver you want to purchase a licence for. 2. Click on the Add to Cart button 3. Click on the Shopping Cart icon in the top right corner and click on View cart 4. Confirm that your order is correct and click on Proceed to checkout 5. Follow the prompts and click on Sib,ot,u Prder 6. This will take you to PayPal for payment. 7. Pay via PayPal. It will automatically return to the marketplace when confirmed. 8. You will now be at a page where you can see your purchased licence. Page 19
9. From here assign the licence to the project we created or if you did not follow that step create a new project STEP 3 Install and activate the drivercentral cloud driver NOTE: Only one instance of the drivercentral cloud driver installed per project. Do not install additional cloud drivers. 1. Visit http://www.drivercentral.io 2. Log into your driver Central dealer account. 3. Visit the Project Portal 4. Click on Download Cloud Driver 5. Copy the C4Z driver to My Documents\Control4\Drivers directory. 6. Add the driver to your project. Page 20
7. Click on the driver to view it s properties 8. Type in the project token we took note of in STEP 1. 9. Click on the Actions tab 10. Click on Check Drivers STEP 4 Install Chowmain driver 1. Install the Chowmain driver 2. You will notice that the Activation Status reflects a Licence Activated state. 3. Any driver that does not have a purchased licence will have a trial licence activated via the marketplace. Note that there is no way to reactivate the trial so please use wisely. 4. If you do not then press the Check Drivers action in the drivercentral Cloud driver again. Page 21