Plex offers movies and TV shows with free streaming service with ads
Plex is releasing its own streaming service. This will be a free, ad-supported service that will allow users to stream movies and TV shows. To this end, Plex has entered into agreements with a number of major American film studios, among others.
Plex reports that it has signed agreements with Warner Media, Lionsgate and Legendary so that their content can be used for the new streaming service. The service will be integrated into the existing Plex ecosystem and will work on all supported platforms, according to the company. Plex doesn’t say how many or which titles will be available at the actual release; according to the maker of media file management software, it involves a wide selection of media from all kinds of sources.
The offer per country may differ. TechCrunch wrote in September that the then-publicized deal between Plex and Lionsgate concerns streams that will be available worldwide, while the deal with Warner Bros. would only provide content for US users. According to Plex, most of the content is available worldwide, and the offerings will change over time.
Plex claims it is “bringing more content to more countries than any other streaming service.” In addition, the company says that this is accompanied by high quality, although Plex does not mention aspects such as bitrate or available resolutions. Some images of movie pages only show that a 1080p resolution is offered. The streaming service will be available in at least about 220 countries, TechCrunch writes; the medium already reported in January about the arrival of the Plex streaming service.
In addition to offering movies and TV shows, Plex lists newscasts, web shows, and podcasts as types of content that will be part of the streaming service. In any case, it concerns films such as American Ultra, Frequency, Lord of War, Rain Man, Raging Bull, The Terminator, Thelma & Louise and Apocalypse Now. As far as the films are concerned, these are mostly relatively older productions.
It is not yet entirely clear how the advertisements will be integrated. Plex talks about ads of varying lengths and topics. The company does say that the number of ads per hour will be lower than traditional cable TV; compared to that, the amount of ads will be about a third. Plex probably assumes the amount of advertisements that appear on average on television in the US, so the amount of advertisements that Plex presents can be considerable by European standards. In any case, no ads are added to Plex’s personal section, where users manage their own media files.
In any case, users cannot skip the ads. The latter also applies to Plex Pass subscribers; the streaming content is only visible to everyone via the advertising model. Existing Plex users will see a Free to Watch category in addition to their own library, with which the free streams can be consulted. This streaming option, under the name Movies & TV, can be removed. Users who are not currently using Plex for their media files can use the app to access the streaming service. Plex has apps for all kinds of platforms, such as Apple TV, Android TV devices, Amazon Fire TV, iOS, and Android.
The company says it does a lot to ensure it can’t find out what users have in their personal media library. Neither Plex nor partners will have access to or insight into the content or metadata, the company writes, but such a privacy policy does not appear to apply to viewing the content of the streaming service.