Put to the test: the Plex free streaming service
Streaming series and movies for free has been possible for quite a while now. At least if you’ve been using illegal sources. Now, Plex is offering a totally legal alternative. This new streaming service is free of charge. In return, you have to put up with ads.
Plex provides one of the best and most popular media servers and associated client software for any type of end device. This means hassle-free streaming of your personal movie, series and music collection.
Plex is now adding its own free streaming service for movies and series to its software.
Worldwide streaming service with modest range for Europe
I’m a fan of anything that says «free» on it, so I took a closer look at this streaming service. This did not take a long time as the selection available in Europe proved to be very limited.
If you want to use this service, all you need to do is create an account on plex.tv. Use Plex already? You’ll find its new streaming service in the tab «Movies & TV». The service is organised by the following categories:
- Most Popular – the most popular streams
- Love is in the air – 17 films for romantic moments (1970–2016)
- Happy Holidays – 18 Christmas-themed movies and series (1984–2019)
- TV Shows – a TV show called Jesus of Nazareth
- Drama – 20 tragedies (1945–2017)
- Action – 20 action-packed watches (1942-2018)
- Comedy – 20 funny movies (1959–2018)
- Sci-Fi – 11 science fiction flicks (1942–2018)
- Documentaries – 20 documentaries (1983–2018)
- Music Docs & Concerts – 13 concerts and music documentaries (2000–2017)
- Get Animated – 18 animated movies (1983–2015)
- For the Young & Young at Heart – 13 children’s movies (1974–2016)
- There will be Blood – 13 gory films (1958–2018)
- Creepy Creatures – 20 × zombies, aliens and co. (1959–2018)
- Silver Screen Classics – 62 all-time classics (1939–1965)
If you lived in America or set up a VPN for the States, you could access thousands of movies and series as well as sports films and music documentaries from partners such as Legendary, MGM or Warner Bros. The range would also include great classics like Rain Man or the Terminator. But as you can see, there are currently only 266 contents offered in Europe. Most of them are as old as your grandmother. Or as dull as a school trip to the monastery.
Taking a look at the most popular streams at the moment, it soon becomes apparent that there’s still a lot to be done. You’ll be searching in vain for newish big blockbusters or anything else halfway decent for that matter. Having said that, at least all of you B movie fans, God-fearing Christians, lovers of old classics and Kylie or Katy fans will have a field day.
And if you’re fortunate enough to stumble across a cool movie, you’ll soon realise that you’re dealing with the original made in 1966.
Quality, costs and advertising
When you start a movie, there’s no way of selecting your language or subtitles beforehand. All content is currently exclusively available in English and in stereo sound (AAC). Furthermore, there’s no 4K content yet. The films are encoded in SD, 720p or 1080p resolution – depending on their age.
As far as costs go, you pay with advertising. There is no subscription for viewing the films without ads. Whether this will be available in the future is unknown. As is the question whether there will be more content, German language versions or subtitles. Although Plex has announced it will keep adding Hollywood movies, local productions as well as independent movies to its range, it remains to be seen if licensing will also allow this to happen in Europe.
What is known, however, is that Plex will not display advertising outside of the streaming service. Your local media will continue to work as usual without advertising – what a blessing! While I was testing the stream, I was shown the following advertisement:
- 20 to 30 seconds of advertising before the movie
- Three 20 to 30-second commercials every ten minutes during the movie
So if you’re watching a 120-minute film, you’ll have to put up with about 17 minutes of advertising. If you're used to TV, this could be an option for you. But if you’re like me and haven’t watched TV for years, you’ll soon think this service was spawned in hell. One and a half minutes of advertising can be excruciatingly long, but annoyingly, it’s not enough time for a pee break.
Verdict: I will look a gift horse in the mouth
What Plex is current offering cannot compete with any streaming service. Well, apart from the fact that it’s free. But if you’re neither a Christian nor a lover of B movies or old classics, this streaming service will probably not make you happy. At least for now. The same applies if you don’t speak English. There are currently no other languages or subtitles available.
However, what is interesting is that you don’t have to pay with money. 17 minutes of commercials per every two hours of movie watching is less than what most TV stations offer. Having said that, the regular interruptions are really annoying. In summary, streaming with advertising is only a small glimpse of hope that will only become interesting if the range improves or includes localised content in UHD resolution and HDR.
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Martin Jud
Senior Editor
martin.jud@digitecgalaxus.chI find my muse in everything. When I don’t, I draw inspiration from daydreaming. After all, if you dream, you don’t sleep through life.
