Plex Launches 'Discover' and 'Universal Watchlist' Features to Help Users Find and Watch Content Across Streaming Services

Media management platform Plex today announced a new "Discover" feature that's designed to make it easier for people to find what they want to watch across different streaming services. With Discover, customers can add any TV show or movie into their Plex Watchlist, and receive information on where to find it.

plex discover
The feature will inform users which streaming service has the content that they want to watch, and if the user has a subscription to that service, the content can be watched directly from Plex. It's similar to how the Apple TV app works, but it is more universal because it does not require an Apple device, and it also works with all streaming services, Netflix included.

To go along with Discover, Plex is debuting the Plex Universal Watchlist, which is an all-in-one watchlist that lets customers keep track of anything that they want to watch. The Universal Watchlist will display newly available titles from shows that are still airing, and it will let users know where the content they want to watch is available.

plex watchlist
Plex says that its new feature set is meant to turn Plex into a one-stop shop for all media content. In addition to supporting watchlists and content from streaming services, Plex offers a selection of free, ad-supported TV shows and movies, plus it supports personal media libraries and live content.

More information about Discover and Universal Watchlist can be found on the Plex website. Plex is free to use, but upgraded personal media management features require the $4.99 per month Plex Premium package.

Tag: Plex

Top Rated Comments

MartyF81 Avatar
27 months ago

Plex still cannot play 4K content locally, without buffering, this involves no streaming over internet. SSD drive inside iMac running Plex on that same iMac.

I heard Plex is not designed to do this, Plex is maybe intentionally not focused on playing 4K content.

Just hoping against hope that one day, Plex will suddenly add “plays 4K content“ as a brand new feature.
I play 4K content via Plex every weekend. Works just fine for me. Streams from a NUC pulling the media files of a NAS... and plays on Apple TV's throughout my house over WiFi. 4K content does need quite a bit more CPU than 1080 content does though.

I am even able to stream it over the internet when I travel... though that is heavily dependent on wherever I am having a fast enough download bandwidth to handle it.... which is rare.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
pi=e=3 Avatar
27 months ago

Plex still cannot play 4K content locally, without buffering, this involves no streaming over internet. SSD drive inside iMac running Plex on that same iMac.

I heard Plex is not designed to do this, Plex is maybe intentionally not focused on playing 4K content.

Just hoping against hope that one day, Plex will suddenly add “plays 4K content“ as a brand new feature.
No idea what you're talking about, I stream 4K HDR from my NAS (off a standard 10TB HDD, no SSD here) to my ATV Plex client all the time.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
archer75 Avatar
27 months ago

Plex still cannot play 4K content locally, without buffering, this involves no streaming over internet. SSD drive inside iMac running Plex on that same iMac.

I heard Plex is not designed to do this, Plex is maybe intentionally not focused on playing 4K content.

Just hoping against hope that one day, Plex will suddenly add “plays 4K content“ as a brand new feature.
plex plays 4k content locally just fine. Been doing it for years. Nor does it need an SSD. In fact I can stream multiple 4k streams on my local network and outside my home to friends and family simultaneously without issue.
It direct plays on my local network and to some of my friends/family who have supported devices. No transcoding needed and it uses no CPU for that.

If you're buffering then there's a problem with your network, or it's trying to transcode with a weak CPU/GPU due to a client not supporting the codecs it needs. But that's easy to see.

But 4k absolutely works just fine. I watch 4k content almost daily with it. Across a variety of devices.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MartyF81 Avatar
27 months ago
So I just installed the update and gave it a try.

You pick from a list which services you subscribe to and it lets you search their libraries. When you try to watch a show.... it pulls up a list of services and shows which ones you indicated that you subscribe to that have the content... and you pick the one you want to stream it from.

Then it passes you OUT of Plex App... and INTO the App for the streaming service... and right to the episode you want to watch.

I am not sure how it handles "Watched" episode tracking, havent watched any episodes yet.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AnotherOpinion Avatar
27 months ago
I love this… I wonder what their privacy policy is, and how they got Netflix to work with them, yet Apple can not. This is one of my favorite features of Apple TV, the Watch Now area. I think this Plex offering is a much-needed service now that there are so many streaming options.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
archer75 Avatar
27 months ago
Now that's a nice update!
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
iOS 18 Siri Integrated Feature

iOS 18 Rumored to Add These 10 New Features to Your iPhone

Wednesday April 24, 2024 2:05 pm PDT by
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
iPad And Calculator App Feature

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...