PlexConnect

or: "Plex @ aTV - think different..."

PlexConnect is an app that allows AppleTV2 and AppleTV3 to be used as Plex clients. Development started in 2013 and finished in 2015 (when AppleTV4 was announced), as described in this Plex Forum thread.

There are two options to install PlexConnect:

• If you applied a jailbreak to your aTV you can install PlexConnect on it. This is the preferred way
• If your aTV has no jailbreak then you need to install PlexConnect on a separate device (probably in the same server where Plex Media Server is running)

For more information, like detailed Installation Guides, FAQs and similar, visit the Wiki.

How does it work?

The basic idea is, to...

• re-use an already available app (like KorTV)
• re-route the request to your local Plex Media Server
• re-work the reply to fit into AppleTV's XML communication scheme
• let iOS do the rest

Requirements

• Python 2.6.x with minor issues: ElementTree doesn't support tag indices.
• Python 2.7.18 recommended.

Installation

# Installation
git clone https://github.com/iBaa/PlexConnect.git
# Updating
cd PlexConnect
git pull

If you don't have Git, you can download ZIP file and extract files to a local directory.

• create HTTPS/SSL certificate
• install certificate to assets/certificate/
• install certificate on aTV

See the Wiki - Install Guide for additional documentation.

Usage

# Run with root privileges
sudo ./PlexConnect.py

Depending on your OS, you might only need PlexConnect.py. Or python PlexConnect.py or ...

• set your AppleTV's DNS address to the computer running PlexConnect
• run the Trailer App

See the Wiki - Advanced Settings for more details on configuration and advanced settings.

Support

End user support is provided in Plex forums https://forums.plex.tv/tags/c/third-party/apps-tools/plexconnect. Please do not open new issues unless instructed to do so by the development team.

More detailed Information about the files

• PlexConnect.py - Main script file, invoking the DNSServer and WebServer into seperate processes.
• PlexAPI.py - Collection of Plex Media Server/MyPlex "connector functions": Auto discovery of running PMSs: Good Day Mate! // XML interface to local PMSs // MyPlex integration
• DNSServer.py - This is a small DNS server (hence the name) that is now called whenever aTV needs to resolve an internet address. To hijack the trailer App, we will intercept and re-route all queries to trailers.apple.com. Every other query will be forwarded to the next, your original DNS.
• WebServer.py - This script provides the directory content of "assets" to aTV. Additionally it will forward aTV's directory requests to PMS and provide a aTV compatible XML back. Every media (video, thumbnails...) is URL-wise connected to PMS, so aTV directly accesses the Plex database.
• XMLConverter.py - This script contains the XML adaption from Plex Media Server's response to valid aTV XML files.
• Settings.py - Basic settings collection. Creates Settings.cfg at first run - which may be modified externally.
• ATVSettings.py - Handles the aTV settings like ViewModes or Transcoder options. Stores aTV settings in ATVSettings.cfg.
• Localize.py - Holds a couple of utility functions for text translation purposes. Uses dictionaries from assets/locales/.
• Subtitle.py - Subtitle parser functions for PlexConnect's own renderer, converts subs to JSON for easy transfer to aTV.
• PILBackgrounds.py - Modify and cache fanart images for use by aTV.

License and Disclaimer

This software is open-sourced under the MIT Licence (see license.txt for the full license). So within some limits, you can do with the code whatever you want. However, if you like and/or want to re-use it, we really appreciate a Donation.

The software is provided as is. It might work as expected - or not. Just don't blame us.