PlexConnect

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

We all want the pleasure of Plex on the big screen - in this case driven by an AppleTV. Unfortunately there are officially no Apps allowed on AppleTV, most of the time a jailbreak is late (iOS 5.2?) or not available at all (aTV3).

This is a collection of files developed for the little project described in this Plex Forum thread. See also the discontinued ATVBrowser for a project with similar purpose, all javascript.

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 YouTube, Vimeo, ... in this case: Apple Trailers)
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.x 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.

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.

melvin7/PlexConnect