You don’t necessarily need to play media with it long term, but you will want to at least set it up so you can test everything works. Next, you need to install the Plex Media Player onto any device you want to use Plex on.

You can spend more time later customizing and configuring it as you want to, and adding channels. DLNA, which is the network protocol we need to play on VLC, is enabled by default so no more action is needed here. That is all you need to do for basic Plex Media Server setup it’s a fairly straightforward process.

Install the channels you want to include.

Add your network and allow remote access when prompted.

Select ‘Add Library’ and import the media you want to share.

If you want to stream outside your home network, enable ‘Connect to Plex.’.

Download the Plex Media Player app onto any device you want to consume the media on.

Download and install Plex Media Server onto that central device.

You can also watch through a browser or VLC media player, as I will show you. Tried with: VLC 2.1.4 Rincewind, MiniDLNA 1.1.2 and Ubuntu 14.The Plex Media Server is mandatory for this to work, but the app is optional.

This problem has been documented by the VLC developers, but will not be fixed anytime soon due to resource shortage. This is because it tries to pull the entire folder hierarchy of the server. Note: VLC can take a lot of time (say 5-10 minutes) to display that dropdown arrow beside the server name. For video files, you might prefer to right-click and choose Play to view it immediately. Whatever files you wish to play in VLC, right-click on them and choose Add to playlist. You can explore the hierarchy of content folders of the server from here on. A dropdown arrow should appear to the left of the server (this can take a while, see note below). VLC tries to locate all the UPnP/DLNA servers on your network and your UPnP/DLNA server should be displayed. Click the Universal Plug n Play option in the left column. VLC can be used as a UPnP/DLNA client or player to play the video or audio content of any UPnP/DLNA server on the network. 📅 2015-Jan-25 ⬩ ✍️ Ashwin Nanjappa ⬩ 🏷️ dlna, upnp, vlc ⬩ 📚 Archive Viewing content of a MiniDLNA server in VLCĪ UPnP/DLNA media server, like for example ReadyMedia, can be used to stream video and audio files to any UPnP/DLNA player or client on the home network.

Vlc upnp player