Here is my plan, and I think this will work. I have a lot of short video clips and pictures from our family’s cell phones, much like everyone does. I want to organize and put these on a Hard Drive like My Passport Wireless Pro and have the Plex Media Server on there as well. That way I can access it from my Plex app on our Roku 3 so we can enjoy all our content from our phones on our TV without having a computer on.
Will the My Passport Wireless Pro work for this? I currently do something similar to this using a WD 4tb My Cloud and just use the media app on Roku 3, not Plex, but it isn’t the most reliable and want something that uses Plex without a PC.
My other question is if there is a way to have a way to have both hard drives talk to each other, in that once a week it will copy files to the other using a application or set time? Any help would be appreciated.
This solution may work well – if all conditions are co-operating. I have a lot of the same/similar equipment (e.g.an original MPW, a Roku 2, a WD NAS [DL2100] and iPhones and iPads) although I would not do this, and here are some reasons why:
I believe the orientation of Android phone photosand videos are OK, whereas the orientation of iOS device photos/videos are sometimes sideways or upside down when viewed from non-iOS devices, such as Windows PC, a WDTV, and most likely a Roku (but I never tried it on a Roku). Only Apple devices that can understand the orientation “clue” in each photo or video, OR an app such as the Roku app on the phone or tablet for viewing content from the phone or tablet onto TV. I have dealt with this issue for quite a few years; even before I had a Pad or phone when Apple pic were emailed to me by my daughter. I had to use a utility which could orient the file contents before we could view them correctly on TV using WDTV. The WD NAS can’t orient the stuff correctly either, but when viewed from NAS using a phone or pad by using the My Cloud app (or any other app,) the pics come out looking right because they are being viewed on an Apple device. We actually prefer viewing the files with the iPad since the screen is very detailed and beautiful. We occasionally will fling the pics to the TV, but our 54" plasma screen is too large for the content at times; those phone and tablet pic and videos can’t be overly enlarged without issues creeping in…
Of course, a lot of the problems are because of how Apple internally structures its video image. If everyone in the family has Android phone, and there are no Apple devices, you may be good to go except for the iOS pics and vids people send to you.
Plex seems a bit overkill to me, but it may be able to re-orient pictures correctly; that is a plus. Since I have Plex loaded on my NAS that is made to run Plex, maybe I will give it try showing my iOS content on my TV. Since I do not use Plex for anything else, it could have some utility for me. I can listen to my music and stream movies to my WDTV just fine and do not need or use Plex.
Since you can install Plex on a MPW Pro, and I can’t on my MPW, that’s a plus for you and Plex.
As for syncing the MPW Pro with other devices “easily” I do not think that’s feasible
Thank you for the great response. This is something I have been trying to resolve for a few years.
As I had stated before, I am currently using the WD My Cloud and using my Roku 3 to access it over the network. This works, sort of. I am not happy with Roku’s media channel (app). I want something that is organized better, preferably by folder. I organized all my pictures and videos by year and month. Accessing them through the Roku is not always smooth that way.
All pictures and videos are from iPhones. I understand where your concern is with them not being the correct orientation. From my experience it has always been user error on our end when taking the video and pictures. Once I discovered the proper way to hold the phone for videos it was never an issue again for us (plus found an app that forces right position to help the wife learn).
So I am looking to use the Plex interface because I think I will be able to access my files a lot easier and have a more organized system when doing so. I really have no interest in accessing them on anything but the TV for now and I just want something like my Roku to access them.
That being said I have just about every device needed to hook up to my TV to access media. Roku, Chromecast, Apple TV, etc. The Roku has seemed to be the easiest for my family in general to use which is why I am taking thing route.
Thank you for all of your help. It is nice to receive an answer that has a lot of thought behind it. I appreciate all the help and advise I can get before I make a decision. Thanks again.
