How to Install Plex Client on Jailbreaked Apple TV 2G

Here are the step by step instructions to install the Plex Client on your AppleTV 2G. As the title of this post says that your Apple TV 2G must be jailbroken to install this app.

Head over to this post to learn how to jailbreak TV with PwnageTool. It is to remind you that one app, nitoTV, has been successfully ported to Apple TV and Plex Client is the second app to join this category.

Plex is a popular media centre client for Mac OX and iOS devices and if you have Plex server running in your home, you can stream the media on your Apple TV after following this guide.

The following explains how you can install (and later on update) the plugin on your (Jailbroken) ATV. Use the software at your own risk and don’t blame anyone except yourself if your ATV blows up in the process. Consider this the last warning!!!

Prepare the Media Server
Before you install the actual plugin you need to prepare the Plex Media Server (it needed some tweaks before it would talk to the ATV). Since those changes are considered ‘beta’, you need to tell your PMS to download beta plug-ins, by enetering the following URL in a Safari running on the same machine as the media server: http://localhost:324…s/set?AS_BETA=1

After that start Plex and check for updates in the PlexOnline section.

Enable a higher Quality (optional)
This part is optional, but if you feel like experimenting a lot, you might want to install a testing built of ffmpeg, that enables higher bitrates for the (currently) highest available quality (which is the only quality your ATV will use). This will also increase the image quality on other iOS devices, however you will need a potent Mac for the encoding! So If you still feel like installing use the following two commands in a Terminal on the Mac running your Media Server:

curl http://ambertation.de/downloads/PLEX/ffmpeg > ~/Downloads/ffmpeg
cp ~/Downloads/ffmpeg ~/Library/Application\ Support/Plex/Plex\ Media\ Server.app/Contents/Resources/

If you not use this, the plugin will still work, but the image-quality might not be on par with what you expect.

Install the Plugin
First off: you need to Jailbreak your Apple TV.  I suggest you use the Pawnage method. For the sake of the following instruction I assume thet the IP-Address of your ATV is 169.10.11.12, and that you can log in using ssh.

Start your ATV and log in to your ATV using ssh
ssh root@169.10.11.12

It will ask you for your password, which (if you did not change the default) is alpine. (I strongly suggest you change the password using the passwd command!!!)

In that ssh session, you need to add new cydia sources using
echo “deb http://apt.awkwardtv.org ./” > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/awkwardtv.list
echo “deb http://www.ambertation.de ./downloads/PLEX/” > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/plex.list

Now update your cydia database using
apt-get update

Install the plugins (and its dependencies like beigelist by DHowett) with
apt-get install plex-client-plugin

Restart the GUI and hope that it comes back
killall Lowtide

If the UI does not come up again, you probably have to restore your ATV!

That is it. You should see the PLEX menu item now. If you experience any problems (which you almost certainly will ) just report back here. But remember the ATV is just a hobby

Updating the Plugin
Once in a while I might release an updated version for the plugin, so once in a while you might want to check for updates and install them. Here is how that will work:
Start your ATV and log in to your ATV using ssh
ssh root@169.10.11.12

In that ssh session enter
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

Or you can visit the Plex app forum for more details. Here is the video of Plex App in action:

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