Plex’s Discovery beta links streaming across Netflix, Disney Plus and HBO Max

Plex’s latest beta features are a modern solution to a recent problem — having to search through HBO Max, Netflix, Disney Plus and the like, three other services to find something to watch. The company announced The new “Discover” feature, which collects and recommends content from different streaming services and a global watchlist that brings everything you want to watch in one place.

The Discover screen works like the home pages of most streaming services, giving you recommendations on what to watch next, but with the ability to view content from many different catalogs. However, it should not confuse you with the selections that you cannot access. There is a setting that lets you choose only the services you have. Plex has been in business for several years To slide into position as a one-stop shop licensed for live broadcasts – And the Ad-supported free TV Business model – which the new listing may finally be able to pull off.

Photo: Plex

There’s also a new “Watch from these sites” feature, which helps you if you know what you want to watch but not where to find it. Adds a section to the Movies & TV info page that shows streaming services that offer this content. In some versions of the app (available on devices like Apple TV, Fire Stick, Roku, PlayStation, Smart TVs, etc.), Plex can bounce you directly to the streaming service from the page.

The list of streaming services that Plex supports with these features is, in simple words, enormous. It includes all the big names, like Hulu, Disney Plus, Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, and Peacock, along with – no joke – nearly 150 others (many of them, like Martha Stewart TV, I’ve never heard of). Basically, if you can legally stream what you’re watching somewhere on the Internet, Plex will probably tell you about it, with only a few exceptions. And of course, you can also let it search your Plex libraries for self-hosted videos or other media.

Plex support page It says that “not all platforms allow sending the user to the corresponding broadcast application”. From Reports on RedditOne big platform that can’t do tethering, it seems, is Roku. Testing it on my Apple TV it seemed to work fine, but it’s very clear that it was a beta version. I can open links to Netflix, Hulu, and Apple TV Plus, but I got an error trying to open links for HBO Max and YouTube. Plex said the apps were not installed, even though they were. On the web version of Plex, it worked with just about every platform I could think of to try (although when I opened things up on YouTube, it took me to the search results page for the title rather than the actual page for the movie itself).

Personally, this may have finally pushed me to use Plex. I recently experienced what the company rudely refers to as the “streaming struggle,” where my wife and I spent an hour figuring out what to watch. Most of the features that Plex adds here aren’t unique – the Apple TV has a comprehensive search built in and sort of lets you create a watchlist (although these features have very limited support for content on Netflix). Google does a decent job of telling you which services a show or movie is on, and other smart TV platforms have universal search features as well. But it would certainly be nice to have it all in one place and in a relatively neat interface that works across many different devices.

These features should be freely available on most platforms, as long as you’re using the latest version of the Plex app. I didn’t have to sign up for a beta program to get access to it, but you might have to Follow Plex’s instructions To find them according to your settings.