A Gizmoplex question - can I just watch on smart tv?

Honestly I don’t have a clue what a PLEX server is, how to set up, etc so my question is this:
If I have a smart tv would I just be able to use the web browser on it to watch Season 13 thru the gizmoplex?

Is the gizmoplex just a website?
I can stream from my phone of course and stream that to TV but…
I saw on another thread that the gizmoplex is an app?

Thank you to all those smarter than I in these ways.

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Yes, the Gizmoplex will be available as a web page. They have said some advanced features may only be available that way. So it should work. I’ve got to try that myself when the time comes.

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I have an LG tv with a web browser, and I just logged into my VHX account and am now streaming Gamera vs. Barugon.

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Does anyone know if this might work like the VHX Roku TV app? That would be great.

I have Rokus on all my TVs but can’t get the VHX app on it. I did, however, download the Web Video Caster Receiver app on the Roku and companion app on my phone and am currently enjoying one of the digital downloads. :grinning:

The Gizmoplex will function as a skin for the existing VHX system, so it should be similar.

We’ve got a whole other thread about this. There are ways to get stuff from the Gizmoplex to your Roku, but there’s currently no app that just does it smoothly. You can’t directly Chromecast the VHX browser tab to your Roku. There isn’t a functioning Roku app for VHX. There are some third party apps that may allow you to stream the browser tab to the TV, if you don’t mind them inserting ads or demanding money to cover their dev costs. So far, the best way I’ve found for my setup is to download the ep I want to watch to a USB thumb drive and play that with Roku’s media player. But maybe the MST dev team will find a better fix?

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Bumping this with an update from the other thread:

Apparently the VHX business model is that they’ll host your videos on their site, but if you want those videos to be accessible elsewhere, you gotta pay for them to produce branded apps. That’s their specialty.

Which, guess what? Is exactly the plan for the Gizmoplex: a cross-platform set of branded apps so that you’re not just watching MST3K videos like you would on YT or whatever, but you’re doing it within a broader branded experience.* A virtual space you can navigate around that has the features of a multiplex cinema: crowds you can talk to, physical things you can buy, a unified visual theme, etc.

So the situation is that all that is in development and scheduled to launch in March. Including specific MST3K apps that will work directly on your smart TV. As a bonus, they decided to release some things early so that we’d have something to open before Christmas. (Not to mention a set of things you can buy people for Christmas if you’re so inclined.) Whatever you buy now will be available to you through the apps when they launch.

That could maybe have been better communicated in the backer update?

Bottom line: You can play the eps on your smart TV now, but it takes a bit of work. It’ll be much easier when the Gizmoplex launches early next year.

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Judging by some of the comments I’ve seen here or elsewhere, there are people that don’t read the updates.

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And for those who are curious, the Vimeo OTT platform has APIs for making apps for iOS/AppleTV, Android/AndroidTV, FireTV, Roku, XBox, and Samsung Tizen (Samsung smart TVs). That’s not to say they are going to necessarily (especially initially) going to have apps made for all of those (I forget the subset they announced), but there’s a pretty broad base of available platform APIs. The main ones I don’t see are WebOS (LG smart TVs) and Playstation (because Sony is notorious for making the process difficult if you aren’t a huge company).

I’ve read the updates. Some of that information was in them. Some was not. It gave the launch date for the Gizmoplex. It explained that these episodes were being released early. But I have not seen them address or or clearly explain the central question of this thread. The vital piece of information here is that the full Gizmoplex will be far more portable than the base platform we have now.

Yes, we know they had more features planned, and we know what some of those will be. Yes, we know they had general plans to create some mobile apps. I get that they don’t want to get ahead of themselves on the details. But there has not been much discussion of smart TV apps. “These early episodes are available on the website only, but when we’re ready to do the full launch you’ll be able to watch on your TV without having to jump through hoops” would have been helpful.

You can’t think of everything, and they’re really busy. And it’s a holiday weekend. But maybe they’ll address that in the next update.

Better than sneakernet cinema?

We call those the raisingnorant.

Let them unknowingly eat the Raisin Snails!

Here is some stuff from Update #29, July 26-30. I will be testing this with the web browser on my tv when it’s live.

  1. An update on the OTT APPS for phones, tablets and TVs.

As we said during the Kickstarter, our goal for the Gizmoplex was to accomplish it with the smallest (initial) budget possible, so that most of what we raised could be used to make new episodes of MST3K.

So, while we’ve seen in the forum conversations that there are a lot of ambitious ideas and hopes about what the Gizmoplex apps will include – at least in their first incarnation – we want to manage everyone’s expectations a bit, so that you won’t be disappointed by our actual plans.

While we have a lot of ambitious, interactive plans for the web-based version of the Gizmoplex, including a virtual space that you can explore, watch parties, and more, our current budget will not make it possible to put a lot of that advanced functionality into the Apple, Android, Roku and Amazon apps that we’re developing.

Those device-specific apps are being developed through a partnership with Vimeo OTT (the same platform that we’re building the Gizmoplex site on top of), but there are definite limits to how much we can customize the interface or content of those apps.

Right now, our top priorities are to make sure that the apps are able to:

  • Stream any episodes you’ve bought from the Gizmoplex Video Store.

  • Stream any episodes you’ve gotten as Kickstarter rewards.

  • Browse, rent/buy and stream more content from the Video Store.

  • Download those episodes on phones/tablets for offline viewing.

  • Stream the livestream events and premieres we host each month.

  • Stream the monthly Gizmoplex Pass “featured selection” episodes.

In order to add more advanced features to the MOBILE AND TV APPS — like watch parties, navigation around a virtual theater, chat and message boards, etc — we’d have to dedicate a much larger budget to developing and maintaining completely custom apps. Again: we’re still aiming to launch those features in the web-based version, but as of now, have no way to include them in the stand-alone apps.

While we’re definitely interested in exploring all of those features — and more! — in the future, our immediate goal is to make sure that we deliver what we promised during the Kickstarter: the ability to access all of your Gizmoplex content on device-specific apps.

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Ah. 6 months ago. I vaguely recall that. Thanks for the refresher. It’s been a long year. And that information is much more relevant now, as we get closer to all of this becoming a reality.

That’s the most detail they’ve gone into, not much said since besides that they’re working on stuff.