Getting MST3K to play on my Roku devices

Hello! I received the #MadeMoreMST3K Backer Collection as did everyone else who backed the kickstarter. When I got the codes for VHX/Vimeo, I decided to only download the episodes which I haven’t seen. For those who are wondering, those very episodes are:

  • Mitchell
  • The Brain That Wouldn’t Die
  • The Dead Talk Back
  • Village Of The Giants
  • Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues…

Of course, Naturally, I would want to play them on my TV via Roku rather than on my computer. The thing is, I have a main computer which is a Mac and I also have a Gaming PC, but I didn’t want to transfer the large episodes over to the Gaming PC. What I did was I looked at Roku’s web site and they said I needed a DLNA media server to narrow-cast to my Roku, and I chose Plex. So I downloaded Plex and waited for all my music to sync (which was about two or three hours, if not more), and then I was trying to make MST3K sync, but it wasn’t happening. I then go to Plex’s support site and find out how to organize the files. Turns out, they’re organized like this:

Mystery Science Theater 3000/Season04/24 _Manos_ The Hands of Fate.mp4

Once I organized every single episode like that, I was able to watch on my Roku via Plex, and as long as my computer was on and my main browser was up, I started watching!

Kudos to Roku and Plex for making an easy (enough) streaming option, and kudos to whomever decided to make the MST3K episodes DRM-free (whether it was Joel or someone else, whomever that person is absolutely deserves the praise!)!

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Plex is great. Glad you got it up and running.

The mandate on directory structure and naming conventions on files is the one thing that slips up everyone at the beginning, and it might be the precise point where some folks give it a try, give up, and move to XBMC/Kodi or UMC or… TVersity… shudder

Don’t forget that Plex also provides curated content including Shout! Factory TV which includes MST3K episodes!

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