[SteamOS] How to Add Plex Home Theater / OpenPHT

Overview

A short guide on adding Plex Home Theater to SteamOS to drastically increase media handling and playback capability. Finally watch Youtube under a controller friendly interface!

General

In this guide, I will demonstrate how to add Plex / Plex Home Theater to SteamOS. So what exactly will this get you? Aside from access to your home server’s (or local to SteamOS) media library. What this also gets you, is access to Youtube, Pandora One, Crackle, and quite a few other app channels. The original source for much of this is linked a the bottom of the guide in the links section

Installing Plex Home Theater / OpenPHT

Open up a terminal window session by click activities in desktop mode, and typing “terminal”. You will need to first make sure (if you haven’t already) add the password for the desktop user so you can use sudo access.

passwd

Enter ‘desktop’ as the password, or whatever your choice. Now, on to the good stuff.

sudo apt-get install git
git clone [link]
cd SteamOS-Tools
./configure-repos.sh
sudo apt-get install openpht

Adding Plex to Big Picture Mode

Time to add Plex Home Theater to SteamOS and rock out. Return to Steam, using the shortcut on your desktop called “Return to Steam.” Go to Settings > Add Library Shortcut, and choose “OpenPHT” to add the “non-Steam game” to Steam. OpenPHT should now be in you Library

The Extras

Since you now have Plex installed, you should now have access to not only your media, but some nice channels as well. This means you can finally play Youtube and Pandora in SteamOS, with the controller! This section may expand further as I mess around more with the whole suite in SteamOS.

Some channels are a bit odd, in that you need to sign into the application using the settings gear icon in the top right of the Plex.tv website, where you manage your servers.

Some channels you may want to add are:

• Youtube
• Crackle
• Pandora (Pandora One subscription required)
• Anime Vice
• Break
• Comedy Central
• Game Trailers
• HD Trailers
• IGN
• Revision 3
• Twit.Tv
• Vimeo
• The Nerdist

Of course there are others, which you can freely browse at add-on the Plex interface on SteamOS, or your browser on your laptop or desktop.

Troubleshooting / Tips

Please reference the wiki page at SteamOS-Tools for full information:
[link]

Also, head into the account section and hit the dpad right once or twice. You’ll get a much nice looking interface. You’re welcome!

Please report all issues to:

[link]

Conclusions

So Plex on SteamOS does work, and works quite well! I especially like that the Youtube channel pops up with what quality you want (1080p / 720p / 480p), so you can choose the right quality for your connection. While it doesn’t have everything, this greatly reduced my need to switch input over to my Roku for things I do most (Youtube and Plex). Sadly, there is no Hulu that I know of. It is my hope Valve has some sort of solution in the works this year for video-based applications.