Plex just announced a new Skip Intro feature that aims to do just exactly what you’d think it would. If you’ve ever used Netflix’s similar feature to jump past the same, ol’ theme song topping every episode, you know what to expect here. The interesting wrinkle is that Plex’s version works with your own personal libraries on your Plex Media Server.
In a blog post, the company described how the new feature analyzes your shows in the background and can predict where the intros occur in different episodes of a given show. It does this by examining the audio and identifying common sections that typically signal a theme song or other consistent introduction. Plex says its method can accurately predict where intros occur “in almost all cases.” It also apparently takes into account how theme songs and other intros can change or evolve from season to season.
There are some limitations in the current version. Intros shorter than 20 seconds are ignored and those that occur more than 10 minutes into an episode won’t be detected. Also, if you have several copies of the same episode, the feature will only analyze one of them.
According to support docs, the new feature will be available on a variety of platforms, including:
- Amazon Fire TV (v8.0.1 or newer)
- Android mobile (v8.0.1 or newer)
- Android TV (v8.0.1 or newer)
- Apple TV (v2.18 or newer)
- iOS (v6.12 or newer)
- Roku (v6.5.4 or newer)
- Web version (v4.34 or newer)
Also, your Plex Media Server should be running version 1.19.3.2793 or newer.
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