Responsibilities#
| Component | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Plex Media Server | Libraries, media metadata, access to media, media delivery and conversion, playback progress, collections, and playlists. |
| plex.tv | Plex account identity, server discovery, ownership verification, Plex Home information, and shared-item access used by configuration publication. |
| Reel on Roku | Navigation, presentation, personal preferences, shared-configuration resolution, device capability checks, and playback controls. |
| Reel services | Application artwork, optional hosted configuration, supplemental title information, and technical-report ingestion. |
Reel uses the selected Plex identity when reading a server. The owner account and a managed or shared profile can therefore see different libraries and have different administrative authority on the same Roku.
Identity and scope#
Shared Reel configuration belongs to a Plex server. Personal configuration choices are kept separately for each profile and server on a TV. Changing the active profile does not turn one profile's choices into another's defaults.
For configuration publication, Reel checks the signed-in account against plex.tv and the server's identity. Possession of an Admin PIN does not replace this check. Only the account that owns the server can publish its shared configuration.
Watch Later has a different storage model: it is a personal playlist on the Plex server. Do not assume that all personal preferences follow that playlist between devices.
Connection policy#
Connection security is an advanced playback setting the owner can manage. Secure first prefers HTTPS and permits an insecure local-network fallback. Secure only requires HTTPS. Insecure allowed also permits insecure remote connections. Plex must independently permit any insecure connection Reel attempts.
This policy controls the client connection. It does not configure certificates, port forwarding, the Plex server's network settings, or library-sharing permissions. If a profile loses connectivity after a policy change, check its actual route to PMS and whether HTTPS is usable on that route.
Service dependencies#
Optional hosted configuration adds a dependency on itsreel.tv for shared-setting reads and publication. Playlist storage keeps the configuration payload on PMS, but ownership verification and sharing still involve plex.tv. Playlist storage is not an assertion that Reel never contacts an external service.
Supplemental pause information uses Reel's enrichment service. Its absence is separate from whether PMS can deliver a movie. Technical-report recording and sending are separate installation-wide controls in Privacy & Help; both are enabled by default in the current beta.
See the site's privacy policy for the broader data-handling statement. Turning off diagnostic recording is not a general switch that disables Plex, artwork, hosted configuration, or content-enrichment requests.