Plex Has a New Button to Skip the Credits

Plex already has a button to skip the intro of a TV show, similar to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, but powered with machine learning. Now you can even skip the credits, too.

Plex is rolling out a new “Skip Credits” feature, which works a lot like the existing option to skip intros. Plex scans your content using a machine learning algorithm to determine when the credits scroll, and if the detection works, you’ll see a Skip Credits button at the end of a movie or TV show. Plex says it works well for movie marathons (e.g. skip credits to start playback of the next content in the queue), or just skipping to mid-credits or end-credits scenes.

Thankfully, your home server shouldn’t have to run AI workloads on every single movie and show in your library. Plex said in a blog post, “All that processing isn’t cheap, so we’ve also created a cloud-based repository to store the results in case you ever need to rebuild a library or do a clean install. By default, the results of all your local credit detection efforts are anonymously submitted to our new service, so if you ever need to do a rebuild or install, the results are available in seconds instead of burning hours of CPU time recomputing them.”

The feature comes after Plex implemented a Skip Intro button in May 2020, which is also powered by local machine learning algorithms. For that functionality, Plex creates an audio histogram of each episode in a given season, and looks for a common sound pattern that matches a intro sequence.

Plex says the feature will work automatically for all of Plex’s own free content, but for home libraries, you’ll need the latest Plex Media Server application. The updated server will gradually analyze your library as part of nightly maintenance, or you can activate it manually by starting “Analyze” in the settings.

Source: Plex Blog