Whirligig - Plex improvements, Language updates and bug/performance improvements

Hi all,

Here's the New Year’s update. I've continued to improve the Plex integration, which now allows for remote play with a Plex Pass / subscription, etc.

Plex Improvements

So the Plex integration (I'm not affiliated with Plex in any way and I'm using their API for integration) is going well. Over the Christmas period I worked on remote play — I was away so it made sense 🙂 — and on some of the challenges involved.

Remote Play

So remote play is working. This came with some challenges, and the biggest one is that the VLC plugin isn't very good at streaming playback. I've spent a while trying to come up with a solution, and the one I've landed on is this: if you're playing back with VLC then Whirligig will download the video to your device, place it in the Videos/VLC_Plex folder, and start playing it once 50 MB has been downloaded.

If the video completes its download, it stays there. If it doesn't, it gets deleted after Whirligig closes. This allows VLC to play back the video as if it's local, removing all the issues that come with streaming playback. Media Foundation, on the other hand, streams pretty well, so that stays the same.

What are your thoughts on this approach? Should all files be deleted when Whirligig closes? Let me know if this is working for you, and if not how you would like to see it improved.

Video Tutorials

I've been making tutorials of all the functions for Whirligig. Here's the current list:

Whirligig - Input menu

View game pageWhirligig - Subtitles

View game pageWhirligig - Audio

View game pageWhirligig - Themes

View game pageWhirligig - Menus

View game pageWhirligig - Colour, glow, crop, chroma key

View game pageWhirligig - Presets and Saves menus

View game pageWhirligig - Explorer menu

View game pageWhirligig - Depth menu

View game pageWhirligig - Projection menu

View game page

And finally

I hope you appreciate these updates and feedback is very welcome. Also a call out for POSITIVE REVIEWS, BUG REPORTS, and FEATURE REQUESTS. I'll continue to work on Whirligig as long as you continue to enjoy using it.

Actually I have one last question. I was thinking of putting up the price. For the people who already own Whirligig, do you think Whirligig is worth more?

Hope everyone has a great 2026. Happy watching 😄

Phil