Alternative to Plex

Are you trying to give them all diabetes??? #paleo #nocarbs

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@elan other low sugar diet products are available!

(Hey I’m a dev, embedded systems, so appreciate the odd pizza or two!)

I tried to follow the instructions for the beta programme but it seems I can only enroll on the server beta, not shield beta.

Try over in Join App Betas: Android (mobile), Android TV, Apple TV, iOS

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What I know from my experience:

With the Roku and PMP, the surround audio is selected automatically, so that I never have to make a manual selection. I can start a movie with no audio selection on my main TV connected to a surround system, and it direct plays surround. I can then move to the roku on the TV in my bedroom, incapable of decoding AC3 or other surround formats, and it direct plays the stereo AAC track. No audio selection required. Ever.

If I use the Android app, I have to make the audio selection, which is “locked in” Then I continue watching on the bedroom TV, and there is either no audio, or a transcode. What really bothers me, the Android app shows on the “pre-play” screen that there is a 5.1 sound track more or less as the best audio, but displays the stereo track as the default audio.

I’m more than willing to admit I’ve missed some sort of setting in my account, or in the android device, but I’m pretty sure I’ve been through them all.

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@elan, I would like to reiterate @leelynds comment about selecting the best/most appropriate audio track. Since I create both stereo AAC and 5.1 AC3 tracks in everything, on my shield every single TV episode that I watch I have to stop and change the audio from the default (first) audio track, which happens to be AAC to the 5.1 track. I encode AAC first since many of my users use Plex on their phones and I don’t want them to have to change the audio track every time or force my little NAS to transcode for no reason.

tl;dr When binge watching TV shows, for example, would be nice to set an audio quality preference on a device level.

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We’re getting way off topic in this thread :sweat_smile: It would likely be better to open a new thread so it doesn’t get lost in the mix,

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@elan signed up, hopefully won’t be too longer before it’s either out of beta or I can install it.

Wouldn’t you rather talk about Plex stuff then alternatives to Plex? :slight_smile:

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:grin::joy::rofl: Omg.

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That’s actually something done by the Roku itself, not the app. When direct playing a file, the player in the Roku can select dynamically any audio track to play. Other players like on Android, can also play any track when direct playing, but it has to be told which track. It doesn’t have the brains to understand a “preferred track”. This would have to be added to each client not called Roku.

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LOL - I’m sure you know what that means, and are no doubt correct.

If I remember correctly, you told me in another thread it was because I have chosen the formats the Roku can decode or pass- through in the Roku settings,

But if the Roku can either dynamically or automatically select the best audio track (I don’t see the difference, the words mean the same to me) because I have chosen those settings, and the beta Android app sounds like it’s going to have similar settings, than isn’t the same dynamic or auto-selection achievable?

I mean , the 4-year old MPC player does that on both of my Windows computers, once I have selected the codecs to pass-through or decode.

This is huge. Plex makes this very complicated. I don’t want to have to have internet access just to watch stuff on my local server. I’m not a techy, nor do I use Roku or Android (which seem to take priority for the developers), but being able to watch my own local content on my smartTV shouldn’t require continuous internet connectivity.

Many of the conversations about tracking transcoding are beyond my area of expertise, but as your average joe with a massive digital library, I love Plex. My main frustrations are:

  1. Being forced to maintain constant internet for local content
  2. Content type > libraries (and navigating through Discover for EVERY library) is too much navigating (as pretty much everyone has expressed – and you’ve responded)
  3. Not being able to switch between audio tracks (such as for commentary tracks)
  4. The incredibly slow response to support issues is probably most frustrating of all.

Plex developers have done a lot to improve playback functionality lately, but getting back to basics on navigation will help immensely.

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This could be programmed rather easily for every device. You could have config screen with all the audio codec it detects. Then you could rank them in the order you want to use them.
DTS
Dolby Digital
AAC
Type thing.
There is a gotcha however in doing something like this. You could have a mix of normal and commentary tracks and the “auto chooser” could pick the commentary track because it’s a preferred format. It’s a good trade off in my book.

Of course it would/should be an option to use or not anyway.

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But chances are pretty good, I wouldn’t be “gotcha’d” too often.

Even better, if Plex would just recognize the “Name” or “Title” of the track, which I always include, the one named “Directors’s Comments” would always be an option not an auto-selection.

ermm, dynamic selection, I mean :thinking:

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I feel a bit odd reading all the hate over the past few months, since we really dig the new layout.

I actually bought a lifetime in December since the whole family and friends think the app on tvOS and Roku look great.

As far as OP, we really liked emby, but when my wife compared the two, she liked the plex app more.

Good luck OP!

When DP, the Plex app tells the video player 1 of 2 things. 1 - When you don’t manually select an audio track, “here’s a file, do what you want”. 2 - When you do specify a track, “here’s a file, play this video track and this audio track”. On the Roku, when it receives 1, it can override these and decide “I’ll play this audio instead since that is what my setting tells me to do”. Exoplayer in Android doesn’t have that override so when it gets 1, it always chooses the first compatible audio track. To use a “preferred track” the app would have to always use option 2, then you have the issue Cayars mentions. Another issue is some players don’t like option 2, they only listen to 1, which means the file has to be remuxed instead of DP anytime the preferred track is not first. As you know, DP is preferred as it provides a smoother experience.

Then throw in automatic bitrate adjustment and hardware acceleration, the potential scenarios go up. So there is a lot to consider before this could be implemented to all clients.

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@elan man I LOVE YOU!

Just sideloaded it onto the shield downstairs (and despite the icon now being an android!) I was able to select optical and set ac3 and keep dts deselected. Bingo!!!

Weirdly, it still direct played DTS to the shield which output ac3. Playing EAC3 transcoded on the server.

But before this, both these would have been silent! Now I don’t have to reencode any media or hope that there’s an ac3 soundtrack and keep having to change it on every single file when I go to playback!

I guess my trust in Plex has paid off, so pleased I bought the lifetime pass at Christmas, been a user for many many years on a monthly sub!

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Glad to hear it’s working! You might want to save some love for @IanDBird, who actually wrote the code :laughing:

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@more4me2do Hahahah, did you like my post? :slight_smile:

I started another thread where I specifically laid out this scenario and Elan responded that they were not going to bury our movies in the search results but how will this play out?

I can’t envision any reality where Disney/HBO/Fox/etc (if they partner up with Plex) would be fine with a TV show/movie I have… that can be streamed by my friends for FREE… being listed along side a paid version of the same, exact media file.

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Sure loved it as it made my day. Been struggling with Plex on my QNAP NAS and as soon as the Emby server version 3.6.* with the new Live TV and EPG feature is being released I will switch.

Like so many others have commented here the admins will migrate their users to Emby as will I, just waiting for the right Emby version.

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