I use an Nvidia Shield TV 2019 for my LG C9 4K TV and I need a second streaming device for my old 1080p Toshiba Regza 55XL700E in another room. Can you recommend the best 1080p streaming device that supports Plex?
Apple TV 4, maybe with infuse 6
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How about a Nvidia Shield?
You’re familiar with the user interface. You’re familiar with its capabilities. If something happens to one, you’ve the other as a backup.
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Won’t it be a waste of money if I buy another 4K media player if the TV is 1080p anyway?
Most media players handle 4K these days.
Understandable if you don’t want to drop $150+ USD on an AppleTV or Nvidia Shield.
Look at the Roku devices. You can get a 4K HDR capable stick for ~$50 USD and the Ultra for $100 USD. I’ve never used a Roku, but others on the forum seem very happy with them.
I’ve used a Roku before and was not a fan of it. Are Amazon streaming devices any good? I’ve never used sticks (Firestick, Chromecast, etc.) before but how are their performance?
No, it wont be. Because a 4K-capable player will have better performance and codec support than a 1080p-limited player, so more of your stuff will direct play. Plus then if/when you do upgrade that older TV you will already have a streaming device that takes full advantage of it.
I have a couple Amazon Fire Stick 4K’s here. I can take one and plug it into a cheap 28" 720p TV in a bedroom, and direct play 4K HDR movies on it (they aren’t playing in HDR of course, but the brightness and colors map in a way that looks “normal”) and it’s not being transcoded by the server for being HEVC, which might happen with a non-4K player.
Ok, that makes sense. So do you have a pretty much decent experience with the Fire Stick 4K’s? Any caveats that I need to know of?
The question I would be asking, how old the 1080P TV and in future any replacement you will be hard pressed to find a 1080P Tv.
It’s been fine overall. There have been some odd playback hangs/issues with the app as they try and get everything transitioned to the “new player”. Not sure how many of those you experience with the Shield app (they are essentially the same app). I have a multi-user household and I have one Stick set up as Auto-Login and the other not. On the latter, I’ve noticed if I stop the auto-playback countdown of a next episode, and then hit the back button, the player goes back to the user-selection screen, not the correct previous screen, for some reason. Also I can’t jump back in playback during the ending few minutes of a show (player hangs with spinning arrow). I’m not sure if this is because I’m watching transcoded content (due to ASS subs), or something else. I haven’t done much testing on that because I do like the new “Skip Intro” feature and you have to have the new player enabled for that to work.
Most of the issues I have on the Fire Stick are long-running bugs involving subtitles/odd video/audio formats. If you’re watching regular movies and such you probably will see no problems at all. Also, being a Shield user the interface will be familiar.
If you wait for one of Amazon’s big sales you can usually get the Fire Stick 4K for like $5-10 more than the regular one, which is worth it for the faster performance.
I just got my 2019 Shield TV Pro so I have yet to test it with Plex but with my old 2017 version I did have the same hang issue with a spinning arrow when navigating (rewinding or forwarding) playback. Ok, it’s good to know that the new skip intro feature is available with the Fire Stick because it isn’t available in the Plex app of my LG TV’s which sucks.
Subs are important to me as I watch everything with subs 
I just learned though that running Plex in Kodi is much better than just running the Plex app alone. So I’ll have to try that. Any idea if Kodi plus the Plex add-on is a combo that can run on the Fire Stick?
When’s Amazon’s next big sale? Are 4th of July deals not that good based on historical data?
lg webos sucks just get rid of it. i use chromecast for older tvs of the 1080p nature do you realy need a remote control just use your phone
Yeah, in fact I currently have my second Fire Stick 4K connected to my LG 4K TV because of this issue – and they clearly can’t add Skip Intro to the LG Client until it gets fixed.
I have that setup on one stick, and it’s… so-so. I have some stuff that is high bitrate video or like 4:4:4 color space and it can’t play it back smoothly. Also FLAC audio can cause issues with smooth playback for me. I hear some people have no problems. YMMV is all I can say. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, and maybe it’s just with ASS format subs, but there is very long delay between playback starting and Kodi displaying subtitles. Like if I have a program that starts with spoken dialog at the beginning it’s 10 seconds before Plex on Kodi starts rendering the subtitles. Not a delay, just a “we dropped those earlier lines”. On a movie this wont be a problem since most films have studio logos and opening credits during that time, but honestly Plex on Kodi is more a curiosity for me. I generally just use the normal app.
July is probably a good time, actually. Looking at my order history I ordered my second one on July 16th last year, and it was $24.99 ($49.99-$25 Deal of the Day rebate), plus I got a $45 Sling credit from it.
Speak for yourself, I have a LG 65OLED B8. WebOS does not suck with Alpha 7 or 9 Processors.
Yes older LG as such, prior to version 4 WebOS Plex Client
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Yes, the LG app sucks big time. I have a 55C9 and it just feels so buggy. Even with external SRT subs, they just disappear randomly every single time while you’re watching and when you rewind back a little it gets solved.
As for Kodi + Plex, I have no experience with it yet but I was just basing my information on this:
Does Amazon just announce random deals with their products? Or was July 16 last year like a special day for discounts (similar to Prime Day)?
As I mentioned in my above post, I can vouch for the webOS Plex app being sucky with my 55C9. Are you using subs? Did you want the skip intro feature? Have you encountered media files with uncompressed audio that the app can’t play? If not, then you’re probably fine.
I have used subs on occasions and my Library is tailored to the device capabilities. So NO sucking here.
Yeah, to each his own. We’re just saying how it can be sucky for most.
For me SRT subs start to track off on their timing occasionally on the LG webOS client. Disabling and re-enabling them fixes it.
Every client has compromises and issues. I don’t hate the LG client that much. It has dedicated buttons on the remote for next/previous chapter and I like that, and Fire Stick does not. It also has the Cast List that still has not appeared on Android TV clients. But the Fire Stick 4K can natively play back VOB and PGS subtitles from ripped discs (so less content being transcoded for me). I’ve been watching a series this week and have noticed differences in ASS subtitle rendering between Plex Media Player (karaoke effects not rendering, making pull song unreadable), to Plex transcoding (dialog font rendering wrong), to Kodi+Plex add-on (start of show rendering missing, performance problems). None of them are 100% right.
I discovered the “10-second subtitle delay” issue I saw on Kodi+Plex does not happen with external ASS subs, just embedded ones. But the official Fire TV client does not support external ASS subs at all (even though it’s supposed to), and most subs of that type are distributed embedded anyway.
I saw that same posting on Reddit, so now I’m curious about the Apple TV 4K’s subtitle handling. Other than that I might put together an SBC device and the Linux PMP port. I really don’t like the Plex Kodi plug-in interface, and they have announced no plans to put UNO on it.
Why aren’t you just using the 2017 Shield you have with the 1080p TV?
Interesting experience regarding subs. I agree that it’s different for every player. I did even notice differences in subtitle playback betweek different 4K TV’s of LG. I must say that the 55C9 client was one of the less buggy ones I tried.
What’s an SBC device? If the UNO UI is not in the Plex Kodi plug-in then that’s bad news for me.
I sold the 2017 shield to upgrade to the 2019 I had no plans in using a media player on my 1080p TV back then.
