What is the best streaming stick when used for Plex? I’m using the regular Fire Stick 4K now and it is full of bugs that I really want to get rid of it. The 4K Max is on sale right now at $34.99 but I’m very reluctant in getting it because of all the issues I’m experiencing with the 4K.
Is the Goggle Chromecast with Google TV a better device? Any noteworthy bugs that I need to know of?
I have a Shield for my TV in my home theater but for TV’s in regular bedrooms, I only need a stick.
Not sure what you’re talking about. My Fire Stick 4k tends to be pretty trouble-free.
The problem I have with the Firestick 4K is how it sometimes just can’t play media when I have external SRT subs enabled. This is a whole another story that I don’t want to discuss here. It’s random and it’s not due to transcoding. Stopping and replaying the file usually fixes it. I’ve been troubleshooting with a Plex employee for several months now and he just doesn’t know what’s happening, which is a real shame.
Plus the fact that sometimes in the Plex client UI, I cannot go to the section where the Play, Mark as Played, and More option for a particular media are located. It just doesn’t highlight them when I try to select them. It looks like this is a known issue though.
Another thing is that sometimes the Plex client just restarts by itself when trying to play a file.
All these things make me want to throw this stick outside the window.
Ah. I tend to mux subtitle files into the main program (not a big fan of “sidecar” files). But I have an issue regarding external ASS subs not working. SRT subs work, though.
But to get back to your original question, Fire Stick 4K and Roku Streaming Stick+ are like the Coke vs. Pepsi of each other. I have one here in the house as well, as another family member is more a fan of that platform. I was surprised how small it was when I was setting it up. Roku platform is generally more stable than Amazon FireTV I would say. It also doesn’t support as many formats natively. What makes me choose Android/FireTV is the native support for PGS/VOB subs and some audio formats, but the Streaming Stick+ is a good option too for most users. Also, you don’t have that issue of apps hanging around running in the background when you leave them on Roku’s platform like you can get on Android.
Honestly I feel like some people promote one over the other more for personal feelings about the companies that make them than the actual technical merits of the experience.
I see. The problem with theRoku is that it also doesn’t support Atmos native decoding, right?
If I upgrade my Firestick 4K to the Firestick 4K Max, will I probably still gets these bugs/quirks?
Any comments on the Chromecast with Google TV stick?
Firestick 4K Max is new hardware. I don’t think the Plex app has been really worked over yet to function best with it yet. There’s been a couple threads posted here on issues, and I remember similar threads about the FireTV Cube when it first came out.
I don’t know about the Chromecast/Google side of things much but there have been some threads about Plex not being able to use some audio formats and I’ve seen mention its because the hardware doesn’t identify itself easily. So you end up with the app assuming the entire class is lowest-common denominator, since it can’t tell you’re using a higher-end model.
I’ve never really looked into Chromecasts as I’m not interested in using my phone as a controller. Once the new one came out that’s more like a traditional streaming dongle I already had two Fire Stick 4Ks and a Shield Pro.
Thanks for those threads. So it looks like the best thing to do here is just to keep on using my regular Firestick 4K’s. I’m actually fine with that as long as I can fix the bugs I’m experiencing. In all honesty, the major bug that I want to fix is the subtitle bug.
My profile is set to always enable subtitle. What happens is that most of the times (there are some random times the issue does not happen) when you play media it starts with a spinning wheel and won’t play. A workaround is to change subtitle from either to external srt (if existing) to another subtitle (srt or not) or vice versa. The point is that you need to change subs for it to work. It’s super annoying.
It’s not PMS-related because it only happens with my Firesticks. With my Shield Pro and LG Plex apps, this was never a problem.
I’m not planning to buy any further FireTV devices myself. The old Amazon interface was already pretty ad-heavy, but the new one is much worse, and it takes more system resources, too. Plex has had to make adjustments on their client due to the lower memory they have to work with thanks to the new Amazon launcher. I might try side-loading an alternative launcher to get away from it.
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