I have an issue with the Fire TV player. I know at some point this was working how I desired, but something has changed.
I have an “Other Videos” library called “Home Movies.” I have created custom Poster art for most of the videos, and background art for some of the videos. The problem that now presents itself is that the Fire TV player chooses to use the background art as the poster (in landscape mode). At some point this displayed the posters properly, but has recently changed to this background/landscape layout.
The Fire HD tablet app oddly uses the correct poster art, but in a landscape orientation.
The iOS app (both iPad and iPhone) display everything correctly. Poster art in portrait orientation. This is what I want.
Plex Web display everything correctly. Poster art in portrait orientation. This is what I want.
How in the HECK do I get the Fire TV to show the correct poster art in portrait orientation? I can’t find a setting anywhere. Has something changed??? Can there be a setting somewhere that allows you to choose whether you want to use poster art instead of background art. And further, that it be laid out in portrait orientation instead of landscape?
I’d included a photo to show the difference between all the players/apps I have.
There is no setting for it so you can’t do something for which there is no option to do so. “other video” libraries were originally intended for home movies that don’t have posters and folks didn’t want weird skinny images of the “fan art” which for home movies are stills from home movie.
If you wan Android TV to show poster then it needs to be a Movie library. which can be accomplished by charging the agent to the Plex Movie agent for that library but it may try to match them with real movies which I am guessing you won’t want so I didn’t bring it up.
So “other video” libraries were originally intended for home movies on Android TV only? Because all of the other apps (I have) use the poster art.
And I know for a fact that my Fire TV used to show the poster art in portrait orientation not that long ago.
Note: Changing the agent to Plex Movie agent makes no change. I think what would need to happen is that the library would need to be deleted, and recreated as a Movie Library. But, as you point out, might cause more problems than it’s worth.
I hope you understand I am not complaining. I am just trying to understand the logic here. I just don’t understand why Android TV uses background art, and all the others use poster art if “folks didn’t want weird skinny images.”
It sounds like the logic is that “TV Shows” expect to see a background and poster, so you tier episodes under a series. But “Videos” is reserved for one off home movies, which doesn’t expect rich metadata
yeah as a far as i am aware Android is doing the correct thing as designed and the other two are not. but like I said I will bring up having a possible option since “other video” libraries can be used for lots of things. some folks use them for documentaries or work out videos for example where a poster would be preferable.
I would like to show Poster Art for Other Videos as well, showing the Background Art isn’t particularly useful or desirable. A few months ago the library did show the Poster Art so something must have recently been changed - can this either be reverted back (as there does seem to be a preference for it) or give us the option to choose which we’d prefer? I too spent hours finding poster art for my videos (Broadway and West End stage recordings), and although the library on my PC looks great, the library on my FireTVC stick looks awful.
I agree 100%! I went through all the trouble of ripping my DVD’s, creating a Plex library on my PC and Matching each movie with a poster. Then I go to my TV and see silly backgrounds. They should be posters and once selected you see the background with metadata. I can’t find a solution or setting option to make the change, nor anyone else that does.
OK, I figured it out. If you are adding Libraries for your Ripped DVD Movies, TV Shows or even DVR’ed Moves and TV Shows, but creating “Other Videos” Libraries you will not get Posters to show up on a FireTV, Only Backgrounds. Plus you have to manually match each video file with Posters and Backgrounds. Of course after doing this for all of my DVD’s and DVR’s, I found the solution.
You need to created Libraries for “Movies” and “TV Shows”. Once you do that, Posters will show up on a FireTV! Not only that, but Plex will automatically download both Posters and Background for each video. Out of over 300, I only have 3 or 4 that were identified incorrectly by movie or date. East fix is to just select “Fix Match” and it will give you other options.
I sure wish Plex Support or someone had shared this with me after posting here, several Facebook Groups, and even several YouTube Channels.
Anyway, I thought I would share here, so if anyone still has the problem or are Plex newbies like me, they can save a bunch of time. For now, I am a happy camper.
Unfortunately, my issue was with personal home movies (Other Videos). I had created poster art for a vast majority of my personal video files, but then FireTV decided to start showing the background art instead. Some of my devices (not FireTV) show poster art for the Other Videos section, yet FireTV does not.
My solution was to create matching poster art and background art for every Other Video I had. This allowed some type of uniformity across all of my devices.
My situation is similar. I can deal with the thumbnails being poster aspect ratio or landscape aspect ratio. I use “Other Videos” for short clips I have edited. My problem is it looks like when I select an “Other Video” to watch on my Fire TV, I get a launch screen that crops poster graphics into landscape framing. It used to use the poster aspect ratio for the poster. Now it uses the landscape aspect ratio for a poster graphic. A solution might be to just use a vertical aspect ratio every time a poster is used and a horizontal aspect ratio every time a background graphic is used. Never crop a poster into landscape and never crop a background into portrait.
