The app on my previous Samsung Smart TV was really bad, poor performance, really bad UI. Now I switched to a new LG TV. The app on the LG is even worse. Really annoying UI and really slow (videos buffering, photos not loading). I downloaded a third party Plex client for LG (I think the name is XPlayer) and the performance was much better. The UI was responsive and easier to use. XPlayer however does not receive updates anymore.
Another thing is support here in the forums. Maybe there are some other support channels I should use. No idea. I have trouble with thumbnails, not being generated. At first I got some answers but they were not really helpful so I am really lost here.
I had this thumbnails problem years ago. It was a bug and it got fixed but in 2020 I have the same bug again? This does not feel right.
So what is up with Plex?
And by the way… that blog entry at https://www.plex.tv/blog/building-a-personal-media-paradise/ feels like a bad joke. I’ll quote the author here: “one powerful, beautiful, and customizable platform that works smoothly and consistently no matter where and how you stream”. Really? Well… for me… not even thumbnails generation for albums works…
Plex is fine, but it sounds like you should use Emby, Jellyfin or some other media player if you’re not happy with Plex. It’s really just that simple.
I use both Plex and Emby. Plex is, generally, “prettier” but Emby is, for me, a bit more reliable and it seems much less of a resource hog. Emby also puts Plex’s customer service and responsiveness on the forums to shame. It is very very rare for a problem to be presented or a question asked on the Emby forum that a developer does not answer withing just a few hours.
I use Emby much more than I use Plex now and the sluggishness and lack of support that Plex shows are the two primary reasons for that. I still keep an active Plex server but it gets used less and less as time goes by. Right now, for my use, Emby is simply better.
It should be noted that I do not use remote access (but Emby supports it very well), podcasts, on-line sources or anything other than displaying and playing my media. Than is, for me, Emby is vastly superior in the core functionality but the Plex “extras” might drive some to Plex.
@b0rski I think you really might want to give Emby a try. However there is one additional thing: You mention “smart TVs” and I have to say that you are much better off with either Plex or Emby using any of the devices that connect to a TV instead of the built in app. Neither Plex or Emby really supports smart TVs well and generally it is very hard to keep the smart TV’s apps updated. I use Rokus, Fire TVs and Shield TVs and I have little trouble with either using either Plex or Emby. and there is also the advantage where if I change TVs even the brands of TVs my interface remains the same and the apps I use do not change. One of my TVs is a TCL TV with Roku built in. I do not even use the built in app on it. I find an actual Roku box just better. In fact I have never really activated the Roku app in the TV.
Edit: I began using Plex before you did and I have still mostly moved to Emby for the reasons I mentioned above.
I just recently installed plex because I was tired of getting calls from the wife when Emby would lose it’s mind and start doing weird things with play back.
After using Plex for about a month I can easily say they both have pros and cons. I like the remote connectivity of plex better and the way switching between home users works.
I prefer the Emby interface. It’s flashier. I would say at times it’s a bit closer to netflix. It can do the video trailer in the background when you select a movie or tv show much like netflix. I’ve had reliability issues with it’s player though. To me it just makes more sense as well. The interface for Plex seems clunky and hard to navigate at times.
The Emby theater app looks prettier on Windows 10 but does some strange things. Like play the movie and not present the controls overlay at all. Emby doesn’t do a very good job of giving you meaningful errors. While plex gives you an actual line of text saying what happened. I’ve had fewer complaints from the wife since installing plex. So at the moment it’s more functional. It’s not nearly as pretty. I don’t care for how it organizes things. Emby I can manipulate how it sees the library (Example: I have a workout video section divided them into types of work outs(cardio, pump etc.) then placed the workout videos in as series with the individual videos being episodes.) I’ve yet to figure out a way to make Plex let me do that. None of them handle audio books well. If they’d turn on collections for music or make an audio book section for plex that would help.
This list goes on and on.
If I could combine and select features from each them I’d be thrilled but I’m sure there are others that would hate it. For me the Jury is still out on rather I’ll stick with Plex or not. I used Emby for 4 years before deciding to try Plex. Ultimately its about how many phone calls I get from the wife and kids complaining that somethings not working. I’ll sacrifice flashy stuff for functionality in the end.
I have not had even one phone call from my wife in over 20 years. Of course we are divorced and when she left I told her this country was not big enough for both of us so she moved to Canada.
Of course that has nothing to do with either Plex or Emby.
I was able to get my systems fully operational again. After digging down deep, I found the initial installation was not UEFI yet I have a UEFI machine. Why that failed is beyond my understanding. I was able to extract the package list from the old installation, perform some awk/sed magic and create a new package list. Everything works.
I can’t speak to most of the above because it’s, frankly, way above my pay grade. I hope you all understand. I continue, day after day, doing as much as I can.
In my experience, TV apps with the exception of roku tvs have very under-powered hardware which result in apps generally running poorly. The Plex version is also usually old because TV manufactures are slow to release updates. Try a different platform like an apple tv or roku which I think is the best out of all of the players I have tried. You should see a big difference with your entire experience.
I would agree except in the case of Roku Smart TV’s. Those seem to run Plex as well as the external boxes (no big surprise if its the same hardware and software inside the tv). In any case, you will probably want an external box or stick for any smart TV more than 4-5 years old.
Have to aggree with Groupmaster. I’ve tried the PLEX app on my Samsung tV. It isn’t as good as my AppleTV 4K. The processor on most TVs just isn’t that powerful. If the experience you are getting with the built in app isn’t great, get an external box (firestick, roku, apple, whatever).
and probably a lot of things haven’t been fixed or implemented as a way to please their friends at Warner Bros and keep them from trying to shut them down entirely - i.e. playlist sharing.
There is another reason to not use or buy so called “smart” TVs and that is that the “smart” part introduces an additional point of failure as many times if the “smart” part fails you have to replace, or have repaired, the whole TV.
I prefer separate devices so as to minimize the impact of any one failure.
I installed JellyFin over the weekend and preferred to give it a go v/s another commercial company like Emby. What I found was pretty Interesting. I use a LOT of FireTV device and I can tell you in every single case the smart TVs built (very old) version of Plex completely out performed the newer version on the FireTV. Like day and night spinning and spinning to play things that should just launch instantly like it did on the old smart TV plex app. Even after endless hours of removing and reinstalling Plex on FireTV and tweaking the player settings, still crap. Then I tried out the JellyFin server and to my surprise it worked a LOT better than either. Just faster, snappier. Was quick to recognize direct play instead of transcoding and built in app on all Fire/Android devices I use. The downside is the app does not exist for built in smart tv but I have Fire sticks on them all anyways so doesnt matter. JellyFin also out performed Plex BY FAR when remote, of course another downside to JellyFin is it does not provide offline syncing of content yet. Still by far I think I am going to stick with JellyFin for all of my local streaming for a while to see how it works. Ohh one last point, After years and years of people asking Plex to share playlists? well its built into JellyFin. You can even create your raw m3u files on disk and it will pick them right up in the UI and on top of that if you add a song to the play list it actually update your m3u file on disk. This like many others people have been asking Plex for YEARs to work on.
