[Mobile] New Video Player

Plex Players Player Betas
1

UPDATE: The release is out of beta and available to all Android users now!

Our long-awaited refresh for the video player experience on Android mobile is now available in the 7.15 beta! Featuring a whole bunch of new features as well as improving performance giving you more playback for less battery!

WHAT’S NEW

  • Updated User Interface: Experience video using the same beautiful user interface as music.
  • Picture-in-Picture: Press the home button during video playback to enter picture-in-picture mode, enjoy other applications or browse through your Plex library whilst continuing to watch your videos.
  • Seeking Previews: Scrub along the seekbar by dragging to see a thumbnail preview (requires previews enabled in PMS).
  • Gesture Seeking: Double tap the left or right side of the video to seek backwards or forwards quickly.
  • Display Mode: Change the display mode to fill, stretch and show the video at original size (under Playback Settings > Display Mode ). Fill that gorgeous 18:9 display!
  • Portrait Mode: Watch videos with your phone in portrait, landscape lock can be used to keep landscape only mode (under Playback Settings > Lock to Landscape ).
  • Chapters: Jump ahead or skip back to your favourite chapter without seeking around for the right spot.
  • Preload Next Videos: Whilst the countdown takes place on the postplay the next video in your play-queue begins to buffer for an instant start.
  • Performance Enhancements: Smaller and lighter player framework, starts videos and seeks faster than ever before.

ISSUES / FEEDBACK

If you encounter any issues using the new player, please grab the logs (information available here) and create a new thread with the android-mobile-beta tag (or use an existing relevant thread) and let us know.

FAQ

Can I still use an external player?

You can still continue to use an external player with Plex for Android however, our new player experience should give you the same features as other Android video players, as well as some more without leaving Plex!

What's happened to the Android Media Player preference?

The Android Media Player preference has been removed as it's no longer supported in the new player experience. Our engine based on ExoPlayer v2 is much more capable and can do everything that the Media Player engine could do, as well as a lot more. If you've found something that worked well with the Media Player engine, but doesn't now, please let us know!

Will the new video player experience be available on Android TV devices?

Yes, a new interface for Android TV is in the works and will come with the same enhancements as the mobile player.

Why do Live TV / News / Web Shows look different?

For the moment Live TV, News and Web Shows will continue to use the existing player stack whilst we work on bringing support for these features to the new player experience.

6 Likes
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Looks like alot of new features.

Can it play stored videos on phone without a internet connection. I tried a few older versions(non-betas) and kept getting “matching xyz.ext”. It would never play. Kust kept trying to match my video.

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4

That should already be possible and isn’t something related to the new player, if you could grab some logs when trying to open a local video (whilst your offline) and create a new thread we can take a look.

5

Thanks. I will try in a day or three.

6

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Edit: After playing around with the new player a bit, I can confirm that it’s awesome!!

Edit 2: I’ve run into a few issues, but wow… PiP is so awesome! I’ve been using PiP and the new music player all freaking day long! =)

1 Like
7

Yeah
Plays great and big improvements

Can I still use an external player?

You can still continue to use an external player with Plex for Android however, our new player experience should give you the same features as other Android video players

Can’t leave VLC at the moment thus I mostly use background play (only sound with locked screen), but I hope I will soon !!!

1 Like
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Is it a known issue that the new player is converting HEVC to H.264?

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It says it’s using ExoPlayer, which is the old one.

10

That’s not a known issue, would you be able to grab some logs and I can take a look.

We only support ExoPlayer v2, we have dropped the version tag from the info screen but it’s still v2. :slight_smile:

11

Hi
On my Galaxy S8+ (Pie) my external player do not launch anymore (VLC)
I’ve tried to uncheck / check the setting, reboot phone with no luck
Edit: just tried with another device and same behavior: no external player launched

12

Thanks for the update! When last requested, it was promised that pinch to zoom would be added with the new player. Is this on the way?

1 Like
13

Pinch to zoom isn’t available, you can however adjust the display mode via the Playback Settings.

14

Will it be available in the future?

Also (on Android) disabled auto-rotate shows the video in portrait mode

15

That’s expected. If you turn off auto-rotate, the app won’t switch orientation. Since the app can run in portrait, it stays in portrait.

1 Like
16

Display Mode works great on my Android device - really like it, so nice to zoom in. Thanks!

17

Couple of notes after I played around with it:

Double tap on a side of the screen to skip ahead isn’t reliable - sometimes had to press 3 or 4 times to trigger it. But it’s not an issue once you recently triggers it (ie consecutive skipping isn’t hard).

When you double tap, the entire screen gets overlayed with a slightly transparent orange, which is annoying. Perhaps a YouTube-like approach would be better - just fill a portion of the side of the screen that’s being tapped.

And lastly… The player seems very, very delicate:


18

Where can I download this? I’ve gone to the download page and selected Android with Plex Pass Downloads on, but it still sends me to the Google Play Store.

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It’s now in the public release if you update from the Google Play Store you should get our new player!

1 Like