Now that tvOS 14 beta supports picture in picture could this feature be added to the Plex client code for tvOS (and iOS)?
You can already keep a tiny player window while working in other apps in iOS/iPad OS on an iPad using the built-in Multitasking mode.
You should be able to click the PIP button in the player controls:
There’ll be a tiny interruption when you switch to that as Plex will switch from using its own dedicated player to the native iOS player
That’ll of course still leave the tvOS portion of your suggestion ![]()
Has this changed in iOS 14 with the addition of picture in picture in a custom player?
I understand you no longer need to use Apple’s native player to have access to picture in picture.
iOS 14 is still in its early beta phase and this will surely require some update to the code… so I believe you won’t see a change for now.
I’m not an iOS dev, so I can’t say specifically, but that looks as if it’s referring to a custom player UI, not necessarily a custom playback engine
Yes, I think you are probably right about that. I wasn’t thinking about Plex not using AVKit.
I imagine it would only then be possible flipping to the old player for PiP like it used to work on iPad (not sure if that still works), but I’m sure it’s a hassle getting that to work.
I wonder how it would work on tvOS now anyway if playback isn’t built using AVKit; it sounds like that might not be possible either.
Thanks for the clarification!
We already have a button in the UI to manually enable PiP, and it automatically switches to AVPlayer, and then back to mpv when you go back to full screen
That’s great, it actually sounds like it might even work out-of-the-box in iOS 14 when the AVPlayer is manually enabled.
I just happened to check it on iOS 14 now, and I wanted to confirm that Picture in Picture is working in the Plex app on version 7.3.1, and possibly earlier.
I too am curious if Plex might implement picture in picture feature supported in Apple’s tvOS 14 explained here: Use Picture in Picture on your Apple TV.
Yup - we need Picture in Picture support now that tvOS has gone live!
Yes, PiP works in iOS in the old/legacy Plex video player! It isn’t functional in iOS in the current/new player.
Edit: Because I checked, I’ll confirm that Plex on tvOS doesn’t currently do PiP, with either the old or new players.
BUT the Apple TV app will go to PiP mode, and will keep playing even after starting something in Plex. And you can switch back and forth between which one has audio.
Neato. I wasn’t expecting PiP to work when overlayed with another video.
Hulu and Amazon Prime don’t seem to support PiP mode. I don’t think it works in YouTube, but after the 2nd political ad, I quit.
How is Picture in Picture on the Apple TV’ still not a thing? Plex you need to make this happen, it’s almost lazy at this point.
I use Plex on Apple TV the majority of the time and this would be a game changing feature to have.
Can we at least get this working with the legacy player?
At least then when the ballgame is on I can turn the old player on to be able to swap PIP with video from the Sportsnet app.
I can’t believe this has so few votes. Regardless, it’s quite sad the feature still hasn’t been implemented.
I really want Plex to use the new tvOS 15 player UI (closer to the other Plex player UIs anyway) but considering the status of this and other missing tvOS features I won’t be holding my breath. lol
Just wanted to let anyone that doesn’t know that you can do PiP on any Airplay source. So if you Airplay Plex from your mobile device to your Apple TV, you can enable PiP for the video.
Hey there,
first of all: Thank you for your great Work! Plex is a wonderful piece of Software!
It would be verry nice if you could make use of the new PiP-Mode on AppleTV 4K with tvOS13. I would love to train with ZWIFT and watch my series ![]()
Thorsten
More dev info on the new PiP for tvOS: