Do you mean to actually “add” the files to your library?
I dont expect actual files to be downloaded to my library, but I would expect that when I browse my library, that the Tidal albums that I’ve ‘added’ show up in my library no different than any other album I’ve manually added.
My thinking is that, here I have Plex with my library of digital music files I’ve downloaded over the years and meticulously maintained but it’s obvious that more so than any other media consumption, music is headed towards streaming only as the primary method of consumption, so the integration with Tidal (or whichever service may be providing the streaming backend), I no longer have to worry about downloading, editing metadata, etc to maintain my library, but simply pick & choose the Tidal albums to curate into my library. When I go to play these albums, it should make no difference whether I am streaming from my own server, or streaming from Tidal’s backend and it’s something the user shouldnt have to think about.
The idea of the Plex curated music Library should still exist, but with Tidal integration it should just be providing a much more seamless and easier way to add to and curate our own music libraries.
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Ultimately, Tidal should be the ‘integrated store’ so to speak within Plex, versus getting that music content from iTunes or Amazon Music or illegally. The ability to browse & sample Tidal albums within an artist’s page is great, but I should then be able to ‘add’ those albums to my library (even though they actually exist on Tidal’s servers, not my own).
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Hey, no problem-- I’m on the very latest beta that came out today. The issue is that the options button will show up and quickly disappear for most tracks, but not all.
agreed
yes, but this means intentionally mixing local and external media.
Ideally, it would be left to the user to decide.
I think ‘adding a tidal artist/album/track’ to local library should make integrate it into the local library.
It would be exactly the same as a local file, except it would have a tidal url path.
Obviously if this were the case (mixed local/external content), there needs to be an easy/visual way to differentiate while browsing (ie show a tidal icon/watermark on the tidal tracks.
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I really like the current direction for plex to have universal catalog. With music, we like it so much that we have complete albums regardless whether it’s in my own library, in tidal or in my friend’s library. As long as I can browse, view and play them easily that’s great! No more jumping between servers and between apps.
I hope to see this trends for movies and TV too.
It would be great for plex to suggest contents I don’t have in my server using my friend’s server content and online sources such as tidal, Hulu etc.
Does it matter whether the file is from tidal or from local?
It doesn’t matter. What matter is pleasant playback with highest quality available and easy to access the media that you like complete with posters and metadata.
That’s my take on music library.
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It doesnt matter for you, please do not jump to concusions for other people. I very much like to own everything i listen to so i am sure i can return to it in few years and not find it removed. Also it means I know whay quality I have and not the tidal “flac”.
Like i stated, the only use for tidal could be a shared account among all home users, but thats not the case. If I would like my content streamed from external sources I would go for netflix and tidal and not plex, or kodi to combine them. What is Plex aiming at? Being another copycat? Striking a deal with big companies and sell out for streaming their content? I really hoped that wasnt the idea behind plex.
That’s a UK site, they are still a little sore regarding what some would classify as a hostile takeover.
That said though, if you know what you want to listen too, Tidal is fantastic in every way. However if you don’t have the same music taste as the current ownership, you will need Roon or now Plex to aid in discovery. Which is why Plex finally integrating is such a big deal to us. I pay for Plex because WMC is gone, I almost paid for Roon to get some of the plex like features going. But until I can control the player with the Dante Virtual Soundcard installed with my phone or other windows computers, I probably won’t use Plex a whole lot for Tidal.
I would assess that Tidal is starting to rely on Roon and Plex to be the discovery engines. Tidles Genre and Discovery engines are truly aweful.(for my taste) Of course if I know what I want to listen to, it’s great. You have to build your own playlists though as the “Artist Radio” has a tendency to go terribly wrong.
I too like to own my music…but the current flock of engineers are mixing in their bedrooms anyways, most likely in horribly configured setups. Chances of the CD being better than Tidal (when in exclusive mode via desktop) are pretty slim. I have yet to find one made in the last decade anyway. Now the old stuff, I am with you 100% as well as the big name acts that do still have proper studios and experienced engineers. A great deal of Tidals expansion is not what I’d call HiFi. But it’s not worse than the competition, and chances are I don’t own it. So it’s better than nothing. The better my systems have gotten over the last year, the more I can tell just what kind of setup a track was mixed on.
I’ll take it one step further, Tidal in exclusive mode sounds better than the CD player routed to the same equipment. So if your only CD player is your computer, Tidal is better. But if you have a good player, then nothing beats the actual disc…not even FLAC. But what you have to remember is that if every music listener was as picky as you and I, Spotify, Apple, Amazon and Google would all be gone and Tidal wouldn’t need to integrate…but then I don’t think Pandora would have outlasted MOG. If MOG was still around, I would have never signed up for Tidal. Oh the what if’s.
So…this announcement persuaded me to create a Tidal 30-day free-trial. So I signed up, linked my account on plex, and I can view tidal stuff via the server in a browser, but when it comes to listening, I only listen from the Samsung TV app, which is attached to the sound system. Yet when I log into plex on the Samsung TV, there’s no sign of Tidal inside the plex app. Am I to assume that the Samsung TV Plex app does not yet support Tidal? I guess I’ll be wasting this 30-day trial if that’s the case…
Archtop,
I have a 2015 Samsung 4K TV ( UN55JS9000 ) but I rarely use the apps on it. I just checked and there was an update for Plex which I downloaded but even after applying what I presume is the latest update I don’t see any Tidal content. No way to know if this is because my TV is too old, Plex has not released an update for my TV or if Samsung is dragging their feet. Also no way to know if or when your Plex client might get updated.
I have an nVidia Shield Android TV box connected to the TV and the Plex client on it lets me access my Tidal content. As others have stated the current feature set may not be complete but I do like the Artist Radio function since it pulls music from the entire Tidal catalog. I also have Roon linked to Tidal but its Radio function is limited to the tracks ( local & Tidal ) in your library.
If you were motivated and could find a Mi Box S ( Walmart here in the US has them for $49.99 today ) the Plex client on it should be the same as the one on the nVidia Shield and should work fine.
Tim
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Thank you, T.S.J. I will look for this. Unfortunate that it doesn’t work out of the box as I expected. Being unfamiliar with Tidal, the sound of uncompressed streaming music is intriguing. I might just spring for the extra device. Thanks for the prompt reply. Much appreciated.
Archtop,
I ordered a Mi Box S from Walmart earlier today. Unfortunately, I live in a technological wasteland ( Memphis Tennessee ) so they are not in stock at any of the 6 local Walmarts but I should get it Wednesday. Going to an NBA game Wednesday night but I should have it hooked up and running on Thursday. Hopefully your Plex client on your TV will have updated by then but I’ll report back and let you know how it performs. I will be hooking it up using an HDMI connection to a Denon receiver connected to a pair of ELAC Debut 2.0 B6.2 speakers.
Tim
tidal is currently only available on plexweb, ios, and android per the support article which was already mentioned and linked in this thread above.
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i would love this too… tidal is way over priced in compassion to GPM, specially the added bonus of youtube original!
Disappointed that I wasted my “Free 30-day trial” of Tidal. This will be unusable for me.
About the full MQA passthrough… Dear PLEX team, that’s not quite true. UAPP (probably also Neutron) supports MQA passthrough to external or built-in MQA capable DACs. So it’s not TIDAL app exclusive.
And there’s also this… If you’re going to mess with TIDAL, I recommend you better make sure that your integration doesn’t ever pick or attempt to play MQA encoded streams if you won’t support MQA passthrough/unfolding in any way.
That’s because the compatibility part in MQA encoded flacs is NOT fully 16 bit. This, coupled with lack of direct playback support and ability to bypass Adroid resampling could lead to significantly lower quality playback.
The TIDAL app has the ability to bypass Android’s resampling to 48 KHz/16 bit when TIDAL masters are played. UAPP can bypass Android resampling at all times with any kind of TIDAL content by using their own High Res driver that can just direct stream everything (MQA included) to the DAC.
Plex can do neither and it makes me wonder what would be the point in using the Plex/TIDAL integration at all.
At least you could do is offer an option to pad decoded 16 BIT PCM to 24 bit on the fly. This would force the audio to be treated as HI-Res and not go through Android’s resampling on some phones like LG V and G series (possibly all phones with ESS Sabre DACs). Neutron does something like this to avoid resampling, IIRC.
It’s an interesting idea. Question. Since Tidal already augments your content, what would be the advantage of “add to library”? That would just create a duplicate of the content. Or do you mean as a way to add an artist if you dont already have them in your collection?
