I have a TV mounted on a wall and would like to use a “Stick” that’s hidden from view. What would be the best “stick” client that has a good remote to use for viewing Plex. My Plex server is on Synology DS418play NAS.
Here are few options I can think of
Nvidia shield is by far the best out there. Though it not a stick format, but it’s small enough to hide easily and be portable.
You get what you pay for.
Art
@artbatista said:
Nvidia shield is by far the best out there. Though it not a stick format, but it’s small enough to hide easily and be portable.You get what you pay for.
Art
Yep, that’s on my to get list although not for this TV. This is in my home gym so won’t be using it as much to justify the cost 
All the “stick” options are in one way or another crappy. It is my strong belief that both clients and servers should be connected to your network wired. But of the wireless possibilities the “stick” for many is the worst due to the high level of interference found at the close proximity to the TV. Even the best TVs are quite electronically noisy.
If I had to choose a stick option I would choose the Roku mainly because I detest what Plex has done to the interface on the Fire.
I own (non stick options) Rokus, Fire TV, Shield TV and a Raspberry PI with PMP installed, of those the Shield plays the most things without transcoding and, mostly, has the best picture but the picture advantage is so small that my old eyes almost never see any difference. The Fire TV is almost as good as the Shield at playing without transcoding and the picture quality is almost as good. However both the Shield and the Fire have, for me, the same horrible interface that conforms to the nearly, again for me, unusable Android standard. Plex had zero imagination when building that junky interface and just blindly followed the Android standard.
The Roku is, by far my preferred player. More codecs require transcoding on the Roku but that does not matter to me because the majority of my media is in a format that direct plays and, for what is not, my server has no trouble transcoding. Although Plex has chosen to hamstring the Roku developer he has worked around the hobbling and has produced a workable interface.
Lastly the Pi has a pretty good functionality and plays almost everything directly BUT Plex is all it does and I do not like to switch devices just to watch soccer or hockey or something from another app.
Over all my Rokus are my most used client and that is what I recommend to friends setting up Plex because it is simply easier to use.
BTW: When I yell at my TV my dog thinks he has done something wrong so he prefers that I use my Roku as well because the interface causes less yelling than any other device.
On a related note, if budget is of lesser concern, I might recommend checking out the Intel Compute Stick. It’s a Windows 10 PC on a stick. Running PMP on this would direct play almost everything, similar to the Shield, but with a way smaller footprint. By design, it turns any HDMI TV into a full on semi capable/basic task PC.
The singular downside I can think of to this option is that it’s a PC. It’s not in an “always on” state, or probably shouldn’t be left as such. There’s a physical button that needs to be pressed to power it on. That might be a little awkward in practical use behind a TV. It comes with an HDMI extension cable that helps.
@Elijah_Baley said:
BTW: When I yell at my TV my dog thinks he has done something wrong so he prefers that I use my Roku as well because the interface causes less yelling than any other device.
Haha that’s fantastic! Thank you for the detailed review
@AmazingRando24 said:
On a related note, if budget is of lesser concern, I might recommend checking out the Intel Compute Stick. It’s a Windows 10 PC on a stick. Running PMP on this would direct play almost everything, similar to the Shield, but with a way smaller footprint. By design, it turns any HDMI TV into a full on semi capable/basic task PC.The singular downside I can think of to this option is that it’s a PC. It’s not in an “always on” state, or probably shouldn’t be left as such. There’s a physical button that needs to be pressed to power it on. That might be a little awkward in practical use behind a TV. It comes with an HDMI extension cable that helps.
I was thinking about that stick as well but you outline some good points I didn’t know about that will make me hard to choose it.
@singhkay said:
I was thinking about that stick as well but you outline some good points I didn’t know about that will make me hard to choose it.
If you’re looking for the smallest possible footprint that can direct play almost anything, it wins. You also get the added bonus of PC functionality in your living room. I’ve found it most useful on road trips in hotels. My entire digital life in my pocket.
It would be a little cumbersome in daily use, having to reach behind the TV to turn it on every time. You “could” leave it on… but it probably wouldn’t be healthy for the unit. There are three models, of which I have the mid-grade one. The entry level one doesn’t have a mechanical fan, but mine does. I wouldn’t want to leave that on 24/7.
For me it’s Roku by far.
