I have an old 1080p TV and a crappy 5.1 receiver and speakers. I am fine with them. So I don’t need bitstreaming ATMOS or Dolby Vision etc. I am using a windows server, nothing fancy there either, I do not serve to others.
What I do not want to add to my life is regression to my HTPC/XBMC days where I am fiddling and ‘fixing’ things more than I am watching.
I have heard the Roku client is far better than the Android client. I have used the FireTV client and it is great- for me great means mostly faithful to the web client, no obvious bugs, and the navigation is fast with minimal hang ups/restarting.
What would be the streamer of choice if the quality and stability of Plex client is the most important feature?
Roku or Apple TV are probably the best non-4K-Blu-ray-remux streamers.
If you’re not an apple user, roku should have you covered.
If you are a big apple user, just get an atv.
Both are well rounded, and updated regularly (os and plex wise).
Roku does have some very cheap models, and imo it’s accurate to say, you get what you pay for, as far as ui responsiveness, but the layout and updates should be fairly equal across the models.
My experience with fire devices was poor, so I don’t recommend them, but I have not used any newer models for 4-5 years, and if you are heavily invested into Amazon content, that may be enough reason to choose them.
Roku. Apple TV is in the same price bracket as the Nvidia Shield, which does everything well, and the Apple TV does most everything well. But for the OP’s listed needs, the Roku is awesome. And the Black Friday deals will make the top of the line Roku Ultimate come in at around $80.
First, the bad news: Every single device has its own set of problems, and you basically won’t find out until you set it up and see if your media and TV/audio setup reveals one of them. There’s no perfect device that will “just work” for everyone.
But the Roku is fine, as long as you’re fine with their data collection. I regularly deal with various Roku issues like audio dropouts and crashes, and having it “steal” the HDMI signal on my receiver when I’m trying to switch inputs. And yet despite all that, it’s still the most reliable, and the household go-to device.
Re: Android, it’s generally fine too. The Shield typically works and plays basically everything natively, including any random old AVI’s you might have. Avoid the “tube” model of the Shield that’s currently on sale. The Google TV Chromecast is on sale for $40 right now and it’s also typically fine for basic usage, now that Google/Plex have resolved that aggravating issue with HEVC causing stretching/crashing/rebooting.
FireTV is also usually fine. I don’t like it much though. The interface is notoriously slow for me, for whatever reason. Plus it’s cluttered and advertises Amazon like crazy.
No experience with Apple TV. Every time I consider it, I see the problems with it, and it doesn’t seem worth the trouble.
I have personally used the Apple TV 4K with Plex for years. It has never failed me. It is always fast and responsive. All of my other family members share my Plex server, and they all use Roku’s. Once the movie starts streaming, the two have about the same experience. The speed of the menus and navigation are much slower on the Roku in my opinion.
I have the Roku 4 & Roku Ultra. I got them because they have a wired ethernet port, I dont do WIFI streaming in my house. The only real problem Ive encountered is that the Ultra has problems playing HEVC (h.265) files in a mkv container. The Roku firmware screws up , interprets the stream as HDR instead of SDR & the colors are all dark. Other than that the Roku product is fine.
I use Roku and have found it to be a solid Plex device. The support at Plex for Roku is very available and helpful and bugs that are called out are addressed very quickly (most of the time).
I ran a Roku 3 just fine all the way up until just a few weeks ago after some TV musical chairs replaced that 1080p TV with a 4k Roku TV. It was working just fine though (maybe a little sluggish feeling compared to the newer Rokus).
My newer new Rokus handle good quality 4k with HDR\DV\Atmos just fine (as long as it isn’t a huge bitrate and SRT subs instead of PGS); think streams vs bluray remux.
The Roku “advertising” is one panel on the side you only see while selecting the app to load (Plex, Netflix, etc). If you have network based adblocking (pihole, NextDNS, Adblock Home, etc) it’ll just be a blank area instead.
Outside of iOS tablets I don’t have experience with the other clients and haven’t felt a need to look into them more - I’m satisfied with the experience.
Oh… note… it took me longer than I care to admit to learn hitting Play on the remote would jump right into a movie or episode from Plex Home hubs; I was hitting OK twice (once to pick it and once more to start playing it) before I woke up to that.
Edit:
I haven’t experienced that and if it was a common issue I think it’d have come up … might be worth starting a thread to investigate.
Read the entire thread, problem is with Roku firmware, a bug has been opened with Roku but not fixed yet. There is a workaround which is towards the bottom of the thread.
Granted, I don’t have any 4K files but I have plenty of 1080p HEVC files and they all load/play fine on my Roku ultra… In fact, I feel like the HEVC files load faster than the h.264 files even though they all direct stream. One thing I haven’t tried though is inserting a drive into the Roku ultra and playing files that way…only through Plex so far.
Apple TV is good. They have decreased the usability in the last few upgrades, but ok, that seems to be the general trend with Plex.
Nevertheless, there’s one frontend I like better than the Apple TV: the old Plex Media Player running on a Mac Mini M1, paired with a nice remote (e.g. the Apple TV Remote). Needless to say: PMP is not supported any more.
Did I say already that there is a strong trend that Plex will always try their best to introduce updates that decrease the user experience?
You keep posting this all over the place…
I won’t judge but let’s go with “… introduce updates that decrease the your user experience”. And I doubt somebody is doing that in a targeted way to annoy you personally.
i got some relatives to try out the Google TV with remote 2020 thing, they love it, just works - and it’s cheap. It also seems to have the widest range of non-plex apps on offer especially in Australia where we have local stuff like Kayo which is a sports subscription thingy that’s not on a lot of other devices. Oh and if you have a Windows based server, what’s stopping you connecting it directly to your TV, you then have access to one of the better apps as well.
On the cheap I really like the Chromecast with Google TV and it is what I use on all my TVs except the main one in my pseudo home theater. On that TV I use an Nvidia Shield because of its insane compatibility with basically everything. I personally find those two to be the best that I have been able to use. Third would be the AppleTV, but if you are going to spend that kind of money I would just get the Shield unless you are deep into Apples ecosystem or something.
I think you should try to narrow down the devices based on extra things you need besides Plex, if you pick the top tier Apple/FTV/Roku/Shield etc. devices then I am pretty sure they all provide the same fluidity and playback experience imo. In terms of updates etc., in general Roku and Apple TV gets attention for Plex first and then carried over to other devices.
Struggle comes when you try to go into nuances or aren’t aware of them:
You can track various device progress and what people are facing and requesting etc. with tags: Topics tagged android-tv | Topics tagged roku etc. (Example: ATV/AFTV doesn’t support clicking of cast yet, is it important to you?)
Do you own iOS or Android based phone? (Apparently the sync and exclusive features are unparalleled on respective native OS)
Stream on Netflix and cast a lot? (Netflix killed Airplay support but Chromecast is fine, is it important to you?)
Apple TV doesn’t take input nor output Dolby True HD format or any DTS format natively, is it important?
There has been or even active Dolby-Vision issue on selected devices of Plex, say Apple-TV. PS5 and even Xbox don’t have any support for them yet.
YouTube app experience is still fluid on devices like Chromecast w/ Google TV. Heard even YouTube-TV app isn’t available on Roku.
etc. etc.
I am pretty sure any device you pick will have nuances but in the hindsight Plex has matured in a way, you will get similar experience across devices. Just try to search cons before purchasing to see if they are deal breaker for your use-case.
Live TV/DVR on my Fire Stick 4K is touchy when you try to FF or REW too much.
On my ROKU, subtitles rarely display properly.
As was said, each client has it’s own quirks, but generally will be just find if you just hit play and watch an item.
One thing to keep in mind, with ROKU and Apple environments, you have no choice but to upgrade to the latest version of the client when it is released, wheras in the Andoid (and Fire) environment, you can delay or skip an update if you know there are bugs you don’t want to deal with.
