The Ultimate 2021 BEST Plex Client Showdown!
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- Опубликовано: 3 июн 2024
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#Best #Plex #Client
00:00 Intro
00:55 Server Used
02:14 Client List
03:10 Testing Files
04:50 Plex Startup Test
05:34 Scrolling Test
07:09 4K Loading
08:35 FF and RR
11:05 Performance Scores
11:35 Additional Tests
11:55 Remotes
13:20 Codecs
14:54 Audio
16:17 Extras
17:22 Final Results 
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Now that Apple TV supports more audio and video formats, I would like to see an Apple TV v. Shield comparison again.
Great comparison thanks for putting this together, Jason! I'm sure it took a decent bit of time to put this all together so its much appreciated from all of us!
Hi, thanks for this nice review. the apple tv 4k you used was it the new with the Processor: Apple A12 Bionic - 64-bit or the old with the A10X Fusion-chip ?
Hey great video, surprised about the cover art load time for the apple tv.
Just wondering about something, you know how when the metadata like the cover art is on ssd its faster im wondering what kind of difference if any is there between a cheap NVME SSD and a fast one like samsung 970 plus.
Great comparison, love that this has been done. I did my own comparisons - borrowing friends players, etc, and settled on buying three Apple TVs. You mention the Apple TV not supporting headphones, however, the Apple TV does allow the use of AirPods & BT Headphones - which I find very useful when watching content at stupid o'clock...
As always thanks for this thorough review. Question: Is there any reason to prefer the Apple TV 4K over the Apple TV 4 (HD) if one does not use a 4K screen?
Love this video! Been waiting for it! I just got my Shield TV Pro. Are you planning a full on review/plex setup with it? I have some things I'm trying to accomplish with mine and am running into some difficulties. I am using it as the Plex Server and for playback. I need to be able to use it without internet and play files off a DAS (Qnap TR-004). As soon as I unplug the ethernet Plex fails to load my library even though the DAS has all the files on it and is directly attached via USB. Also I keep getting "Unsupported Content" for the AI upscaling feature. I've tried RUclips and Plex. Nothing is upscaling.
Any thoughts of updating the comparison with the new Apple TV 4K that’s coming out this month?
@ByteMyBits Is this still correct? Hasnt the AppleTV gotten better at Atmos/DV? Or is this still correct for Plex playback?
Hey, which specific NUC did you get? Also, would love to hear what you think of the new Apple TV remote if you get one.
Do you think the standard Nvidia Shield (Non Pro) would perform the same? To save 50 bucks if not interested in the games or increased storage.
Great review, very well thought out.
So the Shield Pro won't play 400Mbps Panasonic GH5 video?
Will the Nvidia Shield support a touchscreen monitor output?
Also would the Nvidia support HD music files if an audiophile wanted to listen at ultimate quality?
I have an Arcam SR250 and an amazing pair of stereo speakers...
Two visual screens one a touchscreen (silent > music) the other a projector (fan noise > movies)
What's that thing on top of the NUC you have there? I see a coaxial connector on it... Is that an OTA TV Tuner?
Thank you for including the links to the test files. Did you consider weighting the scores for the devices based on cost? It would be interesting to see how an old XBox with XBMC on it would score to see how far we have come.
Yeah, I don't understand that this was NOT a factor in the overall placement!
Jason since you had brought up an issue i have, playing high bitrate files over LAN (on a gaming PC with gigabit connection on cat 6 using Chrome), i am curious, if i navigate to my media share and just play a 30k+ bit rate file via VLC it plays fine and does not stutter, but if i try to stream in Original Quality above 20k it stutters and jumps around, example is The Office Blu Ray uncompressed files. is this a limitation of Plex/UnRaid?
Hey, can you do a video for the new apple tv 4k with a comparison?
Please do it. Which one should I go for plex? NVIDIA SHIELD or new apple tv 4k?
Hello, can You confirm now with the New Apple TV, it’s ok with all 4k mbps and audio decoding/passthrough?
love the content...been very helpful in setting up multiple plex servers...
I am looking for a client for my theater room and It has come down the Apple TV 4k or Roku 4k Ultra
Even though both natively support Atmos /TrueHD Seems from your testing that Roku 4k Ultra supports Atmos from plex but Apple does not.
Do you know if there is anything in the works on the Apple Plex side of things to fix this...
I'm now super curious, how did you test DTS through the AppleTV? Did it truly decode out as a DTS or as PCM, or even as Dolby somehow?
Thanks for the Information. I have been trying to find a replacement for WMC for several years now. I have migrated to Plex due to the "Live TV & DVR" feature. I haven't found a client that My wife and i are happy with, I have demo'ed several of the items you have reviewed, but none have the small preview thumbnails during the FF/RR function to show us where in the recording we have just jumped to. I was wondering how I could get those back? P.S. love the garage renovation videos!
I'm planning to buy a plex server for my family
Most of my movies are 4k Blu-ray (mostly Mkv & some Mp4) so the server storage should be over 40 TB at least
I am not sure how many devices will run movies from my plex at the same time but may be 5 at least
Internet upload & download is very good
So i need your advice which server should i buy or its features?
I am thinking of My Cloud Pro Series PR4100 from WD ...Is it a good choice ?
Super newbie here, so pardon my rudimentary question. Does PLEX just transcode on the server-side or does it also transcode on the client-side as well? If on both sides, how is that managed (references please)? I am just starting this journey, so I am looking for wisdom from others who have been on this ride for a while...
What file formats can the Plex client play on the Nvidia and Apple boxes? Can they play MP4 and MKV?
I find it kinda strange that the AppleTV Failed on the Atmos as with the latest tvOS and Apple4k, Apple brought Atmos support and even shows in it's support documents how to set it up. Are you sure you had it setup correctly? Or is Apple using another Codec for Atmos than you tested?
On the chromecast remote the center select button acts as a play pause by default, and it absolutely has voice commands activated via Google assistant. There's a button for it.
Help me out here. I dnld 4K uhd rips. ( my backups ) through a USB drive . I want to direct play them onto my 4K 60 tv. These are 80gig files. My laptop chugs.
I’m looking for the best way to play these back. Can a shield play these back. Or will it chug too. ?
There is one test that I would like to see on both the Shield and the new Amazon Cub. The Shield pixelates on OTA live TV on 1080p channels when the video panning like in football and other sports. Does the Cub do the same thing? It is my understanding that it can not decode mpeg2video in 1080p and this is on all Shield models. Thanks for you good work
I've actually been looking for this comparison for quite some time. Thank you!
I wonder if my built in Android TV on my Sony can do everything the Shield can. It could direct play everything but I don't have a set up to test all audio types. Would be interesting since they're essentially the same app to see how the built in TV version stacks up, helping eliminate a streaming device.
Great, this is excatly what I was looking for, thank you! Loved your biased/not-biased vibe, I'm a new subscriber now. :)
Chromecast has voice control, also supports Ethernet via Google adapter, or 3rd party adapter using a usb hub. You should also include a price vs performance, or bang for buck rating.
Those internet adapter could provide only 100mbps
@@Ipeacocks Third party gigabit adapters work (depending on the brand), haven't tested anything faster personally though. I have no idea why Google didn't just make their official one gigabit.
You get what you pay for. Chromecast is an inferior product compared to the top 2. If you want something cheap, then fine. If you want something that works best, you'll have to pay more.
@@ingeborgdot the chromecast has stadia so goes to second place for that reason on my list
@@meetthehutchys5801 not anymore it doesn't haha
Fire cube has an ethernet adapter in the box as well as an IR blaster.
Here we go.
1) wow the size of that Nvidia shield! No one shows the device, this is the first time that I see it! It seems so big in the pictures, I though it was the size of a console.
2) I have had a lot of problems with a lot of devices! Thank you so much for the video, it really needs more likes!!!
3) You reaaaally need more problematic videos, I have several in my collection, some of those do have trouble in the format is reproduced, troubles having to transcode when direct play is supposed to hit off (I think you probably tried to test that one) and recently the way they handle the MOV_TEXT subtitles and other subtitles format, chromecast for example will just stop reproducing the subtitles randomly, fire TV will transcode the file due to its subtitles... So.. These might be worth considering in the tests :) the suggestion is just ask the community to provide the file sources that we have that we know as a fact they are problematic with certain CLIENTS (not server side) so you can test them :D
I'm so grateful for the video and for all you have helped us! Thank you so much... I will probably buy a shield now XD
The shield will basically take pretty much anything you throw at it for format and just deal with it. I had some 4k stuff that other things didn't really like, not a single issue with them. It's fairly expensive option, but you basically buy it, setup it up and never fuss with it again. Great for someone that is less technical as well
That was my first thought too, I was like, that's the shield?! I thought it was huge.
i am still trying to brain how did the apple tv playback started first before the nvidia shield and the shield got to the back to the future logo first? is there a playback speed variation?
I'm late to the table on this video to see it. I've got the Roku Ultra about 2 years ago. It's always lately having issues buffering from Plex. I record live tv from a HD Home Run cablecard box and also have movies I have on Plex in MKV files from original Blu-Rays and DVD's. I'm connected via Ethernet as well. Can't pin down the buffering which isn't all the time it seems and not on all recorded tv shows or stored movies. And like you said, I can never play subtitles w/o it buffering every minute. Don't know the workaround to these issues so if anyone has some suggestions they would be appreciated (short of saying get an Nvidia Shield... ;)
I have Shield Pro on WiFi and I downloaded all the jellyfish files. The highest i could play was 180 mbps h264 and HEVC. Anything above this would go to transcoding or not play (with transcoding disabled on server). Is there some way to force the server or client to direct play 300-400 mbps with buffering?
What files did you use to test ATMOS 5.1.2 and ATMOS 7.1.2 on the Roku Ultra? On my Roku Ultra Only ATMOS 5.1.2 files playback as Atmos to my Denon AVR-x1600 which is a 5.1.2 system. ATMOS 7.1.2 files only playback as DD+ 5.1. I expected it to drop the back two channels and give me ATMOS 5.1.2.
Should have said: " if it is {me} box, then {me} bad" 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
2:54 Yea he set that up so perfectly that I was expecting it - was slightly disappointed when it didn't happen heh :)
This is a really well done video, and incredibly useful, thanks for making it. Some minor things: Much like you differentiated the ability to play different audio formats, you should have differentiated the ability to play different subtitle formats without transcoding (i.e. SRT, PGS, SSA, VOBSUB). For a future video, some sort of audio format + subtitle format client transcoding matrix would be a really cool guide that people would cite all over the place as a definitive reference. Also, I think you gave the Roku way too much credit on fast-forward/rewind. While time-wise it might be faster, popping up the OSD or switching to that terrible intermittent loading screen and then watching a percent meter count up is incredibly obnoxious compared to the other clients, especially when watching things like sports where you jump back and forward constantly. Imagine watching an NBA or NFL game where you're skipping around and you have to lose the game video feed and look at that dumb loading screen like 50+ times over the course of every hour. It's incredibly obnoxious and the main reason I switched from the Roku to the Shield. Lastly, the big win for Roku is the headphone support, but I'd like to point out that for $20 you can buy a really great attachment for the Amazon Fire TV remotes called the "Amazon Remote Plus attachment" which adds a headphone jack (and volume controls over blueooth!) to your remote. It's a huge benefit for anybody who needs private listening mode. I got it for the 4K stick in my bedroom and it works great, might be worth doing a video on as it pretty much eliminates the one thing Roku does really well. I wish we could get a similar attachment on the Shield remote, or that NVIDIA would just include headphone support default. Oh well. Thanks again for the great content!
Wish more of the clients had passthrough audio. Any reason why it's such a hard feature to find? I'm pretty sure my high end receiver handles those audio formats way better than whatever the plex client hardware does.
Any chance of an updated version of this? I agree that scrolling is a key part of the experience.
I would like to see a test of watching a show from the beginning while recording. Will this work on any plex client? Also the firestick cube has a ethernet port
I would love to see how the desktop app player app for plex compares.
I'm pretty new at all this.. So its better to get something like the shield or Apple TV instead of using the built in smart tv? I have Andriod TV on a Sony.
Or using the built in chromecast in the TV
Thanks! Looking forward to this showdown. Do you think that nvidia shield, (non pro version), deserves the same points?
The OG shield has a crap remote.
@@bigbigspoon OG? What do you mean?
@@mirceavis The old one does not light up, the volume button gets hit by mistake all the time and gets lost all the time. The new one lights up, has a solid volume button and has a find feature.
You need to activate subtitles in Roku settings. Also there is different format of subtitles and some client need to transcode them some can direct play wich is a huge deal.
Interested to see an updated vid with the 4K apple tv, I don't have it but I know they made a much better remote and can support Atmos and 4K HDR
At 14:30, with the high bitrate files on the AppleTV, it would be cool to know if using Infuse would play these smoothly (its arguably the better player app build for Apple only). I know this is a Plex only test video but now im curious about this as people with ATV’s specifically have access to an alternative
How does the non-pro tube version compare?
How does the shield handle multichannel FLAC? I don't fuss around with any of those DTS or Dolby codecs.
Nope. It plays everything you throw at it which is why I bought one. I love my 4K Apple TV but Apple won’t let the Plex app play Atmos audio. It hobbles the damned device to only allow Atmos from paid streaming services. Apple makes me mental.
I remember a couple of years ago when you bought a shield and returned it. Gonna buy me another one just for backup for the 3 i already have. Great video jason.
I have an old chromecast on two of my TVs and even though the video files play on my phone I am constantly getting a H4 error when trying to play on either TV...... any suggestions?
Thanks a ton for another one of your awesome vids Jason.Im a very happy proud owner of my Intel nuc Extreme,and my Nvidia shield pro,your so right about the power in this Intel nuc.Running one of my plex servers off it is a dream.Thank you again for another brilliant video. Keep them coming Brilliant work as always.
Nice video...
I wouldn't mind seeing a review of the Plex performance as it relates to the video game consoles. I use a Xbox One X as my client and it would be interesting to see if there's a performance difference between the One X and Series X.
Agreed. I had nothing but problems with my Xbox One X playing back 4K. Ended up switching to Apple TV because of it.
I tried using the Plex app to play some 4K files on my Series S but couldn't get anything to load properly. So switched back to my 2017 Shield which plays all of them without issues. This seems to be a problem of the Plex app and not the hardware since the Series S is more powerful than the Shield.
Will you get the chance to review the latest Apple TV? I’m considering the Apple TV or NVidia Shield TV…
Infuse is the reason to buy Apple TV
Apple TV got all the checkmarks under video codecs, but the they were red under 4K!?
It was a slideshow for 4k.
He literally explained why...
Can you do this test with consoles?
Xbox one S/X, Xbox Series S/X, Playstation 4 & 5
I wouldn't mind this becoming a regular thing, yearly or bi-yearly testing of all the most popular available clients. It's super informative. But I can imagine the cost of having to purchase all the players.
If you do, do another in the future. I would love to see the ASS subtitle included as a test as the format is known for not being able to be directly played on practically anything outside of a computer and the Apple TV 4K, and is super common with anime. This is because of the customized fonts and effects that come with the format.
PGS is a blu-ray subtitle format, which nowadays usually can be direct played on most devices, but I could see some older devices not supporting it.
What's your favorite client in 2023 now? Is the N100 cpu with only efficiency cores sufficient or not snappy enough? (Has AV1 decode, but might be a bit slow without any performance cores)
I've been using the Plex client on my LG WebOS which is built into the TV. Would be curious to see how it performs against an external device such as these
How does it work? Good?
@@johncena6701 it's alright, pretty slow compared to my roku premiere but then I only have to deal with 1 remote instead of 2
Respect for the Apple TV it’s 4years old and still kicking butt
What model number Roku Ultra was used? 4800R is the newest.
What is the difference between the mini NVidia Shield Pro and the normal NVidia Shield Pro?
The big one is more expensive so there has to be something right?
Several things, It really is a totally different device but mainly, less ram, less storage, no USB ports,
I'm so curious to know how the Samsung or LG native apps compare to these boxes. Also the PMP from windows!!
Great comparison very well done, the only thing I think it's missing is a category for the price and/or value for money, as it's not the same a $20 and a $200 device.
Being able to remap buttons should be another point for the shield remote
any android can do it
Fuck the remotes.
For the 4k loading section, it appears the Apple TV won since the Nvidia Shield had a hiccup and skipped a part of the "Universal" logo.
Also, I'd be interested to see how many of the remotes have features not mentioned in the test (i.e. a built-in rechargable battery).
Any chance to see this updated with the new Apple TV with the updated remote and Dolby Vision, etc?
Exactly, I was wonder why the Apple TV loaded the video and started playing first yet the nvidia somehow pasted it up. I had to watch it again and u can see the nvidia shield has a weird fast foward hiccup. Apple TV def won.
Thanks Jason for all you do. You make great Plex videos I try to watch everyone you make
Dell R610 with a netapp disk shelf. 36Tb of zfs raid. Think that will work for a while. Still have not filled up the storage.
I love the shield tv pro but I haven't been able to figure out how to get plex to work since switching my external hard drive
Does anyone know which clients will work offline? My Apple TV doesn't work when I don't have a WAN connection.
Watched this and bought an Invidia shield pro to replace my Roku extreme. I'm having trouble getting it to default to my Plex server on the Lan. When I get it to play it shows up as playing indirectly. I'm confused by this.
How in the world do you encode your video files?! Have the big Nuc, ATV4's and a very robust network and I get popups all the time that the connection to the server isn't fast enough, or I get constant buffers!
Switch to Ethernet, or check the IOPS / health of your NAS HDs, or check the Plex server logs to see if you’re getting SQL Lite DB errors. All those can impact what you’re experiencing.
Is there a link for the NUC or did I totally miss it in the detail section?
Nice video, totally expected results. Have a shield at home (2017 edition) and it just works. However recently, had an experience with an apple tv and boy is that thing smooth.
The normal plex client for the Apple TV is already pretty good, however you can take it to the next level by getting infuse. The app is just damn good and there's nothing that compares to at the moment.
What about the best device for a family member with a 1080p or even 720p TV, no need for HDR/Surround sound support etc, just ease of use for non tech people, i would guess its fire stick or one of the newer roku's.
The Shield Pro continues to blow my mind handling 4K HDR Atmos movies from my USB drive via ethernet flawlessly! The upscaler makes hockey streaming look native 4K with zero blur.
Got my network issues sorted out. I have At&t Uverse fiber system and to get past the double nat issue I had to set up my Windows 10 server with a fixed IP address to get things to work correctly and take advantage of the gigabit hardwire network connection. Thanks.
I don't see the link for the Simply NUC in the description.
It's there now
IR blasters would have been a good item to add to the remote section
He has to draw the line somewhere. The poor guy took 4 months already , lol
The Roku doesn't have to use burn in subtitles; you just have to hit the * button during playback and enable subtitles. Not the most user friendly system, but I could see it being a good thing to just have to enable subtitles once and have them active in all your apps.
The Chromecast can have a ethernet connection. Plug in a powered USB C dock with ethernet. If you wanted to, you could also plug in a mouse and keyboard - though I don't know what that would be good for.
Good vid! Next time I’d be curious to see how an Xbox or PlayStation stack up. I watch plex a lot on my Xbox one
Hi there. On your recommendation I bought a 4K 32GB. Fantastic device and just plain WHOOPS the Samsung TV Plex app. It was once OK, but due to Samsucks and their continual 'updates', bit by bit they have wrecked the TV. But there is some sort of weird problem with the Apple TV.
When viewing my photo albums in the Plex app on the Apple TV 4K, I get about 10 photos into the album, each photo loading quick and snappy, and then BAM, fuzzy photo. I mean fuzzy enough to not even be able to tell just WTF the photo is! Hit the back button, go back into the album thumbnail view, select the last pic, and start viewing again. All good, until about it does it again. And again. And again.
The 4K TV box is connected via 1Gb ethernet. The TV is no longer connected at all.
Any ideas?
Thanks
P
Chromecast and Fire Box have Ethernet available with power adapters that have it built-in.
Chromecast also has voice control
@@MikeBuiltaPizza and Atmos support. And usbC hub support.
You can set a routine and just ask the remote to activate that routine (like it's movie time-and have it dim lights, turn on AV gear etc)
So extra money not included in the base model. Fite tv eternity is crappy I have a fire tv in the closet
Most of those are limited to 100MB/s though. Most AC routers will provide faster bandwidth.
You're the best man. Thanks for taking the time to do this!
This is the content I want to see. Great video thank you Sir!
I have a LG C3 TV, Apple TV 4K, PS5 and Chromecast 4K (old), trying to figure out if I should be buying a shield tv pro. I am doing this because watching 4K Dolby Vision movies with subtitles was just really painful - I was only trying to use SRT and actively avoided PGS.
It will literally be only for Plex...
do you have a spreadsheet with all the data?
Is this real life?
Congrats on finally finishing this one up.
thanks so much man, very informative. my shield arrives today. very excited :)
Any thoughts on Xbox one as a client?
seems your test of the playback capabilities is a bit older.
As AppleTV 4k is able to play DolbyVision since some time now.
For Atmos: Atmos in DD+ container works also great on AppleTV 4k. Only fails in TrueHD container
Very nice review! I think that Fire Cube has an ethernet adapter included in it’s box, like chromecast. :/
With 4 NVIDIA SHIELDs I can tell you they are great devices, but if you're looking for stability the Roku Ultra is the way to go, especially if it's for a Plex live TV setup! That's one factor to take into consideration as that would change your scoring significantly;).
New Chromecast does have voice control, Jason.
That was gonna be one of my comments I noticed he had it marked red.
Still doesn't help the score much 😂
It also has Ethernet of you get the adapter from Google with the Ethernet port on it.
It also does do Dolby atmos now too.
Also loading time on Chromecast is much improved
@Bytemybits the chromecast does support voice it just has a different Icon
but how do they compare to the default plex app of a smart TV, say a Samsung one?
Nice comparison. I do however doubt some of the tests being completely accurate. I have some of the streaming devices throughout the house and one particular, the mibox S, is able to handle ATMOS audio without an issue and has passthrough via Plex. However, it pales when compared to the shield.
I've been using the Shield for years, got 2 of them now. I actually bought my first one after your first plex client showdown video after you mentioned that it was the only client that could pass through DTS (other than the NUC). Great work on this video!
Since when does the Apple TV 4K direct play from a NAS?