Plex vs Kodi vs Emby

[squirrellydw]

Emby just seemed very buggy to me compared to Plex.  I have used Plex for years tried Emby for about 2 weeks.  I hate the way it stores metadata but I could get over that.  Playing back media outside the network just didn't always go smooth.  I'm sure in a year or so it will be better and i might try it again then.  What I really liked about Emby though was the HDHomeRun integration, that worked great.  If Plex can do something similar it would be perfect to me.

 

I also use 2 FireTVs and think it works great.  I went from using a Mac Mini to FireTVs and its much better IMO.  So much easier to switch apps.

[aptalca]

I am also embarrassed to admit that I have one Amazon Fire TV stick.... for Amazon Prime (atrocious selection) and Netflix (which is slightly better), but my media collection and the Kodi interface is so much better than either of those services.

 

Why's that? I got a Fire TV just so I could stream a few apps and more importantly so I could side-load Kodi. Works great.

 

Embarrassed because my content is so much better than what Netflix or Amazon offers. I have to test out Kodi on the Fire stick... It cant be as good as running Openelec on a dedicated mini PC.

I have a couple of fire sticks with kodi on them. They work, but barely. Really slow. Compared to my chromebox running kodi, everything takes much longer on the stick (this is true for kodi, but netflix and plex work pretty well)

 

When I fire up kodi on the stick, it takes about a minute for the widgets to load and weather to update (using either the amber or the mq6 skins). Entering the movies takes about 15-20 seconds (1500 movies in the library).

 

I use plex more often on the stick as it is much snappier. I switch to kodi when plex has the wrong or off sync subtitles (kodi's subtitle addons are kicka$$)

 

Every once in a while I get tempted to buy the bigger fire tv and give that a try. If it's snappy with kodi, it might be the best solution for a casual htpc (I don't think anything would replace my chromebox kodi hooked up to a projector with hd surround). I have a roku 3 as well, wired to lan. It has more codec support and tends to do more direct play which I like, but it has no kodi and the Amazon prime interface is ancient and ugly.

 

To sum up, I'm using a combo of chromebox (kodi) and roku 3 in the man cave. And I have fire sticks in other rooms with kodi sideloaded (they also do netflix, prime, plex and espn3 for soccer)

[Bjonness406]

I am also embarrassed to admit that I have one Amazon Fire TV stick.... for Amazon Prime (atrocious selection) and Netflix (which is slightly better), but my media collection and the Kodi interface is so much better than either of those services.

 

Why's that? I got a Fire TV just so I could stream a few apps and more importantly so I could side-load Kodi. Works great.

 

Embarrassed because my content is so much better than what Netflix or Amazon offers. I have to test out Kodi on the Fire stick... It cant be as good as running Openelec on a dedicated mini PC.

I have a couple of fire sticks with kodi on them. They work, but barely. Really slow. Compared to my chromebox running kodi, everything takes much longer on the stick (this is true for kodi, but netflix and plex work pretty well)

 

When I fire up kodi on the stick, it takes about a minute for the widgets to load and weather to update (using either the amber or the mq6 skins). Entering the movies takes about 15-20 seconds (1500 movies in the library).

 

I use plex more often on the stick as it is much snappier. I switch to kodi when plex has the wrong or off sync subtitles (kodi's subtitle addons are kicka$$)

 

Every once in a while I get tempted to buy the bigger fire tv and give that a try. If it's snappy with kodi, it might be the best solution for a casual htpc (I don't think anything would replace my chromebox kodi hooked up to a projector with hd surround). I have a roku 3 as well, wired to lan. It has more codec support and tends to do more direct play which I like, but it has no kodi and the Amazon prime interface is ancient and ugly.

 

To sum up, I'm using a combo of chromebox (kodi) and roku 3 in the man cave. And I have fire sticks in other rooms with kodi sideloaded (they also do netflix, prime, plex and espn3 for soccer)

I am using Nvidia Shield Tv and I love it. Kodi working good, supports a ton more codecs than the fire tv, and roku 3 also I think.

[aptalca]

I am also embarrassed to admit that I have one Amazon Fire TV stick.... for Amazon Prime (atrocious selection) and Netflix (which is slightly better), but my media collection and the Kodi interface is so much better than either of those services.

 

Why's that? I got a Fire TV just so I could stream a few apps and more importantly so I could side-load Kodi. Works great.

 

Embarrassed because my content is so much better than what Netflix or Amazon offers. I have to test out Kodi on the Fire stick... It cant be as good as running Openelec on a dedicated mini PC.

I have a couple of fire sticks with kodi on them. They work, but barely. Really slow. Compared to my chromebox running kodi, everything takes much longer on the stick (this is true for kodi, but netflix and plex work pretty well)

 

When I fire up kodi on the stick, it takes about a minute for the widgets to load and weather to update (using either the amber or the mq6 skins). Entering the movies takes about 15-20 seconds (1500 movies in the library).

 

I use plex more often on the stick as it is much snappier. I switch to kodi when plex has the wrong or off sync subtitles (kodi's subtitle addons are kicka$$)

 

Every once in a while I get tempted to buy the bigger fire tv and give that a try. If it's snappy with kodi, it might be the best solution for a casual htpc (I don't think anything would replace my chromebox kodi hooked up to a projector with hd surround). I have a roku 3 as well, wired to lan. It has more codec support and tends to do more direct play which I like, but it has no kodi and the Amazon prime interface is ancient and ugly.

 

To sum up, I'm using a combo of chromebox (kodi) and roku 3 in the man cave. And I have fire sticks in other rooms with kodi sideloaded (they also do netflix, prime, plex and espn3 for soccer)

I am using Nvidia Shield Tv and I love it. Kodi working good, supports a ton more codecs than the fire tv, and roku 3 also I think.

Does the nvidia shield have amazon prime? I keep hearing conflicting reports

[Bjonness406]

I am also embarrassed to admit that I have one Amazon Fire TV stick.... for Amazon Prime (atrocious selection) and Netflix (which is slightly better), but my media collection and the Kodi interface is so much better than either of those services.

 

Why's that? I got a Fire TV just so I could stream a few apps and more importantly so I could side-load Kodi. Works great.

 

Embarrassed because my content is so much better than what Netflix or Amazon offers. I have to test out Kodi on the Fire stick... It cant be as good as running Openelec on a dedicated mini PC.

I have a couple of fire sticks with kodi on them. They work, but barely. Really slow. Compared to my chromebox running kodi, everything takes much longer on the stick (this is true for kodi, but netflix and plex work pretty well)

 

When I fire up kodi on the stick, it takes about a minute for the widgets to load and weather to update (using either the amber or the mq6 skins). Entering the movies takes about 15-20 seconds (1500 movies in the library).

 

I use plex more often on the stick as it is much snappier. I switch to kodi when plex has the wrong or off sync subtitles (kodi's subtitle addons are kicka$$)

 

Every once in a while I get tempted to buy the bigger fire tv and give that a try. If it's snappy with kodi, it might be the best solution for a casual htpc (I don't think anything would replace my chromebox kodi hooked up to a projector with hd surround). I have a roku 3 as well, wired to lan. It has more codec support and tends to do more direct play which I like, but it has no kodi and the Amazon prime interface is ancient and ugly.

 

To sum up, I'm using a combo of chromebox (kodi) and roku 3 in the man cave. And I have fire sticks in other rooms with kodi sideloaded (they also do netflix, prime, plex and espn3 for soccer)

I am using Nvidia Shield Tv and I love it. Kodi working good, supports a ton more codecs than the fire tv, and roku 3 also I think.

Does the nvidia shield have amazon prime? I keep hearing conflicting reports

Not officially. Take a look here for how to install it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/shield-tv/development/amazon-prime-video-demand-android-tv-t3278778

I live in Norway, so I can't use Amazon Prime anyway

[betaman]

I am also embarrassed to admit that I have one Amazon Fire TV stick.... for Amazon Prime (atrocious selection) and Netflix (which is slightly better), but my media collection and the Kodi interface is so much better than either of those services.

 

Why's that? I got a Fire TV just so I could stream a few apps and more importantly so I could side-load Kodi. Works great.

 

Embarrassed because my content is so much better than what Netflix or Amazon offers. I have to test out Kodi on the Fire stick... It cant be as good as running Openelec on a dedicated mini PC.

I have a couple of fire sticks with kodi on them. They work, but barely. Really slow. Compared to my chromebox running kodi, everything takes much longer on the stick (this is true for kodi, but netflix and plex work pretty well)

 

When I fire up kodi on the stick, it takes about a minute for the widgets to load and weather to update (using either the amber or the mq6 skins). Entering the movies takes about 15-20 seconds (1500 movies in the library).

 

I use plex more often on the stick as it is much snappier. I switch to kodi when plex has the wrong or off sync subtitles (kodi's subtitle addons are kicka$$)

 

Every once in a while I get tempted to buy the bigger fire tv and give that a try. If it's snappy with kodi, it might be the best solution for a casual htpc (I don't think anything would replace my chromebox kodi hooked up to a projector with hd surround). I have a roku 3 as well, wired to lan. It has more codec support and tends to do more direct play which I like, but it has no kodi and the Amazon prime interface is ancient and ugly.

 

To sum up, I'm using a combo of chromebox (kodi) and roku 3 in the man cave. And I have fire sticks in other rooms with kodi sideloaded (they also do netflix, prime, plex and espn3 for soccer)

I am using Nvidia Shield Tv and I love it. Kodi working good, supports a ton more codecs than the fire tv, and roku 3 also I think.

 

I've only ever used Kodi on a Fire TV so it seems plenty fast to me.  I'm just using the stock skin with TVaddons.ag.  Accessing my UnRAID media via the Emby addon for Kodi works very well.  I haven't experimented much though with the various codecs but I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of transcoding (since I upgraded my hardware).

 

Can you be more specific on which codecs Nvidia Shield supports over the Fire TV?  I would prefer more native playback options and to avoid transcoding altogether if possible.

[Bjonness406]

Can you be more specific on which codecs Nvidia Shield supports over the Fire TV?  I would prefer more native playback options and to avoid transcoding altogether if possible.

Sorry, but I don't have a list. You just have to google it yourself.

If you wonder about anything specific, just ask me

[betaman]

Can you be more specific on which codecs Nvidia Shield supports over the Fire TV?  I would prefer more native playback options and to avoid transcoding altogether if possible.

Sorry, but I don't have a list. You just have to google it yourself.

If you wonder about anything specific, just ask me

 

I found this (no mention of codecs):

 

https://shield.nvidia.com/android-tv/shield-androidtv-vs-appletv-vs-roku-vs-firetv

 

and this:

 

Video:

Amazon Fire TV: H.263 (3GP and MP4), H.264 (3GP, MP4, TS), MPEG-4 (3GP)

Apple TV: H.264 (M4V, MP4, MOV), MPEG-4 (M4V, MP4, MOV), M-JPEG (AVI) 
Nvidia Shield Android TV: VP9, H265, H264
Roku 3: H.264 (MKV, MP4, MOV)

Audio:

Amazon Fire TV: AAC-LC, AAC+, enhanced AAC+, AC3, eAC3, FLAC, MIDI, MP3, WAV, Vorbis (OGG, MKV)

Apple TV: HE-AAC, AAC, MP3, Apple Lossless, AIFF, WAV

Nvidia Shield Android TV: AAC, MP3, OGG, FLAC, WAV

Roku 3: AAC, MP3, WMA, FLAC, WAV

 

Based on the latter, it seems you were talking more about video codecs (e.g. H265) and not audio?

[Bjonness406]

Based on the latter, it seems you were talking more about video codecs (e.g. H265) and not audio?

Yes, I was talking about video codecs.

The reason I did go with shield instead of something else, is the support for a lot of different file types (.avi .mkv .mp4 etc) and the support for .srt which nearly no one of the other media players have. I really don't understand why they don't.

[aptalca]

My comment on codecs was mostly regarding plex (transcode vs direct play)

 

Roku plays mkv, dts and ac3 so most of my movies play as direct play.

 

Fire tv stick does not support any of the above (in plex) so those have to be transcoded within plex.

 

Kodi uses its own player so its codec and container support is more extensive.

[hernandito]

I am dying to try the new Wetek Core. You can run Android from its internal memory, or boot to Openelec on an SD card. Its a quad core... Thing is that I have a couple Intel Aton Ion HTPCs on each of my TVs and they are plenty fast w/ Openelec/Kodi with graphic heavy skins.

 

https://wetek.com/shop/wetek-core

 

 

[spencers]

Picked up a ShieldTV last week and so far I'm impressed with it functioning as a media streamer with Plex and Emby. It definitely replaces my Raspberry Pi 2 running OpenELEC and lumps everything into one box. Plex for local media and Emby for remote live TV watching.

 

Most everything I have it plays directly through Plex. If it has to transcode, it's usually only audio. HDMI-CEC lets me use my TV remote to control it. Nvidia streaming lets me use the ShieldTV similarly to how I use Steam in-home streaming.  Oh and the UI is blazing fast. This thing does it all, quite well!

 

All that aside, I can now say I've ditched Kodi and moved exclusively to Plex. I hated the inconsistency of watched flags for my media with having Plex on mobile devices and Kodi on my media box, so having the ShieldTV which provides a great Plex UI helped make that decision.

 

However, until Plex gets better channel support for devs to make some better looking UI's, I use Emby for streaming live TV from my office (have a PC there that has a Ceton card + ServerWMC) because having the full guide looks a whole lot better than a text-based menu.

[bnevets27]

I am dying to try the new Wetek Core. You can run Android from its internal memory, or boot to Openelec on an SD card. Its a quad core... Thing is that I have a couple Intel Aton Ion HTPCs on each of my TVs and they are plenty fast w/ Openelec/Kodi with graphic heavy skins.

 

https://wetek.com/shop/wetek-core

 

I've been interested in the core as well. I like the idea of android and openelec on the same box. I also have an intel ion htpc  which has be solid for many years. I got a friend on the intel nuc a few years ago and that thing is really solid and fast and I like having a x86 based machine.

[1812]

11 minutes ago, DBern said:

I use both Plex (Personal Content) and Kodi (External Content) because they basically have different content.  I posted a video on how I'm able to access my local Kodi PC remotely playable on an IPhone/IPad/Android/Roku/AppleTV/Chromecast. https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=rowJ_-QgGj0

[trurl]

17 minutes ago, 1812 said:

I agree, but the correct response to SPAM is to report it so us mods can take care of it.

 

[trurl]

11 minutes ago, trurl said:

I agree, but the correct response to SPAM is to report it so us mods can take care of it.

 

Or maybe they aren't a spammer, since a spammer would post a working link. I'll unflag them and see what else they do.

 

Well, that didn't work. They aren't flagged as a spammer anymore but I don't see any way to restore their posting privileges.

[1812]

6 hours ago, trurl said:

I agree, but the correct response to SPAM is to report it so us mods can take care of it.

 

 

 

but... the giant spam can seemed to work too!

[trurl]

1 hour ago, 1812 said:

but... the giant spam can seemed to work too!

True

[MrCrispy]

FireTV doesn't support HD audio as that needs at a minimum Android N I believe.  Nvidia Shield does support HD audio.