Plex and Plex Home Theater.. please tell me you know alternatives to that

[eRe4s3r]

So... if you clicked here I suspect you know what Plex is.

Alternatives that run on Windows. And no JAVA or web player applications

My problem is this. Plex Home Cinema video playback IQ sucks. It sucks so badly, that even Windows Media player in default codecs has better IQ and WMP9 has horrible IQ.. but that's aside. The problem is not because of streaming bitrate or encoder/decoder problems on Steamlink back-end or other issues, the IQ in the flat out direct opening of a media file in Plex is inferior to MPC-HC + Mad on the same PC and I mean so much inferior that I can actually tell the difference both in IQ and smoothness of the video (that's directly in front of the PC, over stream the differences are even bigger). The problem is that to play HVEC 265 or H.264 a proper decoder with PROPER dvxa support is needed first and foremost. But I can't specify any custom decoder in Plex. It just somehow.. opens these files and plays them with ZERO advanced settings. To butter it up Plex also doesn't support VobSub or IDX subtitles.. like.. yay. That's only the standard.

But the biggest joke is that Plex does not index the media library when it starts. Meaning if you are energy conscious and you put your media center on standby.. PLEX WILL NOT INSTANTLY RE-INDEX YOUR LIBRARY WHEN YOU TURN THE PC BACK ON, rather it will wait whatever interval you set and THEN index after coming out of standby. Which is totally insane.. who wants to wait 15minutes (that's the min interval) after turning their HTPC on to have their media library update?)

I've gotten to the point where I browse my media library in desktop mode (as in, I literally stream my desktop to my TV) and just click whatever I want (thankfully you can control your desktop with steam controller mostly fine). But does anyone know a program that CORRECTLY and INSTANTLY indexes a network directory, lists me the files in there properly with thumbnail (that has proper offset) and uses a proper d3d9 window to let me click on a entry (optimized for sausage fingers and controller buttons) and plays it.. preferably by opening MPC-HC+MAD or whatever I specify instead of whatever horrible decoder they use in these media library things?

Am I just doing some weird fringe use case here? Because I seem to be the only one who ever brought this up on the web... I don't wanna stream my media library via Plex, I want a program that shows me my media files, updates in real-time and lets me select them. Media files I don't want transcoded, but played by MPC HC+MAD and then streamed at 30mbit bitrate (so mostly lossless) via Steamlink.

TL;DR
Plex media library updating sucks
Plex Home Theater IQ sucks
I just want a stupid simple media library viewer for Windows I'd even pay for it
The Media Center PC is an Intel NUC.. and it has problems with Plex + DXVA2 as far as I can tell, so that's why MPC-HC works so much better btw. I just wanna get rid of Plex.. all I need is a stupid simple media library viewer that can be controlled easily without precision mouse aiming (which I can do with steam controller) or typing (which I obviously can't do as desktop mode doesn't have steam overlay ,p)

[mrhanman]

I only use plex on the road from my phone.  And you're right about the library updating - it's pretty buggy.  I haven't had issue with the video quality though, but as I said I'm using it on my phone.

If you're using it in house, have you tried Kodi?  It's what I've been using for ages at home.  Simple to use and plays everything I've ever thrown at it.   It's customizable and expandable.  I even have MySQL setup on the backend so all my devices have the same watched status.

[eRe4s3r]

Yeah media updating isn't just buggy, the documentation about it also entirely faulty and incomplete.. sigh ,/

I will try Kodi.. can't be any worse

And the IQ quality is because I use an Intel NUC. It does support DXVA but Plex does not utilize it correctly (which is a problem when you stream stuff) mostly related to h.264 10bit and HVEC content. I read they made another library "viewer" called Plex Media Player.. but I don't see a DL link anywhere... (wouldn't fix the biggest issues with the library functionality though and whether that supports IDX subs is another matter)

I can't even put in words how large the difference is when you stream from MPC-HC + MAD vs Plex Home Theater. The issue with subtitles obviously play into this. MKV contained (srt) subs it can handle, but IDX / vobsub it can't.

Biggest issue is aside all that, that there is no way to FORCE update the library without going into the web manager thing. Great fun when you are streaming ~.~ The right click context thing updates the library.. for content already there. No a full re-index. Wonder for what use-case this is not annoying as hell? ^^

Anyway, will try Kodi
Already did try EMBY... not a fan of that either ^^

So update.. Tried KODI, so far love it.. far superior (and easy to use) to Plex and also correctly uses DXVA2 on my Intel NUC

[mrhanman]

Glad it's working out so far.  Plex actually forked from Kodi (then, XBMC) a few years ago.  It's mostly stayed behind Kodi in most all areas.  Except transcoding.  If Kodi transcoded on the fly for mobile clients, I'd completely ditch Plex and never look back.

Plex is available on more platforms like Apple TV, Fire TV, Roku, and some Smart TVs, though.  So, there is that, I guess.  Kodi requires sideloading or jailbreaking for iOS and Android devices.  Not a hard thing to do (I use it on a Fire TV Stick), but beyond the average user.

[eRe4s3r]

You can jailbreak the Fire TV stick? Does that mean you can install any android app on it (from google play???) and free it from the Amazon bindings? Because that would be pretty neat ;p

[mrhanman]

There is a hardware root method for the Fire TV Stick where you can solder on a usb mass storage controller and mount the onboard flash as a usb device on a PC, and place the SU binary directly on the filesystem, but that's more trouble than I've been willing to go through.  If all you want to do is install Kodi (which Amazon removed from the store for thin piracy reasons), you can just sideload the apk manually from a PC or Phone on the same network.  I have a program on my phone that will let me sideload any app on my phone directly to my Fire TV Stick pretty painlessly.  I would prefer Google services to be installed, but since it's exclusively a media consumption device for me, this is easy enough and does everything I need it to do.  For $25, I don't think you can beat it.

[eRe4s3r]

What about Chromecast? Would this allow me to steam from Kodi to other devices? (I mean, if I ever needed that..)

[mrhanman]

It's been a while since I've messed with a Chromecast, so my info might be dated.  From the time I played with my friend's, my biggest problem with it is that it requires the use of your phone.  It does nothing on it's own.  If you have a spare phone or tablet, this might be workable, but it always seemed like a clunky approach to me.  Also, the apps you wanted to mirror had to support chromecast, though I think support is much more widespread now.  Pretty sure you can just mirror your phone.

If mirroring your phone to the TV is your goal, Fire TV can do that, too.

If you want to stream Kodi to multiple devices, just install Kodi on those devices.  If you want to keep your watched history consistent across devices, you can setup a MySQL server to store that centrally.  That's what I do.  I already had MySQL setup for other applications, so it was just another DB to configure on it.  My media resides on my FreeNAS box, and I just copy a couple config files to my Kodi devices and I'm good to go.  i can pause the show on my TV, head to the bedroom and resume from where I left off on my tablet.  It's really pretty awesome.

[eRe4s3r]

Ah, so Chromecast is no option for me then

Thanks for taking the time to explain this stuff. Tested KODI some more picked a light-weight skin (which is important on my NUC.. default skin was using 60% cpu....) and now things work very well. KODI also has ARD/ZDF and Gronkh plugins, which is really neat. Dunno if Plex had this, but now I don't need to use my extremely wonky SMART TV web interface for that.

So generally speaking, thank you

[mrhanman]

No problem, glad I could help. 

I'm not familiar with ARD/ZDF or Gronkh.  Google suggests they are German radio and a gaming youtuber, respectively.  Is this correct?

But yeah, there are a TON of plugins.  Some non-standard repositories contain some of dubious legality, which caused its removal from the Amazon store.  I would advise you to stay away from those plugins.  They have been known to contain various types of malware.  Even if they don't, they are poorly written and have completely hosed up user's setups.

[doctorfrog]

Not that this will help you do exactly what you want, or even that you'd care about my particular solution, but I just toss whatever I want to play on the TV onto a flash drive. Depending on which TV it is, I either plug it into the Roku and play it, or stream it to an older Roku with minidlna running on a Raspberry Pi.

If I want to watch something on a computer, my media manager is Windows Explorer.

So, basically, strings and tape, and sometimes having to re-encode something to watch it on a certain device. I've never had a pressing need to watch video on a tablet or phone, however.

"But I have all this media, and I want it to be arranged just so." To be honest, I do also, but man I got a list of more important stuff a mile in front of it. This just works. I tried monkeying around with Plex and a Roku and it was just such a stupid little bastard to get to work I gave up.

edit: I'm glad Kodi ended up working for you!

[eRe4s3r]

To be honest proper media management requires a lot of thought but half-assing it only leads to sadness later on. Media formats are advancing, and your TV is not likely to play HVEC video (H.265) or 10bit H.264.... and if you have a mixed library (Anime/Music/DVD rips and bluray rips (legal ones ,p) etc... it becomes a nightmare to manage to that via DLNA.

For me, since I already have a NAS with DLNA video-station I quickly discovered how much i hate DLNA and half-assed specs. Exotic audio or video formats = no image/audio and subtitles.. well, no subtitles for you, ever. DLNA does not support 99% of subtitles. And since I already have steamlink and believe it or not, streaming the video directly from Kodi works better than HDMI -> TV (Since that blocks bluray playback for some reason, while bluray -> stream doesn't know it's being streamed....

Either way, KODI + Steamlink works for my use case but it may also not work for everyone else's... if there'd be 1 problem with KODI is that the default controller usage is REALLY weird, takes a while to get used to "skip" "search" and back/accept being on buttons that you wouldn't expect. Thankfully you can reroute all buttons in steamlink.

As for setting things up.. well yeah, let's just say that Plex has the worst interface I've ever encountered and as I said, a delay when starting it up to re-indexing the media library is completely absurd. On Kodi everything is self-explanatory, it instantly indexes when it starts, how it SHOULD be, and you can even set it to skip displaying any info (like spoilers) if you want which is what I have done... And the way you can customize the skins (there are a TON of em) also allows for interesting differences. Skins can do more than just changing the style.

Best of all, subtitle position, audio delay +-0000ms, image scaling, post processing, audio boost... everything can be set up in the playback. The player is not half-assed ,)

Aside that, Kodi also allows for adding of DLNA sources, so it can access my music library too. Basically it does everything I want And even some things I didn't know I want.

[doctorfrog]

To be honest proper media management requires a lot of thought but half-assing it only leads to sadness later on. Media formats are advancing, and your TV is not likely to play HVEC video (H.265) or 10bit H.264.... and if you have a mixed library (Anime/Music/DVD rips and bluray rips (legal ones ,p) etc... it becomes a nightmare to manage to that via DLNA.

Oh for sure. DLNA has trouble with some of my files, so I have to transcode them... or just watch something else. When it becomes really important to have everything work, I'll probably pursue a more thorough solution. Or a consumer-friendly gadget will make whatever long-term scheme I'm likely to spend too much time perfecting completely obsolete. 

[Mánagarmr]

I used Kodi back when it was XMBC, and while I never needed a media center back then, I still found it really good. I recommend that.

[zespri]

So... if you clicked here I suspect you know what Plex is.
Am I just doing some weird fringe use case here? Because I seem to be the only one who ever brought this up on the web... I don't wanna stream my media library via Plex, I want a program that shows me my media files, updates in real-time and lets me select them. Media files I don't want transcoded, but played by MPC HC+MAD and then streamed at 30mbit bitrate (so mostly lossless) via Steamlink.

How are you using plex with steamlink? My steamlink does not connect unless you are in steam big picture and disconnects if you leave it...