Customer Reviews

Plex

I'm not sure if this is an Amazon issue, or a Plex issue, but the version here on Amazon has not been updated while new versions are being released on Google Play. The missing updates contain fixes for ChromeCast and newer versions of Android. It's also interesting that it has been on sale here on Amazon for a while, but not on Google Play. You might want to consider avoiding the Amazon version until it becomes clear what's happening here.

Update as of 8/8/14: again, the Amazon version of this app is way behind the normal releases available on Google Play. In fact, it's now about 6 versions behind. The discussion in the Plex forums continues to point to Amazon as the bottleneck.

Updated (7/3/2014)

First let me say that I've tried numerous apps to stream music and video. There was always an issue that made the apps less than stellar. Plex gives me 99% of what I want!

Positives
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- Stream movies and videos to iPhone, Android tablets (HP Touchpad running CyanogenMod 9, Kindle Fire HD, HP Slate) and HTC One phone (devices that I have)
- Integrates with iTunes so that my 120GB music database can be played anywhere
(I have moved to Subsonic for music streaming. It does a much better job with music. Perhaps one day Plex will be there as well.)
- iTunes playlists on home PC are seen with Plex client so I can easily stream music while driving (no more Pandora, Spotify, etc.)
(Yeah, still works, but it's not reliable.)
- Plex client login allows you to see all of your libraries automatically, no matter what device you are using
- Plex app for Roku so that I can stream home videos, movies, music to TVs. You can take this little box with you on vacation, hook it to a TV, connect via integrated WiFi and have access to all of your multimedia just as if you were home as well as NetFlix and other apps.
(Just make sure that you are converting your files to something Roku likes. I tried the Amazon Fire TV and the video files that stream flawlessly under Roku were choppy with Amazon Fire TV and Plex.)
- Integrated database populates the metadata for music and movies instantly. No need to use a metadata manager.
- TV Show series look great and contain all of the info about each episode.
- The quality of the videos can be adjusted automatically or manually based on your connection speed so you can stream over 3G or slow WiFi connections.
- DLNA support in latest beta.
(This works but I see it as a last resort when you have a device (TV) that has apps but not Plex.)
- You can share your libraries with other Plex friends.
(I am using this more and more. You can have control over what your friends and kids can view. There is also a Plex Notify app that will send you a text whenever someone starts watching a video.)

Negatives
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- Kindle Fire performance is poor. You can make some changes to the Plex settings to improve quality. I got my son's to work pretty well. Search the Plex forum for "kindle fire" to get info on this.
(This is not an issue anymore, at least on the Fire HD and HDX.)
- No social network integration.
- You really need to be on a 192.168.x.x network for stuff to work correctly. This was an issue for me but I bit the bullet and moved everything over.
(I don't think this is an issue anymore.)
- Unsupported devices (like my HP Touchpad) may sometimes have playback issues but clearing the cache usually gets around it. Hey, it works so I am not really complaining.
- DLNA implementation is just OK. DLNA is a PITA anyway in my opinion.

This is all just off the top of my head. I'm sure most of the 1-star reviews are for the Kindle Fire performance. The Plex Windows Server is free. All you pay for are the client apps. You can have multiple Windows servers (I have 3 serving up different media types). Also, just got back from the Outer Banks in NC. Other than some dropouts along the coast (where cell service is questionable), there were no lost connections as I streamed music via Plex to my iPhone in the van with Bluetooth and that's a 6-hour drive. No more downloading music or managing playlists on multiple devices. Do it once on your PC and it is accessible with every Plex client. Can't beat it.

(I've now used Plex for over 2 years and it is awesome for movies and videos. Just not so much for music. No other app comes close.)

Hope this review helps. :-)

The Plex for Android is very nice application and it worked on my Android Nexus 5 device as expected.
But i am disappointed to find out that i had bought a paid app which is at least 2 version older than the one published on Google play store.
At least for paid app it is expected that their latest edition are available for sale on App store and not the old version.
I regularly check for update for the application after i purchased it, but there seems to be no plan to keep it updated with latest version on amazon app store.
Plex, Inc kindly update Plex for Android to the latest version on Amazon App store.
Is there any provision where i can ask for rebate and return my order for paid application on Amazon App Store?

I couldn't be more angry with how Plex has handled the Amazon version of the app. Fire TV and Kindle is crippled as a reliable platform due to the lack of updates. I can't watch a single movie or TV show without the app pausing or locking up. I find myself regretting this decision as I continue to watch Plex release updates for Android on Google play and continuously ignore the Amazon Marketplace which Kindle/ Fire TV depends on. Plex should understand that I and others are only plex pass members because of the Kindle and Fire TV! Stop ignoring us Plex!

Now Chromcast has stopped working too.

Basically I find Plex to be a good product. It seems to have it's own quirks depending on the platform. For the Fire TV it does not pass the Dolby signal to the sound thread. I have tried both the HDMI and the optical out ports. The signal is only translated as stereo. I tested the same Video using Plex on my Samsung Smart TV and it works perfectly.

Now that it's no longer an issue, and you get can get it for free for the next 2 nights, why not try it out? It's definitely worth it!

Worked for a little bit until an error showed up and messed up everything. Even uninstalled and installed and didn't work.

This app is awesome. I've been looking for an XBMC port to Android, or something that does the equivalent. So finding Plex is pretty cool. I've been playing with my Media Server and I must say, I like this concept very well, especially being able to continue a video from device to device.

I haven't yet figured out how to build playlists on the phone yet, or to build/open them on the server yet either. So better playlist support would be nice.

Also, I know Google TV isn't a supported device, however it would be awesome to be able to use Plex on my Logitech Revue! That way I will be able to actually play my videos from my server without messing with Windows Media Player and UPNP only to find out that the codecs I use (ogg & mpv) primarily aren't compatible with the device.

XBMC on my Revue would be awesome, please help make Plex work over Ethernet & use the x86 acceleration when Google releases a NDK for Google TV! I'd even be willing to buy the app again to be able to play my files, bonus points for being able to playback 1080p video files without needing to re-encode them on the Media Server.

This app hasn't been updated in a while, very old version. It's not being updated regularly, and it doesn't work well. The video freezes, it doesn't play properly, it doesn't support streaming HLS (like the Roku does) and Roku seems to do a much better job of playing streaming video. The Amazon Fire TV is probably better piece of hardware, but it's pure crap when it comes to playing video with Plex. The Plex App is terrible for the Amazon FireTV (has too many bugs, and isn't being updated regularly, this is mostly to blame on Amazon because it takes so long for the updated versions to get through Amazon's app process). The bug fixes are very slow (almost non-existent) for Amazon Fire TV, and it seems to really lag behind with very old versions of App software, and very buggy versions. Bug fixes never seem to get pushed to Amazon FireTV, and it just work well. I've been waiting for fixes for quite some time, to fix/stop the choppy video, and the constant "spinning wheel" as movies seem to stop mid-video, or pause. The videos work perfectly on my two other Roku's, but they just don't play well on either of my three Amazon FireTV's. I'm ready to give up on the Amazon FireTV. The Plex app just doesn't work well, and doesn't support streaming HLS content (like the Roku) and it seems to lock up frequently (after about 1-2 hours of watching videos, it gets warm/hot and seems to lock up or not function well). I've had to unplug the power on my Amazon FireTV sometimes 5-6 times per evening, just to watch 2-4 hours of shows/movies because it always locks up, and it often takes a power plug pull just to get it to reboot and the Plex App for Amazon FireTV is really buggy. There is no way to play shows (one episode after another episode automatically) like on the Roku, and many/most of the great/cool features found on the Roku version are not available on the Amazon FireTV version. It seems that the Amazon FireTV version was "rushed" and it's not a finished/polished product. It's just a very early "beta" version that has lots of bugs in it, has lots of stability problems, and just doesn't work well compared to other versions of the Plex App software. I would skip buying an Amazon Fire TV, and just buy a Roku for at least another year or two until Plex and Amazon work out all the bugs with Plex on the Amazon Fire TV. It's just too buggy, and it's not worth the $4.99 price for an App that doesn't work/function well, and causes the Amazon Fire TV to just lock up, or have a spinning loading wheel, or not respond. You can't fast forward or rewind a video, because it just locks up the video and spins (loading wheel spins) and the video never resumes. Also you can't play a video, and then resume the video. If you ever click on "resume video" then it just spins the wheel and loads forever and never plays. Video resumes are broken on the Amazon FireTV version of the Plex App. I wish the Plex developers would spend another couple of hundred hours working on the Amazon FireTV Plex version of the app, because I really had hoped that it would be a great App, and hoped that the Amazon Fire TV would be quicker/faster/better than my Roku, and I'm greatly disappointed in the Plex App for Amazon FireTV. It's a very buggy and terrible app, missing a lot of the most common/basic features that are available on the Roku, but not available in the Amazon FireTV app (like the ability to pause, rewind, fast forward, and stream/play HLS video from the Plex Media Server). The video playback is very laggy, it freezes, and there is no possibility of pausing, fast forwarding, rewinding or resuming movies/shows while using the Amazon FireTV version of Plex App.

First off I have to state that Plex is Awesome! I have no issues streaming from my home PC to my work PC or to my phone, laptop & Apple TV either. For this reason I have given Plex 5 starts on other stores... but I can't say the same for the app on the FireTV Stick.

I have looked online for the best possible configuration for Plex on the stick but it still freezes a lot & it will also error out with about half of my media.

I will be glad to return here & change my review once this issue has been resolved.