New release for Plex for Android!
It’s been far too long, in our opinion, since the last release of Plex for Android. Despite all appearances to the contrary, we’ve not been idling. In addition to being at GoogleIO and demoing on the new Vizio Google TV, we’ve been deep in the bowels of the labs at Plex working on some new features. Without further ado – here they are:
Remote Control
A number of people have asked for this in the past. It’s great that you can hook up your tablet to your TV, but what a pain to have to get up out of your couch to control video playback. Now every Plex for Android device supports remote control from any of our mobile clients. Likewise, you can also choose to navigate on your mobile device and simply play the media on your Android.
Experimental QuickSilver Transcoding
We’re proud to introduce support for the new QuickSilver Transcoder, present in the latest beta of the Plex Media Server. While this is a general transcode mechanism that you’re likely to hear more about in the future, this initial release is tuned especially for Kindle Fire users. This has been a long time coming, and there have been a number of hurdles we’ve had to overcome. It’s still quite early for this technology, but we think Kindle Fire users will notice significantly improved video quality when this feature is turned on.
This feature is not on by default (yet). If you want to try it, you’ll need to go into Advanced Settings and switch the ‘Transcode’ setting to use Quicksilver. Also note that you’ll need to be on a more recent version of the Plex Media Server (0.9.6.3 or higher) – your Android client will tell you if you need to upgrade. If you’re on a Kindle Fire, give it a try and please let us know how it works for you!
One thing you’ll notice if you switch to Quicksilver is that Video Quality on the Settings page will change a bit. When talking about QuickSilver we talk in screen resolutions, rather than bit rates. Feel free to play with these… but don’t be surprised if “Full HQ” doesn’t yet work. Please back down to what works for you.
Please note that QuickSilver is still highly experimental. If you’re bold and want to be known for living on the edge, feel free to give QuickSilver a try! If it works well for you please contact us and let us know what device, model and settings you’re using so we can share with other Plexians! If it doesn’t work, please switch back to your normal settings – we’re not yet ready to debug field issues with this feature.
Other Changes
Here is a more complete list of fixes and changes in this release:
- NEW: Experimental Transcode method (Quicksilver).
- NEW: Android devices can receive remote control commands and publish themselves as players. Can be turned on/off. On by default.
- NEW: Network logging for troubleshooting. Down with the logcat! If you’re helping us troubleshoot you may opt into Network Logging from Advanced Settings to turn on Plex Client and PMS logging for 10 minute intervals.
- NEW: Media Info displayed at top of screen when playback controls are visible.
- FIX: an issue where sometimes Plex would get stuck on ‘Loading’ the Home Screen.
- FIX: playback issues on some ICS devices (e.g. HTC One).
- FIX: an issue where hints in myPlex dialogs/fields were not appearing so it wasn’t clear what went into each field.
- FIX: weird seekbar behavior where it would temporarily skip around before seeking was complete.
- UPDATE: Added a number of devices to the “Device Supports HLS” list.
Of course there’s many other little bugfixes. Please let us know via the Plex for Android Forums how it works for you!
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As always we’d like to extend a special thank you to the Plex for Android Alpha Test Team for helping us vet innumerable internal releases! You are the unspoken but NEVER under-appreciated heroes of every release! Thanks gang!
As a last little bit of fun – maybe you can help tell me where in the world I am here?
Follow me here at darrin.plexapp.com or on Twitter for mostly Android and Google TV updates. To keep informed on all the latest Plex news follow us on Twitter or Facebook or tune in to our blog elan.plexapp.com for a wide array of Plex information.
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Thank you! I use Plex on my phone and my tablet, and it’s quite useful. Also, when I’m not at home and don’t have my computer, the phone app makes it fairly easy to show off Plex and convince others to do it. “See, look, Masterchef and The Walking Dead, right on my phone, and all these movies, too!”
Today I started playing with my new nexus 7 and downloaded the plex for android app. I love the ability to stream to my tablet for when I’m in bed or elsewhere (and when I work out the port forwarding for my router it’ll be great for when I’m out the house too).
However when I tried to use it as a remote control for the plex media centre on my Windows desktop I encountered a few problems. The middle main buttons don’t seem to do anything at all when pressed (up, down, right, left etc), and there are soft buttons at the top that I read somewhere on a previous version you could remove in the settings, but I could not find that option anywhere. Finally the play, pause, stop, volume etc buttons at the bottom worked the first few times but now they seem to have no effect on what is happening on the tv.
Is it because this is such a new device and operating system in jelly bean that this hasn’t been optimised yet? Anyway for what I plan on using it for a lot of the time (streaming to my android device), it works great. Thanks
Hi Darrin,
what exactly is QuickSilver? I know it as an application launcher on Mac OS X, but that is clearly not related. Care to give us some details?
Thanks
Any hope in ever incorporating airplay out into the android app? You guys obviously have a better idea what is happening than me in this industry, but Cult of Mac writes “Google is sitting on the technology behind AirPlay and not marketing it. Due to this, customers are flocking to iOS in droves. Evolver.fm provides evidence to back this trend up. According to Elliot Van Buskirk: “Every day, for months, the most popular search terms to Evolver.fm have been “airplay android” and “android airplay.”
Other apps like imediashare and PlayTo are incorporating it and even push the Plex server out via AirPlay. Of course it doesn’t look or operate like this awesome app, so I can’t introduce it to my family. It seems to me if Plex became the most offered solution for people googling AirPlay Android (given that Plex is an “all media solution”), then the popularity of this app would skyrocket (says the layman). Of course I’m writing this for selfish reasons because I have an HP Touchpad and an Apple TV that I wish would yet along so well that my two year old could use them together:). I would probably end up having Plex as the only app installed on my Touchpad and set Plex to launch on boot (I call it, the PlexPad)
Just curious if the tech that i already own will ever become my dream solution of eliminating the need for a 10 foot interface altogether.
Great work and my best,
jj
Still can’t fwd or rewind while playing back content on a plex client on the mac. IOS version has a whole fwd rewind control page that is missing from the android version. What gives?
@cryptochrom QuickSilver is the (ridiculously overloaded) name we gave for our custom Transcoder.
@paul puey – you’re right. That addition to the remote control is on the list but other features and functions have jostled it out of pole position. Sorry about that!
Any chance we will be able to remote control the GTV version from an Android tablet or Phone any time soon? I love Plex on my GTV but wish I could use the plex remote for it….also weird bug on GTV (Logitech Revue) sometime the old UX shows up instead of the new one after the plex splash screen.
Brad – yes – more/less turning on the remote control feature had 2 primary use cases. 1) To let you easily use devices with HDMI out and 2) to control your google TV.
As for the bug – sounds odd – please post to our forums so we can gather some information and track it down!
are you saying that you should be able to control the GTV from an Android Phone or Tablet? When I checked it out this weekend I was not discovering either of my GTVs and I dis not see an update in the play store for the GTV version
Brad – sorry my response was ambiguous. To clarify – you asked if it is ‘coming soon’. Yes it is ‘coming soon’ but it is not yet available for the Google TV.
Darrin,
Great, thanks for clarifying.
@Brad – no problem! Enjoy!
Great set of changes. Would love to try out quicksilver when I can update my app from Amazon Appstore (which still does not have this version) – any idea when that would happen?
@Osho – as always Google Play and Amazon get the update at the same time. Amazon runs tests before approving and publishing to the market. It’s out of our hands but generally about 1 week.
@jjense01 ~ no current plans to incorporate AirPlay at the moment. Our remote control/play protocol is AirPlay-like, and it works between Plex clients and the server, and that’s our main focus at the moment.
Hi, Excellent app. I read somwhere that boxee server can run on an android tablets to serve movies to boxee clients. I’d love to see the same for plex server. Can you please add this to your release roadmap if it is not already. And of course, if yes, then when will you release?
+1 on the request for AirPlay support. I have an iPad that runs plex and stream to an AppleTV – being able to use my Nexus 7 or One X for the same would be amazing, and it doesn’t look like Google is going to add support for AirPlay anytime soon.
@chris – thanks for your note. Plex Media Server on Android isn’t coming soon and… you sly dog… you already know we don’t announce release dates don’t you!?
Where are you?
- There’s an Italian restaurant behind you, but you’re not in Italy.
- The architecture looks old, so you’re in an old part of an old city.
- Nice lighting and plants, so you’re in a tourist-friendly part of town.
- You’re wearing short sleeves in the shade, so it’s somewhere warm. But the flowers look good, so it’s not too hot.
- I can’t make out the sign behind you, but the last letter looks like a backwards R. So you’re someplace that uses the Cyrillic alphabet.
- The plumbing and electrical looks dodgy, so you’re definitely somewhere that uses the Cyrillic alphabet!
- You’re in a place that doesn’t mind trademark-infringing signage (the Android logo). Again, somewhere Cyrillic
I have no idea. Sofia, Bulgaria?
glonq – you’re on the right track! Yes that’s Cyrillic but no not Sofia, Bulgaria!
Looks great – can’t wait to get my nexus 7 to try it out!
@elan. Thanks for the reply. Bummer, but understandable. I best just make the leap to an ipad:-)
@leroy – it does look great on the Nexus 7.
@jjensen01 – Just curious – if you have a Plex Media Server setup and Plex clients on your devices – why do you need Airplay?
I can’t believe people dropped the quest! I’m gonna go with Moscow, Russia.
When will the update be available on the amazon app store? Still shows no updates available.
@grompy – Actually – Amazon is currently serving up Plex for Android 2205 which was the update this post was based upon. A patch release (version 2206) was released into Google Play last week and to Amazon as soon as 2205 made it through approvals it was submitted there. Amazon’s review process usually takes between 4-7 business days for us – so it should be any time but we honestly have no way of knowing for sure.
@Matt – Nice job! VERY close. Russia yes. Moscow no.
Thanks for the update! While it does freeze every time I launch it for about five seconds, I do feel that it (overall) feels less buggy, so thank you!
About the remote: I am playing content on my iPad, and went to my android device to use it as a remote…but no video players were showing up. Tried the same thing, but by playing video on my Android and trying to control it from my iPad…same results. Are these remotes only good for Laika? When will that functionality be available across multiple clients?
Also, elan’s comment confuses me (in regard to airplay). He says we’re not focused on it, because plex already possesses similar functionality with the media server and remote. These aren’t exact words, rather the meaning behind what I got from his message. This is also based on a post I saw in the forums. I would like you guys to reconsider it: what an amazing feature! To play content from any client, and being able to “beam” the signal to a compatible device (in this case, the Apple TV). Who wouldn’t want that functionality. It makes so much sense…
Every word jjense01 said above is so true. It describes my thoughts & wants 100%.
A