PlexToZidoo : An external player for plex using native Zidoo player

So, I just ran into something strange. I had been running plex no problems, then all of a sudden I'm getting Failed to start Zidoo player. I am running 2.0 of PlextoZidoo. I checked the same file in Emby, on zidoo, and it plays the file with no problems.

 

Can you play the file through the media center app? Remember that Emby is only passing in the https stream whereas with Plex we have to have direct access through an smb connection. So if you have credentials for your smb connection the zidoo will sometimes forget them and going through the media center app will help it remember them.

 

Can explain why only on the this model and not all Zidoo?

 

Just so that it's clear, there is a plex client on both models. The Z9X supports both the native Android plex client and the Kodi addon. The Z9X Pro only supports the Kodi addon. That's because the native Plex client sees the Z9X Pro as an AndroidTV and therefore doesn't allow you to specify an external player for the videos. The Z9X is viewed by Plex as a mobile Android version and which does allow you to select an external player in the native client. Not much we can do about that. However, as I said on the Z9X Pro you can install the PlexToZidoo app and the ZidooPlexMod Kodi addon and access your plex server using the Zidoo native player. Please see the first post of this thread and follow the link to the github page where it will walk you through what to install and how to setup things.

Edit:
I have only ever tested this on the Z9X and Z9X Pro but the information should pertain to all of the models since the OS is the same. The difference is between the regular and Pro models since they're running different OS versions.

 

Thank you so much for the explanation.

Just to make sure! I am have the Z2000 PRO. So I would need to install PlexToZidoo app and the ZidooPlexMod Kodi addon and access your plex server using the Zidoo native player.?

 

Yes. You'll need the ZidooPlexMod kodi addon to be the plex client and the PlexToZidoo app will do the path substitution so that the zidoo player can have direct access through SMB to the media files.

 

Ok one last dumb question. Please confirm which app i use content?

 

I'm not sure what you mean?

 

I think you mean in which app you watch the content? For the Pro that would be the ZidooPlexMod which is an add-on in ZDMC (Kodi for Zidoo). This opens a Plex addon inside ZDMC where you watch your content.

 

Guys I need some help please. I have a Zidoo Z9X Pro and I installed ZDMC 20.2 and Plex for Kodi addon in ZDMC. All the videos load up and I can log into plex just fine but when I watch the movie it only plays in the native Kodi player not the Zidoo player. I can't for the life of me figure out how to get it to switch to the Zidoo player. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

The fact that you're seeing the native player has me wondering if you installed the regular Plex for Kodi addon and not my modified version that uses the zidoo native player.

Did you install the ZidooPlexMod from here? https://github.com/bowlingbeeg/plex-for-kodi/releases
Did you install the PlexToZidoo app from here? https://github.com/bowlingbeeg/PlexToZidoo/releases

The install instructions are here, https://github.com/bowlingbeeg/plex-for-kodi#readme and here, https://github.com/bowlingbeeg/PlexToZidoo#readme

Short version is you install the ZidooPlexMod manually by downloading the zip and then installing that into ZDMC. Then you install the PlexToZidoo android app and configure it to do path substitution so that the zidoo player can have direct SMB access to your media files. The ZidooPlexMod kodi addon will be where you browse your media collection(aka the plex client). When you select media to play it will pass that info to the PlexToZidoo app which will do the path substitution to the direct SMB location and then pass that to the native zidoo player. The path substitution settings can be tricky so feel free to post questions when you get to that part.

 

Thanks for the assist. I needed the ZidooPlexMod installed. Quick Question any reason I am getting the error No Substitution Found after loading the video? If I click on play it will continue to play the video fine. Appreciate the help.

 

Your paths are wrong in the settings. Double check for uppercase/lowercase etc.

 

That means your substitution settings in PlexToZdioo aren't quite right. If you post your substitution settings and the PlexToZidoo debug screen I can help figure out what's wrong. The reason it still plays fine is that the zidoo player can play the Plex HTTPS stream directly but it won't be able to do any internal or external subtitles. So if you have a movie with no subtitles you won't notice anything is wrong. The substitution is needed in order to play the subtitles in your media.

 

I just lined out the file name. Thanks for the help again.

 

What are your substitution settings in PlexToZidoo? Basically you'll want something like this:

Part of the path to replace:
/share

Replaced with:
smb://<ip address>/<path to /share>

The smb path really depends on how you have your network shares setup on the plex server(or where ever you have your media stored). And remember if you have some libraries with media on different servers then you'll need to fill in multiple substitution settings.

 

It was a few things that were causing an issues.
1) I had Share instead of share
2) The password for the SMB was not saved
3) The login I created on the server for some reason was not fully sharing the Videos folder. I had to remove and readd permissions

Thanks again for all your help. Everything looks like its working great so far.

 

I think I get it? Sorry.

Install ZDMC (Kodi for Zidoo) but where can i find it?
Install this Kodi Plugin https://github.com/bowlingbeeg/plex-for-kodi

Then? How does this part come in play ? https://github.com/bowlingbeeg/PlexToZidoo

 

http://apidl.zidoo.tv/app/zdmc-20.2_rtk.apk

Did you read the readme?
https://github.com/bowlingbeeg/plex-for-kodi#readme

I tried to spell out what to do but maybe it's not clear enough.

The ZidooPlexMod is the client interface that accesses your plex media. It sends the plex stream to the PlexToZidoo which does the path substitution and then sends that to the native zidoo player so it can access the media directly.

 

Has anybody gotten local trailers and featurettes working? If so, what settings do you use in Plex Server, PlexToZidoo, etc.?