Native Plex client improvement thread

I am making this thread so people can ask for improvements on the native Plex client which is a very good start but is missing some key features of the official Plex client.

I am hoping @mirror (Zidoo devs) will look at this thread and add the suggested missing functions as new firmware are rolled out.

I will try to keep this first post on this thread updated so that it lists the functions that people will report in this thread so that it will be easier for the Zidoo devs to see the list.

List of missing functions:
- Search function where you can enter text in a search box and it will search the entire Plex libraries on the connected Plex server for titles and actors.
STATUS: Search of titles and episode names implemented in FW 1.1.47. Still missing actors search in the search results.

- When pressing enter on an actor's picture, show all the movies in which the actor has performed instead of doing nothing like right now.
STATUS: No feedback from Zidoo devs yet.

- For a library of type "Series", show the thumbnails of each episode instead of showing only a box with the number of the episode.
STATUS: No feedback from Zidoo devs yet.

- For a library of type "Series", permit to sort by "Date Added" just like for all the other types of library.
STATUS: No feedback from Zidoo devs yet.

- When you enter the Plex client app and the Plex server was not up and running, do not automatically "forget" the Plex server and force the user to relink the Plex server again and lose all his settings for the UI. Add a popup that says "Plex server cannot be found do you want to switch server" or something like that.
STATUS: No feedback from Zidoo devs yet.

 

The search function has been implemented in firmware 1.1.47.

The search function as it is implemented in 1.1.47 only searches titles of movies and episodes of tv shows but not actors.

 

Just got a Z9X 8K as my first Zidoo player to replace an Nvidia Shield, and am currently just using the native Plex app but having some issues compared to the Plex app on the Shield:

• On setting up the app and connecting it to my Plex server, it automatically finds my 'Films', TV Programmes', and 'Videos' folders and displays them, but not my 'Photos' folder. Why is this missing, and can I manually add it?

• The 'Continue Watching' section is at the top of the interface, but only shows content from 'Films' and not 'TV Programmes', so I can't easily watch the next episode in a series as I can on my other Plex clients.

• There is a 'Recently Added Movies' section, but no recently added sections for any of the other content (TV, videos, or photos).

• When clicking on a movie and going into the movie details page, the listed audio soundtrack is incorrect. For example, in 1917 the listed audio is AC3 but the first and default audio stream is Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos). The correct audio is played when you play the movie, just displayed incorrectly in the details.

• I don't know if the is Plex app specific, but every time I play a film it displays the subtitles. I have tried the 'Automatic' and 'Follow Default Flag' options, and both still incorrectly display subtitles. I have checked the flags and this does not happen with the Plex apps on any of my other devices, which correctly only show subtitles only if they are forced or turned on by default.

• Going into the various categories such as movies, it would be good to have an alphabetical 'quick nav' bar down the side (like the Plex app has on other devices) to quickly find a movie. Scrolling through several hundred movies to get to one in starting with 'S' for example is not quick, and being able to get straight to the 'S' section straight away would be very helpful.

@mirror fixing these issues would be most appreciated.

 

Is this version like the z9x version from many years ago?

 

Is it possible to keep compilations together? Although I have films in compilations on my Plex server (eg. Back to the Future trilogy), the Zidoo Plex app on the z9x 8k unpacks them and displays all the films together. Means compilations like the dark knight trilogy are split up in the alphabetical order.

 

Can anyone confirm that you can have separate categories on this app like you can with other Plex apps or does it just scrape libraries you link and categorize it themselves?

I'm looking to confirm that it will respect my current Plex structure (or allow me to set it up similarly) like you see on the left hand side of the Android app where it is only the content I've put in those folders being put in their categories.

-Movies
-TV Shows
-Documentaries Etc.
-Documentary Shows
-Music Library
-Music Best Of's
-Kids Shows
And more...

 

It keeps folder structures - like movies and tv shows if they are in different folders - separate.
It shows posters etc exactly as in the Plex server and changes these if you change them on the server.

 

Awesome. Appreciate the reply. Sounds like it will work just fine for me then. I really like the separation, but the separation I decide, not what the program decides is a documentary, etc.

 

is it possible to acces remote friends server like in the native plex app ?

 

I haven't bought a z9x8k yet, but based on the descriptions by others, it seems to be similar to the zidoo plex (early version) for z9x.
Anyway, new models are starting to integrate this feature into the firmware, so there should be improvements with future version upgrades, right?

Edit:
Just received my z9x8k and tested. The built-in Plex application has been improved to some extent. It is obviously a newer version than the 'early version' of z9x. It fixes the bug of quitting playback after long pause, and adds some categories to the UI interface. But there are still many aspects that need to be improved. Let's wait patiently!

In the official Plex client, collections can be combined, but Zidoo's Plex cannot, which results in the first screen of my movie classification being all 007. I hope the collection function can be added as soon as possible.

 

Nice, thanks for the information...
Say, what are your thoughts on the 8k vs z9x .?? Been happy with my z9x since like 2020 ... mainly use plex in kodi or zdmc, or old version of plex.. sometimes ht4 or 5.. al. These using the zidoo internal player.. ocasionaly using an add on in kodi with kodi player..

Media is on a synology nas..
Was gone a few weeks and just circling back looking at the 8k, probajust for something new and different.. not sure playing media will be different.. but I have read some think audio and video is better..

 

Is the frame rate of video playback in different applications a problem that bothers you? When I use z9x, the frame rate of movies is 24fps, and the frame rate of network streaming and IPTV is 25fps (in China, it may be 30fps in other countries). Since apps other than the system player cannot adjust the frame rate, I can only let z9x work at 25fps by default and let the system automatically switch to 24fps when playing movies.

This situation is different under z9x8k. It can adapt the frame rate to third-party applications (you need to add the app to the whitelist in the settings), so even if I default to 60fps, I can switch to 25fps at the moment of playing IPTV, and switch to 24 fps when playing with official Plex client.

In addition to the flexible frame rate, I love the new model in the following aspects: in addition to the poster wall, there is also a built-in Plex option for playing movies (it also uses the system player), you don't need to maintain movie libraries on multiple devices, you only need to maintain one Plex, and Plex's scraping ability is stronger than Zidoo ; Its system UI interface is 4k, if you like to use it to show photos to friends, the effect will be greatly improved; Bluetooth has been upgraded to 5.2, and there is no longer any delay when transmitting audio using Bluetooth; different video formats can be output as SDR or HDR, and the settings for whether to use VS10 are more detailed; A slightly increased operating speed brought about by the improvement of CPU and RAM.

 

nice, thanks much for the information..
seems I should look at pulling the trigger on one to play with..

 

Hey there,

About this native plex client, is it using the zidoo player?
In fact, does it work like the bowlingbeeg plex zidoo thingy?

I am using the zidoo to push lldv all the time so I need the plex app to push the content to the native zidoo player so it would do the trick with lldv.
Would be very nice.

 

Not like that, it can stream videos remotely like Plex, but use its independent UI and zidoo player.

 

One thing is missing from that plex mod, the critics excerpt, I dearly miss this feature.
I love to read these small texts about movies, so accurate sometimes, even more interesting to read them after watching the film
If that could be added to the mod, that would be awesome.

And more awesome would be to add it to the emby app instead but I don't know if it is feasible.

 

I'd say there's a lot missing from this app. It is extremely bare bones.

 

New firmware dropped with no improvements. I think that’s pretty telling as to what you can expect. I never expected these to really get any love/attention or ever get close to any sense of feature parity.

 

Ya i don't think I've seen any improvements to any of the Plex/Jellyfin/Emby onboard apps other than maybe some bug fixes. It's starting to seem like what you see is what you get, in which case, I think it's nuts to use this app instead of the PlexToZidoo option. It's much more fully featured in comparison.

 

It sucks though since this app is in HDR which eliminates HDMI handshakes. The other big annoyance with PlexToZidoo is that the underlying SMB shares forget the credentials and you have to open the file browser and browse to a share and then PlexToZidoo will work.

So it really is pick your poison. Both have pros/cons.