Plex client for Zidoo devices - ZidooPlexMod

Thanks for your work on this. I have it working (although I'm not sure if I did the path replacement stuff correct.) I can't seem to find this setting for autostarting the Plex Add-on. Here's what I'm seeing when looking at the Plex Add-On settings > System.



So how can I have the Add-on auto-start when selecting the ZDMC from the apps page?

 

It's somewhat confusing but there are two places for settings. The one you posted and the one inside of the addon. So you need to start the addon and then on the top of the screen select your userid -> settings. In that menu there is a "System" heading and that's where you'll find the checkbox "Start Plex On Kodi Startup"

 

That did it. Thanks.

 

@bowlingbeeg Any chance we could get a newer version of the Plex app to work with ZDMC that would include the "Watch Together" feature?

 

I don't see how that would be possible with an external player? Plex has no idea where you are in the file.

 

The main developer of PM4K that I branched ZidooPlexMod from has said it's on his list of things to look into but who know if he'll ever deem it high enough priority to implement. Personally it's not something I use so I won't be pushing for it. Feel free to post your wishes in this thread: https://forums.plex.tv/t/pm4k-plexmod-for-kodi-18-19-20-21/481208/1654

 

That's not true, Plex does know where you are in the movie. This fork keeps Plex updated with that information by querying the zidoo player. You can see that by going to the dashboard in your Plex server as you watch something on the Zidoo.

 

Neat, so it might be possible but I cant see it being high priority. I've never used it personally.

 

Just pushed version 0.3.8 to the bowlingbeeg.kodi repo which pulls in a number of fixes/changes from the 0.7.7 upstream PM4K. Here are some highlights:

- New continue watching hub on home screen that combines continue watcjomg amd on deck, like modern plex clients
- Better plex.direct handling. It will ask you if you want to store those mappings or ignore them. Depending on you home setup select the appropriate option.
- You can now do your path substitution all within kodi if you want using the path mapping support that was added. We already have that support in PlexToZidoo but if you want to do it in Kodi it does work but it requires version 2.6+ of PlexToKodi. Unfortunately we're stuck with PlexToKodi because Kodi doesn't allow me to call the Zidoo player directly with all of the extra intent values that are required.
- If you want to see the full change log it's here: https://forums.plex.tv/t/pm4k-plexm...visuals-music-love-plexdirect-and-much-more-1. Just remember all of the changes for the seek dialog and the theming stuff don't apply to us because we use the zidoo player and not the default kodi player.

Let me know if you hit any issues.

 

I notice freezes of a second or two when I play an episode of a serie, not often but it happens.

 

Another guy with a path mapping trouble…

Everything installed correctly, I even mapped my media in zdmc through smb flawlessly.

In my case, Plex is a container running on Unraid.
I have two shares : VIDEO/ and TV SHOW/
Their path in the docker is mnt/usr/VIDEO

The paths shown in the Plex docker and also in the debugging screen are /data/ and /TVSHOW/

so I input in Plex zidoo app :
/data/
And for the other one
smb://192.168.1.17X/VIDEO
I tried with my server name instead of the IP but I see you all using IPs. I am usually mapping my media with its name rather than the IP that is the case for zdmc.

and I set the username and the password because when I added these sources to zdmc for example, it asked me for it.

It is not working. Though, debugging is showing what I would consider correct path.
I will post a picture.

Do you any of you have a comment about what I stated? Are there any obvious mistakes?
I have tried couple of options, with /mnt/usr, with and without password etc.

 

Once ZidooPlexMod hands things off to the Zidoo player to actually play the movie that app is in full control so unfortunately there isn't anything I can do about it.

 

Please post a screen shot that should hopefully point to the issue. One thing that stands out to me is that you said you want to swap /data/ for smb://192.168.1.17/VIDEO ... if that's the case then you may be missing a "/" after the swap. Ex:
/data/path/to/movie
would become
smb://192.168.1.17/VIDEOpath/to/movie

I'm guessing you just mistyped it in the forum but just in case it wasn't.

 

I took pics of everything, Plex container and unraid config, the Plex debug and what I input. plus you can see a screen where I show what I pass to zdmc to map my share on my nas.
Also, I don’t know where to look for in the media manager of the zidoo player to find the path, it doesn’t show anywhere.
Let me know what you think.

 

So the "video path" in the PlexToZidoo debug screen is what Plex sees as the path to the video and what the PlexToZidoo will use to do the path substitution. If ZDMC can access your share using smb://VEDA/VIDEO then that's what you should use as the substitution value. It shouldn't matter if you use the IP or hostname as long as your network is setup correctly but if you have static IP addresses then using the IP is easier because it doesn't need to be looked up. So I think it should be this:

"Part of path to replace": /data
"Replaced with": smb://VEDA/VIDEO

But you said you already tried that though so I'm not sure what's going on. Can you try putting those in again and posting the screen shot of the PlexToZiddo debug screen?

Another thing to check is to go into media center and select on the smb tab on the left. From there try to navigate to your movies. If you have a username and password on the share the Zidoo media player doesn't always log you in correctly. If you navigate through the media center that will authenticate things correctly and then things will work through the ZidooPlexMod after that. You may need to do that occasionally so if possible remove the username and password from the share and it will make your life easier.

 

Ok, I tried again and first of all, thank you for your time and your help.

So I must admit something dumb. I didn’t know I had to try to play from debug mode, I thought if I was seeing this screen, it meant there was an issue.
So I I tried to play and it worked (!!) but the behavior of the player is very hectic.
I did the trick you proposed, access my library through the media center, I removed user and password from the plexzidoo config app.
I’ll troubleshot that later since I am able to map correctly now. I’d prefer to keep the user and pwd enable because I have other apps that requires that I set up something for smb shares, anyways.

Then, about the weird behavior.
It starts the playback and it looks ok but then, it pops a « failed to launch the zidoo player » but it plays in the background, I have the audio playing but I’m back in Plex interface. even if I exit till the zidoo home, I still have the audio playing.

 

So I can confirm medias are launching with the Plex app but it fails to play more than a few seconds.
I haven’t tried with all medias but it is weird, when the file is passed to the zidoo player, it should be smooth, why does it fail once launched?
To be noted : files are played perfectly from the media center when I browse inside my video folder.

edit : it does the same if I play files from zdmc!
So it is not limited to your plex mod add on.
It is something wrong with Kodi…

 

Once you get everything working you can disable the debug page in the PlexToZidoo settings so you don't have to see that screen every time.

As far as your issue is concerned I don't know what to say about that. I've never seen anything like that before, it sort of sounds like the zidoo player is crashing but you say that audio is still playing in the background which doesn't make much sense. Once the zidoo player takes control other apps can't really show on top of the video player without the video stopping. What zidoo box are you using and what level of firmware? You're not on one of the alpha releases are you?

 

I have a z9x pro and I am running v1.0.75
I installed this one to avoid choppy playback for some media (4k with true hd or dts I don’t remember, it fixed the problem)
So I am running a firmware that doesn’t allow me to use your add on? bummer…

 

I didn't say that. I was just making sure you weren't on the alphas that are known to have issues. What you are describing isn't something that should be possible so I'm trying to determine what's going on. Does the movie play at all or you just hear audio and that's it? Could you make a video?