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New AppleTV vs. Roku Ultra for Plex?
- Thread starter myrtledog
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It depends. Are you someone who wants to own your digital content or have a lot of iTunes purchases? If your answer is yes to both those then the ATV is a no brainer. For me the ATV 4K is the best streamer because it automatically upgrades all your previously purchased HD content to 4K (where available). The cost of digital content on iTunes is generally cheaper. You can use the Fox App to buy movies for as low as $5 and iTunes frequently has great deals.
If you don't own content, then the answer is basically personal preference. I prefer ATV because the Apps for it are just BETTER and CLEANER and I like the interface more. Plex is a totally different animal than the other two services. However with ATV's recent update it's now a great media server - through Homeshare. Again if you like the ATV interface.
Makes sense. I have both purchased (Plex) and iTunes downloads as well...
What I'm really curious to know is whether one devices plays back Plex content any better than the other?
From my experience no. Plex seems to work the same to me. I ripped all my Blu-rays a few years ago with iTunes in mind. So everything is uncompressed .MP4 with the meta data and plays off my external HD connected to my Mac. Running Plex through any of my devices seems to deliver the same quality stream. Again, I think it's ultimately whether you like the Plex Interface or not and how your content was originally ripped. The drawback to using iTunes and HomeShare as a streamer is that it's pretty limited in file formats it supports. But really you should standardize your format as much as possible when doing this. So using .MP4 ensured everything would work with iTunes on my Mac, but since Plex is open, then Plex (and most other Media Servers) would also be able to play it.
I have the Shield and I hate it. IMHO the interface is terrible, limited selection of Apps, most of the apps on it are poorly designed and most importantly Xfinity doesn't support it so most of the Apps that requires authentication do not work.
Depends on what apps a person needs. It has all the main ones and then some. Netflix, amazon, vudu, travel channel, HGTV, youtube, plex, those are my go to apps. Occasionally i'll use ESPN, NFL Network and Fox Sports. Of course it has Hulu for those that want that. Also has the disney channels if you have kids. It doesn't have Pac12 network which I use sometimes but I have it on my phone and can chromecast. In fact any apps it's missing you can simply chromecast to it.
So i'm not sure exactly how it has a limited selection of apps? What else does a person need that isn't built in or can be cast to it?
The advantage is it plays formats none of the other ones do. Including 4k HDR in plex. Plus all the surround formats including HD audio. For a local movie collection there is nothing that beats it.
I prefer the shield interface over the roku easily. But the ATV has a better interface over the shield, i'll give you that. But I don't spend time staring at the interface so it's not a big deal.
I don't care much about what xfinity supports as I also have other logins I can use so it's a non issue.
But since the op is asking about Plex, the shield is as good as you can get. Auto framerate switching and HD audio including atmos and DTS:X from your rips.
