VLC on Amazon Fire TV --No transcoding now at all !! Great

Hi there
Normally I use PLEX but if I'm streaming HEVC X265 with subtitles (ASS --other subtitles such as .SRT, PGS etc are OK) - Plex will transcode which sometimes can cause interruptions in playback ("Server not powerful enough to transcode ...."). Doesn't always happen but I suppose it depends on the quality of Rip. My TV will play OK without transcoding if no subtitles.

However when using the new 2nd Gen Amazon Fire TV box with the built in VLC application -- everything is fine --the powerful processor on the Amazon TV box handles it with ease -- only slight niggle is that built in subtitles (ASS) can be fairly small on a large TV and there's no way to increase the text size (at least not that I've found).

So if you are having poor playback with PLEX and you have an amazon Fire TV box then switch to VLC for cases where your server needs to transcode but is struggling.

Note though you will need initially to set up access to the server on your LAN -you simply see initially a Logon / password screen to the server before VLC finds the files. If the Fire TV box is near your router you can also connect via LAN cable - although it handles both 2.4 and 5 GHZ Wifi.

One problem with Windows though - VLC on Amazon fire TV seems to be unable to find the files if they are on Networked drives located on a different server --no probs with accessing drives on Linux servers though. I suspect if drives locally attached to the Windows server then VLC will be just fine.

Incidentally although not officially supported VLC on amazon Fire TV will play content from locally attached USB drive (there's a USB slot on the box) and from an SD card - SD card can also be loaded. You'll need though to use a Windows file system to get this to work.

Very impressed with the fire TV box --not much more expensive than the Fire stick and much better IMO - no more transcoding jitters - and it will also handle UHD 4K movies too. (Need HDMI v 2 cable though otherwise DRM gets in the way).

Kodi can also be side loaded but it's a bit complicated --happy with VLC when PLEX causes transcoding slowdown on the server.

Cheers
jimbo