What is the Android TV equivalent to iOS/tvOS' Infuse App?

by CPT-812

I'm an Apple user who is planning to buy an Android TV Box, specifically the NVIDIA Shield TV Pro , since Apple TV's lack of USB ports fails to meet my needs.

For years I have been using the iOS media player app Infuse to play my media files on iPhone & iPad. What I love about it not just that it can pretty much read any audio & video codec, but that it has magnificent UI & UX. It automatically downloads metadata and artwork for your movies and TV shows in seconds, and everything will be smartly organized into categories.

Is there a similar app for Android? I know I can use VLC to play any video file, but is there a similar app to Infuse that can similarly organize my files and present them elegantly for navigation? I suspect that Apple device users who use Android TV boxes are probably best to answer this question but I could be wrong. I'd really appreciate your recommendations. Thank you.

FoferJ

Kodi. It's not as elegant and user-friendly as Infuse, but damn, it's powerful, infinitely customizable and extensible. Next up, would probably be Plex.

bobniborg1

Nova player is a simple one if you list want basics

j3DiMM

I'd say Plex would be the way to go. You'd want to get Plex pass which is an additional cost but as far as feature and support it can't be beat. Kodi is nice too, but there's a fair amount of hackery to get it configured nicely if you're up for it.

xhabeascorpusx

Kodi or Plex

will_decide_later

I don't agree with Kodi being lackluster in terms of UI & UX. IMHO, Kodi is immensely customizable. If you like the simple, yet elegant and easy/straightforward to use UI, consider installing the embuary skin. Also, lots and lots of options for subtitle addons, fanart etc. Looks and feels WAY BETTER than plex. Also, don't forget that Kodi can direct play almost anything (even Plex remote shares ; may not be an issue even with plex if you are talking about NVIDIA Shield).

LeOmare

VLC and Archos Video Player and don't forget Kodi

SubNoize

Plex

Sirc625

Plex, but you have to put your movies and TV shows in a specific format in order to get the covers and metadata. It's worth it though.

boredElf

I would say Kodi, but if you want to have your library synced between ipad, iPhone and shield, then you'll need one of the server-client solutions, Plex or Emby. I recommend Emby because the library metadata takes up a lot less space.

Deathbyillusion

Get a Nvidia Shield TV and get the Pro model that has 500 GB of internal storage. It's the best then sideload install TeaTV apk and stream all the movies and TV you want. They have a couple of other apps out there. Kodi is ok but it's slow espacially when it has to. Update all the apps as you start it.

djEthen

Mr MC

TwinCitiesHoTS

I have the 2019 Shield and the Apple TV 4k. I have premium infuse. Bad news: there is no android equivalent. Kodi requires constant tweaking from the start and it's very ugly. Plex is the closest you will come to infuse; it is prettier than infuse but has an annoying problem called transcoding, it forces your files to convert to plex-compatible formats and only chooses to do that when you are playing the file. This causes buffering regardless of your internet speed or local playing. Infuse was designed to fix the problems with plex, so there's nothing like it. It's not available on android because android users generally don't pay for apps, and certainly not as much as infuse costs.

Plex on mobile devices organizes your media all nice and lets you play them on your default app (vlc for example). From there, you can cast to your Shield. This avoids transcoding (which happens when you play using the plex player) but it does not track your watch progress meaning when you come back a week from now it won't have tracked which videos you have watched.

BiggussDikkuss

@CPT-812..

I have had both devices.

Nothing will be as bling or beautiful looking as Infuse on the ATV 4K, or as simple to use.

There is Plex if you like a “Shades of Brown” GUI and you will also be interfacing with some sort of Networked File Server anyway.

Kodi is there for power users and for those that like to tweak. It can be setup to auto scrape Metadata from files and categorises everything once done.

The 2019 Shield out of the box has colorspace issues as well. You have to roll up your sleeves to even get it to work properly with Beta Hotfix Firmware - which can have other issues.

Android TV also uses a 1080p only user interface, it does not look as sharp and clean on a big 4K TV vs the 4K GUI that tvOS has on the Apple TV 4K.

Seriously get yourself a simple DIY home networked NAS, they don’t even need to cost the earth like this ODROID HC2:

https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-hc2-home-cloud-two/

Kodi works better anyway on a dedicated Linux OS device such as the very well supported ODROID N2 - CoreELEC edition.

CE running on the N2 by the way includes a Plug n Play HDD, SAMBA file server that can stream files over your home network to the Apple TV 4K very easily:

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=340809

N2 uses so little power it can be left on 24/7. Files can be dragged and dropped on to CE / N2 connected HDD’s.

I will repeat this again, get yourself a networked file server, once setup it will make life so much easier.

All I use now is the Apple TV 4K and an ODROID N2, sometimes 4K HDR YouTube on my Smart TV, and that meets all my needs.

calmer-than-you-dude

I have both and pretty much all apps/interfaces are going to look better on the atv4k. Plex is ugly and boring on any device. Kodi does a lot of things right but it's of course still handicapped by the 1080p resolution of the shield. I guess my suggestion would be for Kodi.