Reddit reviews VLC for Fire

Download MX Player or VLC. Once you have one of them on the device, grant your kid access to it. The thing that's a pain is that you have to do the transfer of the movies while logged into the child account over USB.
 
The other option is to download GoToApp and then grant your child access to that. It's less secure because it basically breaks the Freetime restriction. The child can access anything on the device using it. GL - This is my biggest complaint with the Freetime setup.

If you're just really looking to play video files then installing something like MX Player or VLC should do fine. If you want to actually root the device, that gets more complicated.

It's a separate video player. Here's a link for Fire stick https://www.amazon.com/VLC-Mobile-Team-for-Fire/dp/B00U65KQMQ once you install it you have to go into TVZion setting and change the player to VLC. Try that.

>So using VLC will use the hardware to decode, creating more heat and take away from performance?

Close, but you've got it backwards. Hardware-accelerated decode is less CPU-intensive, more power efficient, and generates less heat. The Fire TV 4K supports hardware-acceleration for most formats you might come across, including H.265 Main10, which is probably the most complex to decode. Also the VLC for Fire app has hardware decoding enabled by default, so you're good.

>Basic PLEX is free, but the Plex Pass only costs money? I thought even the basic version cost money, like $25/month.

Plex is free, and Plex Pass costs money. Plex free is good enough for most people. Plex pass enables those extra features. The most that Plex Pass will cost is $5/mo, but there are discounts for buying annual or lifetime pass. There is also a bundle you can buy that comes with Plex Pass and Tidal Music, but I don't know how many people actually go for that deal since Spotify is much more popular than Tidal. There is no version of Plex or any bundle of Plex that costs $25/mo...not sure where you saw that.

>Rather than having to search a Windows file structure to find a movie to copy to my device for on the go, i can open plex and stream while away?

You direct Plex Media Server to your folders, and it will take some time to scan all of your media, download metadata from online sources like IMDb, TheMovieDB, TheTVDB, etc. Large libraries might take more than a day for the initial scan. Afterwards the initial scan is complete, it will monitor your media folders for changes and update the library more quickly. From the view of the Plex Media Player, browse your library using an interface similar to Netflix. Looking at movie posters and titles is nicer on the eyes than directory and file names. Check out screenshots. If your enable remote access to your Plex server (may require a router with UPnP enabled or port forwarding), you can access your library from the internet.

>Are PLEX and KODI better than VLC?

Kodi and Plex are both media center software. They include a media library, a media player, and a friendly fullscreen interface suitable for use with a TV remote while sitting 10ft away from the TV screen. VLC is a media player only.

>We don't watch too many movies from home devices, but we've purchased Friends, GOT, Boy Meets World, Walker Texas Ranger, and many other complete show series on DVD, that i've backed up and would like to watch. I was thinking of backing up my entire DVD collection, but that would take up a lot of memory. Now that memory is crazy cheap, i'm thinking about it again. As well as CD's. I would definitely like to do this the "correct" way from the beginning. It will take a while, so i can always change direction part way into it if needed...

A huge benefit of digitizing your media library is for future convenience. Instead of fumbling through DVDs, you can just select a thumbnail with your remote control. Your current media player preference should not affect your archiving strategy too much. You have basically 3 options:

1. Back up the entire DVD content, either as an ISO file, or as a copy of the VIDEO_TS folder that contains the scrambled video-object files. This is an exact backup or a "raw" backup of exactly the same CSS-encrypted MPEG2 files on the DVD. It will preserve menus and extra features like deleted scenes. It is also the least portable, since most players will have trouble playing the video. VLC can handle it and I think Kodi can also, but maybe not Plex. This method is generally going to require 3-4.7 GB to store the entire files. This option might be good if you are looking to make a perfect 1:1 backup, but it's not very practical.
   
2. Use a program like MakeMKV to rip the video content from the DVD to MKV files or some other container format. You will select a single video stream, like the main feature, or an episode. The associated MPEG2 video, audio, and subtitle streams will be descrambled and remuxed into a single MKV file with no encryption. If you choose to only rip the main feature and episodes and don't bother with deleted scenes, this method will require less space than a raw backup since you are not storing as much video. You can also save space by excluding foreign language audio tracks. Also the video files are more portable since each video is fully contained in a single file without CSS encryption. Since you are not changing the video encoding, the files are of exactly the same quality. The files are still very large because of the MPEG2 encoding. Let's just say 3GB.
   
3. Use a program like HandBreak to transcode the video into a different format. Like option #2, you will select which streams you want, but you will be transcoding from MPEG2 to a newer format like H.264/AVC, which offers roughly equivalent quality at half the bitrate, and still very good quality at as low as 20% of the original bitrate. Using transcoding you can shrink a 3.0 GB MPEG2 video into a 0.6 GB H.264 video, with little-to-no noticeable loss in quality. This method is ideal for digitizing your DVD collection for convenient playback. There are guides on how to use HandBrake to back up your DVDs. You can either do a two-step rip-and-transcode by using MakeMKV first to rip and then HandBreak to transcode, or you can use HandBreak for both steps by adding the libdvdcss plugin. If you are not sure which transcoding settings to use, and you think you might need a do-over, you may prefer to rip to MKV first so that you don't need to read from the DVD more than once. This would also be useful if you want to experiment with transcoding to different formats. Most of the default settings are good, but if you want to stream the file over the network, you should enable the "Web optimized" option which will take an additional pass to move the MP4 moov atom to the beginning of the file. That extra pass adds some time to the encoding and it might not be enabled by default.
   
   As far as storage goes, check out r/DataHoarder. A popular option is to buy a bunch of the 10TB WD MyBook devices when they go on sale for $150-$180 at Best Buy, remove the drives from the enclosure, discard the enclosure, and insert the drive into a large disk array to make 40TB volumes and larger. It's a little wasteful because you're throwing the enclosure away, but the WD MyBook devices go on sale for much lower than the naked 10TB WD Red drives, which cost about $300-$350 and don't go on sale much.
   
   >Current setups, i'd like to keep energy costs down, which is why I've looked into purchasing a NAS, instead of building a server.
   
   Those off-the-shelf NAS products are nice, but they can get kind of pricey, and not very user-serviceable. When you outgrow it or have a problem, you might have to replace the whole thing. If you are comfortable assembling a PC, you can just build your own power-efficient small-form-factor file server and you will have a more flexible upgrade path for the future. You probably don't have that much content right now, and it sounds like you won't be doing much transcoding, so you could just run Plex on any computer you have. Since you said you are interested in backing up your DVD collection, any PC with a CD/DVD/BluRay drive and a decent hard drive would be ideal since you wouldn't need to copy the files to different machine afterwards.
   
   >Plus, hypothetically, if i shared my internet with my semi-older neighbors, they could watch from my library, rather that streaming online?
   
   Uhh, I don't recommend sharing your WiFi with your neighbors for obvious reasons.
   
   >So in short, if i am just trying to watch a few movies from on my network, stick with VLC on my phone and Amazon devices. But if i plan on expanding, look into Plex? 90% of what i'll be storing on the NAS will be family home videos and pictures. But once i finish restoring my house and debt free, i'll be able to quit my second job and have a little more time and money to play around with this stuff!! :-) :-)
   
   You can just start using it today. It will take 15 minutes to install Plex Media Server and point it to your files. It doesn't disrupt your normal workflow, so you're not married to it. I also recommend checking out Kodi.

Here you go:

http://www.amazon.com/VLC-Mobile-Team-for-Fire/dp/B00U65KQMQ

I also suggest installing ES File Explorer:

http://www.amazon.com/ES-Mobile-File-Explorer/dp/B008K6HN8I

The VLC app should be able to handle just about any video format for playback, and is available for free in both the Google Play and Amazon app stores. Whatever tablet you buy, you should be covered.

https://www.amazon.com/VLC-Mobile-Team-for-Fire/dp/B00U65KQMQ

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.videolan.vlc

From the description of my video (yes, this is original content):

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I repurposed an old Kindle Fire to play a custom do not disturb sign so my kids don’t bother my when I am on an important call in my home office. Working from home can be difficult when you have kids so this solution does two things:

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(1) informs my kids not to bother me or make noise

(2) plays pink noise so my calls can be more private.

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Link to VLC for Kindle Fire: https://www.amazon.com/VLC-Mobile-Team-for-Fire/dp/B00U65KQMQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=mobile-apps&ie=UTF8&qid=1536769620&sr=1-1 (I recommend downloading VLC on your Kindle, setting the video to play on a loop, and tapping the lock icon in VLC.)

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Link to downloadable video file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yJ0EqtmRWk1v1fIAlUM3Qynd4JMSCAeA/view (you can reuse if you want, but I forbid anyone from selling it.)

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Note: I said white noise in the video but meant pink noise.