The team behind Plex recently announced a whole bunch of new product updates. These include major updates for Roku, (much needed) improvements to their Apple TV video player, and several brand cross-promotion deals. But the thing that really has us intrigued and scratching our heads a bit is a new partnership with TIDAL, adding streaming music to your Plex experience.
TIDAL [all caps for some reason] is probably best known for its high-profile artist-owners, including Beyoncé, JAY-Z, Daft Punk, Jason Aldean, and many more. Their catalog is extensive, offering over 60 million audio tracks and hundreds of thousands of music videos.
If you already subscribe to TIDAL, you can connect it with your Plex account. Or you can subscribe through Plex if you have Plex Pass and save a buck off TIDAL’s monthly fee. TIDAL offers two plans: standard or high-fidelity (discounted to around $9 and $19, respectively). Each plan offers a 30-day free trial period.
Is This for You?
So why would you want this? Well, if you have a music collection already, you can supplement your existing titles with TIDAL’s extensive library. Plex will aggregate the libraries through universal search and integrated playlists. You can even influence TIDAL recommendations and discovery from your own music interests.
But TIDAL will also work in Plex if you don’t already have your own music library. And you can use it without running a Plex server (similar to Plex’s other online offerings, like News, Podcasts, and Web Shows).
On the other hand, if you already have a music service, you may not be likely to add yet another service just to integrate it through Plex. Spotify, Apple Music, and other services already dominate the streaming music space. TIDAL may be yet another streaming service you don’t need. It’s also worth noting that, while TIDAL integrates with a significantly long list of devices and third-party services, it isn’t available through either the Amazon Echo or Google Home devices, which may be a dealbreaker for some.
Regardless, it’s interesting to see Plex branching out to integrate additional online content. Once a content source on a multitude of devices, they seem more and more determined to be your primary point for content aggregation—a goal many are targeting but no one has quite mastered yet.
Source: Plex Blog
CORRECTION:
TIDAL is now available on Amazon’s Alexa platform. TIDAL is actually the first music service to use Amazon’s Music Service API.