Plex and XBMC interfaces

[dogtanian]

I love the clean look of Apple TV but i definitely feel Apple are beginning to be left behind by indie developers... if you haven't already, check out the XBMC with Aeon skin: Aeon

and the MediaStream Skin: MediaStream

I also found www.thetvdb.com particularly useful for high res images, banners and synopsis. Media Centres like Plex can automatically pull the data from the site.

I hope Apple realises that Apple TV should soon no longer be classed as 'a hobby', especially now more and more devices are coming to market from other manufacturers. I am torn between an Apple TV and another device running the OSXBMC software (once the bugs are ironed out). I'm also hoping for better handling of non-audio media by iTunes 8.0 as it's really pretty poor as it is, being forced to use things like Lostify and the like. It would also be nice to combine some of the basic media display options (Coverflow/Full screen Coverflow/Front Row) into one great application perhaps.

What do people make of the alternatives?

 

[Cave Man]

I really like the concept of XMBC/PLEX and their decoding algorithms are tops. Apple could learn a thing or two about how to write video software. If you would have told me a month ago that the Mini could play Blu-Ray video, I would have told you "bullsh!+!" But I have done it myself with XBMC and it worked very well, even passing through AC3 Dolby Digital with no dropped frames from a 1080p Blu-Ray rip. No way that Quicktime could do that, even if it could open m2ts files.

With this said, XBMC isn't as elegant as Front Row, and PLEX is buggy and prone to freezes. If you can get a FR interface on top of XBMC/PLEX, you'd have one nice multimedia machine.

 

[Aegelward]

At the moment, there is no native solution to getting XBMC onto an AppleTV, however a small team of people seem to be developing an ATV specific distribution of linux, which will make use of XBMC

http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/

It's not the most elegant solution right now, and it could be far more messy than hacking the ATV OS with things like NitoTV...

If i wasn't planning on getting a mini i might just have tried this solution though

 

[gonyr]

Plex looks perfect for what I want. I'm just holding out for a new mini, and I'll be all set to go. I don't want to spend $600 on a machine that's so out of date that it's probably not even worth $400.

 

[Cave Man]

Wow! The new Plex release from yesterday is really a nice improvement. I ran parts of several Blu-Ray rips and it did not crash once. It even properly switched my receiver to DTS for the one movie I have that isn't in Dolby Digital. Looks like Front Row's days are numbered on my Mac Mini HT box.

 

[dogtanian]

Wow! The new Plex release from yesterday is really a nice improvement. I ran parts of several Blu-Ray rips and it did not crash once. It even properly switched my receiver to DTS for the one movie I have that isn't in Dolby Digital. Looks like Front Row's days are numbered on my Mac Mini HT box.

Right, now let's find a mac mini to run this from...

 

[Cave Man]

Right, now let's find a mac mini to run this from...

I already am. As long as nothing else is busy, a 2 gHz Mac Mini doesn't drop any frames from Blu-Ray files (which top out at around 30 mbps bit rate).

 

[dogtanian]

I already am. As long as nothing else is busy, a 2 gHz Mac Mini doesn't drop any frames from Blu-Ray files (which top out at around 30 mbps bit rate).

Had a good play with it on my MBP this afternoon and am suitably impressed. Having some issues with scanning my content and linking Plex with thedb.com or IMDB etc but it is in the very early stages. I'd say an auto-setup feature would be great as without doing that scan, you can only really view via file names. When it works it looks fantastic however. Bit of an annoyance changing your filenames though...

Anyway of changing the weather to degrees Celsius do you know by any chance?

Love the interface though I must admit. I am most definitely considering swapping over to Plex on a Mac Mini. Like you said Caveman, with 2gb ram and nothing else running, Plex should run quite comfortably. Wonder if they will ever make an TV Tuner add-on? That would be the ultimate MC for me.