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Plex for Apple TV (2010)

cool! Thanks for the post. I'm really itching to see third party apps on the :apple:TV. If Apple doesn't release an App store, I may just have to jailbreak.

Out of curiosity though, what would Plex give you that the :apple:TV as is, doesn't?
 
Sorry, but that doesn't look like Plex at all!

It looks just like the standard Apple TV / Frontrow interface with a Plex logo on top.

I'd say fake!
 
Transporteur said:
Sorry, but that doesn't look like Plex at all!

It looks just like the standard Apple TV / Frontrow interface with a Plex logo on top.

I'd say fake!
Click to expand...

Its legit. Developed by the Klexi dev. If you havent heared of Klexi, search the appstore for it. Yea, it doesnt look like plex on osx, because it isnt for osx. Its an ios version, just like the ones availiable for iphone and ipad.

If you still dont believe me, i suggest you check out the Plex forums.
www.plexapp.com
 
pirateRACE said:
Out of curiosity though, what would Plex give you that the :apple:TV as is, doesn't?
Click to expand...

Plex is a full fledged media center sollution that supports a wide range of formats. While Plex for ios doesnt support the same formats as the osx does, the ios versions connects to a Plex backend on your mac, having the mac re-encode on the fly and stream to your ios devices.

The library will be syncronized in between all your osx and ios clients, meaning that all devices will see the same movieposters, fanart etc. It will also allow for you to start watching a movie on a mac, and resume where you left off on another, or even on the bus, using your ios device.

Pretty damn cool if you ask me, and a helluva lot better than what frontrow offers.
 
It's just the AppleTV communicating with the Plex Server. It's not the actually Plex interface running on the AppleTV.

While it will be good i don't really see the point when it still has to convert on the fly for the videos to pay on the Apple TV. Might as well convert them yourself in better quality. Apparently it wont support subtitles either. I don't really see the point.
 
That's more like it - now I feel vindicated for dumping my 1st gen :apple:TV

I haven't received my 2nd gen :apple:TV yet but this is what I was hoping to see. I've been using the Plex app for my iPhone and it rocks!

Can't wait to get this up and running!
 
BlackMangoTree said:
While it will be good i don't really see the point when it still has to convert on the fly for the videos to pay on the Apple TV. Might as well convert them yourself in better quality.
Click to expand...

well I for one have a large library of movies, re-encoding all of them isnt tempting. I also have alot of small sized TVs around the house, the ATV will provide more than sufficient quality for those, and be a cheaper sollution than buying alot of mac minis.

Its re-encoding feature provides amazingly good quality at 2 mbps bitrate so this will also allow people to hook parents and/or friends up to their library at remote locations (works over internet).

If you still dont see the point of this, then this is probably not for you. Im betting plenty of people will think this is pretty great though.
 
Plex has said that they will not port their iOS app over to a jailbroken Appletv. If the AppleTV natively supports apps, thats a different story. Also, nothing is stopping Klexi from doing it. I hope it really pulls through because I would love to buy an AppleTV for the bedroom, I just need to run Plex.
 
I too dont see the point of this for me (having a mac mini in the living room)...
If Plex for iOS would be able to open movie files like VLC does .. then I would be SOLD so fast it would be unreal !

But until then its just Plex communicating with an other PC or Mac to convert on the fly ....

Please let Plex open files like VLC does on the iOS and eliminate the use of convert on the fly .....:rolleyes:
 
aduteau said:
I too dont see the point of this for me (having a mac mini in the living room)...
If Plex for iOS would be able to open movie files like VLC does .. then I would be SOLD so fast it would be unreal !

But until then its just Plex communicating with an other PC or Mac to convert on the fly ....

Please let Plex open files like VLC does on the iOS and eliminate the use of convert on the fly .....:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

So how does VLC deal with 1080p or even 720p mkv files? :rolleyes: VLC is simply a software ffmpeg codec that cannot cope with HD videos since A4 chip is not powerful enough.

I will take on the fly conversion of PLEX app over VLC implementation any time. With 8gb flash memory on ATV2, how many movies are you going to put on it for use by VLC? 8 SD movies or 1 HD movie...

My only request for this app would be for Plex to convert DTS audio into 6ch AC3 instead of 2 channel AAC as it currently does. Then ATV2 would be a perfect media center client.
 
I havent used Plex 9 yet .... I am still on Plex 8...
Right now I have my Mac mini hooked up to my TV, I use the apple Remote control with the Remote buddy software to start Plex 8 and then to shutdown the Mac mini when I am finished ( no keyboard or mouse in my living room ) ...

So right now Plex on my mac mini is just reading files from an external HDD.

Now correct me if I am wrong for the following ...
To use the new Plex 9, I would then Install the new Plex server on my mac mini ... then I would always leave it open for it to act as a server for all my iOS devices ... (never turn it off ??? does this take away some life in my mac mini ?? Fan problems ....?)

Then I would hook up my HDDs to my mac mini wich would then be physically somewhere else in my house insted of the living room to save space.

Then open up the itty bitty Apple TV2 ... and use the Plex app to convert on the fly with my mac mini ... to stream back in the living room ?

Does convert on the fly use more juice on my Mac mini then just reading the movie file with the Plex software for Mac OSX ? Is it alot of stress for a mac mini to do this for a least 8hrs a day ? or is this normal procedure for a Computer ?

My Mac mini is a 2009 model ...

I just want to know if this is how the Plex 9 series would work like with the Apple TV2 and start planning for the future ... :)
 
aduteau said:
I too dont see the point of this for me (having a mac mini in the living room)...
If Plex for iOS would be able to open movie files like VLC does .. then I would be SOLD so fast it would be unreal !

But until then its just Plex communicating with an other PC or Mac to convert on the fly ....

Please let Plex open files like VLC does on the iOS and eliminate the use of convert on the fly .....:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Issue with VLC is that it chokes on large avi files with high bit rate, etc... so transcoding at a source server is beneficial in a lot of cases.
 
VLC is horrible on iOS because there is no hardware acceleration on those unsupported formats that VLC is mostly used for. Do you really think HD video is going to work well with a 1GHz mobile processor?

Plex, Air Video, and similar iOS client apps that utilize a server app on your host Mac or PC which has the horsepower to stream and transcode the video on the fly to an iOS device is the answer for unsupported formats. And if/when Apple creates an ATV App store these types of apps will be some of the most popular and obvious additions. The other alternative would be Airplay which might actually have benefits over the Apple TV App based solution.
 
aduteau said:
I havent used Plex 9 yet .... I am still on Plex 8...
Right now I have my Mac mini hooked up to my TV, I use the apple Remote control with the Remote buddy software to start Plex 8 and then to shutdown the Mac mini when I am finished ( no keyboard or mouse in my living room ) ...

So right now Plex on my mac mini is just reading files from an external HDD.

Now correct me if I am wrong for the following ...
To use the new Plex 9, I would then Install the new Plex server on my mac mini ... then I would always leave it open for it to act as a server for all my iOS devices ... (never turn it off ??? does this take away some life in my mac mini ?? Fan problems ....?)

Then I would hook up my HDDs to my mac mini wich would then be physically somewhere else in my house insted of the living room to save space.

Then open up the itty bitty Apple TV2 ... and use the Plex app to convert on the fly with my mac mini ... to stream back in the living room ?

Does convert on the fly use more juice on my Mac mini then just reading the movie file with the Plex software for Mac OSX ? Is it alot of stress for a mac mini to do this for a least 8hrs a day ? or is this normal procedure for a Computer ?

My Mac mini is a 2009 model ...

I just want to know if this is how the Plex 9 series would work like with the Apple TV2 and start planning for the future ... :)
Click to expand...

It will work very well for those of us who want to distribute audio/video to different rooms and ATV2 is cheap enough to buy several of them for that purpose. Having Plex converting files on the fly allows us to avoid converting our video libraries and we have all that beautiful cover art for our films and tv shows. VLC/OPlayer/CineXplayer etc do not do cover art and do not play well HD videos.

If you already have Mac Mini connected to your TV in the living room then I would suggest connecting the ATV2 to your spare HDMI and switch between the two depending on what you do as Plex on Mac Mini will be a lot better than Plex client on ATV2.
 
Ballis said:
Its legit. Developed by the Klexi dev. If you havent heared of Klexi, search the appstore for it. Yea, it doesnt look like plex on osx, because it isnt for osx. Its an ios version, just like the ones availiable for iphone and ipad.
Click to expand...

Just wondering, if the interface really isn't Plex rather than the standard Apple TV one, where is the point of Plex then?

Personally I run Plex 9 on a Mac Mini and the main reason for using it over other software solutions like Boxee, is the outstanding interface.
 
Plex developers would be far better of using AirPlay have the Plex server communicate with AirPlay then no converting on the fly would be needed then that would be a killa product. This is just some half hardy hack.
 
Transporteur said:
Just wondering, if the interface really isn't Plex rather than the standard Apple TV one, where is the point of Plex then?.
Click to expand...

All this is the AppleTV communicating to the Plex server. If they manged to get the PLEX app running on the AppleTV it would still work the exact same why by communicating with the Plex Server.

The interface is just a look has nothing to do wit performance.
 
BlackMangoTree said:
All this is the AppleTV communicating to the Plex server. If they manged to get the PLEX app running on the AppleTV it would still work the exact same why by communicating with the Plex Server.
Click to expand...

Ah I see, so it's only a client application which requires another computer in the network to run the Plex media manager, right?

Ok that makes sense then, still, the native Plex interface would be nice. It completely blows away the Apple TV interface.
 
Mr Brown just dropped off a very diminutive package - it's much smaller than I'd imagined!

Of course I'm stymied until I can get hold of a Micro USB cable. I wonder if I'm patient enough to wait for Monoprice or if I'll elect to get hosed over at Radio Shack?...
 
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