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Plex vs. Boxee vs. XBMC - which is best?

MacAztec said:
I'm debating creating this exact setup.

My question for you Plex users out there, is:

Can you watch any live sports?
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One of the apps you can add in Plex is an ESPN3 channel, and I believe there may be other sports apps available, but I can't recall for sure...

The program is free so just download it and check it out for yourself... browse the App Store section of plex to see what they have available.
 
Still taking these programs through their paces, but I've got Plex and Boxee on the MacMini in the home theater, and XBMC on the ATV. I like the Plex interface better than Boxee and it runs the Netflix app without a hitch. Boxee chokes on Netflix (which is my number one program). As an aside, Netflix runs fine in a browser. I've just started to rip DVD's to the media server and Plex looks like it will be my interface for this.
 
I've been using PLEX for about a year and love it. I tried Boxee and Plex at the same time and immediately like Plex better.

I'm running Plex on an older MacMini and I have no trouble streaming online content (Hulu, Netflix, etc) and I've got about 75 movies and 20 seasons of TV shows ripped and stored on raided external drives that play wonderfully. Plex did a great job of reading the titles and downloading the content information for the TV shows and movies. I definitely recommend it.

I've only got 1 blu-ray rip, but it looks stunning, and plays great. My mini has 2GB of RAM and one of the older video cards, not the 9400m.
 
For me, it's XBMC. Plex has always lagged really badly for me. Not sure why. Trying Boxee now though.
 
Is there an App for that?

I don't have tons and tons of avi's and mkv's hanging around, so for me it's all about adding functionality to my ATV2.

I've tried Boxee (very nice, bit of a hog, but doesn't work on ATV2 so it's moot), and Plex, which is pretty fun now that I've gotten the video plug-ins to work on the ATV2 (Hulu, anyone?). But I'd give XBMC a try, too, if I could find the answer to a single question:

Does XBMC have video plug-ins (specifically, the CW)? If so, I'd give that a go. The interface skins look awesome.
 
dino0829 said:
I don't have tons and tons of avi's and mkv's hanging around, so for me it's all about adding functionality to my ATV2.

I've tried Boxee (very nice, bit of a hog, but doesn't work on ATV2 so it's moot), and Plex, which is pretty fun now that I've gotten the video plug-ins to work on the ATV2 (Hulu, anyone?). But I'd give XBMC a try, too, if I could find the answer to a single question:

Does XBMC have video plug-ins (specifically, the CW)? If so, I'd give that a go. The interface skins look awesome.
Click to expand...

How were able to get the video plug INS to work?
 
XBMC, because it runs on a tiny (cheap, $200) Acer Revo Atom/ION box that's connected to my television. With hardware video acceleration in Linux (VDPAU) it plays anything I throw at it, without hiccup.

It does YouTube, Vimeo, Apple Trailers, TED Talks, NPR, and PBS; which are all the addons I need/want. I hate streaming media.

It also does AirPlay. Wonderfully.

Sabnzbd+, sickbeard, and couchpotato are the icing on the cake.
 
I have tried all three, and I think Plex is the best. Boxee annoys me because of online syncing of media on my hard drive. And I have a BUNCH of the Simpsons episodes, and most are a joke about a phrase or movie (Brother, can you spare two dimes; Dead putting society; Simpson and Delilah; Like father, like clown; etc). It changes it to the title of a movie, and changes the artwork, ect. I like Plex because it can do that for you, but you can turn it off. And XBMC i think is a bit feature-poor compared to the two, but I've only used it for a few days, so I won't bash it too much. Especially with Plex's updates (I've had 8 until today), I think it's great. I wish hulu worked better with plex, though
 
Does anyone know why plex doesnt recognise all of my vids?

I installed it in preparation to buy an ATV and put plex on it, but if it doesnt recognise any of my videos there's no point.
 
sim667 said:
Does anyone know why plex doesnt recognise all of my vids?

I installed it in preparation to buy an ATV and put plex on it, but if it doesnt recognise any of my videos there's no point.
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How many of your vids does it not recognize? A few or a lot? If it's just a few then it's probably because they're not properly named. Open Plex Media Server and it gives you the opportunity to fix the metadata for each video so that it can be recognized by Plex.
 
Pled is amazing. I only heard about it a few weeks ago myself and I've been running it with no problems at all. I'm an amateur too.
 
margotspop said:
How many of your vids does it not recognize? A few or a lot? If it's just a few then it's probably because they're not properly named. Open Plex Media Server and it gives you the opportunity to fix the metadata for each video so that it can be recognized by Plex.
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A vast majority.


Ill have a look, cheers.
 
sim667 said:
A vast majority.
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You have to be careful about naming with plex, although the newer versions are much more forgiving.

The main thing that throws people off is the tv show.

the folder you point plex at for TV shows should only have folders that are the names of TV shows, if you use thetvdb to figure out your names, you'll have less matching errors, for example "Doctor Who (2005)" for the new series.
in each show folder you can have season folders if you want, but not necessary.
each individual file should have S01E01, or something close of that.


if you've got some esoteric movies and tv shows you might run into problems, but most stuff it handles without a hitch.
 
ghettochris said:
PLEX is the only thing i have found that can play my 1080p mkv's on a macbook pro, vlc and loading them into quicktime player choke it and never is smooth playback. didn't have high hopes with plex, fired up an imax movie and watched the whole thing in awe without a single stutter.
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Amen to that brother.

In fact I would say that Plex is better than sliced bread- less carbs!
 
I've used Plex for a while now. Tried Boxee but didn't really like it.

Although I think Plex has gone backwards with 9. I don't like the fact the scanning for new content/adding to library is now seperate.

I used to be able to set Plex to open at login, but now I have to boot normally, make sure it scans, then open Plex.

Massive backwards step.
 
I've been a huge fan of boxee for years now, but the updates for OS X have slowed to a total halt.

I have mostly local content. Should I give Plex a try? Not many people in this thread seem to be recommending XBMC.
 
I use XBMC with my appletv and I love it. I use it with pm3.hd skin and coverflow view mode for my dvd rips and it works great for me. I don't use the library mode though, I prefer file mode and it is simple to use. choose the dvd, click a button and it plays- simple enough and the wife is happy whe can easily use it and see it.

I havent tried the others but I love XBMC on my ATV

Works perfect for my use.

Next step. reorganize my movies into a new structure
 
I installed Plex last night. It's all my wildest fantasies about what Boxee COULD be, come true.

Installed Plex server/client on my main HTPC. Found all the movies and TV shows and got all the meta data for everything perfectly. Then I installed the iOS app and the client on my MBA and it frikin streams to everything with 0 setup. Absolutely amazing.

The streaming from other sources isn't as streamlined, but since I use SABnzbd+, SickBeard, and CouchPotato, I don't really care about online sources anyway.

I do miss the Reddit App in Boxee!
 
Plex seems to have a better, more intuitve UI.
The filenames don't have to be re-structured. All of the movies play without any issues.
Of course, it tends to be a CPU hog.
XBMC, while not a hog, runs slowly in the ATV2. The remote control response is laggy, the files have to be restructured in order to play, and the setup is a pain the the but. Overall the user experience is lacking.
If there was an app that worked as well as Plex, with the versatility that xbmc offers, then you have a winner.

AshMan said:
Next step. reorganize my movies into a new structure
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That's exactly what I'm talking about.
No thanks.
For now, I'm sticking with Plex. The drive with all my media has to be connected to my computer anyway, so why not just let the computer do the transcoding. I'm not going to be using it while watching a movie, afterall.
 
Revels said:
I used to be able to set Plex to open at login, but now I have to boot normally, make sure it scans, then open Plex.
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You don't have to run the actual Plex application (located in Applications) to have the server up.
The server is the application called "Plex Media Server" located in user/Library/Application Support/Plex
This will only run the Menu Bar plex server (located next to the date & time)
Go into system preferences, and set that as your login item, and your problem should be fixed.
 
Quick question:

If I am running Plex on my Macbook Pro, will my networked Sony Bravia TV be able to interact via DLNA with my laptop so that I can stream movies from an attached drive? Or does the TV need to be physically connected to the laptop?

TIA
 
muqmuq said:
Quick question:

If I am running Plex on my Macbook Pro, will my networked Sony Bravia TV be able to interact via DLNA with my laptop so that I can stream movies from an attached drive? Or does the TV need to be physically connected to the laptop?

TIA
Click to expand...

You're going to need to have your TV connected to your laptop.
 
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