Plex Discussion Thread - Page 3

I usually have hardware acceleration on. I've done it without before, and it was just a bigger load on the CPU, but from what I remember, it played fine the files I was wanting to view.

No, you don't need bootcamp to run Windows 7. That's if you want to keep OSX on your machine. I did a HDD format and fresh install of Windows 7 on my machine. The OSX disc has all the Windows 7 drivers. There is even a setup executable to setup it all up, similar to bootcamp. Using that file, just makes things faster. It does rename the HDD C drive to bootcamp. Other than that, there is nothing of OSX on the machine.

I don't have anything against OSX overall. It was small stuff that drove me nuts with OSX such a completely removing programs, stuff not installing because of missing directory, and so forth. The lack of PVR software did not help any either. Windows is the be all and end all for HTPC by any means. It just has more offerings, software wise, because it's more popular. Plex works every bit as good as it did when I was using OSX. I'm glad to see both the PMS and front end on Windows.

For anyone who is interested in having HD audio bitstreaming with the windows plex client...

Download and install the latest Eden XBMC, the one that supports HD audio bitstreaming of course...
In the audio section enable DTS-HD, Dolby THD... etc...

I assume you have already downloaded and installed the windows plex client (also called the plex media center)

Create an xml file with the following content and name it playercorefactory.xml




C:\\Program Files\\XBMC\\xbmc.exe
"D:"
true
true
none
3600








save the file under c:\\users\\YOUR_HTPC_USER\\appdata\\local\\plex\\userdata

Start plex, and when you play an mkv or iso file with HD audio in it simply bitstreams the HD audio flawlessly.

I have tested this on win7 32 bit, if you're running win7 64 bit you might need to modify the paths to xbmc.exe

Also, if you use plex from within 7MC, after stopping a movie, you will only come back to the xbmc interface.
I had to map the back space button on my imon remote to the keyboard "end" key.
In other words, once I press the backspace on the remote, xbmc closes and the plex interface comes back.
I will check to see if a parameter can be passed in the xml file to automate this.

The plex experience just keeps getting better...

Looks extremely similar to XBMC and Media Browser to me. Still nice.

Had some trouble, but I'm sure the issues will be fixed. Already plenty of typical Plex polish. On both my Xbox and PS3 there's album art, resume supported for stuff, etc. Loving it.

I have been using 3 Samsung BD-D5300 Blu-Ray Players throughout my house as Plex Clients for 6+ months and they have been working great for what we need. I posted a thread about this a while back in the "Networking, Media Servers & Content Streamers" forum: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1361963

Here's to hoping Plex continues improving and adding great features!

So amazing how plex keeps getting better...

Unfortunately I'm not 100% sure if it can handle a full res Blu-Ray MKV rip. Pretty much all of my rips are all 720p XviD, MKV, MP4, etc. A videophile I am not lol

I have a quick question about integrating Plex into WMC on Windows 7 64 bit. I currently found some files that allowed me to integrate Boxee, Hulu Desktop, and XBMC into WMC so that they show up as separate apps with their own icons that I can launch from within WMC and then have the PC return to WMC once I close them.

Is it possible to do this with Plex as well. I'm really interested in checking out what sort of apps they have available. Boxee is no longer going to be supported and I keep getting a message saying Flash is not installed even though I have already installed the Flash player for other browsers. Also, some of the videos don't show up as widescreen in the Boxee app such as Gametrailers Bonus Round even though they do so on the Boxee Box.

Also, I've had several plugins such as Gametrailers and Gamespot cause XBMC to crash when I try to play a video so I want to give Plex a shot but would like to keep everything integrated so that WMC is basically my home base that auto-starts when I boot up the PC and that I return to whenever I exit any other program.

You get a plex icon by default in 7MC when you install the windows plex client...

You need to have a plex server running somewhere as well...

Plex does this by default during installation if it detects Media Center.

Sweet. So just so I have this correct, I would need to install Plex media server on my PC that stores all my files then install the Plex client on my HTPC.

Correct...

Yes, with the same interface, look and feel... etc...

Imagine watching a movie half way on a Sunday evening at home on the HTPC and continuing the same movie on the phone in the train on your way back home from work the following day...

I installed Plex Media Server beta with the DLNA functionality and added my plugins like Revision 3 etc. However, when I try to play anything on my old WDTV Live (non-Netflix model flashed with B Rad's custom firmware) I get a message saying format not supported. I tried to play videos from another app via UPNP on my Boxee Box and the thing wouldn't even get as far as the WDTV Live, it just got stuck in a loading loop with the little blue circle and didn't even bring up a list of videos when I tried to access a plugin.

The Boxee Box has its own apps so I'm not too concerned with that but I thought Plex was supposed to be transcoding things where if your playback hardware doesn't support a specific format it would still be playable. Please let me know if I missed a setting that would allow Plex to convert these videos into a format playable by the WDTV Live.

Boxee Box is a whole other issue and I know their UPNP playback has been pretty flaky but it would be nice to get that working as well since there are a couple apps that are only in Plex that I would like to access on the Boxee Box in the bedroom.

They only supplied the DLNA functionality with a basic profile and specially made ones for the PS3 and 360. Your device needs a device profile to tell the transcoder what formats it supports. They will be adding more and currently on their forums users have been churning out profiles for other devices in a large amount. I'd imagine over there someone made a profile for you device and then it should work correctly.

Gotcha. Guess I got some checking around to do. I recently canceled DirecTV so the only TV I have in the workout room is whatever the WDTV Live can access. It can access my local files and I installed the custom firmware which allows Revision 3 shows but I would love to get the Plex DLNA server working since there are so many more apps available. I'm not in the workout room as much as I should be so it's not that big of an issue. But when I do come out of winter hibernation and stop being lazy and get back to working out it would be nice to have a variety of content to keep my mind off my aching bones.

Been playing around with Plex.

Gotta say the access to media anywhere in the world is going to come in handy on an upcoming trip to Chicago, beach trip with the kids (assuming we have a rainy day), etc.

The interface is bascially XBMC but simplified.

At this point the only interest I have in Plex would be to play my audio collection. I've spent some time looking but can't seem to find if Plex supports flac.

Can someone point me what audio support (like flac) Plex provides?

I'll keep XBMC for local file playback as it's snazzier and more customizable the way I want it with the Aeon MQ3 skin but I love the Plex apps and a couple of my favorite apps I used on the Boxee Box were causing XBMC to crash.

I really do need to start messing around with that access your media anywhere functionality. Once I get out of the stone ages and buy one of these fancy Android phones this might be a godsend for downtime at work since our network security is really restrictive and blocks everything.

My old job allowed me listen to Shoutcast radio or check out music on Youtube so I've gotten used to working with a wide variety of music in the background. It would be nice to stream my local music or music from an app from home to a phone or something to make the day go by faster since the one radio station I get reception for plays like the same 12 songs every day.

If the playing device supports flac I think you're good to go...

heh heh...

I do travel for work quite a lot, and you can't imagine how in the last three months it is no longer that much of a big deal to pass the weekend alone in the hotel room...

Got the plex client on my iPad2 and that gives me full access to all my media from anywhere...

You can't really appreciate it until you see it work... believe me...

That is the real difference between XBMC and Plex. XBMC has both server and client together so to speak. Plex has clients for many devices, many of which could simply not handle XBMC. Even a lowly Roku will provide excellent playback using Plex as will the iDevices and such. XBMC, especially Eden, is fantastic if you do most of your viewing on one HTPC. I use Eden on an Atom Shuttle and it's great. But I have Plex clients in an LG TV, ATV2, Roku2, LG media player and many iDevices. The ability to have one server and the clients is a big plus for Plex. They had to break away from osxbmc to do that.

Plex isn't for everyone. In particular, it doesn't seem to me to be the perfect choice for the serious Blu-ray collector who wishes to have the full Blu-ray experience from disk images. Plex is also weak in the subtitle area and its channels are not as functional as XBMC's Addons. Nevertheless, if one is willing to make compromises then it is a great solution for watching you Library on multiple devices.

The new DLNA capability of the server is pretty neat and they have transcoding or not down to an art.

Philip