How does the new effort by the XBMC team affect PLEX?
I see that the XBMC Team is now saying they are co-developing for Linux, Mac Os, Windows, and XBOX. How will that affect PLEX moving forward?Just curious.
Mike
Just curious.
Mike
Nothing changes. Team XBMC said they would continue developing for Mac back when elan forked.
Could someone explain the differences (current and future) between Plex and XBMC for Mac?
I love Plex, but what advantages will it have in regards to XBMC Mac?
/Martin 
Briefly:
- Better integration with OS X.
- More stability, less bleeding-edge.
- Friendlier community, better support.
As time goes on, there will be more and more compelling OS X-specific features in Plex.
Will both groups be able to use each others code? I don’t mean licence wise but the way code is structured? It would be a waste if there are two groups developing nearly the same thing each having to squash bug’s on their own.
I love Plex/ OSXMBC so far and it made me buy a Mac mini.
Dave
Yes, both groups pull fixes from each other regularly.
From what i saw, the 2 most interesting developments from the xbmc team are iphoto and itunes integration (!!!) and a new PM3HD skin.
This would be a great boon to plex if they could both be integrated. Together with plex’s improvements over the standard “xbmc for mac” port underneath them, the result would be even better 
Please? Pretty please? 
You can install the plugins from the XBMC package (i.e. using Pacifist) into Plex and use them perfectly as a stopgap measure until Plex ships with support. AFAIK the new skin should be compatible out of the box as well.
The PM3.HD skin is, to borrow a phrase of the moment, putting lipstick on a pig. MediaStream simply blows it away. Personally I lost almost all interest I had in CenterStage when it came out. I’m still looking forward to what you guys come out with but MS is fantastic.
My take on the out of the box experiences:
Initial Install
Plex: Drag and drop (winner)
XBMC: Install wizard
Initial Settings - Excuse the American bias!
Plex: I think region was USA, temperature in Fahrenheit
XBMC: Region set for Australia, temperature is in Celsius (how do you change it?). The “Programs” menu item isn’t hidden.
Appearance
Both support MediaStream, tie
Apple Movie Trailers
Plex: Need to install plug-in, not like it’s hard
XBMC: Plug-in preinstalled (winner)
Performance
Didn’t notice any appreciable difference. On similar menu screens, Plex seems to use slightly more CPU. RAM is almost identical.
OS X Integration
Plex: Sparkle updating. Apple-Q to quit, etc.
XBMC: Stopgap iTunes/iPhoto integration plug-in. Need to reload library to pick up new files. Eh.
I go with Plex here, but the available integration is kind of a slap in the face to the “Made for Mac” fork
Apple Remote
Plex: All good (winner)
XBMC: WTF? The middle button brings up zoom options when watching a video. Up pauses? Interesting.
These are just based on a quick run through. They both seem to be winners. I’m still sticking with Plex for now but it is apparent that tight OS X integration is going to be what it needs to set itself apart.
Thanks for the unbiased review! Plex ships with the Apple Movie Trailers plug-in, as far as I knew :)
Just to put this into context. PM3.HD is not meant to be anything new or radical it is meant to be simple easy to use for first time users and have proper mouse support (unlike mediastream) so they do not get confused with "hey why did my mouse vanish or how come clicking clicking on this didn't do anything". Plex's solution to this was to simply disable the mouse and make first time users use the keyboard or a remote, we decided to go the other way and keep it enabled so people will not all of a sudden be lost since the majority of new users would start running XBMC and probably plex as a desktop app before switching to a fullscreen media center.
Also the graphics were updated to make them look better in 1080p since the old PM3 was made for low rez PAL.
I 100% agree mediastram is a better looking skin but for first time use (on anything without a remote or controller) it lacks the intuitiveness until you figure out how to navigate around properly
But like I said its not meant to look better than other skins its meant to be more usable for new users. We have a whole collection of other skins like MediaStream and AEON and the other 5 I did plus others other people have done that people can switch too later if they like.
P.S. I know its just a saying but calling my skin a PIG is a little rude and pretty uncalled for.
Jezz_X, I for one appreciate the HD update, it’s great not to see the jaggies
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend. And I am aware the HD version wasn't meant to be a huge leap forward. I still remember the first time I saw PMIII and was blown away, honestly! It's just that XBMC skins seem to have "generations" of their own, no doubt due to improvements in the skinning engine, and MediaStream really is the next-gen skin in my eyes.
To be more clear, in XBMC when you choose Videos from the home screen, Apple Trailers is already one of the sources. In Plex, you need to go to the Scripts menu and set it up from there which will then add an option under Videos. Like I said, no biggie, but I was comparing the out of the box experience.
Thanks DCstewieG for trying it out - we’ll certainly take your comments on board, as I’m sure elan et. al. will as well.
Regarding the installer - we hope to remove that as well. The only reason it’s there atm is due to a post install script that we run to setup sources.xml for the plugins you see automatically. I think moving those within the binary would be doable (though not as flexible perhaps), or within a script that runs on first startup would eliminate the need for the installer altogether (which I agree would make things much better!)
Default region setting based on the users’ OS X setup might be another good idea. As a NZer, I’ll certainly investigate this defaulting to Australia shenanigans 
Cheers,
Jonathan
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