Anyone else find it amusing that just after XBMC announced their namechange (to Kodi) so they could "Finally cut the lingering connections to the old Xbox.", Plex actually manages to get a client officially supported? I never thought Id see it happen. It kinda goes to show how far Plex has come since Elan & co. broke it off with XBMC back in 2008(?).
Its a little strange though. And sad. But long gone are the days where I would switch between the two and XBMC actually had something great to offer. For those who dont know, Plex was originally a Mac fork of XBMC called OSXBMC.
I remember the days when XBMC (and easy softmodding) made the original Xbox, hands down, the best media player, and one of the cheapest. I'd not realised that the 360 client had been released, but, if it actually works reasonably well, I'm going to be very happy to replace my current iOS app/AirPlay system (because PlexConnect has proven to be flaky).
This has more to do with Microsoft’s position in the world. Bill Gates had a modded original Xbox with XBMC on it, they used it for presentations at Microsoft. Microsoft is a different company today than it was a year ago. It has always said that it wanted to control the living room, and it’s hard to do that when your competition have devices that cost less, and have been there before you. Piracy is also less of a concern for them, so Plex is not a bad idea as it once was for them to have on their systems, specially under an indie type section. Look at Sony, they added algorithms to detect videos gotten from less official channels, and prevent it from playing on their system.
Also XBMC has wanted to change their name for a very long time for legal reasons.
XBMC definitely has some advantages but overall it pales compared to plex in my opinion. I never did like having to use window shares and wasn’t too trusting on hooking up hard drives direct to streaming boxes with XBMC. I’ve seen it too many times corrupt the drive plugging and unplugging it. I would rather see XBMC come out with a server-side like PMS. Having to use PlexBMC just doesn’t cut it for me and takes away from the natural XBMC experience. XBMC could easily make some changes that would put them on par with plex and in some cases even ahead. But I just don’t see that happening because after all these years you would think it would have by now. Having the Plex server and client combination working together as one for me is just unbeatable when comparing to any other option including XBMC. This may change in the future but right now for me there is no doubt about it… PLEX is number 1.
XBMC and Plex are 2 completely different models. Plex being Client/Server where XBMC is all-in-one type solution. Both are great at what they are meant to do. I still use PlexBMC on my Pi because performance on RasPlex was abismal. I'm hoping that when PHT is on Gotham (or better yet, Helix) the performance will be better as that's where Raspbmc really started to shine (with Gotham I mean) so I can quick using the plug-in on XBMC. I would just use Raspbmc, but I got tired of watch status being out of sync (made the wife ornery :) ).
XBMC and Plex are 2 completely different models. Plex being Client/Server where XBMC is all-in-one type solution.
They have become different. They were pretty much identical, apart from the name. And that was pretty much the point of my post.
While XBMC, a client originally made for Xbox now changes name to distance itself from the Xbox brand, Plex, an XBMC fork, actually manages to make an Xbox client again.
Having followed the forums of both apps for years, I find this pretty amusing.
They have become different. They were pretty much identical, apart from the name. And that was pretty much the point of my post.
While XBMC, a client originally made for Xbox now changes name to distance itself from the Xbox brand, Plex, an XBMC fork, actually manages to make an Xbox client again.
Having followed the forums of both apps for years, I find this pretty amusing.
My response was more for a1b2c3 and his not liking to use windows shares. In their current versions they are made for different use cases.
Having been a long time xbmc user, but relatively recent to plex (about a year). I can totally see how this would be amusing though. :)
