Hi,
Not sure how far fetched this would be but after messing about with multiple versions of Plex on Roku, Apple TV, LG and Samsung Smart TV’s I have yet to find one that I am satisfied with in regards to quality playback and nice interface.
The only one I enjoy using is the PMC on my Mac mini which is excellently designed and does everything I throw at it. The only drawback is the cost if I want to view plex in another room as multiple mac minis begin to run into the thousands of pounds.
However I loved the sound of the boxee box but after reading that they are no longer updating the box and the lack of update support they offer really put me off.
So my question is would it be viable for a system to be built around the plex software which would allow some of the following.
[list]
[]Built in metadata scraping for content connected directly through external hard drives without the need to be connected to a media server
[]Support for Mac and PC formatted hard drives
[]Channel support for Netflix, YouTube and the usual nonsense
[]Solid and reliable support of HD playback including raw blu-ray rips
Streaming support without transcoding multiple formats
[/list]
That is just to name a few but I can’t justify investing in failed or dying things such as boxee box and the issues faced with other formats I have mentioned have put me off buying any of those. Other than buying more mac minis for solid multi room support I was just wondering if something like this would ever be considered due to the popularity and live for plex.
Thanks for reading.
Cortex
Amen brother. I help friends out with getting Plex set up and stuff and it’s a pain. Both the ATV and the Roku have their own issues, you have to worry about transcoding, jailbraking, whatever. Neither has a particularly nice UI.
Essentially, you want a Roku 2, with a Plex UI, that supports the different file types so you don’t have to transcode everything… Might be better to get someone to hack the roku so you can install a completely new OS 
I like to think its an Apple TV box that is open to apps…and it’s coming next year.
One can hope, right? 
When I bought my Apple TV 2 on launch day I was pretty confident that it would only be a matter of months until there would be an App Store on there. Two(?) years on and still no sign off an Apple TV App Store, my confidence is dropping.
What about Ouya? Unless the project somehow turns out to be a dud, the $100 price point would be very competitive.
Sounds like the WDTV to me. Nothing to do with plex in that respect but the WDTV does on box meta data scraping, can read "PC" formated drives, has netflix, plays most formats..
As for plex the WDTV only supports it via DLNA but it does display poster art for DLNA which is nice.
I have been thinking the Ouya could become the perfect little device for Plex. Small, cheap and it also functions as a gaming console. With the open platform the possibilities are endless and I am really hoping the Plex functionality is solid and it could easily become the preferred Plex Client for secondary rooms in the house.
I backed ouya right from the start, however given how the google tv version of plex is (on my vizio costar) I am not sure this will be any better. I got the costar thinking it was going to be great but plex for google tv is not that good. To be honest, my atv2 has hands down the best UI, if it could play files in 1080p and not converted (I dont care if it's direct streamed so that the container is just changed. Right now I use my atv 80% of the time, and then when I want to watch a movie in actual 1080p no compression etc, I have a small ion box running xbmc ubuntu with plex add on installed.
That’s what seems to be the issue with plex and all of these media players. The software is built around a flawed playback device.
Whereas if a device were to be built around the software instead it could become something worthwhile.
For now though I have to find something that I can plug my USB external drive into and have it scrape some sort of metadata without all the extra bells and whistles that I don’t require. Just good old fashioned playback of my locally stored media. Any recommendations?
I was thinking it would be perfect for plex myself, if the boot loader on that bad boy is unlocked. we maybe able to port plex media center over to it and just replace the android that's on it. (i think it can be done seeing as ppl have ported linux over and replace android on a number of devices). now thats something i would pay for hands down!
Ouya + preloaded plex media center for $120-$150? YES PLEASE!!!1!!!
Need a linux PMC before that
true, if plex started a kickstarter project, i dont think they would have any problems getting backers!
Although the Linux PMC hasn't been updated in a while, I'm currently running it on an Acer Aspire Revo 1.6Ghz atom box with Ubuntu 12.10 as per the instructions in the PMC Linux forum and it's been working great. That being said, it was a PITA to get set up, and I think the primary thing holding back Plex is the lack of a "perfect" set top box.
I too think that the Ouya looks like a great candidate, however if they go with the Google TV version of plex (which I am betting on), it will still not be the Plex STB "Nirvana" that we are all looking for. The Raspberry Pi (raspberrypi.org) could additionally be an excellent candidate, with the latest XBMC fully supporting it and multiple distributions (RaspBMC and OpenELEC) already having been created to make installation a snap. Unfortunately, the PleXBMC + XBMC combo is also a pain to set up and is hacky at best.
If Plex chose to roll in the latest XBMC updates and make a release tailored for the Raspberry Pi, they could make an profit-sharing agreement with Raspberry Pi to sell a complete Plex "kit" with custom case, power supply, SD card with preinstalled OS, and remote. In my mind, something along these lines would be the best possible option. Plex could make use of an already well-established piece of hardware and improve upon it by selling it to the consumer as a plug-and-play device. Until something like this happens, I'll still be waiting for the perfect Plex box...
If the pi can play most media without transcoding first... Sounds like a good plan B...
