PleXBMC client for XBMC

[nrgaway]

A pro developer! In that case you wince when you look at my code..

Anyway, if you look at the Quartz skin in github you should see what I do as I maintain an xbmc and a plex version of the home menu:
1. All the inital code sits in 720p/home.xml
2. I have two seperate pages from here in:
2a. 720p/includeplexhome.xml
2b. 720p/includexbmchome.xml

You should be able to see what ive done from here.

The skin integration works by the plexbmc plugin exporting some variables into the skin:
1. First, run the plugin code in the skin using the skin argument (XBMC.RunScript(plugin.video.plexbmc,skin))
2. This exports a number of variables (with an associated section number %d). There is no limit to the section numbers, but I only access first 10 in my skins:

plexbmc.%d.title - title of the section
plexbmc.%d.subtitle - name of the mediaserver
plexbmc.%d.path - full XBMC command to access the sections (ActivateWindow(......))
plexbmc.%d.art - full path to fanart
plexbmc.%d.type - what type of section (movies, tvshows,music,photo)
plexbmc.%d.icon - path to thumb
plexbmc.%d.thumb - path to thumb
plexbmc.%d.partialpath - a partial XBMC command to allow modified mode calls. Used to get media server listings..

plexbmc.%d.server.video - link to video plugin on server number %d
plexbmc.%d.server.music - link to music plugin on server number %d
plexbmc.%d.server.photo - link to photo plugin on server number %d
plexbmc.%d.server.online - link to plugin management on server number %d

plexbmc.%d.server - number of Plex media servers we are talking to

3. You access these in the skin by reading them:
Window.Property(plexbmc.0.path)
or
$INFO[Window.Property(plexbmc.0.path)]

One reads as a string, the other for a function - I think.

4. I also call the plugin with a mode 22, this is for displaying a list of servers for a particular function. For example:
plugin://plugin.video.plexbmc/?url=http://online&mode=22

This will produce a list of all media servers, with onward links to the plugin management. There are similar video, music, photo arguments for those plugin types..

Awesome! This should make it easier for others to port more skins. I will take a look at it later this week.

Thanks for the info.

[josephbphillips]

I think I may be misunderstanding how the PMS, remote clients, and NAS shared media work together, and I am hoping someone can clarify.



I have an ATV1 with CrystalBuntu and PleXBMC. I love it, but I have had some issues with slow loading on larger files. I saw an earlier post on mapping shared drives, and having used that on another client successfully, thought it may help here.



I previously used autofs to mount my NAS to the same location (~/Movies/PlexMedia/) on both my PMS server and my hackintosh client via SMB/CIFS. The hackintosh client is hard wired to the router and NAS, while both the PMS server and the ATV1 are connected to the network wirelessly. Plex was smart enough to use the direct route to the media and there was a huge improvement in performance on the hackintosh.



It seems like the ATV1 should benefit from this as well, despite being wireless. The most direct route to the media should result in the best performance. As such, I set up autofs on the ATV1 to mount the NAS to the same directory as the other two machines. It successfully mounts, but the load times seem worse.



Am I confused about how the routing works? What am I doing wrong?



I am not sure if a log is needed, as this is more of a theory question. If it would help, let me know!



Thanks again for a great tool!!

[squarefrog]

I’ve been testing PleXBMC again for a few weeks now, but I’m still having problems with watched flags. In order to get plex style markers to work, i have to change to another skin, then back to confluence.plexbmc. Then they work fine. I’ll PM you my log.



Not sure if it’s related or not, but PleXBMC doesn’t seem to be sending over watched flags either. E.g. I watch half or a full episode on XBMC, then I go to my Mac and Plex still lists it as unwatched.

[arbidermicul]

So I’ve been hearing a lot about PleXBMC but never had time to give it a go until now… seems to be a real stable client for Plex. Can’t wait to put it through some more testing. A few questions/comments I notice on first run…



-“Start from” seems to get updated back to PMS but if you stop/start the same show without exiting out of the menu then it doesn’t start at the right point (i.e. Start a previously played show and choose “start from 12:02”, watch 2 minutes and stop it, then start the same show and the menu still shows “start from 12:02” instead of 14:02. If you exit out of the menu and back in, then it will show “start from 14:02”.



-When you choose a show to start playing and it asked if you want to resume or start from beginning, “esc” should dismiss the window, not start playback from the beginning



Again, great work! I’m off to go play with some of the skins now. Is anyone using this as their primary Plex client on their tv? If so, how is it working?

[arbidermicul]

-"Start from" seems to get updated back to PMS but if you stop/start the same show without exiting out of the menu then it doesn't start at the right point (i.e. Start a previously played show and choose "start from 12:02", watch 2 minutes and stop it, then start the same show and the menu still shows "start from 12:02" instead of 14:02. If you exit out of the menu and back in, then it will show "start from 14:02".

-When you choose a show to start playing and it asked if you want to resume or start from beginning, "esc" should dismiss the window, not start playback from the beginning

I upgraded to the latest nightly build of XBMC and PleXBMC 1.9.9.4 and both these issues appear to be resolved!

[arbidermicul]

Hello and thanks, great job, Plex and XBMC are perfect together. I do have a question though. Is there a way to set the default view? I prefer the media info view and once I set it it stays that way for that particular directory, but I have a lot of directories. Is there a way to set the default view to display media info?

Thx!

It might be possible to add it when using a tweaked skin, but not when running it through the XBMC menus. I'd have to have a look.

hippojay-

Any ideas on this? I'd like to make the move to PleXBMC but this is the only thing holding me back at this point. With over 100 tv shows, it would be a pain to manually change the view for all of them. I would like to find a way to change the default view to Media Info using the tweaked Confluence skin. Even if I have to manually edit the XML file or whatever.

[josephbphillips]

I think I may be misunderstanding how the PMS, remote clients, and NAS shared media work together, and I am hoping someone can clarify.

Sorry, I should have re-read the directions. I looked at the front page again and see that I should have been playing with the auto/smb/http option as I was playing with the autofs stuff. I presume I need it set to auto. I will play with it some more to see if that helps.


From the front page, for anyone stumbling on my question from google:

Stream from PMS - Decide how to play PMS media on XBMC (Default: auto)
Auto - First look for local file. If missing use PMS Web server to play file
http - Use PMS Webserver to play file
smb - Use samba/cifs to play file. Share must be assessible to client

[Man]

Hippjay: why is the confluence skin based on an older version? It looks really ugly compared to the horisontal view. I also like cirrus, but I cant get rid of “HD Movies”.

[jaymelis]

Installed it today on a laptop of a student who recently moved in with us.



It works great…



Now… she too can participate in my awful taste for movies and series.

[arbidermicul]

Anyone know what’s up with Hippojay? Hasn’t been around in over a week which is unusual for him…

[arbidermicul]

-Is there any way to hide the watched tvshows? If I set up the view to "hide watched", it hides the episodes but to the show. Meaning the show cover still shows up (with the watched label on), with 0 episodes availaible inside it. Is it a bug? For the movies section, it works out of the box.

I'm having the same problem. Anyone else? Any solution?

[quietas]

I have Plex up on my WHS system in my garage and I’m testing XBMC 10.1 & PleXBMC 1.9.6.3 downloaded via the repo. I have a bit over 450 movies in two sections, 15 tv series with 350 episodes, and over 17,000 mp3’s in two sections for music.



I can see everything in the web based media manager and I have cleaned up a few movie entries that came up weird. (Overall it scanned great, thanks). When I go to my movies or TV shows all I get is the double dot (…) line for a parent folder. If I click on that, I get nothing. If I go to the Music section I see all the bands listed out and I can use the … parent folder link to go to movies. From there I can see the meta data and watch movies, but not from the Movies or TV Shows tabs.



Any ideas?

[arbidermicul]

I have Plex up on my WHS system in my garage and I'm testing XBMC 10.1 & PleXBMC 1.9.6.3 downloaded via the repo. I have a bit over 450 movies in two sections, 15 tv series with 350 episodes, and over 17,000 mp3's in two sections for music.

I can see everything in the web based media manager and I have cleaned up a few movie entries that came up weird. (Overall it scanned great, thanks). When I go to my movies or TV shows all I get is the double dot (..) line for a parent folder. If I click on that, I get nothing. If I go to the Music section I see all the bands listed out and I can use the .. parent folder link to go to movies. From there I can see the meta data and watch movies, but not from the Movies or TV Shows tabs.

Any ideas?

Did you complete the step about creating an XBMC dummy library?

[quietas]

I did not. Initially I had info showing and all worked. I’ll see if I can rtfm that bit and do it again.



I see now why I did not do the dummy library when I installed last night. The Add Sources which XBMC normally has is missing. I guess I’ll clean it all out and start over.

[quietas]

Found it. Move right and a slide out menu appears, turn off Library Mode.

[quietas]

Well, my wife likes it better than our older XBMC interface. One thing we ran into immediately is that she asked me if there was a way to search. In XBMC you drop down a level below your library and you had sort options for genre, date, name, and so on. Is there something similar in PleXBMC?



And is there an IOS remote app that works with this mangled mess of XBMC and Plex? Some which display the libraries only show the local content like the dummy Aladdin file. The Boxee remote works well and is free, but only for control, not libraries.

[jelockwood]

Well, my wife likes it better than our older XBMC interface. One thing we ran into immediately is that she asked me if there was a way to search. In XBMC you drop down a level below your library and you had sort options for genre, date, name, and so on. Is there something similar in PleXBMC?

And is there an IOS remote app that works with this mangled mess of XBMC and Plex? Some which display the libraries only show the local content like the dummy Aladdin file. The Boxee remote works well and is free, but only for control, not libraries.

You can connect an iOS device directly to the Plex Media Server using the official iOS client.

[gesv]

Can you add “Recently Added” view in PleXBMC ?



EDIT:



Just forget it, it’s already there: o)



Thanks for a wonderful plugin.

[quietas]

You can connect an iOS device directly to the Plex Media Server using the official iOS client.

Yes, and I am doing that with my iPad which works great to watch movies and such. It does not however work as a remote for a Windows/Linux system running PleXBMC. Most of the XBMX remote apps seem to work, but do not show the libraries and media correctly from what I found this weekend. The Boxee app is free and works great with the XMBC/PleXBMC combo.

[TheRandom1]

This plugin is nearly perfect! Very easy to stream my video to my xoom now which is exactly what I was looking for, however now I have a bit of an issue.



In XBMC, I have a smart playlist configured to show me which TV episodes have aired recently, and I placed it right on the main screen. Is there an easy way of doing this with the PLEXBMC plugin? I can see those eps on my Xoom, so it’s easy enough there, but sometimes I just want to sit at my desk and watch through XBMC.