Best news I've heard in a while. Plex was the first program that came to mind as I heard them announce universal apps would expand to the Xbox.
WinRT is an ARM platform, making it particularly difficult to get something as complex as ffmpeg working successfully.
Xbox One went to x86 this time around and shares a lot in common with Windows 8, and when they release the Dashboard Update later this year to allow for Universal Apps it will be even closer.
Should Xbox One have remained PPC as the 360 was, I would completely agree with you that it would be far beyond my capabilities.
If you guys are having problems with ffmpeg, I'd suggest reaching out to the VLC team, as they seem to have made some progress (though its not passed certification for Windows RT at the moment). I know they are coding their program very differently, but once they get it working properly, perhaps you could create a WinRT library from their implementation.
Aroberto, thank you for the recommendation, and I will be certain to keep that in mind as a potential avenue to speed things along.
I am still thinking things over, however I am personally going to be implementing using Windows Media Framework first so that I can get something that I can enjoy while I work out the bugs.
Depending on how things go over the next couple weeks, I will make the decision to either ship with Windows Media and migrate to ffmpeg at a later date, or to take the time to get ffmpeg working in the near-term knowing that it will lead to a small setback in release.
If you're willing to take some feedback, I'd say go for something that works most of the time, and requires transcoding for those videos that aren't compliant, as a stepping stone. Get something out sooner and give release notes here to help guide people to making their videos compliant with Handbrake or something similar.
Then work on a v2 that has ffmpeg and other tools built in.
Baby steps are all we need to get more people using Plex. Getting MS to release it sooner to the market place, remind them that Amazon Fire TV is only $99. That will light a fire on their approval process.
FYI I use PLEX via the built in browser now... The trick to get some (not all) videos to play is to download it to the console instead of hitting "play"
Yeah this is great! But please without the need for a myplex account like on wp8!
Awesome!! Thanks Tyson. I just got an Xbox one and tried setting up my PC via HDMI IN just for Plex. It's not working for me, must have something to do with the DVI to HDMI adapter that I have on my computer.
Out of frustration, I decided to google and see if there were any developments with PLEX + Xbox One.
I was pleased. :D
I can't wait. Please set up a donation page if you need funding.
I've been waiting for this news for some time but I seem to be a little less than excited after reading the last few posts in this thread.
Given that my entire collection is HD MKV, which is not natively supported by the Xbox One one as best I can tell, this coming app would require my PMS to do some transcoding. I have my PMS hosted on a QNAP NAS and therefore it isn't powerful enough to handle transcoding HD content.
I guess until someone can convince MS they need more native file support my dreams of an Xbox One app for Plex will continue to go unanswered :(
Why don't you just build a PC powerful enough to handle transcoding and move off an underpowered NAS?
Mate im very excited by this.
If you can get this supporting transport streams (ie live tv) from dvblink or others i will buy you several beers :)
I convert all my MKV's to AVI then use PlayTo on Windows 8.1. Hopefully we'll see solid performance from the Plex app with AVI streams as well. Thanks in advance for putting in the time to make this essential app for Xbox One.
Just great news! Microsoft, good to you to realise what a great team Plex have producing a great piece of software. Just brilliant, well done Plex and well done Microsoft! Can't wait to see it when developed!
would the plex app be able to work with the voice commands of the xbox one
I just wanted to clarify, so that there's no misunderstanding about this thread, that Tyson is a member of our community, but not an employee or a representative of Plex.
Well it sounds like you guys should hire him. ha
Why don't you just build a PC powerful enough to handle transcoding and move off an underpowered NAS?
I have several PCs in the house that are power enough to handle the task.
I happen to run Plex off a HTPC atm that sits next to my Xbox One but I prefer having the NAS being the always on device that handles all the media downloading and streaming.
Personally I'm not a fan of the whole transcoding thing at all, I prefer direct play devices which is why I have the HTPC atm but in future I would like to be able to have a single device, the Xbox One one that can be my single device for gaming and entertainment.
I have several PCs in the house that are power enough to handle the task.
I happen to run Plex off a HTPC atm that sits next to my Xbox One but I prefer having the NAS being the always on device that handles all the media downloading and streaming.
Personally I'm not a fan of the whole transcoding thing at all, I prefer direct play devices which is why I have the HTPC atm but in future I would like to be able to have a single device, the Xbox One one that can be my single device for gaming and entertainment.
I actually feel that transcoding is the strongest feature of Plex. For the longest time i tried to find the least common denominator of containers, video/audio codecs, bitrates, etc. that would work across lots of different devices (appletvs, rokus, iOS, android, windows, etc). This led to less than stellar quality on some devices that could support much much more. Now i don't worry about what my devices support (let alone worry about what devices in the future might support). I encode everything to the highest quality using mkv and let Plex worry about what is best for each particular device. Not only does it give me the best possible experience per device, but future-proofs me against new devices and capabilities that may come out in the future.
Hi Tyson
Any progress? Very excited about this!
Keep us updated
There is not much that I can share at the moment, however I am comfortable with how things are progressing.
I just want to chime in and say how impressed with I am with Plex, its developers, and the community. I've been dabbling with it for a while and finally went full bore and setup Plex on a Synology box to stream to my iOS devices, Chromecast, and other devices. The news that it will have an XBox One app is icing on the cake and made me pony up for a Plex Pass membership.
Thanks for all the great work, folks!
