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PLEX vs XBMC
#46
You can centralize XBMC DB on a server machine and have your clients all connect to it
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#47
Quote:Also, over time, I've noticed that Plex does a better job with metadata.

With metadata or getting metadata? Because they both grab the data from the same sites, so there shouldn't actually be any difference there.
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#48
As you can see by the number of my posts, I am a loyal XBMC user and take it over Plex any time of the days. However....

(2012-10-07, 08:35)saitoh183 Wrote: You can centralize XBMC DB on a server machine and have your clients all connect to it

I am aware of the mySQL centralized, but in no way does it get any close to what Plex has achieved with its server/client infrastructure. I am aware that there are good reasons for the XBMC developers not to get into server/client structure, but we need to admit that this is indeed currently the biggest differentiators when it comes to features.

(2012-10-07, 17:33)Ned Scott Wrote:
Quote:Also, over time, I've noticed that Plex does a better job with metadata.

With metadata or getting metadata? Because they both grab the data from the same sites, so there shouldn't actually be any difference there.

I assume what he means is that Plex has basically some form of EMM integrated, so it makes it easier for someone not so familiar with the software to select the movie. For some people, the XBMC way to select movies is a bit difficult and it takes time to understand. Once you learn how the XBMC library works, I actually see it superior and also love the flexibility that I am getting through using external NFOs created to EMM (which Plex doesn't "like" and cannot properly handle).
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#49
I think plex server/client is great to have. I have it so that my parents for instance have instant access to my movies/tv shows without them having to do anything. I use xbmc in my house on all my devices however when guests come over they use plex since they always say its easier to use/understand.

xbmc I can customize it the way I like it and there are sooo many more addons that are usable. Plus all the live streaming addons which is great.

XBMC is hands down a better media center however plex is easier to setup and get going.
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#50
(2012-10-07, 06:37)car_ramrod Wrote:
(2012-10-03, 20:36)pumkinut Wrote: Plex==XBMC for dummies with far less control of how it operates.

Nah. The biggest difference between the two is that Plex offers a client/server architecture that just doesn't exist in XBMC. XBMC is probably superior in almost every way, but unfortunately it's a standalone client. If you have a single PC that holds your libraries and everything all in the same place, then XBMC is the way to go. If you have things distributed, Plex is much better for it and that's because it's built around a client/server architecture.

I've used xbmc, myth, wmc, plex and some others I've probably forgotten about and the client/server piece was the key differentiator for me. Also, over time, I've noticed that Plex does a better job with metadata.

Nah, the biggest difference is Plex offer far less in the way of customization and obfuscates far too much of the process. A central db is more than achievable with XBMC, I have it running on my NAS. Yes it's more difficult to set up, but it's also easier to work with in the long run. I can't pare down subfolders to be scraped if I choose the root folder in Plex, that's a pain in my ass, as I then have to add sub-directories one by one instead of just adding the root. This is for directories I don't want scraped....you know....my porn.

Plex is slower to update, and I can't do it in a granular fashion. I have Cars and Cars 2 in a directory of kids movies. Plex picks up and scrapes Cars just fine, but I cannot get it to add Cars 2. I've tried full rescrapes of the root directory multiple time, and it just won't pick it up. I have to add the subdirectory manually. This is sloppy coding in the guise of making things "Just Work".

Plex cannot do a better job with multimedia as it just scrapes the provider sites as XBMC does. Plex offers far less opportunities to modify the data as much of its processes are automated and behind the scenes without the ability for user interaction.

I've played with Plex, XBMC (been running it for 7 years now), WMC (waste of time), Showtime on the PS3, and a couple of other media managers. XBMC is, by far, the best thing out there. Plex is second, but it's distant. The only thing Plex really offers is ease of initial setup and using MyPlex to share things remotely. That's small consolation for all of its other deficiencies.
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#51
(2012-10-07, 17:33)Ned Scott Wrote:
Quote:Also, over time, I've noticed that Plex does a better job with metadata.

With metadata or getting metadata? Because they both grab the data from the same sites, so there shouldn't actually be any difference there.

While the data is obtained from the same sites they use a proprietary scraper rather than the default ones used by XBMC and other media clients. However my experiences with scraping my library in Plex is different to Ned Scott and I have to manually rescrape more movies using Plex than I do in XBMC. Not to mention that Plex seems to ignore locally saved thumbnails and fanart which annoys the crap out of me as I prefer clean thumbnails with a higher res than the default ones often selected.

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#52
It's not about just having a central DB, plex is truly client/server. They offer ios, android, windows, and OSX clients that can connect to the server over the internet to stream your media. It transparently transcodes down to lower bitrates when you're bandwidth constrained. This is a huge feature and extremely nice to have. It's why I run both XBMC and Plex-- I use XBMC when I'm sitting on my couch in front of the HTPC, but I use Plex remotely.

Theoretically PleXBMC can connect to the plex server, but it's not particularly well contained and doesn't work with their "MyPlex" setup to automatically connect no matter where you are. Plex is just so much slicker about the whole thing.

If you ignore the client/server stuff, XBMC blows Plex away. But that is an extremely desirable feature.

I know there's been talk of doing something similar with XBMC, but it never actually went anywhere, unfortunately.
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#53
(2012-10-10, 03:35)rodalpho Wrote: It's not about just having a central DB, plex is truly client/server. They offer ios, android, windows, and OSX clients that can connect to the server over the internet to stream your media. It transparently transcodes down to lower bitrates when you're bandwidth constrained. This is a huge feature and extremely nice to have. It's why I run both XBMC and Plex-- I use XBMC when I'm sitting on my couch in front of the HTPC, but I use Plex remotely.

Theoretically PleXBMC can connect to the plex server, but it's not particularly well contained and doesn't work with their "MyPlex" setup to automatically connect no matter where you are. Plex is just so much slicker about the whole thing.

If you ignore the client/server stuff, XBMC blows Plex away. But that is an extremely desirable feature.

I know there's been talk of doing something similar with XBMC, but it never actually went anywhere, unfortunately.

And if you have noticed, they have ignored desktop for a long time, just doing minor updates while we XBMC devs have been busy with massive refactoring and OMG, pvr. We prefer to lay the proper groundwork in the code base rather than try and quickly jump onto some poorly implemented feature.


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#54
I have only used XBMC, but since I do have an Unraid server delivering content to multiple XBMC on Windows installs, I have been tempted to look into PLEX. It is the only reason I even consider trying it. With the focus on Android, I would think a client server edition of XBMC would be something very desirable since most media is not going to be stored locally on an Android device. It seems likely the small Android based PCs will be the HTPC standard in the near future, and PLEX currently fits that model better.

Not trying to give the XBMC team a bad review by any means. I LOVE me some XBMC and appreciate what they do to make it happen. However, the "mysql" solution as it stands should be looked at. An Unraid package would be awesome...... Anyway, I can't really give a vote since I have never even viewed more than screen shots of PLEX and this seemed like a good opportunity to toss another client server vote out there.
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#55
(2012-10-10, 21:31)Diggs Wrote: I have only used XBMC, but since I do have an Unraid server delivering content to multiple XBMC on Windows installs, I have been tempted to look into PLEX. It is the only reason I even consider trying it. With the focus on Android, I would think a client server edition of XBMC would be something very desirable since most media is not going to be stored locally on an Android device. It seems likely the small Android based PCs will be the HTPC standard in the near future, and PLEX currently fits that model better.

Not trying to give the XBMC team a bad review by any means. I LOVE me some XBMC and appreciate what they do to make it happen. However, the "mysql" solution as it stands should be looked at. An Unraid package would be awesome...... Anyway, I can't really give a vote since I have never even viewed more than screen shots of PLEX and this seemed like a good opportunity to toss another client server vote out there.

As long as you've got a half decent wireless signal even 720p rips will work fine on compatible android devices. No need to transcode.

I use unRAID but I run my MySQL XBMC database from my main HTPC, much is easier to set up.
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#56
i used plex for much longer than i've used xbmc (not counting when i used it on the xbox years ago) and like the client/server model, however i don't like the closed-source nature and the way it heavily favours macosx/ios with linux/android support being alpha-quality at best - last time i looked transcoding to most android devices didn't work at all and the server only supported a couple of linux distro's and was very hacky and obviously almost a direct rebuild of the mac version.

xbmc12 is lightyears ahead of the plex9 client, which has only just synced with eden. the xbmc scrapers are much better and library update handling is much better (which only seems to work on apple hfs+ with plex, not samba, nfs, sshfs etc.) also development of plex is slow as they have to wait for fixes/features to get added to xbmc and then backport them.

hopefully xwmm will get fixed to work with froyo as metadata editing is the only bad point with xbmc, but at least it has local nfo support that plex doesn't, and its certainly better than the plex webserver which pretty much only works on safari.

funnily enough xbmc on my revo 3610 works faster than plex on my c2d mac mini,
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#57
I think at this point the KEY advantage of Plex over XBMX is the fact that Plex can transcode videos on the fly when serving to various clients via DLNA. This is a huge benefit as one can then stream the same video to an iOS device (via a DLNA app), to a PS3, to a TV etc.

This is a much bigger deal than 'just' being client/server based. If XBMC added transcoding, given that mySQL can already be setup, XBMC will take the lead once again when compared to Plex.

Right now, Plex gets much more use from me than XBMC does, simply because of the transcoding...
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#58
(2012-10-10, 22:36)edrikk Wrote: I think at this point the KEY advantage of Plex over XBMX is the fact that Plex can transcode videos on the fly when serving to various clients via DLNA. This is a huge benefit as one can then stream the same video to an iOS device (via a DLNA app), to a PS3, to a TV etc.

This is a much bigger deal than 'just' being client/server based. If XBMC added transcoding, given that mySQL can already be setup, XBMC will take the lead once again when compared to Plex.

Right now, Plex gets much more use from me than XBMC does, simply because of the transcoding...

XBMC will gain this feature after v12 (Frodo) (so, in theory, it should be ready for v13's stable release).


Also, in reply to some other comments, remember that small android HTPCs also have USB ports, and some even have SATA ports, in addition to standard local network streaming. The only time a transcoding server would be useful to another XBMC HTPC is if you want to stream over the internet from device to device, but like I said before, that's something that's on the roadmap.
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#59
(2012-10-11, 06:45)Ned Scott Wrote: XBMC will gain this feature after v12 (Frodo) (so, in theory, it should be ready for v13's stable release

That sounds very cool. While still some time in the future, it is great to hear that the feature will eventually be implemented.

(2012-10-11, 06:45)Ned Scott Wrote: Also, in reply to some other comments, remember that small android HTPCs also have USB ports, and some even have SATA ports, in addition to standard local network streaming. The only time a transcoding server would be useful to another XBMC HTPC is if you want to stream over the internet from device to device, but like I said before, that's something that's on the roadmap.

Agree that the most needed usability would be streaming over the Internet (to a browser or mobile devices). Having said this, I would also love to see an IOS application, which does not require a jailbreak and what you describe would open the door for this.
Server: Asus Sabertooth Z77 | Intel Core i5 3.4 GHz | 16 GB DDR3 | 128 GB SSD, 82 TB (9 x 6 TB, 7 x 4 TB)
HTPC 1: Raspberry Pi 2 | HTPC 2: Raspberry Pi 2 | HTPC 3: Raspberry Pi
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#60
non-jailbreak ios software = you have to deal with the apple nazis = totally against the spirit of FLOSS.
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