[Luke Skytripper]

With their release today of their "Plex Home Theater" apps for OSX and Windows, you can no longer just run a stand alone client. The previous versions of their WIN/OSX clients allowed you to at least play either local or network mounted files of whatever type, without running their server software. There are many reasons to do this, pr0n you don't want the whole house to see, files that aren't scraped properly and just junk up the database, etc. As of today, this is no longer an option. With this change, you can no longer use PLEX without utilizing their closed-source server software. Without putting on my tinfoil hat, what are the implications of having to use their server now? They are out to fully monetize their software, through paid apps and monthly service charges and who knows where the next infusion of cash is to come from. Would it be selling the contents of their clients libraries? The file names of the files, which while they could reasonably be collecting to "enhance scraper performance" could also be a dangerous thing for files downloaded from torrents or USENET. Hashes of the files showing possession? It is frightening actually when you think about it.

For me personally, I will stick with XBMC! Written by people who take open source seriously, and not just pay lip service to it when they feel it will benefit them.

[natethomas]

I'm honestly surprised. I thought the server requirement has been a requirement for years.

[User 34959]

The new skin looks nice.

[aaronb]

Would it be selling the contents of their clients libraries? The file names of the files, which while they could reasonably be collecting to "enhance scraper performance" could also be a dangerous thing for files downloaded from torrents or USENET. Hashes of the files showing possession? It is frightening actually when you think about it.

Not really

[rogern]

I am thinking of bying a slingbox if that can make me stream external with xbmc

[awp0]

I am thinking of bying a slingbox if that can make me stream external with xbmc

If you have a reasonably powerful computer then you might try Mediabrowser3 first. It's open source and free, with a great interface. It handle the transcoding and will stream your content over the net.

[T800]

Subsonic/Madsonic works good too.

[wojeda]

Man! I was just thinking about starting a thread for this exact same topic. So glad I found this one. I hope we can keep it going.

Here are my thoughts:
I have been an avid user of Plex for many years. My farm is upwards of 25TB now and their server solution seemed to serve my purpose at the time. Always had mixed feelings about their client though. Worked well as long and I was running it on the same machine the server was (macmini). But then I got ambitious and bought a couple TV sets with the plex client embedded. Then I bought their iPhone and iPad app. Aside of that, I have not shell out any more money to the developer.

I thought I was happy with my awesome setup. I was not ignorant about XBMC, but my last experience had been a long while ago, on my old XBox. Came Frodo, then my life changed again. I am completely fallen head over heals in love with it!
My problem is this; Do I really need to keep my Plex server running? Right now I am using the PleXBMC add-on. But I am not thrilled about the integration. It definitively feels like two different products, as they are. Are there any advantages in moving the library from Plex to XMBC? Any disadvantages? Will I loose any trans-coding that may be required for my iOS mobile devices or my networked TV sets?
Has anyone here made the transition? Will my DLNA devices be happy still?

Plex's Home Theather version was a definite turn off for me. Such a long time waiting for it to be released to the non-privileged, and it didn't even work well. Then there is also their little "Private Club" now, if you want to get the version that fixes your problem, you have to pay for that. I really want to move fully to XBMC, but I am not sure what the ramifications of such a move are.

Any one cares to chime in?

[nickr]

XBMC does not have a server. It does not transcode. It may or may not work with your TV through DLNA/UPNP.

However, as stated earlier in this thread. MediaBrowser 3 seems a good open source alternative, although unfortunately does not run on linux at present. (Not sure about MacOSX - I see you have a Mac)

[wojeda]

Thanks and yes, I agree. That is why I am so hesitant. I got onto another thread here where I was adviced to switch skins for another one that integrates better with Plex. I did not know those animals were out there so I may give that a try.

But still leaves me with the, "Do I really still need Plex Server" around? I would not trade one server for another. If I need a transcoder and library manager, I'll keep it for now. But I wondered if bringing the library to XBMC would gain me anything of value.

I hear developers have been toying with splitting XBMC onto a client/server base as well and maybe even give it the power of transcoding, but so far it has been vapor-ware. Maybe some day.

[awp0]

IMO, there's probably no harm in keeping Plex running, provided it doesn't impact your computer's performance. That would keep your media available to clients that need transcoding. Additionally, you could install the Trakt add-on in both XBMC and Plex. I believe that would keep things like "watched status" consistent between the two of them so that, in theory, the libraries would stay pretty close to the same and you wouldn't have to maintain the Plex library any longer. I'm doing this with MB3 right now and it seems to work pretty well, though I haven't tested it extensively. I also use MediaCenterMaster to clean and tag all my media before it's placed in the watch directories for MB3 and XBMC, so that there's no difference in how each of them scrapes and identifies the media.

[Zodler]

Plex Server is a must for me just for the centralized resume function. Also, more I use Plex, more I need the On Deck function that XBMC lacks. Can't live without it. Sometimes you are watching 10 files at the same time and you need a place to see all your in progress viewings.

[awp0]

I should have mentioned that I run XBMC with a centralized MySQL DB. That handles centralized resume. Not sure what On Deck is, but I think (?) some XBMC skins have the option to filter your library by in-progress status, or show in-progress shows as a widget on the home screen. I could be wrong. Aeon MQ5 shows my most recent in-progress file right in the home menu, which is good enough for me.

[wojeda]

If there is one good thing I could say about Plex is that their server solution is rock solid. I have to definitively hand that one to them. Can't say the same for their client(s) though, hence I now have XBMC.

Much like awp0, I have also thought about running the library through MySQL on my Linux server. That would take care of most of the administration, but still leaves the transcoding left out.

The more I think about it, the more I may want to keep Plex server running at least for the time being. My macmini can handle running it along with XBMC with power to spare. But I may move the Plex server out to the Ubuntu server anyways just so I can let XBMC be the sole app running on the mini. My LG TV's and the iPads will still be able to get to all the content including keeping the flags intact.

[nickr]

Plex Server is a must for me just for the centralized resume function. Also, more I use Plex, more I need the On Deck function that XBMC lacks. Can't live without it. Sometimes you are watching 10 files at the same time and you need a place to see all your in progress viewings.

Xbmc has centralised resume.