XBMC or Plex?

jmarshall Wrote:WTF? XBMC has way better eye candy.

But seriously, to the original poster, just download each of them, try them out, and see what you think.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Thanks! Will do - been using XBMC for XBox 1 and enjoy it - just wondered if for Mac there was a big dif.

althekiller Wrote:Truth hurts, eh? If I were truly an ass hole I'd ban you for in appropriate language towards staff.

And...point!

Myopic arent you "althekiller"? Ban me asshole, really DGAF.

FYI its "inappropriate" dufus, not "in" and "appropriate" as in 2 words! Maybe an education would help. Spend time doing that rather than wasting time posting insults on forums.

Pride of authorship (and I respect programmers talents) does not give anyone the right to be a prick.

You can see that given the chance, most human beings will respond with opinions that matter, rather than some knee-jerk flamer like you and some of your brethren.

I got what I wanted and will continue to ask and answer as long as I can, where ever I can.

Come on guys, lets keep a friendly atmosphere, no need to get fired up

Lol

This is the funniest series of post I've ever read on the XBMC forums. Thanks guys, I needed that. LOL

Hotkey Wrote:I've been running XBMC on XBox 1 for years. Just got a new Mac and wasa thinking of moving XBMC to it. I read about Plex being a very nice Mac fork of XBMC and was wondering if anyone here knew the pros and cons for either?

Thanks.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=60146

davilla Wrote:XBMC for Mac is the best, Plex is an imitation that caters to eye candy. If you like eye candy, use Plex. If you want a media center application use XBMC.

I think both apps have a learning curve and Plex might be a bit simpler or seem friendlier to a person who is strictly a Mac user. They have also added in items such as a limited but useful built in help tool in the form of a video etc. These "little" items do make a difference to someone who is just starting out. Also, there is an area in video for adjusting the playback settings on movies that is dumbed down but useful with "normal, agressive" etc which sacrifices some image quality for smoother playback. This is very handy on slower systems unless you want as sharp as possible and don't mind pauses and jutter. XBMC will also let you do this but you have to manually edit an XML file.

I find XBMC to be more a purist's choice which is what I prefer usually. However, the above point about the video setting is a lesson both teams should learn from. It is far easier to have "template" screens that write back to the appropriate XML or other file than for an end user to search and modify. The template style screens can be extremely useful to not only make tweaks but a smart template would not let one put in values that would fail.

If Santa could grant me two items for XBMC (and PLEX) in 2010 it would be

1) ability to test/measure a movie file and offer up suggested setting PER a movie. The end user choice would be then stuffed into a template offered and be written back to the database. When the movie is played, that information would be used for that particular movie. PLEX has an area related to video that lets you pick how frames are handled with H.264 media files. This is very useful. Unfortunately, its either set each time or one setting for all movies. So, its half baked. Let's get a more refined way to optimize movie playback and make it easy to enter beyond editing directly the XML file (as in a template fill in).

2) I am sure some folks with a Mac Mini would like to try and install Linux and exploit the GPU. While this is a niche group, it would be good if there was a script install for Linux on the Mini akin to Asrock Ion. A Mac type isn't one to easily convince going to respositories etc but rather, would like a script to do the calls for them.

Btw, I use both Plex and XBMC. Lately I use XBMC more - about 80 percent of the time.

- Phrehdd

The comparisons between XBMC and Plex are just horribly out in left field...

Plex isn't anymore user friendly than XBMC. Nor is it any more "Mac-like". Whether you're running Windows or Mac OS X, you won't find any more intuitive. They are nearly 99% identical after all.

The Plex guys have spent their time integrating their fork to better handle the varying media content. Pooling from iTunes, iPhoto, and Aperture are seamless. They have also added refinements to the shutdown timer, the music visualizations (provided you use their skin), have integrated Plex to handle files through Finder, provided the option to choose system audio control (instead of native app), more options for post-processing and audio output normalization, and many more...

However, the biggest change is the inclusion of online content via the Plex Media Server. Think Boxee on steroids. Through plugins, Plex can pull video, images, and nearly anything from the net and deliver it for your viewing pleasure. If you are into that kind of thing, check out Plex.

So how does it compare to XBMC? It suffers from higher CPU usage in nearly all respects (playing content may be the same). The crew have been pulling code from XBMC to solve the multitude of redraw problems that sees upwards of 50-60% CPU usage by just sitting or scrolling through your library. However, their team is small, and each bit of code can't just by C/P'ed. So they are actually quite far back now.

Camelot drops CPU considerably compared to Plex. Some areas have improvements of over 300% from my testing. This made me switch. Other areas have already leapt past Plex. Notably the clean up of the settings area, the presence of studio and media file tagging, far better skinning support, and a handful of other tweaks and modifications.

Plex trails daily because the XBMC coding community is just bigger and there exists more resources. While each new version brings something new, the gains are not there. However, there has been talk of an entirely new backend db in the works, so Plex is always something to keep an eye on. But to date, there has been no word on anything remotely resembling information on whether the project will indeed bear fruit. It's the fabled Plex unicorn at this point.

Hope that gives you some idea, but ultimately the best way to find out which you like, is to simply use them. Make note, however, that the DBs are not cross-compatible. You may have success copying over your DBs to Plex to retain your library, but you can't go back. I learned that the hard way a while ago, and it may be the case that that may not even work anymore.

Best.

Lokheed Wrote:The comparisons between XBMC and Plex are just horribly out in left field...

Plex isn't anymore user friendly than XBMC. Nor is it any more "Mac-like". Whether you're running Windows or Mac OS X, you won't find any more intuitive. They are nearly 99% identical after all.

The Plex guys have spent their time integrating their fork to better handle the varying media content. Pooling from iTunes, iPhoto, and Aperture are seamless. They have also added refinements to the shutdown timer, the music visualizations (provided you use their skin), have integrated Plex to handle files through Finder, provided the option to choose system audio control (instead of native app), more options for post-processing and audio output normalization, and many more...

However, the biggest change is the inclusion of online content via the Plex Media Server. Think Boxee on steroids. Through plugins, Plex can pull video, images, and nearly anything from the net and deliver it for your viewing pleasure. If you are into that kind of thing, check out Plex.

So how does it compare to XBMC? It suffers from higher CPU usage in nearly all respects (playing content may be the same). The crew have been pulling code from XBMC to solve the multitude of redraw problems that sees upwards of 50-60% CPU usage by just sitting or scrolling through your library. However, their team is small, and each bit of code can't just by C/P'ed. So they are actually quite far back now.

Camelot drops CPU considerably compared to Plex. Some areas have improvements of over 300% from my testing. This made me switch. Other areas have already leapt past Plex. Notably the clean up of the settings area, the presence of studio and media file tagging, far better skinning support, and a handful of other tweaks and modifications.

Plex trails daily because the XBMC coding community is just bigger and there exists more resources. While each new version brings something new, the gains are not there. However, there has been talk of an entirely new backend db in the works, so Plex is always something to keep an eye on. But to date, there has been no word on anything remotely resembling information on whether the project will indeed bear fruit. It's the fabled Plex unicorn at this point.

Hope that gives you some idea, but ultimately the best way to find out which you like, is to simply use them. Make note, however, that the DBs are not cross-compatible. You may have success copying over your DBs to Plex to retain your library, but you can't go back. I learned that the hard way a while ago, and it may be the case that that may not even work anymore.

Best.

I think you missed the point here when saying it is more "mac like" (Plex).

Plex by far, is easier to handle when it comes to upgrades, plugins and more. It also includes the ability to "tweak" (though for now a general setting) playback of H264 ts/mkv/m2ts 1080p content. For Mac folks and perhaps non-Mac users, access to the above is a big deal. While XBMC uses standard repositories etc., the general public WILL absolutely find Plex easier and friendlier in this particular area right up to the help/set up screens.

Candidly, I don't usually participate in "which is better" discussion but prefer a more "pros and cons" type of forum. Obviously, XBMC and Plex have their strengths and weaknesses.

- Phrehdd

I personally prefer XBMC to Plex because of the customizability and some of the skins, but I stick with Plex because on my old 1.83ghz mac mini Plex still manages to play 1080p videos without much of a problem and XBMC is unwatchable. Even on 720p movies that play fine in Plex XBMC stutters. Many people have this issue and the most common recommendation seems to be the skiploopfilter change but Plex has that set at 0 and even with the change XBMC has judder.

Im just waiting for the new Apple TV to be released so I can run 1080p movies on it with XBMC.