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2009-12-27, 10:10
(This post was last modified: 2009-12-27, 10:14 by Lokheed.)
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.
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akg4y
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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.
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I enjoy watching the dev's jump in and smack people around that don't search. You could spend hours reading on the for/against in either forum. in the end, it's personal preference--and what you use it for.
some people love the plugins for plex (hulu all that crap) - i don't use it so it doesn't weigh on my likes dislikes.
I find XBMC skins (of late) much better than plex. I also enjoy the auto media tagging (x264 vs xvid vs dd51 dts etc). I'm pretty sure plex is still behind on that one.
They also seem slower to develop lately--or maybe they work more on the development of the app engine and crap, I don't know--maybe it's the ability to compile builds here that have fixes in them for crap that was broken--plex you gotta wait months for a new release with very little news in-between.
finally, XBMC seems like it does need more hardware behind it. Someone mentioned 1080p playing on their box with plex, but not xbmc. Lately I've found this to be true as well. i don't know what's changed, but i see a lot of judder in my 1080p files where i dont in plex (with the same basic settings). Who knows why this is, it can be worked around with advancedsettings, but point being--it wasn't doing it in older builds.
Both are great communities--it won't hurt to install them both and get a feel for what you like.
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When taking people's opinions into account, be sure to consider post counts. akg4y over there signed up JUST (post #1) to tout plex. Unbiased? You be the judge.
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We will not bite your ass off in the Plex community like they do here. If you would like to ask a question without fear of the repercussions of entitled Devs, come on over and check us out.