XBMC, the media center for Windows, Mac, and Linux, has reached the big 10 point oh. In and of itself that’s a pretty big deal, but it’s even more, I don’t know, heartwarming, when you think of some of the services that are based on XBMC, chief among them Plex and Boxee. Xbox Media Player: your legacy lives on! → Read More
You can now use Plex on your Apple TV. I guess that means it’s useful now, right → Read More
HDTVs are the next consumer electronic battlefield and Samsung is apparently testing out Android on its sets in order to step up their offering in response to the latest from Sony, Apple and others. Currently, Samsung is the world’s leader in HDTVs sold but there’s a shake-up looming and Samsung no doubt wants to retain its title. Android may or may not be the answer. → Read More
Plex, taking over the world. Only a few days after releasing Plex/Nine and Plex for iOS, the media center announced a partnership with LG to include a version of the software on its Internet-enabled TVs and Blu-ray players. But you knew that already. Wouldn’t you know it, I have here a brief video demo. Who loves ya? → Read More
Plex is about to get big. The offshoot of the XBMC project just announced that LG will be using its media platform in upcoming Netcast HDTVs and Blu-ray players, in turn, making these devices about the best media streamers imaginable — even better than the upcoming Boxee Box or just-refreshed Apple TV.
After all, Plex already works with Netflix, Hulu, BBC’s iPlayer, and supports playback of just about every media format ever created via the best interface in the business. There’s even an iOS remote viewing app coming soon. Forget about having an extra box sitting on your TV stand just to stream random content, it’s going to be built into your HDTV. Welcome to the future, ladies and gentleman. → Read More
Plex, the Mac OS X media center, has just made all of its competitors obsolete. A new version, dubbed Plex/Nine, will be released today at midnight EDT, and it introduces a number of new features that make it the media player for Mac OS X—and for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. That’s right: there’s an iOS App for that, and it’s pretty awesome. → Read More
Exciting news from Plex, the media center for Mac OS X that won my heart a long time ago. The devs have announced that they’ve integrated Apple’s new video decode acceleration framework into the latest build. In English, that means all h.264-encoded video—and there’s a lot of it out there—can be sent to your GPU for decoding, giving your CPU a bit more breathing room. It should make for significantly better 1080p video performance. → Read More
As far as XBMC forks go, Boxee certainly appears to have the most heat. It has VC money pouring in, flashy deals with content providers, and you’ll soon be able to buy a dedicated D-Link box to more easily use it on your TV. But Boxee isn’t the only XBMC-based media center that’s worth your time. It’s not even the first XBMC fork to go out and make a name for itself. Plex, which is exclusive to Mac OS X, was Boxee before Boxee was cool. I recently talked to the lead developer, Elan Feingold, to get a better understand of what Plex is, what it does, and where it’s going. Needless to say, if you’re running Mac OS X, you ought to give it a shot. It’s good. → Read More
It’s been some time since I’ve written about Plex, the Mac-specific fork of XBMC that, well, is fantastic. It seems Snow Leopard somewhat borked the application, but the latest release is all fixed up. Have a peach. → Read More
Again with the Plex. I know, I know. But! Today’s news is legitimately interesting: Netflix is now fully functional within Plex, the best damn Mac media player out there. → Read More
Have you guys used Plex lately? We’ve written about the application, which is a Mac-optimized fork of XBMC, in the past, but didn’t mention its latest update. It’s now known as Plex Media Server, and it’s really a great way to watch movies on your Mac. And now with the Media Server update, it can be outfitted with all sorts of plugins that greatly expand its functionality. → Read More
Work on Plex, the Mac-enhanced port/fork of XBMC, continues, with the media player having been updated to version 0.7 two days ago. It’s not just a bugfix or anything—I wouldn’t bother mentioning it here if that were the case—as the developers have added several features that should compel you to upgrade. One word about upgrading, though: because so many internal settings have been altered with this latest release, the developers recommend that you trash your old preference file in order to prevent conflicts. Yes, that means you’ll have to re-do your Library, but it takes only a few minutes to re-scan everything. So what’s new? For one, the settings menu has been revamped. Now you’ll find more Mac-like names for settings (“Ken Burns effect,” à la iPhoto versus “Pan and Zoom,” a Windows anachronism) and legacy settings that didn’t really affect anything have been removed. Less junk to navigate through, then. → Read More
I just wanted to remind my fellow Mac users that they really ought to be using Plex to play back all their movies. (And I do mean movies—a quick clip here and there, you’re best served by VLC or mplayer.) A new version, 0.5.15, was released two days ago, and includes all the usual bug fixes that you’d expect. What’s unexpected, though, is the complete revamp of the application’s branding: new logo, splash screen, default skin, etc. (Again, I recommend the skin Aeon, though it’s a bit of a pain to set up.) In conclusion, Plex is neat. Use it. → Read More
The media hub once known as Xbox Media Player, then Xbox Media Center, then XBMC, then ported to Intel-based Macs and called OSXBMC is now known as Plex. The name change was announced at the weekend, while many of you were celebrating your country’s independence. As explained on the application’s official Web site: The one name that stuck was Plex. I like it because it evokes “cineplex” and the suffix means “comprising a number of parts” which the application certain does. In mathematics, you use the suffix to mean “ten to the power of the number” (e.g. oneplex = 10). And look how great Plex can be… → Read More
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