I tried XBMC as a Home Theater PC “OS” — it certainly did a fine job of presenting movies from our LAN in an easy-to-navigate manner. But, because Netflix was on another box, and Tivo on yet another, the HTPC didn’t get used as much as I’d like.
Also, the movie list gets stale pretty quickly, and the workflow for getting new movies in (which is a very manual process involving Mac the Ripper and Handbrake) is tedious enough that I am not getting it done as quickly as I’d like.
I can’t fix the ripping process — it’s a pain no matter how you slice it.
But getting all the rest of the media onto the HTPC turns out to be a snap.
Enter Plex.
Plex was originally a branch of XBMC (which has a long and storied history, worth reading), but has had so much development done in the branch that it’s now a package on its own.
Plex is built around a very simple two-tiered structure; Plex Media Server runs on a single machine, and feeds files to one or more Plex Clients (which are available for Mac, iOS, etc). This makes for a very flexible system, and when we switched from XBMC to Plex, suddenly every screen in the house is a potential TV. Nice!
It’s also free (as in beer), except for the iOS app (which runs on both phone and pad) for $5. Normally, I don’t buy a whole lot of apps, but this one is Totally Worth It. In addition to being able to stream media from the Plex Server (want to watch a show while brushing your teeth? no problem), the iOS app can also be used as a remote control for the Plex Client running on the TV! Watch a show on the phone, pause it, push it to the TV, use the phone as a remote, it picks up where you paused it, take it back to a pad — you get the idea. It is very, very slick.
And, with the addition of myPlex, you can even stream media to devices that are not on the LAN! Being out in the biomass, kids watching a movie in the car… the possibilities are endless.
And Plex is designed as an app framework. So, there’s a Netflix app, a Hulu app, and dozens of others. What that means is that you can boot your HTPC into Plex and then never have to leave the app. It’s what the Tivo really wanted to be, except that it does Movies, Netflix, and other media (Plex can scrape iTunes and iPhoto, too) as well.
Plex is about to become the only thing hooked to the TV in the living room. The XBox goes back to being a game machine, and all the other video media gets done on the HTPC.
It’s a whole new thing. And I like it.