[njumlin]

I have to bump this thread. Can we please get an update? Has it been abandoned/renamed/moved?

[rflores2323]

vaporware. doesnt exisit.

[ixian]

Plex Media server does this. You can use it alongside XBMC, it won't bite. It handles all the transcoding, etc that you need and works really well - my brother in law can play media from my collection in Texas when he is in Germany on his iPad.

They have a couple really, really nice Android/iOS apps that work naively with those devices, or you can just use the Plex client on a regular PC in your remote location.

Downside is it doesn't read your XBMC db, it scans your collection in to it's own database. However this is easier than you think, as the server has a very nice web interface to control it.

It works really, really well, and you can get it right now, unlike whatever this thing was going to be . I don't care much for the Plex client - I prefer XBMC - but the media server is awesome.

[njumlin]

Hmm. I'm going to have to try Plex again then I guess. I did try it once when I had read somewhere that it could do just that.

However, I had all kinds of trouble with the web interface. It was very slow and would not add my media without hanging the browser.
At that time I was guessing it had to with my folder (containing all originally ripped movies) being too big.

But I never tried to access the web interface from another faster computer as I was thinking the computer I did try with should have been fast enough as it is my current media center and all. What is your experience in the matter?

Another question; Is it possible to just install that server side software of Plex and have it tucked away on a server? And as I was thinking, accessing the web service from a client pc?

[ixian]

Hmm. I'm going to have to try Plex again then I guess. I did try it once when I had read somewhere that it could do just that.

However, I had all kinds of trouble with the web interface. It was very slow and would not add my media without hanging the browser.
At that time I was guessing it had to with my folder (containing all originally ripped movies) being too big.

But I never tried to access the web interface from another faster computer as I was thinking the computer I did try with should have been fast enough as it is my current media center and all. What is your experience in the matter?

Another question; Is it possible to just install that server side software of Plex and have it tucked away on a server? And as I was thinking, accessing the web service from a client pc?

The web interface is much improved from even a year ago, but it still works best in a Webkit browser - Chrome, Safari, or IE with the ChromeFrame addon. I use it with Chrome to manage a 400+ movie collection (and an even larger TV Series collection, I record everything) without problems. However, once you get things set up and scanned you don't have to deal with it too much anyway.

Yes, you can install just the server - that is one of the major differences between Plex and XBMC in fact. There are even clients for NAS devices like those made by Synology or QNAP, although with those you need to insure you have one that has a fast enough CPU to transcode. I run the server on my primary media box, the one that has my TV Server on it.

I don't use their client at all; I use the Plex app on my iPad - it's great. It works exactly like you'd expect it to.

Keep in mind that, as would be the case with any streamer, a lot depends on how powerful a PC you run the server on (trying to transcode 1080p material on a 1.8ghz Atom isn't going to work out too good) and how much upstream bandwidth you have from your ISP, if you are streaming outside the house. I have a 2mb upload and my Media server has an older quad-core AMD CPU and it works great.

[njumlin]

I have tried it now. Its great for transcoding. I did transcode a 480p AVI over 3G on a Train and it played without interruptions.
If only they had made the server software better for management.

Here's my conclusions:
It still seems like there are some features left unmade. Like signing up for myPlex from within the Plex web interface was not possible.
The web interface is extremely slow, tested on multiple computers. The Android app, upon first launch and when I've added myPlex account it started becoming extremely slow. I had to force shut off the phone as the app would not terminate in any other way. The phone is a Quad-Core with 1GB RAM and Nvidia Tegra 3. Should be enough.

The sorting seems to be a bit different than XBMC, nothing to complain about really, its just a mess going through and finding all files that should be renamed.
foo-movie-a.avi and foo-movie-b.avi would result in two split movies even if they are in the same folder.
Its actually documented to work with this specific naming scheme. http://wiki.plexapp.com/index.php/PlexNi...ming_Guide

Years were often very wrong too. Sometimes titles would translate to the filename without dots and file extension whereas it should retrieve titles from folder names as I've told it to.

I would use Plex only for the reason that it is transcoding very well. XBMC still rocks as the no1 Media Center.

Anyway, this is way out of topic now. :-)

Thanks for your tips and help!

[Rishabh]

This looks very usefull. Kindly share from Where can I get this plugin integrated with my XBMC?