Getting to know you better
We’ve created a new poll to try to get to know you better. The better we understand how you use Plex, and how you *want* to use it, the better job we can do prioritizing our work, and focusing on the things that you care the most about.
We really appreciate all the responses we got to the last survey. As someone pointed out, we made the mistake of not asking you which remote control you’d really like to see supported (as opposed to just having you pick one from a list). We’ve corrected this, and we’d love to see what you have to say about this and lots of other things at this new survey.
Thanks so much in advance for your responses!
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Happy Thanksgiving Elan and everyone celebrating it! I make a toast to all the things done..."
The continue button on the bottom of the first poll page takes you to a 404 error
Here it works.
I think - as luck would have it - PollDaddy had a minor glitch right about the time I hit “Publish”
Done
Indeed, fixored.
Done too
Regarding the Remote, I think I found a reference to this : http://funwithcomputers.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/using-the-harmony-880-remote-with-your-macs-built-in-ir-port/ in the XBMC forums.
Maybe it should be interesting to put a topic referring to it in the Plex forums also ?
No mkv container option?
Not an option, and just because users will always pick then ‘none of the above option, I actually use library mode for TV Shows and File mode for Movies.
I don’t like the movie art work it downloads and haven’t got around to creating 100+ tbn files to overide the scrapers.
Thanks for taking the time to hear our views and hope we can help to make Perfect Plex!
Whoops, I just added MKV, sorry about that…
For movies and tv-shows, they end up in “downloaded files”. That’s also where I pointed the movie directory, so I just go there, step into the rar files and play. No fussing about with moving files into new directories and stuff like that.
For music, I use the same directory as Itunes, so every album imported into Itunes ends up in Plex as well.
No library for me, as it’s usually too complicated and too much work to get the scrapers working.
Q.11 What’s the biggest thing missing from Plex today?
Imo there’s a choice like “Bug fix: Idle issue” missing.
The crazy high cpu usage (i.e. the fan noise that’s the result) when idling in menus or pausing a video is the one thing that keeps me from completely switching over to Plex. So at the moment I still use XBMC on my trusty old Xbox for playing standard/low definition content.
should add DVD to question 2
What’s the biggest thing missing from Plex today?
Recording live TV through Plex
Elan, you should add AFP to the list of network protocols. I’m sure plenty of people share via AFP and also use a NAS which supports AFP ( such as the ReadyNAS )
Documentation on library functions would be nice, esp. Movie/TV-seasons covers.
I use AFP as well - via a Synology NAS. Baffled it wasn’t included on the list considering this is a Mac app.
Um… on question 2 does “local hard drive” apply to external hard drives? because the majority of my 300+ movies are on 3 external hard drives connected to my mini. I also have about 100 burned onto discs. i don’t see an option for that.
Missing in Plex: recording tv using eyeTV
Great software btw! keep up the nice work!
@Dean & Chewshabadoo: My bad, totally forgot to put AFP there. It’s there now; the interesting thing is that there’s very few people that heavily use “Other network protocol” (over 80% only checked A bit/None of it) so it would appear not many people are using it.
@Matt: Thanks, I added “Off DVDs”.
speaking of AFP vs SMB .. at the moment i’m using SMB but tomorrow i should be getting my Thecus NAS (o yeah .. 3tb of raid5 space) so at that point i plan on switching to AFP .. not like it really would make a difference in the software
Like Volante said… Documentation on library functions would be nice.
oh btw in the last release it wont go into “fullscreen” only window mode when I’m in the menu… but when I play a movie it pops into fullscreen… and then back to windowed again. Maybe I’ve missed something but I enabled fullscreen on secondary in setting?
Dunno what AFP is - some Apple thing maybe? But NFS is missing; although surely network protocol is irrelevant to Plex - you just create a mountpoint under MacOSX and Plex just thinks its a regular directory in /Volumes, its not like the Xbox where you have to browse over SMB as that’s all it supports.
With 0.5beta10 I seem to be getting the MacOSX volume control popping up a lot when using the Mac Mini remote to go up/down a list. Xbox1/360 DVD remote (not controller) gets my vote.
A scraper that asks you if it found the correct movie, then asks which poster to download and then creates an nfo/tbn instead of just blindly putting any old rubbish into the database gets my vote as #1 missing feature in *any* version of XBMC.
@kainen: Not sure I understand the problem completely, please head to the forums to discuss
If you have a “full screen” mode enabled in the display settings, it should never be in windowed mode.
@sej7278: Yes, network protocol is irrelevant, except when it is being used inside the app (e.g. FTP/SMB).
beta10 was supposed to fix that problem, and it seems to for some people. Make absolutely sure you’re running the new XBMChelper, in fact, try running it from the command line like this:
$ OSXBMC.app/Contents/Resources/XBMC/XBMCHelper -x -v
and make sure it prints a line that says something like “Enabling secure input”. If that occurs and *then* you see the problem, I’ll be very unhappy.
Totally get your point about the scrapers.
The biggest reason to go with the PS3 remote is that it’s bluetooth, and should work out of the box with any computer that Plex will play on. Implemented well, it should be just about as plug and play as can be, and has enough buttons to cover just about every function that Plex has. At $25 it’s not one to break the bank either.
@bmfrosty: Is that you campaigning, frosty? I don’t think that’s allowed near the polling place
if i had to put in my 2 cents about the number missing feature in plex or any xbmc version .. it would have to be a “goto letter” …
let me explain .. i have a HUGE list of movies (over 940 at last count) .. and scrolling through them all is VERY tedious especially with the apple remote .. keyboard arrows aren’t bad but still
nice thing would be to when your scrolling through the list to be able to, like on your cellphone’s phonebook, hit G and go to the first movie that starts with G .. if you scroll some more and decide you want to watch something in the T’s, hit T and get moved to that part of the movie list
now the problem with that is .. does the skin take care of that or does plex .. but for now i guess i’ll just continue to resort to the keyboard when i need to
that meant to say .. “2 cents about the number 1 missing feature”
@pletopia: Agreed. Believe it or not, we’re actually working on that behind the scenes…nothing for v0.5, but it’s coming!
Well another vote for AFP once I get the NAS up. Currently a 750GB “stacker drive” connected via firewire to the mini.
The Mrs would appreciate DVD play since I haven’t yet gotten everything encoded. I thought b10 might fix this but no joy here. You can here the DVD drive access then nothing…
Besides stability, I’m hoping for a great looking and functional skin or choice of skins that are “tuned” for Plex (and the Mac).
So much of the interface/functionality is in the skin evidently. PM III does much of some of what I want, xTV does other things that I want and looks “better”, but no skin seems to get it right (for me). That said, I love what the Plex team is doing and appreciate all the hard work of the XBMC team and skin makers. But it would be nice if the interface allowed the user to define/edit the functionality in an easy manner.
Cheers and thanks for the hard work!
Is there a way to use the iPhone as a remote? That would be so cool!
iPhone can control iTunes, so it seems to be possible.
http://www.iphonehacks.com/2008/07/iphone-remote.html
Where are we submitting bugs/feature requests to now? The links on the left go back to the XBMC trac page. Might wanna update those now
As for my feature requests, a way (perhaps its already there) to START in full screen mode. I plan on using a Mac Mini as a media center, replacing my aging Xbox and i want to just have a default account that’ll automatically log in etc (I know, bad security…) and theoritically barring some unforseen error I should be able to set Plex as a login item and with a star in full screen mode i’ll go straight to the media, making the experience as device-like as possible (ala AppleTV).
The only other issue/request i have is with caching credientials on remote SMB servers. It really kills the ‘device’ nature when i have to type in a username and password everytime i restart teh box or XBMC…Perhaps i’m doing something wrong but i’m pretty sure i’m not
Doh, I just remembered the old trick i had to do with XBMC originally on a (very) old version.
Manually edit sources.xml ala:
smb://username:password@server/share
horribly insecure, but i have a locked-down account on my file server that has read/execute perms only to my video shares and no shell access. user:xbox. pass:xbox. XBMC=golden. Why can i never remember this shit BEFORE i post comments somewhere…
@Nick
System - Settings- Appearence - Screen, Choose the option that has fullscreen. When you restart it will be in full screen
Hope this helps
@elan
RemoteHelper seems to work fine ran the way you stated (it said secure input) the one that was running on boot appears to be from /Users…Application Support not from /Applications…OSXBMC.app is that wrong - how can I fix it?
This was a complete fresh install for beta10, deleting everything from Application Support, so seems odd.
@sej7278: Yeah, it runs out of Application Support now to make upgrading easier. Sad to hear that the secure input workaround doesn’t seem to work for you
Question 3 (How do you organise your music) is irrelevant. iTunes organizes my music for me. I have no idea how it does that and neither do I care, I’m just happy it does :-/
Also primary output resolution 1080i is missing from Q7.
I picked “all files in one folder” on Q3, I’m guessing that’s what iTunes does.
I guess they might be asking so they can tailor another solution in lieu of proper ITunes support (which is a requested feature, but no idea when/if its gonna be implemented)
AFP vs SMB vs NFS: I have a Synology CS407 and curious to which protocol is preferred. I have been using SMB, browsing the shares on my MBP doesn’t lag. When I tried AFP, there was noticeable lag in Finder.
Which protocol will give the best throughput/streaming??
Thanks
@dts: I personally hate SMB as I find it flaky and I prefer NFS - it just never gives me problems, plus it offers the whole UNIX security model instead of some shonky hack around Windows ActiveDirectory/NTFS.
I prefer to have fixed NFS mountpoints to browsing SMB workgroups.
I’ve never tried AFS on the grounds that its an Apple proprietary protocol which just seems a bit pointless, especially as I have a Linux fileserver and various other bits of kit which don’t speak it.
@WW: yes, i’m as dumb as i look and sound. That works beautifully. Thanks!
Are we getting that 24/7 Barkleycam channel?
I really, really want to like Plex but the biggest hurdle for me (other than it’s ease of use) is the lack of iTunes/iPhoto integration. For about the last year and a half I’ve been using Quicktime to make reference containers for my AVI and MKVs so i can add the to the iTunes database and then play back with Front Row. Certainly not the most elegant solution but it’s fast, it works, and does so quite well. I’m now in the situation where I have almost 2TB of media, all stuck inside iTunes and with so many files scattered across 4 external drives having to manually reorganize and rename all these files to suit Plex’s scrappers is just not an option.
I would kill to have Plex read the iTunes database, use the metadata already there and playback the quicktime reference files.
For me the support of PS3 remotes would be great, I would get me one of these: http://www.playmessiah.com/products/ps3/darklite-dvd-remote.htm
Answer given - even though I’m not actively using Plex2/OSXBMC. Answers rely on my XBMC-usage and what I plan on using my Mac Mini for - it should arrive tomorrow to replace my trusty old Xbox.
Now you guys just need to get DVD play running so the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) grows.
I’d still really like to see Tiger support.
I found this post about someone compiling it for Tiger, any chance it’ll happen?
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=34533
I’ll likely skip Leopard and just wait for Snow Leopard, so it’d be a shame for you to lose out on such a large possible audience.
Late post coming in here, but will the survey results be released at some point?
@bmfrosty: Yessir, absolutely. Been super busy with this current release, but right after that I’ll write up the results and post ‘em.