Release 0.5.15: All about the regressions
Hopefully this release will cure most of the serious issues with the last one. Downloads and source at the Plex home page. Thanks to everyone for their kind comments and thorough bug reports, and a warm welcome to all the new users!
- FIX: The issue with using Remote Buddy.
- FIX: DVDs don’t play over SMB (and other non-local protocols).
- FIX: Crashes when thumbnailing MPEG2 files.
- FIX: Annoying popup asking to locate screensaver (99% sure).
- FIX: Hebrew characters should work again (i.e. be the right way around).
- FIX: Apple Movie Trailers thumbs don’t display.
- FIX: Going to full screen without visualizer doesn’t work (thanks, jmarshall!)
- FIX: Problems playing RAR files.
- FIX: Fixed a crash after playing an unplayable file.
- FIX: Cursor sounds work correctly until you play something.
- NEW: Latest version of MediaStream! We’ve added an experimental skin fontset called “Unicode” which uses Arial unicode for all the fonts, it may help international users.
- NEW: Mouse is turned off by default.
- NEW: Default username for web server is “plex” not “xbox”.
We also pulled the usual bunch of fixes from the XBMC code.
Here’s Barkley giving himself a good back scratch in the back yard.
52 Comments so far
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Great
But one question: Why is the mouse turned off by default?
>NEW: Latest version of MusicStream!
What’s “MusicStream”?
Thanks a lot for this one. What Camera/software do you use for Barkley pictures ?
Wonderful!
I’ll use it immediately! Thanks guys!
Thanks! ISO works great now, still problem with picture library via SMB, operation not permitted when browsing files one by one. I reported it as a bug.
Well, it’s not availaible in the downloads section
I have just upgraded. Thanks for the quick fixes.
By the way… the page http://wiki.plexapp.com/index.php/Downloads still without the v0.5.15 link
@Víctor Pimentel: The mouse is turned off by default because the MediaStream skin (in my opinion) works better without mouse. In any event it’s only for new users, and turning the mouse back on is easy.
@oblada: MusicStream is a bit of a freudian slip on my part, it’s a startup company I used to work for. Kind of like Rhapsody + social networking. We had lots of users, but then the record companies fucked us. Go figure.
@lefred: Canon 40D/17-55mm EF-S + Aperture.
@SR: I can’t reproduce. Please discuss on the forums if you haven’t already
Sorry, haven’t updated the downloads page, it’s only available as the link from the home page.
Thanks a lot!
Hebrew subtitles are perfect now and file names are shown properly after changing the skin font to “Unicode”. So, you can close ticket #168 I opened for these issues.
MediaStream is nice. I like it. I just wish it had a view optimized for banners. I LOVE me some banners and I already have my whole hierarchy with banners. I’d rather not redownload and be able to switch back and forth between skins.
I’ll go round the mediastream page and make a comment or two
Sorry if this has been asked before (and I’m sure it probably has), but do you plan to implement the Sparkle framework or whatever it is that a lot of apps use for auto-updating? I like staying up to date and I like frequent releases, but auto-updates would be nice.
@Z: Considering it, yeah. I would be much happier if Sparkle had *incremental* auto-update, though.
It would be nice to have a button at least that I can just press and have it do a full update. My mini is running headless and kinda makes it a pain to update.
Awsome.
Just pls give us a way to update the software automatically from within the software itself so to speak
Would it be possible to integrate mouse actions with the remote? Currently the ‘info’ button doesn’t have options like Delete, Rename, etc that would be useful for those without a keyboard (if only because I don’t want a keyboard thrown at me the next time something goes wrong).
@william: Headless? I think you mean keyboard+mouseless, like our HTPC Mini. You may want to look into VNC, which shares the Mini’s screen with another machine. I use it to upgrade Plex et al via my MacBook.
@elan: I’ve read that one should wipe their existing library in order to get updated fan art. Is there some SQL to execute instead of doing this? I’d hate to have to rerun the importer on our ~1.1TB worth of movie/TV shows.
Thanks for the fast update. Keep them coming
Hmm there is a huge problem with the new font… on my 1280×720 LCD the font seems too big, so the content won’t fit as it did before. In some cases it overflows, in other cases the filenames get trimmed a lot more than before. :’(
Great update …. thanks for the fast turn around fixing the remote buddy and screensaver issues. All is working beautifully now …
This may sound like heresy but is there a way you can include the old PMIII skin (or point me to a place to get it) in the app? I (and my wife and young kids) have gotten very used to PMIII over a number of years, and we miss it!
If turning the mouse on is so easy, why can’t I find how to do it? I’ve only been using computers 30 years…
And why would having the mouse on distract new users. The mouse is simply not apparent unless it is used…
It might be interesting to offer PMIII as a separate download for those interested (or a clear link to a zipfile). No need to include it, just helping those that want it be able to get it.
Is the last version of mediastream in 0.5.15? It’s from Sept 1st. and I see it’s got some fixes in font issues.
It keeps saying “episodes 1″ and “episodes 10″ in tv episode lists, though and no banner-optimized view is in the plans.
What’s the difference between the menu items:
. Videos
. Movies
?
@William just use Apple’s built in Screen Sharing app and you can VNC/Screen Share in to the mini and do updates. I agree, some internal updating abilities would be nice, but its not too difficult, imho. I can’t wait to get home from work and try this update. I was one of the few with the RAR issues, that this hopefully fixes.
“Sort By” doesn’t work for me anymore. I have mixed avi’s and folders with video_ts. The source difference used to be ignored when choosing “sort by file” but that won’t work anymore. Neither does “sort by name”. Perhaps I did something wrong?
@GD: Sorry, here’s a direct download link for you: http://s3.amazonaws.com/PlexSkins/ProjectMayhemIII.zip
@eduo: 0.5.15 includes the very latest MediaStream, yes. That talented and productive team will no doubt make this sentence false within a few days
Loving the updates!
ps: is there a way to put the weather temperature in Celsius instead of Fahrenheits? Or am i missing it?
@kidloco: If you go into settings -> appearance -> region, depending on your region it will pick C/F.
I’ve tried that. I choosed “Central Europe” it didn’t worked.
@kidloco: Yep, you’re right, it changes time format but not temperature format. Please come to the forums to discuss, could be a skin or code issue.
Thanks for the update and also thanks for posting thumbnail type pictures of Barkley.
Some of us have limited bandwidth satellite internet in my case.
@kidloco and @elan:
Strange, in my Plex settings -> appearance (or interface under PMIII) -> region, I only have UK, Canada, USA.
I chose UK as it is the best bet for me, and I have the temperatures in Celsius (my language is set to French).
@ rwk -
Movies is the Library view for your films. Provides plot synopsis (and more depending on the skin). ‘TV Shows’ is the equivlilent for TV Shows, providing much the same, but can also break the episodes into seasons etc.
Videos is usually just a basic list type view (again can be changed to all sorts of other views depending on the skin) of all the Videos you have regarless if they are TV Shows, Films, Home Movies etc. You can use scrapers to pull cover art, but you don’t get the plot synopsis and other goodies.
To get it all to work follow the wiki on scrapers + naming conventions. It really adds to the overall brilliance when it’s all setup…
Movies:
http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=IMDb
TV Shows:
http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=TV_Shows
On top of what rwk said:
The difference is mostly the “mode” XBMC(1) works on at any given time.
You have two media views for video.
One is the file view, which is a normal “file explorer”/”Finder” view of what you have. You can have thumbnails and such for folders and files but in reality you’re seeing a representation of the files in the disk.
The other is a “Library View”, which in reality is closer to iTunes or iPhoto in that it’s a “specialized” representation of the files and all the metadata you have for them. “TV Shows” shows all the video files flagged as TV and “Movies” shows all the video files flagged as movies.
To be able to use the TV Shows or Movies versions you have to, beforehand, defined what your folders contain and assigned scrapers for them. For TV Shows you assign either tv.com or thetvdb as the scraper. For Movies you typically assign IMDB.
Once the scrapers have scanned the whole file structure they will have attempted to recognize (by name) all the movies and tv shows you have. For those it recognizes it will have downloaded appropriate metadata (depending on what you’ve defined it will also download cast information, fanart) and assigned a thumbnail to the file/folder. Depending on your naming convention it may recognize none, some or all of your files(2).
The summary is: Unless you run the scrapers your “Movies” and “TV Shows” views will be empty. Your “Video” view will contain every source you’ve added to it.
I don’t think this set-up is really up-to-snuff but I can understand where it comes from. In my case I’ve always hated that file view has no clue about season folders and using them tends to duplicate files in library view. While at it, I’ve always thought stupid that Library view can happily display duplicate lines that clearly correspond to the same movie.
It’s also to XBMC’s merit that one of the most active parts of the project has always been the scraper technology (it’s also the one with the most maintenance, as the web pages where info is pulled from tend to change frequently).
(1)I saw “XBMC” as this “philosophy” comes from them and I’ve never been convinced I actually like it.
(2)With time you learn to adopt a sensible scheme that works both for the scrapers and for human readibility.
Plex Team,
I am impressed with the progress I see. I am extremely pleased and thank you all for your hard work to make our multimedia experience even better.
This is the best multimedia experience I have ever had.
Thank you Plex Team!
Hey, I just updated to the new release and I already *love* the new skin! I see some people prefer the PMIII skin but it was never a fav of mine. Thanks for the hard work guys, keep on rocking!
Plex.app/Contents/Resources/Plex/temp/*
What this?
@S.Jobs: Ha! No clue, looks like satellite imagery, not sure how it got there (bad script?). Good catch, I’ll whack it for the next release
in this release the default type box becomes whatever you type in last rather than nothing. i.e. if you setup a username/password network, your username is already entered in your password box and if you enter your password first it becomes clear text if you open another window.
good work though.
–rumblpak
Love the new work, its just plain awesome! Can you tell me why, in List Info mode, none of the synopsis will show on the, but if you hold play it shows it in another window? It hasn’t done it since, well, ages ago. I’m using SMB shares.
Cheers!
Andrew
Hello.
I don’t seem able to add my DVD drive to the list of sources. When I try, it asks me to insert a disc, but the disc is already there. I have tried to specify a path /dev/rdisk1, no success.
(All in all I am very pleased with PLEX, yesterday I have noticed a potential bug with multiple audio streams, I’ll investigate further as soon as I can.)
It looks like it’s not picking up fanart anymore… or am I doing something wrong?
Great work by the way!! Very fast with this new release, keep up the good work. Think I’m gonna donate some beers!
Cheers from Holland
For those looking for an app updater type thing, might I suggest using AppFresh? It’ll take care of all the other apps on your system (plus, plugging Plex on IUseThis.com is good for business
)
Simply amazing! I’m stunned and I will buy a new Mac Mini as soon as they update it
Olle: As time passes by and considering the mini is the mac that’s spent the longest without updating, EVER; I’m starting to worry that maybe Apple isn’t planning on updating the thing. It’s like half-a-cube, double-the-time-to-discontinue.
Wow! Impressive relooking of your blog, Elan!!
Kudos!
@Mickey: Thanks to the ever-talented Alexis!
eduo: I think Olle is like me and hoping that a new headless iMac or mini is announced soon maybe even on the 9th? I’m hanging to get using Plex but am stuck on a PC at the moment …
Mark: I know what Olle meant. I’m hopefully waiting for the same. I’m just being realistic: It doesn’t look like the mini will get an update or a replacement. It seems like it’s left there, to die a lingering death, becoming less and less cost-effective to buy until sales stop justifying its existence, at which point it’ll be discontinued citing “poor sales” and be done with it.
That’s what it looks like. I don’t like it, I want a Mini for me, but I’m surer every day that there won’t be a new Mini.
I know this is in Beta, but that is one painful experience.
It looks beautiful, but with the mouse implementation so weak, even configuring the program made me want to switch to a transistor radio and flip chart!
Carl: You are not supposed to use a mouse in this skin. Use your Apple Remote or a universal remote.
would this work on a Hackintosh? If the mini does go away that would be a possible supplement.