Plex Media Center

It’s been just a few days since Apple finally released their Video Decode Acceleration Framework Reference, but Ryan has been working hard and we have some exciting news to share with you. He has managed to get Plex integrated with the framework, and for the first time, your GPU is used to decode H.264 video. The results are incredibly impressive, with 720p and 1080p video decoding smoothly with much reduced CPU utilization.

If you have a NVidia 9400M (or the new GT320/330M chipsets), and are running Snow Leopard 10.6.3, take it for a spin! As with the last post, download the binary [try the new binary below] and install it into Plex.app/Contents/MacOS. Once we get a sense of how well it’s working, we’ll spin an official release.

And yes, Al, this build does include the sleep fixes as well.

NOTE: Just to reiterate, only NVidia 9400M/GT320M/GT330M chipsets benefit from this. No support for ATI, nor for cards like the NVidia 8800 GT. This is a limitation of the framework provided by Apple (and many thanks for providing it, guys!) and may be addressed in future updates (but don’t get your hopes up). Also, Snow Leopard is required.

UPDATE: Try this new binary, which should fix the crashes. Thanks to Ryan for the quick fixes.

So I’m sitting there coding the other day, and the phone rings. I pick up absentmindedly, because really, only Anna calls me. “Hello”, says the voice on the other end of the line, in an easy quasi-drawl “this is Al Gore”. My brow furrows, because I don’t believe it at first. “The Al Gore who invented the Internet?” I ask suspiciously. “One and the same”, he says.

“I called to ask for a favor”, he continues. “You see, I run Plex on my three monitors, and I noticed that when I set the display sleep timer, my monitors still wake up after a few seconds.”

I suddenly have a bad feeling. Barkley can sense it too, I think, because he opens one eye for a second, and then falls back asleep.

“So I ran the numbers”, Al Gore continues, “and, well, with all your users, this bug is going to result in a 3 inch rise in sea-levels over the next hundred years. Son, do you know what this means?”

“Well”, I say, somewhat uncomfortably, “I saw your film”. I leave out the part about feeling really sleepy about half-way through and waking up with drool on the couch. “I thought you were really good.”

“This is no joking matter”, he says all serious, “fix this bug, and save the planet and the people of Tuvalu in the process.”

Needless to say, I fixed the bug.

I’d love it if you could give it a try for me before I send it over. You can find the binary here (replace the one inside Plex.app/Contents/MacOS). It fixes two issues and adds a new feature.

• Display sleep bug fixed.
• Double sleep bug fixed.
• Ryan W kindly added support for MP4 subtitles (apparently Gore hates MKV and has all his media in MP4 format).

If it works well, I’ll spin another full release with the fixes.

Here’s Barkley, with a ball for each fix.