Re: Mac Mini v Popcorn Hour A110

["Kenneth Watt" <kwatt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Strange, I had to use the web interface to send this, seems Yahoo is a
bit broken. :?

On 22 Mar 2009, at 12:03, automatedhomeuk wrote:

What do you mean here Ken? I have plenty of movies split across two files
that play fine.

Plex can't deal with multiple discs unless you mess about joining the
files, apparently.

Example: LOTR: The Fellowship Of The Ring 2 Disc Edition

Shows in the library fine, go to play it and Plex crashes.

I do a search and find that that's correct, Plex can't deal with discs or
files like that.

You can go to "My Videos", rumble about and find the actual
folders and play from there but, it's messy.
Not true, there's a built in webserver you can use for control, but surely
IR is what most people want?

I wasn't meaning that, sorry.

Why limited? I can do everything I need from the Apple remote - there are
many commands....

http://wiki.plexapp.com/index.php/Apple_Remote

I'll never remember that the six buttons do all that. :)

I shouldn't have to either. ;)
Also, since v7 Plex has supported Harmony remote out of the box

http://wiki.plexapp.com/index.php/Harmony_Support


That I didn't know and it isn't exactly well documented that Plex has that
level of control from an IR remote.

Now all I need are the HEX codes so I can plonk those into the Pronto. :)

If I'd had those a week or so ago it'd have saved me *SO* much trouble.

Don't get me wrong, I think Plex is a great thing for the most part but
there are some frustrating little irritations with it.

One of them is the Elgato eyeTV integration, that needs sorted badly to
make it a more "complete" media centre IMHO. And, it has been
done by others, even on freely available applications so I'm guessing that
ti can't be beyond the wit of man to do, especially as there's some really
clever people working on Plex. Now knowing that pretty much all the basic
IR commands to it are available using the Logitech codes it's even more
annoying that it isn't there.

Those two alone are probably the things that I would think stop people from
switching from WMC to the likes of Plex.

The IR thing just needs promoted and the HEX or RC5 codes added to make it
of use.

There are other things that annoy about Plex, but I forgive it a lot as:

a. It's free
b. It's not had any support from any hardware manufacturers that I can see
c. It operates in a very small box, Mac Mini
d. It's looks lovely

But then the alternatives really aren't a whole hell of a lot better as
they all seem to have their Achilles Heels in one way or another but Plex
has, IMO, a lot of potential to become the best alternative if they can
sort it out and make it more user friendly in some respects.

Just my tuppence.

K.



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