Plex 9 Media Center
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 12:14PM 
I don't think I've been as excited by the launch of a software application as by today's release of Plex 9. Regular followers of ScreenCastsOnline will now that I'm a bit of a media junkie and have covered both Plex (SCO0201) and more recently Boxee (SCO0236)
Both applications are free/donationware and both have killer interfaces. Boxee is probably more aimed at the Social/web side of media consumption but Plex is more suited to managing local collections of media.
Plex 9 takes that to the next level!
I won't give you a full review of the new features of Plex 9 here, you can find some in depth reviews on the web - Automated Home Reviews - Plex 9, iOS devices and video walkthrough but I'll just focus on the features that have made me so excited.
Separation of Client and Server
Plex 9 has now two components - the media server and the player. Both are installed when you install Plex 9 on a machine but they are in effect two separate components. Any Plex player, can access any Plex Media Server on the network automatically and seamlessly.
New Media Server
The media server has been completely re-written from scratch and can now act as a centralised library for media for all your Macs and iOS devices on your network. This is huge! Basically, you only need one media repository on a single Mac and then all your Plex devices can use this centralised library. No more juggling with network shares, just setup one master library and all the media, artwork, ratings, metadata, become immediately accessible via HTTP streaming to any Mac. If you want multiple libraries, this is also handled seamlessly.
Improved MetaData Collection
Wow! Just wow!
Metadata is the rich information added to your raw media files from the various online databases such as IMDB. In previous versions, it's always been a bit hit and miss. You'd add media to your library and eventually, probably, sometimes.... the metadata would get added. Very frustrating.
In Plex 9, new Agents have been created that deal with collecting and assigning metadata. They are fast and extremely accurate - the whole metadata thing is now absolutely rock solid.
iOS Device support
If this all wasn't enough, they've not only just gone and brought out a universal app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. ($4.99 in the iTunes App Store)
On my!
Not only does it turn your iOS device into a fully featured dedicated Plex remote for any machine running Plex, it also allows you to connect to any Plex Media Server, browse your library with artwork, ratings etc, and stream the video back to your iPhone or iPad. It will even remember where you are up to if the movie is partially viewed (say on your Mac) and offer to resume from that point on the iOS device.
These are just some of the new features that make Plex 9 a game changer in the Media centre space.
I was able to get a pre-release version (OK only by 24 hours!) but in the short time that I've had a chance to play with it, it's been rock solid. The metadata improvements are a wonder to behold and the HTTP streaming and Plex Media Server discovery perform really well. The only downside is limited support for DVD's ripped into the VIDEO_TS folder format. In my own particular case, I've decided to abandon ripping Movies into Video_TS and just extract the single movie file. I'll be transferring the few remaining titles I have in this format over the next few weeks.
Unless Apple bring out something completely off the wall on Wednesday (that I might be able to cover at short notice), I'll probably do a more in-depth look at Plex 9 on this weeks ScreenCastsOnline on Friday.
Reader Comments (6)
Don - has Plex 9 overcome the problem of pictures in Aperture libraries not displaying, as discussed here: http://thurly.net/ypu
Thanks
Mark
Works fine with Aperture 3 on my machine!
Just tried it and Plex 9 is displaying about half of the pictures in my aperture 3 library, can't see an obvious reason as to why - will investigate further..
I loved the show on the new Plex 9 but was left only half satisfied with its ability. One of the things which all media players has brought to the table in the last year is the ability to watch TV shows and movies without having a PC running. What would really make Plex stand out from the crown is for it to retain all of the nice features which have been introduced but to add the ability to be install the Plex server on a NAS drive, this would illuminate having to have your MAC running all the time and the MAC can be used for configuration only, what are your thought on this. This may change with LG now getting involved as we may now see a device which can access an external library on a NAS box, club this with having a box in each room and you can do away with having the PC running altogether. The new Apple TV almost got it right but lost out on the ability to play any Video format.
Plex doesn't seem to play movies and TV shows purchased from iTunes. I guess it may be a DRM issue?
Noel
I started using plex on my mac, its fantastic software, i just wish that the iOS apps were a little more in keeping with the mac client, visually mainly.