Media Browser vs Plex

[steve1977 67]

I honestly only see one single feature that plex has, which is downloading videos to the iphone for offline viewing. All othe features are either available already as part of MBS/MBT/etc or XBMC. So, if you combine with XBMC, you should be all set.

[mellomade 140]

For one thing - Plex handles transcoding FAR better than MB3 currently.  My server uses an i7 920 (2.66Ghz) CPU that pegs to 100% whenever I use the Roku app (or HTML5 interface) to transcode anything while Plex barely uses any CPU to transcode.

 

XBMC also uses far less resources to playback 1080p content.  For example most of my ~9000Kbps MKVs direct play with less than 5-10% CPU on XBMC (using i3 3220T on fanless low power unit) while the alpha for MBT uses 50-70% on average under LAV.

 

I am sure these performance issues will be addressed over the long haul but they do make a huge difference - especially on low power fanless clients where currently the MB solution is not quite there yet.

[gthrift 57]

XBMC also uses far less resources to playback 1080p content.  For example most of my ~9000Kbps MKVs direct play with less than 5-10% CPU on XBMC (using i3 3220T on fanless low power unit) while the alpha for MBT uses 50-70% on average under LAV.

 

That doesn't sound right.  Do you have LAV configured to use hardware acceleration?

[mellomade 140]

yup - have used DXVA and DXVA2 both for h264 and could not get CPU to drop below 50% during playback with this hardware.  I have had the similar issues with every DirectShow filter I have tried (using LAV for MBT and FFDShow and others for MBC) on many other machines.  Some are better than others but for these fanless machines I have gone with XBMC.  I used MPC-HC as an external player for a while (which was just as efficient as XBMC) but if I am going to swap to a different player I figured I might as well just use XBMC as my front end.

 

Other than the performance issues - I also really enjoy not having to mess with codecs.

 

I still use WMC for Live TV and Recorded TV but hotswap to XBMC for movie playback ATM.

[sfnetwork 514]

For one thing - Plex handles transcoding FAR better than MB3 currently.  My server uses an i7 920 (2.66Ghz) CPU that pegs to 100% whenever I use the Roku app (or HTML5 interface) to transcode anything while Plex barely uses any CPU to transcode.

 

Yeah, I agree, transcoding IMO is where Plex is amazing right now, there was a lot of work done (and they have more resources also).

It not just about the CPU % (I think Tikuf can play with those settings to use less), it's also about control (throttling and buffering options).

But, MB3 will get there at some point, I'm sure.

 

BUT, it has a cost... and a lot of features in other areas are missing (local trailers, server management, actor images and bio, scene selections, etc...). 

Plex and MB3 seem to have the same structure and objectives but MB is going in a different direction that I prefer so my hopes are with MB

Edited December 2, 2013 by sfnetwork

[ebr 14918]

Plex and MB3 seem to have the same structure and objectives but MB is going in a different direction that I prefer so my hopes are with MB

 

Did you mean Plex and XBMC have the same structure...?

[Deihmos 147]

XBMC also uses far less resources to playback 1080p content.  For example most of my ~9000Kbps MKVs direct play with less than 5-10% CPU on XBMC (using i3 3220T on fanless low power unit) while the alpha for MBT uses 50-70% on average under LAV.

 

That's because you are using software decoding. Lav has an option to enable hardware acceleration. Enabling intel quick sync it will decrease the cpu and you should also update directx. I just tried it with my i3 system and cpu use is 2 - 4% while playing a 1080p video. 

 

You need to enable it in the 32bit lav video config. 

Edited December 2, 2013 by Deihmos

[sfnetwork 514]

Did you mean Plex and XBMC have the same structure...?

no, I didn't say that right, I meant that Plex and MB3 are the same concept (server/client structure with transcoding, different clients etc...) but I feel that MB3 is bending in a different direction than Plex.

So when MB will have some of those feature at the same level as Plex, the choice will be easy (for me  ) 

 

For XBMC, the way I personally see it, it's more an alternative then a replacement...

Edited December 2, 2013 by sfnetwork

[CT-Scott 0]

Let me also throw in some thoughts. Why would you want to keep Plex/Plexserver at all? My suggestion would be to go with one server, which is MBS and also use the MB clients on your mobile devices. Go with XBMC clients on your other devices to keep live-TV functionality. With the MBS-addon, XBMC will act as a perfect client. For me, this is the best of all worlds and also dead-simple given you have only one server and a bunch of seamlessly operating clients.

Can you tell me more about this MBS add-on?  Link, please.  How will this let me do live TV within XBMC?  I'm familiar with a recent DVR add-on with back-end WMC support, but this is the first I'm hearing of what it sounds like you're talking about.

[kreeturez 27]

Can you tell me more about this MBS add-on? Link, please. How will this let me do live TV within XBMC? I'm familiar with a recent DVR add-on with back-end WMC support, but this is the first I'm hearing of what it sounds like you're talking about.

 

Grab it from here:

http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/2108-xbmb3c-media-browser-addon-for-xbmc/

 

It's an XBMC add-on that lets you use MB3 as a server for XBMC (to replace 'TV Shows' and 'Movies' in XBMC); similar to PleXBMC.

 

For Live TV, you'd still use XBMC's standard built-in PVR functionality with applicable back-end.

 

As an alternative to the add-on, I guess you could also keep both libraries (XBMC and MB3) separate and sync their 'watched' statuses using the Trakt plugins for each platform. But the add-on is the more awesome of the two options ;-)

[CT-Scott 0]

For Live TV, you'd still use XBMC's standard built-in PVR functionality with applicable back-end.

Oh, that's what I was afraid of.  So the add-on is really just an alternative to PleXBMC for people who prefer MB over Plex as their back-end.  I'm going to keep a watch on the progress of MB, but right now the Plex iOS app is a bit more mature and I've already got Plex configured.  When I get a little more time I'm going to experiment more with the skin add-ons for MB Classic, because I honestly don't care for the out-of-the-box UI.  If, after playing with it some more, I can get it looking good for my needs, the ease of navigating through the WMC UI to/from MB Classic could be enough to win me over.

[Luke 37090]

for live tv you'd use our back end which will be available soon. you'll be able to watch and manage tv + recordings from any mb3 app

[CT-Scott 0]

 

for live tv you'd use our back end which will be available soon. you'll be able to watch and manage tv + recordings from any mb3 app

Cool.  Looking forward to it!

 

- I tested out recording a TV show and looking to see if it would show up as being available to play in the MB client apps on my iPhone and within MB Classic within WMC.  Unfortunately, it did not.  Disappointing, but not surprising.  What did surprise me, though, was that even once the show had finished recording, it wasn't showing up in MB.  I was hoping that it would show up in the list immediately (or nearly immediately), but it did not.  In fact, it's now been 10 minutes since the show completed recording and it's still not showing up in MB.

I'm quoting myself here so as to bump this question.  Why doesn't MB see my TV shows the instant they've completed recording (if not sooner)?  I was hoping that for WTV files it would utilize the built-in metadata that WMC already includes in the files themselves.

 

One more question: I haven't gotten around to getting the codec issue fixed for XBox 360 support, but once I do, if I make use of skins on MB Classic will those all show up on the XBox as well?

Edited December 15, 2013 by CT-Scott

[kreeturez 27]

Oh, that's what I was afraid of. So the add-on is really just an alternative to PleXBMC for people who prefer MB over Plex as their back-end. I'm going to keep a watch on the progress of MB, but right now the Plex iOS app is a bit more mature and I've already got Plex configured. When I get a little more time I'm going to experiment more with the skin add-ons for MB Classic, because I honestly don't care for the out-of-the-box UI. If, after playing with it some more, I can get it looking good for my needs, the ease of navigating through the WMC UI to/from MB Classic could be enough to win me over.

 

Watch this space: the iOS app is getting a new version; along with an iPad-specific release that looks like it's going to be amazing.

As Luke says, Live TV is also currently being added directly to MB3 Server - presumably once it's done, it'll be added to Media Browser Theatre (MBT) - which itself is also looking rather excellent - and other MB3 client apps.

 

So indeed, keep an eye on things here - you might find your opinion changing soon! :-)

Edited December 15, 2013 by kreeturez

[Luke 37090]

 

Cool.  Looking forward to it!

 

I'm quoting myself here so as to bump this question.  Why doesn't MB see my TV shows the instant they've completed recording (if not sooner)?  I was hoping that for WTV files it would utilize the built-in metadata that WMC already includes in the files themselves.

 

One more question: I haven't gotten around to getting the codec issue fixed for XBox 360 support, but once I do, if I make use of skins on MB Classic will those all show up on the XBox as well?

 

 

It's not built for that. It's a separate product from wmc's live tv. you'd probably have to add the recording path to your media library setup. but it's currently not built to work with in progress recordings