I PlexConnect.
That's because it is a lot easier to connect an AppleTV to my TV than to use a computer. I'm going to try this tonight, and if it works, I'm going to be in hog heaven. In fact, if it does, I'll probably have to get a second AppleTV for my projector.
Showing posts with label plex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plex. Show all posts
20130606
20110914
iPad-orama
When the iPad was about to be released I wrote some of my expectations. I can't find them now, but largely they centered on the iPad being a media consumption device, leaving the computer for media creation.
Obviously, I was largely wrong about that. The iPad, with a keyboard, would, I think, be a perfectly acceptable main computer. I wouldn't do it, but I think it would be livable.
But what I wanted to talk a bit more about is Plex. Plex, once you install the iOS app, is a fantastic media center application. You run the main server on your computer, and it can serve out your content (music, movies, photos) to your iPad. Sweet.
It even takes care of transcoding, where needed.
Even better, it builds a nice, browsing interface, which is especially nice for your movies and TV shows. It doesn't recognize everything, but does get an amazing amount of stuff right.
I've been playing with it for a couple of weeks, now, and the only problems I've run into are some foreign stuff where it can't find the subtitles. That's definitely annoying, but it's a small subset of my foreign stuff (and I've got a LOT of that).
The other cool thing you can do with it and an iPad (and I haven't done this because I don't have a computer in my theater yet), is that you can use the iPad as a remote control for content playing on the computer.
As I said, it rocks. And if you want to watch your content anywhere, it's a cool way to go about it.
Obviously, I was largely wrong about that. The iPad, with a keyboard, would, I think, be a perfectly acceptable main computer. I wouldn't do it, but I think it would be livable.
But what I wanted to talk a bit more about is Plex. Plex, once you install the iOS app, is a fantastic media center application. You run the main server on your computer, and it can serve out your content (music, movies, photos) to your iPad. Sweet.
It even takes care of transcoding, where needed.
Even better, it builds a nice, browsing interface, which is especially nice for your movies and TV shows. It doesn't recognize everything, but does get an amazing amount of stuff right.
I've been playing with it for a couple of weeks, now, and the only problems I've run into are some foreign stuff where it can't find the subtitles. That's definitely annoying, but it's a small subset of my foreign stuff (and I've got a LOT of that).
The other cool thing you can do with it and an iPad (and I haven't done this because I don't have a computer in my theater yet), is that you can use the iPad as a remote control for content playing on the computer.
As I said, it rocks. And if you want to watch your content anywhere, it's a cool way to go about it.
20110829
I am Lion, hear me roar
I finally upgraded my main machine at home to Lion yesterday. Early returns leave me mostly indifferent. Despite my iPhone/iPad experience, I find Launchpad to be not so useful on the Desktop. Mission Control seems ok, but Cmd-tab has always worked well enough for me. And I'm trying to get used to it, but I suspect I'll switch Mail back to the old interface.
And the reversal of scrolling is really irritating me. Can the "reverse" work? Of course it can; when I played Quake 2 a lot I swapped the up-and-down viewing the same way. But the problem is that a) I'm long since used to scrolling the old way and b) I still need to use windows and linux machines at work, which keeps me from getting entirely accustomed to the new way.
What I am more excited about is that I recently discovered Plex, and that rocks. Especially once I got the iOS app for my iPad so I can stream from my library straight to that. And finding that I can send my Aperture library to it as well? That was just the cherry on top. Seriously sweet. Not perfect; there still are a few bugs. But really nice.
Getting back to Lion, though, it's definitely been underwhelming. Not terrible, but not terribly exciting, either. On the plus side, it was cheap enough that the improved internals alone are probably worth the upgrade.
Oh, and one other bit of annoyance; support for PPC apps was dropped. I had a bridge game I played quite a bit that I can't play any more (well, not on this machine, anyway). And nobody is making any bridge games in the App Store. A little bit of searching did just turn up Bridge Pro. It's very expensive, but I'll have to give some thought as to whether or not it's worth it. I do like bridge a lot.
And the reversal of scrolling is really irritating me. Can the "reverse" work? Of course it can; when I played Quake 2 a lot I swapped the up-and-down viewing the same way. But the problem is that a) I'm long since used to scrolling the old way and b) I still need to use windows and linux machines at work, which keeps me from getting entirely accustomed to the new way.
What I am more excited about is that I recently discovered Plex, and that rocks. Especially once I got the iOS app for my iPad so I can stream from my library straight to that. And finding that I can send my Aperture library to it as well? That was just the cherry on top. Seriously sweet. Not perfect; there still are a few bugs. But really nice.
Getting back to Lion, though, it's definitely been underwhelming. Not terrible, but not terribly exciting, either. On the plus side, it was cheap enough that the improved internals alone are probably worth the upgrade.
Oh, and one other bit of annoyance; support for PPC apps was dropped. I had a bridge game I played quite a bit that I can't play any more (well, not on this machine, anyway). And nobody is making any bridge games in the App Store. A little bit of searching did just turn up Bridge Pro. It's very expensive, but I'll have to give some thought as to whether or not it's worth it. I do like bridge a lot.
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