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systimax New Member

Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 15
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 6:10 pm Post subject: Alternative to Plex and XBMC |
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Hello, I am not a fan of the way Plex forces you to scrape media. I don't have time to make sure all my files are correct. I can create folders myself and drop videos in them.
I can't use xbmc which doesn't force me to scrape due to a bug with the mac mini and audio. (I think there moving in the direction soon anyway)
Can anyone recommend 1 simple app for me.
I just want to open an app on the mac, see my movies in a list that i created with my own folder structure, be able to choose, play movies,fast forward, and set volume with the apple remote.
Also Id like to be able to control the video players volume independently of the system volume.
Doesn't seem to much to ask for
Thanks
Last edited by systimax on Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:26 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Smithcraft Veteran Member


Joined: 09 Nov 2008 Posts: 3012 Location: Seattle
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:33 pm Post subject: |
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Well, you can do that with Plex, by just using Personal Media, rather than the movie and tv sections.
I'm not aware of any media center applications that do what you want. VLC comes close with some of it's features.
SC _________________ Grumpy old man of computing.
[Desktop] G4 mini - 1.5Ghz 1GB 80GB HDD - Newer miniStack v2 500GB - 10.5.8
[Media System] Intel i5 mini - 2.33Ghz 8GB 500GB HDD - 4 x Hitachi 2TB HDD in a qBOX-SF - 10.7.5 (Thanks Phil!)
Make sure it has pins! |
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Y-Guy Senior Member


Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 452 Location: Tri-Cities, WA
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:53 pm Post subject: |
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I tried Plex, but had a lot of issues with the Media Manger and the sheer number of false titles it found. I went to XBMC and haven't looked back. I use iDentify to name all my Movies/TV Shows and use the standard naming convention and make sure the IMDB # is in each. I put all my movies into one folder, TV Shows in one of 2 folders. I've been happy with XBMC Eden as well as v10. Frankly FrontRow worked pretty good for my needs but now that I have XBMC working correctly I prefer the visual interface.
Beyond that I never found any others that really worked well. I had hopes that somebody would pick up FrontRow and keep it going, the others like it were all very clumsy though. _________________ iMac 24" 2.4 GHz 4GB | Logitech S530 | Z-2300 speakers | NewerTech Guardian MAXimus RAID
MacMini HTPC 2.26 GHz 2GB | Panasonic Plasma TV | Logitech diNovo Edge | Mercury Elite-AL Pro 800
AppleTV1 unhacked | Panasonic LCD |
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systimax New Member

Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 15
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:30 pm Post subject: |
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I edited my post. I meant to say I can't use xbmc either due to the audio bug here:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=102946
Ill try v10 didn't know it was out thanks
Any idea of how I can start VLC remotely and pick a movie via the apple remote. I think the only issue would be the size of the font when browsing a for a video as well as keeping the media manager updated with new downloads.
Front row never worked for me due to lack of subtitles and now its gone in lion from what I can tell.
thanks again. |
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Y-Guy Senior Member


Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 452 Location: Tri-Cities, WA
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Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 2:04 am Post subject: |
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Giving the new Eden XBMC a try might be worth it. Can's speak to the audio issue, I've had no such issues with my mini or iMac.
FrontRow was removed from Lion though I think some folks got it to run again, just seemed like a dead end product to me so I moved on from it. Wasn't easy since I had everything setup just the way I wanted it through iTunes, but was easy enough to rename the files so the scraping worked. _________________ iMac 24" 2.4 GHz 4GB | Logitech S530 | Z-2300 speakers | NewerTech Guardian MAXimus RAID
MacMini HTPC 2.26 GHz 2GB | Panasonic Plasma TV | Logitech diNovo Edge | Mercury Elite-AL Pro 800
AppleTV1 unhacked | Panasonic LCD |
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scooper Veteran Member

Joined: 05 Mar 2006 Posts: 988
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Posted: Wed May 02, 2012 3:50 am Post subject: |
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| Y-Guy wrote: | | FrontRow was removed from Lion though I think some folks got it to run again, just seemed like a dead end product to me so I moved on from it. Wasn't easy since I had everything setup just the way I wanted it through iTunes, but was easy enough to rename the files so the scraping worked. |
I still miss it though. Just for playing music and stuff. I find Plex and XMBC not to be the greatest for browsing and listening. I was also getting a little more functionality in Front Row with MiRow. I need to set up a VM or something with SL again. It was pretty awesome. |
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geeji Member

Joined: 29 Dec 2007 Posts: 146
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Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 2:54 am Post subject: |
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| scooper wrote: | | I was also getting a little more functionality in Front Row with MiRow. I need to set up a VM or something with SL again. |
You can run Front Row natively on Lion :
using Front Row Enabler or even better, Front Row pour iTunes 10.5.3 (works with English version, only tutorial is in French).
It would be interesting to know if MiRow works on Lion with the hacked Front Row... |
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