[Macworld]

Post your comments for Plex: The Front Row Alternative here

[Rhywun]

I think I'll stick with my current solution: locate the file in Finder & double-click. Does anyone really use these "media centers"? :)

[consumer_x]

Displaying filenames of files is not that elegant, in my opinion. From screenshots I have seen for many media centres it is common to see the ugly filename. My thinking is if Plex is smart enough to pull information from the web, it must be capable of disguising the actual filename during display. Is it safe for me to assume that this is a user preference and not a presentation artifact?

[spim]

well ... my mini is my media center
I do use Front Row for all my screen media - and iTunes for my music.
I haven't had any problems playing any format that I have on my Mac.
But I don't really go to YouTube, except when clicking specific links and such.
But I could see that would be nice if you wanted to do that .. as well as the News/Weather stuff.

[jamus]

I have not used Plex, but the XBMC original has worked out rather well as a "signage" type of computer.

[MacTechAspen]

My one and only complaint about Front Row is that you can't play movies rented from iTunes from it.
An alias to a folder on an external drive gives me access video I don't wish to keep in the iTunes library, and it does a fine job of doing exactly what it is designed for, and looks good doing it.
I am on the road for a year going around the world, and Front Row and iTunes are our only source of video (Thai TV gets old fast). It works great.

[himbo]

Front Row will play any video files your Mac is capable of playing. This means that if you have the Perian and Flip4Mac plugins installed, you have a pretty wide range of supported formats as well. The only restriction to it is that you have to keep the videos in your Video folder of the home directory for Front Row to find them.

[agallisa]

Plex has quite a few options for displaying your movies,especially once you use the library feature. You can have it display your movies as simply poster art, list the names by Movie (instead of filename), and a ton more. I suggest taking a look at this video here: http://vimeo.com/1501354 as it shows the current skin MediaStream being used in Plex. The screenshots above are actually from the older skin which is not really used anymore. A few screenshots can be seen at the official site http://plexapp.com

[offcs]

Just tried it. Very unMac-like and therefore just frustrating. If I could get the BBC iplayer and Real's Realplayer in Front Row, then I would have very useable solution

[consumer_x]

Thanks for commenting on the filename display.
That vimeo video looks slick!

It has been mentioned that Plex cannot play DRM'd iTunes purchases, but can it play audio and video that has the FairPlay stuff stripped by Requiem?

thanks again!

[vamtastic]

Front row will play movies whereever you want to store them, even on an external drive, you just need to place a shortcut to that folder into the "movies" folder.

[Federalist]

If you don't want to see the file names, just use library mode.

[canadrian]

File-based media organization is SO 1990's. Yeah, it's all about the Library mode in Plex. Among the most useful and totally awesome features are the cover artwork, the automatic download of all metadata (synopsis, cast, and more), the ability to browse or search by just about anything (hmm... what Wes Anderson movies do I have? Actually, maybe I'll see what sci-fi stuff I have instead), and Plex's ability to keep track of watched/unwatched status (I can never remember what episode of Heroes I left off at...). Ever since Cali Lewis pointed out Plex on GeekBrief.tv, it has been the single most useful and impressive addition to my media machine.

[tabachoy]

himbo=Genius. Dude, I've been looking for a solution for a couple days since I got an imac and now i want to use my old mac mini as a media center. I've read several ridiculous solutions that make me wonder if these people realize that when something is played by itunes it's copied to the hd on that computer. But now I've been able to put 2 and 2 together...

I store all my media on time capsule and wanted a way to stream this stuff to Front Row. So just making an alias of my media file on my time capsule, then copy/pasting it in my home>movies file, I can now access my media library and stream it on Front Row. Once again, you've solved it for me. Very simple solution, but I was beginning to consider that Plex thing. Thankfully I read your comment!!!