Xbmc, plex and little black box

sampdoria1

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A few beginners questions. I got rid of sky, got fibre and want to use on demand and streaming alternatives.

1)
I looked at Xbmc on my laptop and love the huge number of repositories that can be downloaded leading to add ons to access different streaming sources. Can find almost anything on there. Does xbmc work in the same way when used on a media streamer?

2) I don't think my laptop is very powerful and picture quality would be better using a streamer. If I were to use Xbmc what streamers would be best? Any advice/input from little black box users - is it any good?

3) I also like the idea of using chrome cast and plex for existing media - films and loads of home movies. There seems like some overlap between what plex does and what Xbmc does although they also do different things. Would Xbmc on a streamer as well as cc with plex be overkill?

Thanks
 
1. Yes. But XBMC hates the association with certain repo's [icefilms, fusion, navi-x, to name a few] XBMC's core is to provide a GUI to centralise your own media content and make it look pretty.

2. Raspberry pi if on a budget. Intel NUC is superb.

3. XBMC is designed to play your content from your server/NAS. Regardless of its type. It will play it as the software only works on machines that can play it. PLEX is designed to be installed onto both your NAS/server and a client [for instance a £10 NOW TV box or raspberry pi with rasplex] the server/NAS end should be powerful enough to send "transcoded" streams [transcoding is optimising the content to suit the client device] ideally an i3 machine running PMS [Plex Media Server] to control/transcode is superb.

Plex can transcode your content to your PS3 as well as a chromecast.

I have an i3 server box. Plex on that serves various boxes both locally [iPads, iPhones, PS3] and externally [nowTV boxes at other homes [gigler fibre here]].
I have XBMC is installed on a bay trail NUC as well which streams direct from my server. I prefer the UI of XBMC but appreciate the benefits of Plex. If only XBMC had a core server program to control the library instead of MySQL. But heyho.
 
Hi sorry to bump this but I was hoping someone could help.

I am building my own htpc and would like to run xbmc and Plex Media Server from it.

I will link the HTPC to 2 downstairs screens via hdmi splitter to view xbmc content and will access plex through 2 NOW TV boxes upstairs.

The question is: can plex media server and xbmc both be running at the same time? I will be using an intel i5 4690 processor.

Cheers for any help!
 

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