Plex Media Center for OS X Leopard

+ Top FAQs with Plex - for more help please check the WIKI.

How do I add internet video such as TED, YouTube, CNET etc?
Internet sources are added using the App Store found in the Applications menu. See the following screencast for more info. vimeo.com/3315184
One of the plug-ins has stopped working.
If a plug-in stops working, it’s likely that the structure of the site changed. This doesn’t happen very frequently with most sites, but it’s a definite possibility. When this occurs, an entity we call the “Campfire Robot” springs into action automatically and tracks us down to let us know, and shortly thereafter we can push an update. As such, if a site stops working, the best thing to do is to check the App Store for updates. If you have automatic updates turned on, check your install history to see if an update got installed while you were getting coffee.
I don’t see the Applications Menu Item.
If you previously used v5 of Plex we suggest deleting the folder called Plex found in ~/Library/Application Support/. Many things have changed and a fresh install will ensure the best performance with Plex.
How do I make Movies and TV Shows show up in their respective areas with poster art, plot info, etc?
View this screencast for more info vimeo.com/2758185

Announcing Plex

July 05th, 2008 | Category: Status | Author: elan

As most of you know, we’ve been searching for a new identity since we split from XBMC. Names aren’t easy to come by, and domain names are even harder. We received some great suggestions from our user base (Meteor Center, Media Hugger, etc.). Ultimately though, we wanted a name that was easy to communicate, a bit more abstract, and less tied to media or center.

The one name that stuck was Plex. I like it because it evokes “cineplex” and the suffix means “comprising a number of parts” which the application certain does. In mathematics, you use the suffix to mean “ten to the power of the number” (e.g. oneplex = 10).

Because there are no four-letter domain names left (seriously, try to find one!) we decided to square the plex, so to speak. Think of either plex^2 or plex squared (the beta logo below tries to connote the word “plex” inside a square that might represent a TV screen). The domain names are plex2.com, plexsquared.com, and plexsquare.com for good measure. They are not active yet.

In the coming days, we’ll be working on the rebranding process, including the application packaging, logo, web domains, etc. In the longer term, we have some exciting things in the skin department as well. Stay tuned, and thanks for all your support; we really are lucky to have such an great community.

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48 Comments so far

  1. Christoph July 5th, 2008 10:15 am

    great name!

  2. muzo July 5th, 2008 10:44 am

    great name but..

    ..honestly, i was expecting the new name to be “Barkley” or “BarkleyMC” as barkley.com is taken. :))

    the two sides of the square–movies and tv shows–are looking great. i’m hoping the new name will bring itunes and iphoto into “plex” to complete the square. ;)

    rock on boys!

  3. elan July 5th, 2008 10:51 am

    @muzo: At the end of a long negotiation, Barkley simply would not agree to licensing us the use of his name/image. Bad dog! However, he has agreed to be the Official Mascot and First Dog of Plex. That was expensive, but worth it.

  4. TheDoctorWho July 5th, 2008 11:00 am

    did you manage to get a new domain? plex.com and plex.org looks to be already taken?

  5. Exelsion July 5th, 2008 11:22 am

    How about plexmc.tld ? Zero points for originality, but 100% short and to the point.

  6. Exelsion July 5th, 2008 11:23 am

    I missed the “and less tied to media or center” part of your post. :(

  7. elan July 5th, 2008 11:53 am

    @TheDoctorWho: plex2/plexsquared/plexsquare. Why get one when you can get three?

  8. Gustav July 5th, 2008 12:30 pm

    Sweet. All support from here!

  9. Nathaniel July 5th, 2008 1:03 pm

    You’re lucky? WE’RE lucky to have a a media center as awesome as Plex!

    I actually noticed the name earlier today when I upgraded to the latest beta, but didn’t really pay any attention to it. Figured it was something to do with the skin. Now I know what it meant :)

    I think it’s a great name, and I’m sure the new brand look and skin are going to be just as awesome. Keep up the great work, we all worship you for it!

  10. Volante July 5th, 2008 3:09 pm

    I don’t really like the square part, I think most people will associate it with “Plex two”… (Like 2 is the version number) I’d rather see something like Plex X. Where X stands for OS X. ;)

  11. Elrod July 5th, 2008 3:36 pm

    Plex it is!! it’s short, good to remember, elegant and playfull. “we don’t play video’s anymore, we PLEX them…”

  12. tetrakis July 5th, 2008 3:36 pm

    FYI, plex.org.uk and plex.me.uk are both available. Not the best, I know, but you wouldn’t be obligated to use the plex squared variant.

  13. Leigh July 5th, 2008 7:26 pm

    The Domain PLEX.MC (PLEX Media Centre) is available…. Wouldn’t this be a good choice..

  14. elan July 5th, 2008 7:39 pm

    @Leigh: It might be, but it doesn’t look like there’s any easy way to register Monaco domains, unless you suit up in a tux and show up James Bond style.

  15. johannes.999 July 5th, 2008 10:42 pm

    I personally dont like the new name at all:(
    Why cant you just keep the old name osxbmc?

  16. Martin July 5th, 2008 10:44 pm

    I too like the Plex name!

    But the square thing is a bit confusing.

    Couldn’t we append something useless to the domain name, like PlexForMac.com or PlexOSX.com - The name is still just “Plex”, it’s just to get a domain name that makes sense/easy to remember?

    /Martin :)

  17. Martin July 5th, 2008 10:46 pm

    PS. The logo looks a bit like Plex.nl’s logo :D

    http://www.plex.nl

  18. Randy July 6th, 2008 3:56 am

    Plex, is a good name, but PlexSquared or Plex2, not so much. And I concur, the logo feels very much inspired by the Plex.nl site, hmmm? I think more thought and research should be put into the branding than whats been done so far, no? And squares are the furthest from what you want when you’re display rich media visually. (ie. a 4:3 or 16:9 ratio, being much more interesting, and useful visually than the 1:1 a square offers). Maybe you should do some sort of logo contest with a prize pay off of some kind?

  19. Rez July 6th, 2008 4:13 am

    I, being more the art house type and not a huge fan of cineplexes, am not too wowed by the new name. Nonetheless I’m very happy about the move away from the awkward and misleading “XBMC”.

    I’m very curious about the coming skin and graphic design. Please don’t make it too bright and orange though! ;-) Personally I think, dark tones suite a cinema/movie application better.

  20. Elrod July 6th, 2008 4:31 am

    iPlex

  21. Elrod July 6th, 2008 4:33 am

    Personal Leisure Exclusivly on osX

  22. neuro July 6th, 2008 5:56 am

    Plex², like it :) I’d love to see some of the stuff that boxee are working on folded into Plex² … while their skin is stunning, and the scripts they preinstall are really useful, OSXBMC … err, I mean Plex² is much much more stable and functional.

  23. Ken July 6th, 2008 6:28 am

    Plex is a very nice name but Plex^2/plexsquared is confusing. How about using “PLEX” (all caps) as the name? http://www.plexsquared.com can still be the website but I would get rid of the PLEX^2 logo at the top of the page and go with the PLEX box logo for consistency.

  24. boodai July 6th, 2008 6:38 am

    Plex is a fine name, but Plex squared leaves a lot to be desired. Expecially since it is only because you can’t get a domain name. Noone will ever call it plex square or plex squared, they will just call it plex and be done. And if they are going to be just calling it plex, then why not just name it plex? There are loads of domains you can get for plex.

  25. some guy July 6th, 2008 8:09 am

    yes, I am also wondering why you can’t just keep it named “osxbmc” regardless of how forked it is, etc.

    It seems like the easiest route…

  26. johannes.999 July 6th, 2008 8:29 am

    yeah exspecially because everyone already knows xbmc and the name is just connected with this great software…
    I mean the aim of this project is and was to port xbmc to mac,so why cant you keep the great name and the wonderfull logo of xbmc/osxbmc?
    If you change all the things which are related to the original xbmc you will just become one media center under thousands….

  27. elan July 6th, 2008 8:51 am

    The XBMC team requested that we remove any occurrence of “XBMC” from the name. “OSXBMC” seemed to be particularly despised. Also, having a name that’s actually pronounceable is considered a good thing :)

  28. rickler July 6th, 2008 9:24 am

    I reckon the XBMC team are jealous at the progress made on this project and of the support.

    I personally like Plex - feels very Macish.

  29. Don July 6th, 2008 10:01 am

    Plex? As in complex? not sure…

  30. MJesusfan July 6th, 2008 10:09 am

    Uh, watch out. Plex is maybe a trademark.

    A new german POS SaaS software for mac - from http://simplyselling.net - startet under the name Plex in 02/2008. But they had to rename it to plex:connect.

    I dont know, if they had violated a trademark worldwide or only national.

    Hopefully you don´t get the same legal Probs.

  31. coffeemocca July 6th, 2008 11:04 am

    I like the name, but as a graphic designer i feel abit of stronger rebranding could be done! let me know if there is going to be an open contest?

  32. elan July 6th, 2008 11:23 am

    @coffeemocca: As a coder who threw together the silly logo, I’d love to get any and all input :) Feel free to email me or start a post in the forums!

  33. jason.western.australia July 6th, 2008 12:18 pm

    OSX (self explanatory) BMC (Barkley Media Centre)

    :)

  34. jms_uk July 6th, 2008 12:35 pm

    Nice work on Plex!!

    Just thought I’d mention it, as I’m not really sure its a Plex “bug” so to speak..

    The new XBMCHelper seems to be confusing Virtual Machines running under both Parallels and VMWare Fusion - it appears to be getting picked up by those systems as an additional HID device, causing the keyboard operation within the VM to stop working (the mac gives a bleep indicatiing some kind of input grab failure)

    The XMBCHelper never used to do this so I guess it might be some of the changes..

    Anyway, like I said, I’m not sure if this is a Plex team issue or something that should be logged with Parallels/VMWare

    :)

  35. Blackstar BSP July 6th, 2008 2:08 pm

    If Plex is trademarked, maybe Elrod’s idea of iPlex (which does have a nice ring to it and an Apple tradition imho) would be a better choice?

    Any of the Plex2, PlexSquared, etc I’m sure would be fine too but iPlex just says ‘Mac’ to me. Call me a traditionalist. ;)

  36. Jezz_X July 6th, 2008 5:11 pm

    i(anything) sounds like mac thats the whole problem with it just makes it sound like the 5000 other people out there trying to cash in on the ipods fame an fortune

    P.S. I screwed up my registration on the forum and the email is wrong but I can’t access the section of my profile to chanege it without activation and I can’t activate without the right email :\ (user Jezz_X) if anyone wants to take a look at some time

  37. niad July 7th, 2008 7:23 am

    NICE!

  38. elan July 7th, 2008 7:59 am

    Ha! That is pretty funny the similarities between the Plex proto-logo and plex.nl one. I doubt anyone would believe me when I say that I never saw the latter before working on the former. I think I the bottom line is the boxes with text in them are pretty common logos :)

  39. boodai July 7th, 2008 11:21 am

    http://gizmodo.com/5022633/xbox-media-center-renamed-plex-and-looking-hotter-than-ever

    Plex has made it onto gizmodo. Of course they got lots of stuff wrong and I’m sure the xbmc team will be upset over what they got wrong.

    BUT

    It is great advertising for Plex.

  40. Rob Finch July 7th, 2008 12:33 pm

    The Joy Of Plex. Someone mock up a book cover!

    I like the name, but agree including the square because of the domain name lessens the appeal slightly. But what’s in a name? The app is awesome, regardless of what it ends up being called.

  41. Isaacisonvacation July 7th, 2008 12:39 pm

    @jezzx looks like the email address you entered when registering was invalid? Force validated you, log in and double check your address. Did the same for Althekiller also since he wasnt validated.

  42. Joe July 7th, 2008 3:36 pm

    getplex.com or plexapp.com in an attempt to avoid the whole ’squared’ thing?

  43. grey July 7th, 2008 3:39 pm

    I have to say I prefer osxbmc, it rolls off the tongue, not really digging plex as a name either (and as others pointed out, domain names registered, trademarked, etc.) I realize old xbmc people didn’t like it, but who cares? They didn’t like a lot of what you guys were doing, but that didn’t stop you from working on a great product.

    Anyway, not my call - as long as the end result is as good as it is now call it whatever you want. Myfuckinggod1080ponamacmini is a mouthful, but I’d use it all the same. ;)

  44. Chris July 15th, 2008 8:52 am

    Yeah, as Joe said, getplex.com or plexapp.com would be good. It’s generally the format for hip new Mac application domain names, anyway. :P

    Or maybe something neat like plex.is?

  45. anon July 20th, 2008 3:58 am

    Plex is awesome. That’s what I love about Mac apps — beautiful, concise, evocative names.

  46. fbhidy September 29th, 2008 2:20 pm

    How about:
    osXpleX.com
    or OS-pleX.com

  47. iRoNBiLL January 29th, 2009 6:10 am

    How about Plex OS? http://www.plexos.org - I just wanted to say, I don’t think you should change the name of Plex. It’s a solid name, already has recognition among non mac users and has a uniform look to the name. It’s sexy time!

    Bill

  48. alex March 9th, 2009 8:23 pm

    If anything why not give it a small little quirk and make it something like http://www.plexible.com

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