I’m trying to avoid repetition but sometimes too many good developments happen around the same time so apologies for this. With regards to my recent Boxee post, I discovered an interface update to Plex which brings that software back in front. Get the AeonSlim skin for Plex. Now. It’s stunning.

All the images you see in this post are randomised from a huge set of attractive Backdrops . Enjoy!

Installation instructions: Apologies for not posting proper install notes as it was quite late last night when I posted this. Here’s how to get it going:

1. Download Aeon Slim and the Backdrops.

2. Uncompress the AeonSlim folder. Open a new window and go to your home folder. From there go to Library > Application Support > Plex > skins and move the AeonSlim folder in there.

3. Uncompress the various Movies, Pictures, TV Shows and Music folders downloaded from the Backdrops link and move them all into a folder (I created a Backdrops folder within my Pictures folder and dropped them all in there.)

4. Run Plex. Go to Settings > Appearance > Look and Feel and change the Skin to AeonSlim.

5. Go to Settings > Customise and then Backdrops.

6. Select Movies, press Enter, then the down arrow and navigate to where your Movie backdrops are. Do the same for Music, Picture and TV Shows.

7. There is no step 7! Done! Enjoy Plex!

There are three alternatives to Front Row: XBMC, Plex and Boxee. Actually, both Plex and Boxee owe their existence to XBMC since they’re based on the open source media content player. My preference had always been Plex but the Boxee crew have just released a new beta. And it, as they say, rocks.

Just as with Plex and XBMC, Boxee will scan your user folder for music, films and TV shows and play them all fullscreen with a slick 10-foot user interface. You can also specify remote servers to stream content to your local system. Boxee version 1 had a strong social network layer to it, which the other two don’t. For my use, I found that distracting and unnecessary. Thankfully, the current beta’s interface has been completely overhauled and the social-centric functions have been tucked away leaving a beautiful and clean interface. Here’s my Home Screen.

I love the simple but quite effective icons for the application’s main functions. Here are the Movies and Music interface screens.

Lovely interface isn’t it? And here’s the Global Menu which lets the user jump between the main functions, application settings and shortcuts.

Boxee also have released Boxee Remote a free iPhone app that controls the interface remotely across the network. The Boxee app also features a gestural interface that has to be seen or tried to be appreciated.

It gets better. Boxee have teamed up with electronics manufacturer D-Link to create the Boxee Box.

This unusually shaped yet attractive media box makes my WDTV look archaic. Aside from the usual HDMI, USB and Optical Audio ports, it has 11n WiFi built-in, an SD card slot and a brilliant RF remote with a full qwerty keyboard. And it’ll retail for less than $200.

Why oh why was this not released before Christmas?

I was a little bit disoriented with Quicktime X, to be honest. What, no export preferences? Only Sharing to iTunes? The UI looks very nice and the promise of GPU-accelerated playback is theoretically good, but what about 1080p MKV files playing natively? Quicktime X doesn’t recognise anything besides MP4 or iTunes’ M4V files. Perian was a constant presence in Leopard but a second-tier citizen with 10.6. Until now!

Thanks to the info in this thread on the cocoa forge board and the latest version of Perian, this utility will let Quicktime X recognise and play .mkv files. Front Row will happily play AVI files (as long as you have Flip4Mac installed) and SD MKV files but not 720p or 1080 movies unfortunately.

Of course, there’s always Plex which plays all movie codecs flawlessly without the need for Perian.

Apple updated it’s desktop line yesterday and finally gave the Mac Mini a new lease of life. The new Mini is significantly faster with a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo and a 9400M NVIDIA graphics processor. All of these specs make it a perfect media hub… almost. The only missing component is a BluRay drive, which I suspect isn’t long coming.

A long(-ish) term plan is starting to form in my head: a stellar home cinema system. This new Mac Mini with an Elgato HD satellite tuner, connected to a DisplayPort LED, possibly Apple’s rumoured 30″ Cinema Display screen running one of my favorite apps, Plex.

Right, time to set up a Dream Machine fund.