The easiest home media server (SPONSORED)

[Sveeno]

 

Thanks to Plex for sponsoring this video! Learn more about Plex Pro Week at: https://www.plex.tv/pro-week/

 

Setting up your own Plex media server may seem daunting, but that's why Plex stepped up to sponsor this video where we tackle setting up a Plex media server three different ways.

 

How to best name your files for Plex https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-tv-show-files/

 

[Middcore]

I'm surprised Plex was even interested in this type of video, given how hard they're trying to pivot away from just being thought of as a home media server app.

[DarkSwordsman]

I just wanna say that I had tried Jellyfin and, while I actually love their software and would recommend it to everyone, using Sonarr was a royal PITA. Like Linus mentioned, "well named", your media needs to at least have a decent naming scheme if it doesn't at least come with it's own metadata files (often nfo). So you need to use some software to rename or hardlink your files. Simply porting them into Jellyfin won't work.
 

All I wanted was to be able to create and manage hardlinks for my media since I didn't want to rename them. While I realize now that Sonarr simply wasn't going to solve my needs since it solved a specific workflow, I still am frustrated with the poor documentation, quality of their software, and that the support in their discord was utterly terrible. I was even banned from their Discord because I talked back to the mods that were mocking me for not being a linux elitist. These days I just watch movies and shows on free sites, and especially in VRChat since there are media worlds like LS Media and Movie and Chill.

 

Maybe one day I will return to managing my own media server especially if I get a dedicated NAS. But frankly the cost of maintaining my own solution exactly how I want it to work is not worth what I get out of it. I had tried to write my own solution using NodeJS for a backend and Next for an interface, and despite how easy it still should be imo, I just lost interest because I realized how much time I was wasting.

 

Also, I use Jellyfin because it's silly to me that hardware transcoding would be locked behind a paywall. But mainly that, last time I checked, Plex requires you to authenticate with their servers before you can really log in and use user accounts (due to the paid tiers having locked features). I explicitly remember some friends of mine being unable to use their Plex because Plex was having server issues. Sure, I think I end up with some more issues with Jellyfin than if I used Plex, but to me, having my own local solution is more important than relying on other people's infrastructure.

Edit: I forgot to add, it actually blows my mind that Linus accepted this sponsor and that he still uses Plex, given his firm stance against cloud services for home automation or home-hosted services. Like, if Plex servers go down, you can't use your paid features. How is that even fair?

[mr fobs]

Especially with how expensive streaming services are getting, hosting your own Plex Server is a crazy money saver in the long run. I can't live without mine!

[AbydosOne]

TIL: Plexamp is a first-party app... I always thought it was someone's pet project.

[tim0901]

Another option for hosting Plex is through Docker on something like a Raspberry Pi or Synology. Plex themselves maintain an official Plex Media Server image, but if you're running anything that's not x86/64, you'll need a third-party image such as this one from Linuxserver. A Raspberry Pi is a great solution if you have a NAS that doesn't allow you to install third party apps - you can just mount your NAS's media folders as a network share on the Pi and you're good to go.

 

If you do choose to do this, I recommend disabling transcoding entirely as this type of hardware won't handle it very well - even a 4th gen Raspberry Pi can't transcode at any worthwhile resolutions. This is probably only an issue if you plan on accessing your content from over the internet, as your local network is probably good enough to stream even the highest bitrate files at full quality. Plex also doesn't support hardware encoding on the Raspberry Pi, and probably not on most Synology hardware, even if you pay for Plex Pass.

 

If you want to share your server with many people, this kind of solution probably won't be enough. But it's a good starting position and a great way to learn about Docker.

[BaidDSB]

How do i do this but for a Synology NAS?

[themrsbusta]

Radeon support?

[tim0901]

1 minute ago, BaidDSB said:

How do i do this but for a Synology NAS?

Run Plex Media Server as a Docker container. See my comment above.

[DarkSwordsman]

Someone brought up a pretty important tidbit in the YouTube comments that I was unaware of. Something that happened 3 weeks ago and is convenient timing for Plex to have a glowing ad by a popular tech YouTuber that has used their software for a long time. Never mind that it also helps promote things like Jellyfin that do not store any user credentials or anything by requiring a cloud login to use the software.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/24/plex-streaming-breach-passwords/

[Middcore]

2 minutes ago, DarkSwordsman said:

Someone brought up a pretty important tidbit in the YouTube comments that I was unaware of. Something that happened 3 weeks ago and is convenient timing for Plex to have a glowing ad by a popular tech YouTuber that has used their software for a long time. Never mind that it also helps promote things like Jellyfin that do not store any user credentials or anything by requiring a cloud login to use the software.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/24/plex-streaming-breach-passwords/

 

This was discussed fairly extensively here at the time. 

[Tao_Ikry]

the part where he said you could access the storage remotely, anyone know if this could be used as a steam drive?

[AbsoluteWoo]

Long time LTT watcher, never post to the forum, but I just had to comment on this one.

 

You start off the video completing dismissing Google Drive as being too expensive and then continue to list options that are SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive. If you buy an Nvidia Shield Pro as demoed in the video it would take you over 10 years to see any financial benefit (and when you consider the electrical cost of running a server in your own home, you'd never see any benefit).

 

I get it, you use It, they've sponsored a video for you, but this is straight up bad journalism and is misleading your viewers.

[Senzelian]

Wait, where can I find perpetual licenses for individual devices? I don't think Plex offers that.

[BaidDSB]

1 hour ago, tim0901 said:

Run Plex Media Server as a Docker container. See my comment above.

i barely understood what your above comment meant.

 

whats a docker?

[MonkeyBomb]

18 minutes ago, BaidDSB said:

i barely understood what your above comment meant.

 

whats a docker?

 

A docker is basically a way to install an application and keeping it separate from the OS.  If you had Plex installed locally when one of Synologies last major updates came out it broke some things, in a docker you can avoid that.

 

There is a native Plex app for Synology, but installing it in a Docker would be a better method as for the reason I previously mentioned and dockers are easier to backup.

 

Plus, you can use a program on Synology called Watchtower and it will auto update all your docker apps.

[BondiBlue]

17 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Wait, where can I find perpetual licenses for individual devices? I don't think Plex offers that.

Pretty sure he was talking about a lifetime Plex Pass. It's a one time payment of $120 instead of paying monthly or annually. By default a Plex Pass automatically unlocks the mobile apps as well, so if you get a Plex Pass you don't need to pay for individual devices. 

 

Plans available on the Plex website as of September 2022 (not sure if they'll change these prices):

[mr fobs]

9 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

Pretty sure he was talking about a lifetime Plex Pass. It's a one time payment of $120 instead of paying monthly or annually. By default a Plex Pass automatically unlocks the mobile apps as well, so if you get a Plex Pass you don't need to pay for individual devices. 

 

Plans available on the Plex website as of September 2022 (not sure if they'll change these prices):

And remember they usually have a once a year deal where you can get Plex Pass Lifetime for $90!

[Lurick]

1 hour ago, AbsoluteWoo said:

Long time LTT watcher, never post to the forum, but I just had to comment on this one.

 

You start off the video completing dismissing Google Drive as being too expensive and then continue to list options that are SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive. If you buy an Nvidia Shield Pro as demoed in the video it would take you over 10 years to see any financial benefit (and when you consider the electrical cost of running a server in your own home, you'd never see any benefit).

 

I get it, you use It, they've sponsored a video for you, but this is straight up bad journalism and is misleading your viewers.

You know that 10TB of google drive is $600/year right? Most people aren't storing 500GB of media, they have many TB. Plus you now have the hassle of downloading from google drive to watch a video whereas local storage allows instant access. Plus now you have to consider bandwidth costs and caps most US users have to deal with too and it quickly becomes very stupid to store all your media in the cloud on Google or Amazon's servers

[Mafen]

I like traefik more that

1 hour ago, BondiBlue said:

Pretty sure he was talking about a lifetime Plex Pass. It's a one time payment of $120 instead of paying monthly or annually. By default a Plex Pass automatically unlocks the mobile apps as well, so if you get a Plex Pass you don't need to pay for individual devices. 

 

Plans available on the Plex website as of September 2022 (not sure if they'll change these prices):

I looked at their pricing in norway and it is 3000 NOK, and that is 300 USD or nearly 400 CAD, kinda crazy

[Quackers101]

next up, compare plex tiered PCs.

as in hardware tiers, also the use of AV1 with a full intel build, vs AMD, Nvidia, highend and lowend. (2 part video?)

[bluehawk]

1 hour ago, Lurick said:

You know that 10TB of google drive is $600/year right? Most people aren't storing 500GB of media, they have many TB. Plus you now have the hassle of downloading from google drive to watch a video whereas local storage allows instant access. Plus now you have to consider bandwidth costs and caps most US users have to deal with too and it quickly becomes very stupid to store all your media in the cloud on Google or Amazon's servers

 

 

I will also add that Google can monitor files you store on your drive and can deactivate your drive if they think you are violating their ToS which seems random or arbitrary. My Google account was deactivated because Google said there were files against the ToS on my drive. I don't know what files and there's no way to contact Google to resolve the matter. I researched the issue and some said their account was suspended for just putting music on their drive. In the end I lost access to my Gmail, my Google photos with a decade worth of photos, and my drive as a result and google has no customer support service. I was meaning to back them up elsewhere but the account was suspended before I could now it's all gone. Don't trust Google 

[dogwitch]

no one is going to mention.

clone high???

also  banana underwear image?

[kumicota]

So Linus "Ad blocking is piracy" Sebastian is ok with giving people access you your plex server and jokes about non DRM movies too

[Ultraforce]

19 minutes ago, kumicota said:

So Linus "Ad blocking is piracy" Sebastian is ok with giving people access you your plex server and jokes about non DRM movies too

Linus has spoken multiple times that he breaks copyright laws in terms of how he uses plex servers he's spoken about it multiple times that he has a blu-ray disk drive that he keeps to burn blu-rays since he doesn't want to bother having a blu-ray player at every tv and physically insert discs so he breaks the rules and does that since he bought the disc he feels fine with not following the copyright law.
 

 

2 hours ago, NastyFlytrap said:

This is a glorified ad

The only things i have learned from this video is how 'conveniently awesome' plex is.

I miss the days when they'd do an improv setup on the fly, like they did with the pihole video

I didn't watch the pihole video and am not a long time watcher but it seems that their pihole video came out between 4 and 3 years ago so by then pihole was probably pretty well established and rather then improv set up on the fly it was just well written way to make an easy to absorb video talking about or tutorial.