3 Ways to Start Your Own Plex Server
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- Опубликовано: 10 май 2024
- Thanks to Plex for sponsoring this video! Learn more about Plex Pro Week at: 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.
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CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
1:09 Why Plex?
2:43 Old PC = New Plex server
3:48 Which platform should you use?
4:40 Getting started with Windows
5:20 Getting started with Nvidia Shield TV
7:17 Getting started with a NAS and Unraid
9:27 More features with Plex
11:04 Tech Tips and tricks
13:18 Data breach
13:58 Plex Pro Week
14:18 Conclusion 
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In the interest of fairness (and in a video not sponsored by Plex) you should give Jellyfin a shake and give the community insight into an open source alternative that doesn't require an internet connection just to authenticate to its services, assuming you didn't set up your local LAN authentication settings in Server.
Oh, and hardware encoding is free.
The problem with jellyfin is, most of the smart tv-s on the market don't have an easy way to download it
@@sivi151 you can use kodi instead to play videos
Completely agree. I chose Jellyfin because of the free hardware transcoding and because I can only blame myself if it doesn't work.
There are still probably a lack of features compared to Plex, and there have been a lot of bugs, but the team has been hard at work to solve a lot of them. For example, you couldn't hardware decode H265 files at all, 8 or 10 bit, but now you can with their latest update. This is huge where, even with a GTX 1070, I would probably be able to transcode at least 6 or more 4K movies at once.
All I hope for is that someone can create a good hardlink/renaming solution for files since, really, Sonarr is incredibly fragile in many ways and there are no good alternatives.
I recently switched to Jellyfin and enjoy it so far, even though making it reachable from the outside world was a bit more difficult then Plex, but worth it
I find the video practically like a pure promotional video, which is probably what it's supposed to be. The negative aspects of Plex (e.g. the not deactivatable home call reporting function) and possible alternatives, e.g. emby are in my opinion in no way critically addressed and at least tried to refute. Especially because the functionality of emby and plex is practically identical.
Jellyfin is also a great option as it is based from emby and maintains full open source and free
It is a sponsored promotion so yeah
don't forget jellyfin!
@@kiwihuman +1 for jellyfin. would have been using it to this day if their firestick app actually worked (for me, refused to connect idk why). ended up going plex, bought a lifetime plex pass for 80 bucks and ive been happy with it, though the pinging home is annoying, and its kinda fucky in docker sometimes, its been great
Jellyfin
"Legally obtained" Now the lawyers are happy
In case anyone doesn't know, Jellyfin is the only one of its kind that can leverage hardware to convert Dolby Vision P5 to SDR so you don't see green or purple tints when watching WEB-DL movies.
I’m assuming you mean HDR web-dl movies, or more like HDR Blu Ray rips (since most WEB-DL/WEB-RIP content isn’t in HDR) yeah? Isn’t that just standard tonemapping? Plex has support for this even for Dolby Vision I believe doesn’t it? From what I understood Plex has it but the issue is it’s paywalled; is the Dolby Vision P5 codec/format only currently able to be transcoded by Jellyfin alone then, and how common is it? I’ve heard of Vision but haven’t heard about P5 specifically
@@dvargas3553 disney netflix etc all offer DV streams without blu ray and it's enhanced HDR though you don't need jellyfin as you can use ffmpeg unless you are transcoding realtime
@@paulholyoak The real answer
Big +1 for Jellyfin, I used Plex before I found out about Jellyfin and now I can't ever go back, it's better, free and open-source!
Not having hdr TV tfw
I know that this was sponsored, but usually Linus loves to promote free and open-source software, and Jellyfin is the free and open-source version of Plex. Does all the same main functionality in almost the same exact way, hardware-encoding isn't behind a paywall, multiple editions of movies has been a thing forever. It doesn't have built-in live tv channels or on-demand media, but there are ways to add live tv if you have a digital tuner or know any M3U channels
And it lacks a seemless DDNS.
Jellyfin didnt pay them big $ for the the ad :P
It's curious too that he'd go with Plex on his home servers since he told Jake "No Cloud" 😂.
Does it support audio passthrough and hdr?
@@williameldridge9382 but there are some wonderful and well crafted tutorials to run that on docker - just saying. I was a noob 6 months ago and now I can get a docker based server up and running on OMV in unv#der an hour...
Another vote for Jellyfin. Was a long time Plex user... until they redshifted their focus into being a streaming service aggregator with each new update becoming less relevant for my needs(and adding more bloat in the process).
+1 hardware acceleration behind paywall is meaningless energy waste
Spot on. Straight up deleted my Plex account after everyone's data was breached. Tried Emby, and it was mostly fine, but I had some issues with file compatibility. Tried Jellyfin and everything just worked. It scrapes the same metadata and it's 1000x cleaner looking and no bs streaming bloat that I'll never use. Open source and free. Immediately donated to their open collective page and will continue to do so.
Does Jellyfin support multiple versions of the same move like Linus showed in the video? That sounds seriously handy for extended cuts etc
@@florethebrave it does Support it
Too bad the UI is far behind, lacking device app support and no Plex meta manager.
I switched to Jellyfin a long time ago. You can use it even without internet, as long as your home network works. For me that was kind of the main thing. It has it troubles with good apps though, still waiting for something to listening to my audio books properly. But movies and audio works fine :)
I would love a comparison between the main selfhost streaming services. Emby, Plex and Jellyfin ❤️
You can with Plex as well without internet, In fact my internet went down for a few hours this morning and my grandmother in the living room is watching some of the Johnny Cash videos I have on it
@@VikingDudee But jellyfin natively supports user profiles. Plex requires you to disable user authentication on the network which means it will only work on the last profile it remembers. So if you want to use a different profile it doesnt work.
Also, if there is an issue with plex and you need to reinstall or the database corrupts (which it can do) then it is additional setup.
Jellyfin although not as pretty as plex, is significantly better.
i'm confused, how do audio books not work properly but audio does? Aren't they the same thing?
@@darkpixel1128 If you tag audiobooks the artist is usually the person reading the book while the author is the person who wrote the book. When you browse your audiolibrary like a music library, everything bill be sorted by the person reading the book. Also for an audiobook library you want the software you use to keep track of what you listened to and resume from that point.
@@geyoda64 ah, i see thanks for explaining.
For anyone wondering whether to use Plex or Jellyfin, i run both simultaneously on my server so users can choose what they prefer to use. As much as I would prefer to mainly use Jellyfin, it's not polished yet such as a "Skip Intros" button which is so useful for everyone when binging a TV series. Once you setup remote access on both apps and point it to the same library locations, it runs itself.
There is still Emby. If you don't mind paying it's a polished version of Jellyfin.
Jellyfin has a skip intro plugin. As someone who used plex in the past, moving to jellyfin was an improvement in every way for me other than accessing remotely requiring more setup.
It is worth noting that Anthony has a Jellyfin server. I also use Jellyfin, on his recommendation, and prefer it to Plex.
Also using Jellyfin, far better than plex in my opinion, especially because there are zero subscriptions or any other BS.
Yes other people that use jellyfin I have been running mine for 6 months with no problems
@@tankerkiller125 I wanted to give it a try, but I mainly watch on my LG TVs and it didn't have an app for WebOS when I set everything up. Having to rely on Plex's cloud for auth is one thing I would like different
@@wojtek-33 Dolby Vision support is listed in the Changelog for 10.8.0 in June this year, so I think it now works.
@@sanvedjoshi I think they just released a WebOS app like 2 weeks ago
I'm going to jump on the Jellyfin bandwagon here. It also well deserves its own video, it is an impressive alternative that doesn't ever call home among other benefits.
I'm using both Plex and jellyfin (mainly coz I couldn't find dragon ball to stream anywhere and use multiple devices to watch. Easy to use free and just perfect jellyfin is a great alternative for PPL who know what they're doing)
Jellyfin FTW! I was an Emby Premier user for years, made the switch to Jellyfin a year ago and never looked back.
I refuse to pay for plex, Jellyfin has pretty much the same features are Plex and its free... Even has hardware transcoding for free, useful for viewers that dont have the jellyfin client installed.
Thought the same. Unfortunate that it was not named as an alternative. I refuse to pay for plex and now with the latest major update of jellyfin it is finally in a state i would recommend it to everyone.
I also use it, it’s great! Plex for some reason played HDR videos incorrectly on my HDR monitor (it sent 8-bit video non-tonemapped from 10bit video (so all washed out) and then converted *that* to 10-bit video). Jellyfin had no issues and also allowed hardware acceleration, meaning I could easily transcode 4K HDR on multiple simultaneous streams.
Man this didn't even feel like an LTT video, it felt like an infomercial featuring LTT cast. And I even like Plex already.
SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY
Man got to pay the bills
The same thing with their Windows Home Server. It was more like, install this software! Instead of showing users how to set up a basic Server with functions
@@hamndv he has to pay for a floor Dennis destroyed 😂
it's because Plex is having their "Pro Week" and Linus is one of the guests
I'm a long term Plex user and I use option (4) not discussed in the video - I use an old PC running Ubuntu Linux and installed the official Plex packages. The same box also runs a bunch of other apps to "assist" me with keeping my TV library automatically up to date. I keep the actual media on my NAS. One feature I really love is that there is PlexAmp and Prism which both support CarPlay - so i can stream my music library in the car. My preferred playing device is an Apple TV. I also share my library with relatives over the internet. It's brilliant and works well.
This is exactly why it is good to have the RUclips dislike counter extension installed. When I see a higher downvote count than normal I know to check the comments. Learned there are much better alternatives to consider than what is being pushed by just this video.
I know Linus would also be in favor of having dislikes shown across the board too. Thanks commenters.
completely forgot the dislikes weren't part of core youtube anymore... had the extension enabled since it was released. Higher than average dislikes was one of the first things I noticed when watching the video, good indication that you should check out the comments. Still boggles my mind that youtube hides dislikes for those without the extension!
Would be nice for LTT to regularly post and pin a comment with the true likes-dislikes ratio, with the date for each of their video. As a sign of good deontology
@@Kytetiger I dont see how that could be sustainable unless its easy to automate. They make a lot of videos, that's a lot of pinned comments to update.
much better is debatable. there really arent many downsides to plex and i think its ui is much better then the other two.
which extensions are yall using? none seem to work for me off the chrome store
I'd love to see a comparison of the popular media servers out there: Plex, Emby, Jellyfin, Others.
Plus XBMC on an actual OG Xbox. Yeah, the hardware's definitely pretty damn underpowered today, but the console has the obvious benefit of not just being a media server but having 100% access to the entire OG Xbox library, which is QUITE substantial and an incredibly good library of games to draw from. Not to mention all the sundry emulators you can run on it, fully optimized directly for the Xbox hardware along with XBMC itself also being directly optimized for the hardware as well.
Jellyfin is interesting, but it's based on pretty old stuff and with too few people it's not the great for usability.
Kaliedascape.. I would love to see LTT'S version of this.
You realize this video is sponsored right?
@@arnox4554 XBMC on OG Xbox is basically useless for media and has been for years, unless you want to still watch 360-480p low bitrate avi movies. The xbox just doesnt have the memory to handle X264 and X265 video formats which pretty much everything is now, especially at todays common resolutions of 720p, 1080p and 4K.
This video has been quite useful for me, but ironically more for the comments than for the content itself. I've been looking for a home media server but I kinda prefer OSS (or FOSS) so I'm quite happy to see so many people recommend Jellyfin. I'll give it a try
In all fairness, I appreciate the small “how to setup” and redirects to other videos where you guys built servers, but this came across as a massive commercial for plex and not necessarily a typical LTT video.
I’m sure it will be useful to someone, but this video could have been so much more.
to be fair , it isnt a typical LTT video. its a sponsored video
Honestly I'm a bit disappointed about the quality of this video- not typical Linus at all. I think we all appreciate the lengths LTT goes to making quality and unbiased content but considering the bajillion comments saying they prefer jellyfin, they surely deserved a mention in the video.
I think we all expect better from them in the future- lets hope that chunk of money they got was worth the disappointment for viewers and can go towards better content in the future
It came across as a massive commercial for Plex because it WAS a massive commercial for Plex. It was a sponsered video, by Plex.
Not the first time. Many of LTT videos are list of bullet points gave by press kits.
@@TheRaretunes again, to be fair. Those sponsored stuff are usually not even in the schedule of the usual ltt videos. So its like "extra" content
i have been using Jellyfin for a year or so, and it has been working PERFECTLY! Open source, well maintained, and super easy to set up after fixing my double NAT.
Did you have double NAT because of AT&T fiber?
@@fried28056 I have CenturyLink, but it was some problem with using their modem with my router.
@@elliotmarks06 well never switch to AT&T fiber, you can't put their gateway in bridge mode. They have an IP passthrough and cascaded router feature to fix this but it doesn't work.
@@fried28056 I switched to AT&T fiber a few months ago and the first thing I noticed was the double NAT. However I had zero issues using the IP passthrough option, it works for me without issue. I use it with an Eero mesh router system though, I suppose it's possible certain router brands don't play nice with their modem/router combo. I have seen both success and failure stories of getting the passthrough setting to work, so there are likely certain hardware variables at play and it isn't a guaranteed fix.
@@fried28056 I have ATT Fiber and the IP passthrough feature works for me and my UDM Pro. It was, however, an absolute bitch to setup. I had a halfway working setup for about a year before trying to fix it and completely loosing my internet connection. I had to call the service center and have the employee on the other end help me get it set up right.
This is nice. I liked Plex and it's been good but Jellyfin is better for me since I'm only making a media server for videos (Cartoons, Anime, Movies) on my LAN, no remote access, no forward facing anything (yet). Plus, they recently got hacked and I've been on a data privacy purge recently so, my migration is essentially done but I'm keeping Plex and Jellyfin running in tandem until I'm entirely sure that I've learned Jellyfin.
The two major things that made me switch are:
1) Paywalled hardware encode. No point in this. Jellyfin does it with a simple menu option. I have a GPU in my server (an old machine picked up on Ebay) and I want to use it. I've already done the work to get GPU passthrough working and then I just can't because you want money? NOPE.
2) Paywalled to watch my own media, on my phone, on my own LAN? NOPE.
Plex is good when you don't know other things exist.
Pay walling is ok with me considering there are developmental costs jut charging 119 for perpetual licensing is just too much. It should not cost more than 15 for perpetual licence not to mention what is up with per device charges 😐
@@rapiddu6482 With a user base that large a 15 USD perpetual license will in no way, shape or form cover the development and server costs of the platform.
They've been hacked multiple times; I've got the e-mail from them still in my inbox (over various years). Quite bad!
@@360Fov That can either be a good or bad thing. It's hard to know, what if Plex transparency just make it obvious the number of times they've been hacked but you don't know how often RUclips been hacked, your online bank, other online services used.
Kinda like Plex:, "we've been hacked 6 times, and told you each time even if your data not affected/stolen"
OtherOnlineServices: "We've been hacked 12 times, but we only told you once because we think your data was affected, the other times nah you don't need to know"
Just something to be mindful off, we don't know what we don't know
Interesting detailed presentation of a great service - but would have been fair to include a quick feature comparison with other available solutions out there, including Jellyfin, Kodi and potentially others.
Transcoding? Automatic transcoding?! What nonsense!!!
Synology NAS with Plex has been a part of my network for years, couldn't be happier with it.
For anyone looking to do something like this, I would highly suggest to look at all the alternative. Not that plex isn't good but there are other options. Kodi (if you don't need a server but only local files), jellyfin for a direct plex alternative that is open source or possibly emby (never used and closed source). I would highly recommend jellyfin.
Jellyfin is the open source successor to Emby ever since Emby went closed source, nevermind that it was also forked from Emby
Kodi can act as a DLNA server, so...
Jellyfin to the mooooooon
Yeah, plex hdr and pc doesn't like each other that much last i checked so i moved to mpv
Jellyfin doesn't have remote access capability. It's a web server on your local network.
I hope Linus covers Jellyfin and/or Emby at some point when talking about home servers.
emby can't render some movies i found out even went as far as buying a 3080ti to try to fix. went to plex and now can render fine without a powerful gpu
@@soggycatgang what video format? I haven't had that issue with emby. And my server runs a 1030 ;)
@@soggycatgang
with emby you have to pay to access the hardware transcoding, in jellyfin you have access to everything for free because it's open source.
@@daemonbyte 4k stuff
@@soggycatgang yeh I still tend to do 1080. What is the codec you use? Just want to avoid the issue myself in the future :)
I actually like Emby much more. Plex is pushing too hard on subscription to their own content stuff.
Emby has a cleaner look and seems to be more efficient.
Or if some Features of Emby are not needed, the Open Source Fork Jellyfind should be a great choice too.
I've been using Emby for quite some time. I will say though, it can be a pain in the ass to login from other networks.
@@NoVanity1 never had Problems with that. 🤔 Worked exactly the same with Plex or Jellyfinn.
Been using a plex for 7 years or so now I think! Considering me and my whole family make use of it, the lifetime pass has been a very useful upgrade allowing hardware transcoding of high bitrate files, and live HDR -> SDR tone-mapping for when playing HDR content on a non-HDR capable device.
I do wish it streamed better with high ping clients though (streaming from my server when I'm overseas is very difficult), and also directly tied to that issue, I wish mobile downloads also worked way better...currently it's quite slow to download and fiddles around a lot trying to initialise the download to he point where it's mostly a useless feature.
I've been using Plex for years after Linus mentioned it in a past video and they honestly have some serious problems, like how they seem to ignore what their users want and instead focus on new features that don't really relate to the what the program is meant to be.
List of what I consider core features that were broken or missing for years (with plenty of posts about them) before they were fixed or still aren't:
- The "sync" feature (which requires a subscription) was broken for 5+ years and only recently fixed.
- The "On Deck"/"Continue Watching" section didn't have a way to remove series until recently.
- Plex completely ignores JPEG tags in photo libraries (despite having a tagging system).
There's definitely more I've noticed over the years but can't remember off the top of my head.
100% a cooperate grift at this point...
Flex has gone so far into the media company's Pockets that they are striving to add third-party streaming services into their own. This is not what Plex was supposed to be, which is why a lot of users are migrating away from it. I shut my Flex server off a couple of years ago, and I haven't thought about turning it back on since. It is now getting ads, it is now getting third-party stuff that nobody really wants, basically spam garbage, all in the name of trying to make Plex profitable, and it all started after Plex sold out. It's turning into every other streaming service out there. If I start another one, it's going to be emby or jellyfin.
@@biglonie I was thinking the same thing when Linus said you need to have this, yet they use cloud storage for all their stuff.
And it doesn't support blue ray files
They also removed plug-in support for seemingly no reason Madge
For anyone with lower budget I recommend Jellyfin, it's pretty damn good and open source. I have one set up and I can access it on all devices for free. Not an ad or whatever, but I love it.
Ads for FOSS software are always okay
Hi Linus, I run a plex media server hosted in a network colocation bay with unraid and a ryzen epyc server for a few years. I've tinkered with personal pc, NAS and Nvidia Shield and I would not let the viewer believe that it is an easy thing to manage. It's only easy if the legally obtained media files are already converted in a format easy to transcode. The video transcoding can be handled by the GPU, but the tough part is audio transcoding, not video. Can only be handled by CPU, and for blu-ray HDR movies, DTS Master is really what takes the most space and takes the most time to transcode. Even with a powerful machine, 2 clients could start buffering because they are both playing high quality audio films.
What? Lol. I’ve run my server on an old R710 for over 6 years now with no problems averaging 7 concurrent streams without hardware transcoding.
Plex has literally changed my life and the way that I consume content in the last 6 months I've created a mega Plex library of content and I use it just about every day
The easiest home media server is one someone else pays for and someone else sets up lmao
You ain't wrong.
@@dontreadmyprofilepicture5596 100% a rickroll
yeah its easier to just pay for someone's plex server or use a debrid with kodi.
@ Even easier to just pay Google or Apple.
@@AbsoluteWoo the problem with them is that you cant watch stuff they don't own. You end up with the streaming service dilemma. Debrid sites have any piece of media in existence.
People might consider it piracy though. It is what it is
I personally use jellyfin which isn’t perfect but is completely and entirely free and open source. I have been using it for several years at this point and it was pretty low on issues both in setup and in use.
Have you ever reviewed the code of or modified an open source application?
Plex often weirdly got wrong metadata and information, while Jellyfin is much better at it. Also the recomendation and related artist / genre is much better on Jellyfin.
Jellyfin with sonarr/radarr/prowlarr & co is the way to go
Jellyfin also doesn't charge end users for the privilege of GPU encoding, whereas Plex restricts non-Plex Pass holders to CPU-encode.
@@kaldo8907 Yes.
I love this solution. I built a 12 TB server with 6 2TB drives, Freenas and Plex. I setup a RAID 5 configuration, so that if any one drive fails, I can recover the data. Unfortunately, I had the rare condition where 2 drives failed at the same time, causing me to loose 5TB of data. I didn't loose anything that I couldn't get from somewhere else, but it took more than a month to build that data set in the first place. Next time, I think I will setup a RAID 6 configuration that will allow 2 drives to fail and still support full recovery.
Would love to see a Beginners Guide to NAS video from you guys. I'm a cinephile with tons of archived media and I would love to set it up to share on my network and despite having built 7+ PCs I've never built or set up a server and am not very savvy with networking.
Save yourself the effort. It seems way too complicated for not much gain!
@@rafaliciousbmx Never have I heard a more incorrect opinion about building a basic plex server..
I had to switch to jellyfin since plex doesn’t allow HW transcoding with the free plan. It worked well with some tinkering to get Intel QuickSync to work. And it is just amazing that the little fanless J3455 can transcode 4K movies smoothly. I would still be using it like that but (not sure if it is due to the defects in that CPU) nowadays it started to throw weird machine check errors during boot and whenever the transcoding is going the system would freeze randomly, requiring a cold reset. Anyway it was a nice experiment..
I've been using jellyfin as well and it's perfectly adequate for my needs.
I've been Plex HW transcoding using quicksync on a 10400 without an issue. Just have to map the iGPU to the docker
Wow, I didn't know that, I switch to JellyFin a few years ago when I was having lag issues with Plex. I wonder if that was the reason.
I just paid for plex. Worth the one time fee. No issues here.
@@cirmothe9 Well jellyfin is nice untill you want to do stuff like to add you own subtitles if you are not admin or user with privilages you do not want to give normal users. There is more than just this and it is possible that plex does not have this feature but i think it does.
Linus: How much are you paying Google to store files?
Also Linus: Promotes paid subscription service but you have to store the files yourself.
Lol
I just love the concept that Plex is a home media server, but if you don't have an internet connection, you can't use the paid features (which is even simply user accounts).
It blows my mind that he even accepted this since he so adamantly was against cloud services for any of his home automation stuff.
You don't have to pay anything if you don't want to - the free tier is perfectly acceptable
This is why Jellyfin is automatically better lol.
I'm not paying anything for Plex beyond initial licence. Then again, I don't need to access my library outside of my home or whatever subscriptions might allow.
I've been using Plex for years. It's great locally. I also love that I can visit family in another state and watch movies from my server at home. I've tried several other sorts of movie servers. I';m sure they are good for many people, but I'm sticking with Plex. Especially now that they've incorporated a 'multiple version' feature. I have 5 different versions of Blade Runner. It's nice keeping it separate. I have it running off of a 6 year old laptop with a USB hard drive on a completely different computer on my network. I can still watch 4k movies with no major issues. The only ones I run into is subtitles when watching 4k. Time for me to upgrade to a better machine for that. Otherwise, it's perfect for my needs. Would love to set up a NAS for it at some point though.
Glad to see a video on Plex, I use Plex for everything, Music, TV Shows & Movies as I would like to have control over the content I can stream and I find myself spending hours on streaming services just looking for a movie or tv show that looks good. I do currently host my Plex Server on my local machine with a couple 5TB External Hard Drives as the containers and use multiple off site dedicated bare metal serves in both the UK (Where I’m from) and Canada as I do host game servers too but have 2 Dedicated servers in the UK so there isn’t much strain but as for the Plex I do plan on upgrading to a separate machine so I can host my Plex server and also have a on site backup aswell as off site
I've used Plex since I had my first ever server, but as time moved on, we bought a 4K HDR TV and more friends and members of family started using the Plex, I decided to buy Quadro K2000 for NVENC encoding, only to find out that the encoding is hidden behind paywall, which sucks. Fortunately, Jellyfin has very similar UI (that in my experience works even better with random people, and is more smooth), is completely open-source and self-hosted AND supports hardware encoding and you can tweak ffmpeg settings if you're into that. Most I've got from it were 3 simultaenous 4K streams in full 60Mbps and a 1080p60 stream. Anything more was buffering due to crappy harddrives, but GPU was sitting at nice 40% usage.
But Plex was very good, no hiccups, config problems or anything. Only the hardware encoding killed it for me. Looking back at it tho, the price isn't that bad - especially now that I'm making my own money and can justify the price (for myself lmao). But still, why pay for it when you can have it for free.
Paying allows Plex to pay devs to code those new features and fixes. Worth it.
Never used Jellyfin personally, but Jellyfin is apparently a lot more resource intensive compared to Plex. I suppose the price you're paying for Plex is more polish
Maybe it's a newer feature but I've been using hardware encoding on plex for a while now. Only works with specific codecs.
I dont know if I'd say hardware encoding is "hidden" behind a paywall, the support page clearly says you need Plex Pass to use it. Might be nice if they gave you 2 or 3 streams of hardware encoding without Plex pass
@@rockylosli9797 it's 2022 and plex still haven't supported AV1
so much for user feedback
Jellyfin is best alternative because of pay wall's of some features. It's not easier to use but it's open source and with correct configuration is better than plex. Everyone have own preferences and choose what suits better.
I would agree, except for the fact that one feature behind Plex's paywall is Skip Intro, a feature I haven't been able to replicate in jellyfin. Maybe I've just not found a way. While it's not essential and would not be a deal breaker if I had not yet set up a server, having it already makes it far more difficult to switch away from it
Oh and the single watchlist across all services
i found jellyfin just as easy to use as plex except casting on jellyfin actually worked. streaming directly to my phone for free was a plus.
@Toma yes that's true 100% agree there. I miss plugins.
Network-Attached-Storage is the one topic I wish people knew more about. Great video!
Running OMV6 for my main NAS (just a NUC with a 8TB drive) and a backup OMV5 on a Pi4. Change of a lifetime.
Very happy Plex user here. Slapped an 500GB SSD and a 1TB hard drive into a 2011 Mac Mini. Loaded my 1200 CDs and untold number of ripped DVDs on each drive respectively. Great stuff.
If you're watching on desktop through a browser, you should definitely install the desktop client as it greatly reduces the ammount of stuff that will need to be transcoded. Especially x265 content
I thought they discontinued the PC application, I tried finding it on their downloads page a couple months back but couldn’t anywhere
@@lplumptree nope, "plex for Windows" is still available, its the plex for htpc that was discontinued (even though it still seems to be available)
@@JaydenLitolff plex htpc they brought it back.
And using the right GPU in their system if one was to have more than one running
The biggest downside to Plex for Windows is that it does not support HDR.
Imo you should at least mention that the authentication is not self-hosted, which means that your service is inaccessible when the Plex servers are down for whatever reason.
This would've been a way more interesting talking point, then talking about a data breach without any consequences.
You can set up Plex to use an external DDNS, just like any other alternative/open-source option. You don't need to use their Plex Pass subscription.
@@williameldridge9382 i was refering to the way the showed the plex setup in the video, and how most people use it.
But yes you can disable the built in auth
You can turn off authentication for your local network
@@williameldridge9382 Yup! But then you can't watch when you're "on the fly."
it's a sponsered video, they weren't gonna show a massive downside
I'm running Plex Server on my last-gen Intel Mac Mini, and it does a pretty good job. It installs and stays updated like a champ with homebrew, and Subler is a great free tool for tweaking video metadata. I'm not interested in mobile access so I don't let it transcode, which keeps its CPU load down when we access it from a remote TV somewhere. Overall, it has been quite low maintenance too.
I ran Kodi for a few years before I moved to Plex and I loved a lot about it, but a lot of TVs and set-top boxes don't have native Kodi ports, so it didn't work out in the end.
As much as I love Plex for its ease of usage, I'm currently using Jellyfin because most of my devices are capable of playing all my media files without the need of transcoding, and Plex tends to do transcoding even to the capable device, making it a useless process just to watch something. Jellyfin allows server to not do transcoding, acting just as a media curator. But still, setting Jellyfin is not as easy as Plex, and the feature Plex does have that Jellyfin doesn't.
you can set your default quality to original then it will never transcode
I bought a lifetime Plex Pass back in '18 and I mostly love it. I wish you would have mentioned the HASSLE it is to get Plex working when your internet is down. This wasn't always the case, but they keep changing the media server
Just have it trust your local subnet, then with isn't needed locally
Really not that hard if your inet is down. Just add you local subnet to the list of networks that are allowed without authentication
@@abzstrak ahhh that's why I haven't experienced this problem. I had to put a couple VLANs on that local subnet list and adjust the firewall accordingly and don't think I have ever seen this issue and now I know why. For those interested I had to add my video streamer VLAN to the local subnet list in the Plex server otherwise the server will treat your VLAN as remote traffic and most likely transcode the video. To debug this you can log into the Plex server web portal and play a video back on a device, then click the video in the web portal and the info will tell you how the streams are being handled.
For what it's worth, read up on how to make the server accessible when the Internet is down BEFORE the Internet goes down. In 2020, I thought I was set just to find out settings locked behind a login page (that requires Internet) were stopping me. Not anymore... And as an added bonus, dlna is enabled now in Plex, so even my Roku can stream dlna content in the absence of Internet.
The Plex DVR has been broken for years. It's still a paid premium service...
I like how Linus keeps specifying "legally obtained" media files, when he has stated multiple times that he pirates most of the movies for his server, and stopped ripping blu rays a long time ago.
You mean "privateers"?
What do you mean? It's not like he has a contractual obligation with a sponsor to not mention the fact that this is definitely gonna be used that way. What makes you say that? ;) ;)
He tells us to use legally obtained media files for legal reasons. Obviously he can't tell us to pirate stuff.
Linus *L.O.S.T.* his Blu-Rays in a "boating accident"!!!🤭
I mean, he said that with the caveat that he buys the media anyways (well, he says that, even though it's clear he suggests that he just pirates everything).
I would love a build guide on a recommended transcoding PC for about 2-3 concurrent outside streams at a time.
Whoever is working on the digsites at 343 is killing it. Looking awesome
In the vein of home media servers, I'd love to see a complete-ish tutorial on Blu-ray/ Dvd ripping and media encoding. I happily ripped most of my library before learning about forced subtitles and and to go back and do it again. Also things like HDR content, multichannel audio, proprietary codecs are all landmines for people just getting started like myself
Already been made by many people, ripping dvds is of questionable legality in some areas so probably wont come from here
Ive struggled with doing it too and doing it without sinking a LOT of time into it.
@@ryderholland Considering emulation is also a grey area, I'd say there's more of a chance than you'd think.
I used makemkv and handbrake.
Makemkv for ripping the media. Handbrake using h265 and 21 RF quality on the slow preset for Blu-rays and the medium preset for 4K (because time vs space saving is a consideration)
I sort of expected you to mention alternatives (Jellyfin, Emby, Kodi) even when receiving money for the promotion. Quickly showing the others would even display that Plex is probably still the most user friendly/easiest one to setup. And yes, you at least mentioned *one* downside of them with the data breach. But that point would be *way* more relevant if you knew that there are other media server apps that do not phone home at all. Like this it just feels like a 15 minute long soulless ad, sorry.
Honestly, I start by using FOSS programs, and switch off it is justified, but Jellyfin just worked from the moment I I installed it. Kinda felt like magic, so I doubt they want to be compared to that when everything about jellyfin is free.
For me, I prefer Emby. Sure, I had to pay once for the lifetime license but I've long since gotten my money's worth out of it.
this whole video is an ad that plex paid for so no alternatives
I definitely would not expect him to mention the competitors or the alternatives in a paid promotional video
In the last few months there has been a change in LTT content, a big change. They've gone from cool videos to, seemingly, being primarily about paying for the new building/business and backpacks/screwdrivers.
Holy crap... I did something before Linus made a video about it! I setup my own TrueNAS server at home and setup Plex to watch my DRM free files from anywhere. The most satisfying part was temporarily moving to the middle east for 9 months and having it work from there as well. Nearly 7000 miles away
Main reason why I haven't swapped to Jellyfin yet is because of the incredible skip intro feature that Plex has. I know there's a plugin for Jellyfin but I still feel like Plex does it a lot better.
Emby also has the skip intro feature now. I think it's only a matter of time until Jellyfin adds it as well.
I switched to Emby once Plex started adding more and more superfluous "content" (and I''ve had a Lifetime Plex Pass since forever). I prefer my mediaserver to be as minimalist as possible, and Emby kind does everything Plex does, but I find it a lot easier to configure and less resource intensive in its library management. It also has waaaaayyyy better support for 21:9 screens and maximizing letterbox widescreen movies and series. A perpetual license is quite a bit cheaper these days and supports Tonemapping, hardware acceleration and all the other goodies just like Plex does.
Jellyfin is a fork of Emby and is pretty lightweight. Also it's FOSS.
I did the same. I also have lifetime Plex Pass but I decided to switch to Emby recently and I like it much more than Plex.
Been using Emby since when it was called media browser. Going between the big 3 at the time back in '14 with Plex, XBMC and Emby, Emby was the one that was more actively involved from a project lead perspective. And simpler to use for multiple users.
Same. Well, I did get Plex Pass when I thought I was going to use it for my music, then got it set up and realized they had a shit way to read my music (instead of using the tags and metadata, you needed the folders in specific configuration for them to read properly, which, uh....THAT'S WHAT THE METADATA IS FOR). So I looked around and found Emby, and yeah. It's been great. Paid for lifetime during their last sale, and it's been rock solid. I run it through Kodi with a plug in, so all of my Nvidia Shields sync the same way, which was much nicer than when I was running SPMC (which I do miss, don't get me wrong), and MrMC (which is just...rotting, at this point). I stream music daily from my NAS to my car as I drive, I have it hardwired to the network to watch full rips of my discs (I stopped worrying about Handbrake and just rip direct with MakeMKV, and so far, Emby+Kodi+Shield runs everything I throw at it, and that includes 70GB rips), and it's been awesome.
Plex is overrated crap that's long lost its way.
The fact that Plex is paying Linus to promote their software tells you how popular free alternatives like Jellyfin are becoming.
I think it just tells you that Plex has a marketing department and jellyfin doesn't
And I'm fine with that. Plex has been nothing but great to me, I'm happy to see them flourish, unlike other options out there.
@Kamil Slezakiewicz I'm glad Plex has served you well, but free and open-source is better.
@Toma exactly. The software speaks for itself.
Nah it shows you how worried they are about losing users after the recent data breach. They're scrambling to build up positive coverage to drown out the fact the hackers made off with usernames, passwords and all that
I use my OG Shield TV hooked up to an external hard drive as a Plex server, and I couldn't be happier with it
i just built a server last week. still learning. i went with 12th gen i3, 64gb ddr4, open case, dual sas cards, and 157TB of helium drives on zfs. still setting up plex but so far it seems very user friendly. i ran 10gb sfp+ copper from server to switch to main computer and 2.5gb for the rest of the house (single mode buried fiber to the garage). my next step are two WAP's that support mesh and high speed xfer.
Jellyfin
As someone with THOUSANDS of albums in high quality and High bitrate the plex amp app is absolutely amazing, it has been a game changer for me when I'm driving or travelling not to have to choose a few songs to put on my phone and fill it up
Also the plex family option is great, I installed the app on my family's and friends computers and people just add what they want to see via chat bots on multiple apps via sonarr, radarr and subtitles and grabbed by bazarr. The comunity around the ecosystem is well worth the 50€ a year in my opinion
I want to see a "we've got a ... At home" series.. meaning a cheaper version of a larger more expensive proprietary system done on the cheap.. my suggestion is kaliedascape. I want to see it torn down and hardware detailed and make something "similar".
That term generally refers to the alternative being inferior, which isn't always the case. It's a great idea, though.
Been using the shield pro & plex combo for years and they are great. Upgraded the sound system to an expensive WISA setup and the audio delay is completely inconsistent through the shield to the point you have to adjust lip-sync every time you turn it on. Doesn't have that issue on the native android OS on the TV. Something Im still tshooting, think its an issue with ARC through multiple compontents through the media hub. One device.. no problem. multiple devices... problem.
The writing for this felt like he was reading the manual for Plex.
Been running a Plex server for five or six years at this point, after buying a lifetime pass. I've been fairly happy with it--the support for pretty much any TV or mobile device out there made it very easy to share the content with family. That shouldn't discourage you from exploring other alternatives like jellyfin, but I think most people will find Plex's convenience and ease of use worth the cost. Whenever I've had problems, the forums have been a great way to keep tabs on fixes under development--though it has taken a long time for more niche hardware issues to get sorted out.
Agreed; I don't have to ask people "what device are you using" or any tech support. Just "install Plex from the store, login, there's my server with all the stuff".
I've used it for a long time and have never spent a penny on it. I might get the lifetime pass on black Friday this year but probably not.
I feel like Emby did exactly the same thing when they forked off Plex. Since I don't need remote access and Emby has native support for most devices (and through Kodi for others), I never looked back at Plex. But I had also never heard of Jellyfin and now I'm intrigued.
Can we get a jellyfin video? It's a 100% open source project and works really well
Also hw encoding is completely free
I looked into plex YEARS ago when windows share over android was giving me problems. I had set up a PC in the basement/TV area to watch things over the network but on my phone it wasn't working very well. I'd dig up the app I used but I forgot what it was and would never be able to remember
Plex came to the rescue and made figuring out what i had on my shared drives really easy. Movies, TV shows, "Anime" etc are all figured out using existing databases you can view online (for TV for example, head over to theTVDB calm). And because I obsessively back up everything, if things fall apart I can restore everything. It's stored on a different drive than my boot drive, making it very easy to just reinstall windows and plex and point the server at the new location (recently something happened to my computer where it thought USB ports had high voltage issues, and the only fix ended up being to reinstall windows)
It also meant I didn't need two computers - one server and one player to watch on a TV. apple tv or the newer chromecasts with plex app built in, plus an ethernet cable is more than enough to handle 4K streaming with very few exceptions - I think h265 doesn't play nice at 1gigabit network even though it really should.
Hardware specs are also very minimal. I could probably go with something even slower, but I have a 6700k that I kept when I upgraded my PC to a 3900x (thanks to Linux' video way back in 2020 when he said BUY NOW BEFORE SUPPLY CHAINS BLOW UP). It does the job perfectly fine to the point where I will probably use it until 2025 and replace it with the 3900x. You don't need a 3900x obviously - If I could be bothered to upgrade the 6700x to W11 it would serve (hah) me well forever.
The only criticism I ever had with Plex is that it doesn't do music very well. That is specifically to say that once you add anything to a music folder, it will rescan everything and *forget* (or overwrite?) your customizations. Plex didn't know what all of my classical music tracks were, and it is not worth my time and effort to fix 1000s of audio tracks every time I get a new song because twoset violin showcased it in one of their videos or I went to a concert and want to hear a recording of that piece at home.
If Plex has fixed music (unlikely, but let me know) then it would be perfect. Until then, I just copy the classical music pieces I want to listen to locally on the phone.
I also have a plex lifetime pass for full disclosure, so you can say that I am trying to justify my purchase. I haven't had a chance to check out Jellyfin - I might do that only if Plex catastrophically breaks and I need a new program
as for encoding, I would probably suggest not to even require Plex to do this. Nowadays hard drive space is cheap and it would take you only a few minutes to encode your 4K video files to 1080p or whatever format, so that if you needed to watch a video at 1080p - say you traveled overseas and the upload speed is not up to snuff - you can just watch native 1080p file and not grind your server to a halt. Just my personal opinion on the matter.
Jellyfin better
will check it out if plex ever breaks
Edit: actually why not. I'm going to see if Jellyfin can handle my music collection. It should be able to at least do that
Run a Plex server for friends and family out of my datacenter. Set it up before I moved to Germany. Was the single best media investment I ever made. My buddy collects dollar store DVDs. My library has nearly 3k movies, 200 full run TV shows.
Moved from Plex to Jellyfin years ago, it's better for most things as long as you know what you're doing. NVENC works great, library management is seamless, everything is local and OSS.
Ah this is Plex's reaction to having a data breach. I have already moved away to Jellyfin. Used to set everything up with Kodu and file shares but Plex became a much easier method of watching my content especially when out of my home network. Unfortunately however, I feel that Plex has steadily become worse over the years. If you use and love Plex, fantastic! But Jellyfin through a home VPN if you have the skillet works way better, tdarr to preconvert the entire library to easily streamable content is definitely a must no matter which method you use, my Harry Potter bluray rips flat out refused to transcode on the fly with Plex. I am on team linus that if you own the discs, you have a licence to watch it in the way you wish.
Oh my goodness, thanks for mentioning that. It completely went under my radar.
Kodi is a branch of PLEX...
In my mind kodi and plex were seperate developments, with kodi predating. But I could be wrong. I know you can get a plug in for kodi to integrate plex into it.
@@craigd458 no Plex at that time called OSXBMC forked from Kodi (xbmc) a long long long long long time ago. It's nothing like it now. And probably doesn't share any code anymore
in Australia you're allowed to subvert drm and convert things that you own to whatever format you wish, which is absolutely the way it should be. the manufacturers, however, make it very difficult sometimes.
still can't believe I got scammed into buying movies from Microsoft films and tv (DO NOT)
Congratulations on succeeding as fully-fledged advertising channel, guys! This is definitely a win!
Linus: "strap in for some tech tips"
Me: "finally!!!!!"
I just recently went down the media home server rabbit hole myself so I'm happy to share my personal findings with folks here since its relevant, but major caveat: this is mostly applicable to folks chasing HDR/Dolby 4k remuxes (lossless ripping from a BluRay without any compression/re-encoding, massive file sizes) this would be overkill for those not afflicted with video/audiophile brain-rot.
The Wifi choice:
For going over Wifi, be aware that I've seen reports of 4k streams averaging 50-80 mbps but will spike 150-200+ mbps temporarily, so if your working with an older Wifi-4 module or even early gen Wifi-5 from far away you may experience stutters. As for what media device to stream to, the Nvidia Shield Pro is the most popular choice, however, I have seen a number of claims of a "red push" screen effect for those utilizing Dolby Vision, it otherwise seems fine. If you do want Dolby Vision I would check in on alternatives like the Zidoo Z9X or the Dune HD Real Vision 4k (these are purely for local playback, no Roku-style streaming), I have seen both high praise and condemnation for both products which leads me to believe that its a QC issue with a product space still wrestling with the intense strain HDMI 2.1 is putting on devices, up to you on rolling the dice.
The wired choice:
You can go super long HDMI 2.1 (if you've got the GPU for it) wired and hide the cable with D-line Trunking cable concealers along the accessory trim near your floor or ceiling, blends in quite well if its white. Odds are your going over 10ft so you will definitely require active (powered) cabling. if you go over 20-25 ft will need to step up to fiber optic, this is the route I'm going personally and ive settled on RuiPro's 8k fiber optic cable for a 33-50 ft run. Try to find a brand whose cables are certified if you go active or fiber. Like the wifi media players mentioned prior, QC issues of the cable dying about a year later appear common enough to warrant concern, but considering RuiPro offers a 5 year warranty that's peace of mind enough for me. Also probably plan on running this through a Denon AVR-X1700H receiver eventually, but not necessary for success in this setup.
For platform playback alternatives to Plex, like other comments have said go checkout Jellyfin or maybe Kodi if they've fixed their Dolby stuff. Remember this is purely for those chasing max quality everything video playback on an OLED, you can still have a more than enjoyable experience with less expensive/extreme methods. That being said, with enterprise grade Seagate x16 14TB Exos being on sale for 200, or the probably quieter but pricier Ironwolf 12TB NAS drives going for 230 lossless max fidelity 4k storage is getting more and more affordable.
Thanks for this - I have successfully streamed Project 4K77 and 4K83 (look them up if curious) in full 4K via an Orbi mesh network from 2018 that is powering a Gigabit network. It's not perfect and had the (very rare) hiccup, but yes...if you're looking for the highest of quality playback, be prepared to do some troubleshooting.
Lol on audiophile brain rot.
Love lossless audioooooo.
Gem of a comment.
I use an old workstation in which I upgraded the processor and RAM. This has enabled me to use the machine for my media and as a private server to play games with friends. Has worked out really well.
Would love to see LTT taking energy consumption more into focus. Using an old PC might sounds cheap at first, but it eats up so much more energy compared to a specialized NAS or a shield - especially on these (more or less) always on devices.
If you have even a little bit of know-how, you can easily make an old pc just as efficient as an off the shelf nas. Not quite sure where you're getting your information from.
old PC will eat 30-60 W*hour, this is negligible
I mean, its sorta common sense that older hardware can and will use more power than something newer, hes done proven that more times than not in different scenarios that I think going over power consumption in a video about something that's not really about hardware wouldn't make much sense since this can be installed on so many different types of systems, even phones can be a plex server, its crazy.
@@kevinpodgorski9438 yeah, right, your old battle station is as efficient as specialized hardware, a raspberry or even a Nvidia shield..
Not sure where you're getting your information from, but in some part of the world energy is expensive (and is even getting more expensive)
@@fietegroth2511 My 20tb server, with a ryzen 5700G, uses about 16 watts when idle, which is obviously the majority of the time. I'm not using a gpu right now, so when streaming the power use is about 35-40 watts. GFY.
LOL “Not pr0n” aka Not Prawn aka Shrimp Lmao. These next level jokes.
Anime is the one thing that's still rougher on Plex. That's usually what takes the most manual care with how much the structuring, naming, etc. can differ from Western stuff. Multi part files can also get a little wonky. Still better than dealing with a smart TV.
I forget, but does Plex allow for scraping from AnimeTV? I know I had to use different scrapers for each folder between all of my stuff, because TheTVDB didn't handle anime well, or anime movies.
@@Sokudoningyou Oh yeah, there's different plugins and agents and what not available to scrape from different sources. I'm admittedly pretty basic and just want to have my show play in order so I wind up just reorganizing things to TVDB's DVD listings since I don't need it to be any fancier or have all the OVAs and movies and everything all organized correctly together.
I just use Sonarr and Radarr to rename all my files. Never had any issues since aside from plex not finding posters automatically for anime.
I use Jellyfin personally, just as easy to set up but it's free and open source
Plex is free as well, at least for local playback. The subscription for it gives you hardware encoding and DDNS, that's it's only real reason.
@@williameldridge9382 Jellyfin also has hardware encoding. You can set up DDNS if you want to as well.
@@williameldridge9382 DDNS does not cost anything from a ton of providers. My router even has it built in. Jellyfin has hardware encoding for free as it should be. Especially considering Plex also just uses ffmpeg (open source) for that, the same thing Jellyfin uses.
@@williameldridge9382 *for local playback that isn't a mobile device.
A lot of people consume content on smartphones and tablets. So saying it is free - without mentioning that caveat - is misleading.
Plex got almost everything I need and hopefully soon I can read ebooks and listen to podcasts on it too
Been running plex for a long time now. I also use it's dvr feature to record live tv with the wintv quad tunner card. I never miss Jeopordy again!!
I would like a video that compares Plex to Jellyfin and Emby and ect.
I've been using Jellyfin for awhile now for a few key reasons. One it's truly free and open source. Two I don't care about smart TV or console compatible. I don't use smart TV apps or consoles to watch media or listen to music. Every tv in my house either has a small htpc, like a Intel NUC or Dell optiplex 3070 micro or a Android TV box device. Three I don't need to access media away from home. If I'm away from home I have a phone with a sd card slot so I have all my music on my phone,backed up on my home server. Or I'm playing games on my SteamDeck. The misses is reading on her tablet, kids both have Switches.
I just needed an app or program to act like Netflix or whatever for all of my downloaded movies and series. Jellyfin does that perfectly and for free.
Before Jellyfin I just had a shared network folder with folders for movies, animated movies, series, cartoons, anime.
FYI Jellyfin already has apps for smart TV and android. Don't know about iOS because I don't care to check.
I'd love to see the non sponsored version of this video
You do realize that them sponsoring the video has nothing to do with what they actually say, right? They've absolutely TRASHED their sponsor's product before on a sponsored video. Plex is factually the best option out there, by miles.
@@williameldridge9382 when have they ever shat on a sponsored product? Linus has always drawn a sharp line between reviews and sponsored """showcases""" and this is very clearly the latter.
@@williameldridge9382 Have you tried the competitors? The way Plex promotes their own content and the Plex pass at every possible opportunity was enough to make me switch.
@@williameldridge9382 Linus has said before that a sponsored showcase in not an endorsement.
My dad Scott, the founder and CPO of plex and his co workers have been friends with Linus for decades now because Linus has made unsponsored and uncensored videos on plex already. You can check for yourself!
Been hosting my Plex for almost 3 years now. I'd sugest to get started with converting all of your DVDs to digital media by using HandBrake and MKVtoolNix.
For all of you out there who use Spectrum as their ISP, highly recommend you set a specific port for plex.
Regarding to unraid Transcoding folder (Host path 2), I do not recommend using /tmp/ as transcoding path, this will fill up the ram and OOM/Lockup your unraid server. Even if you have shit ton of memory available some transcoded files may be left behind lingering for longer period before getting deleted.
One thing I miss that Plex offered for a short time, was Photo backup from your Phone to your NAS which would have been a viable replacement for say, Google Photo backup, but that has since been removed a while back. Still Plex is fantastic though I do wish they would stop trying to force their streaming services over top of my own collection by default.
Have you un-pinned the stuff from your sidebar like Linus showed in this video?
That way you will no longer see any streaming bs on your home screen.
Yeah, this is a big feature missing now. I've tried a couple work around, but all required some maintenance. The backup from phone to server previously allowed me to ditch Google photos entirely.
for this my unraid runs beside plex a nextcloud container
I would prefer Jellyfin for it's free and open source nature. It's also more customisable, and has built-in hardware acceleration.
I currently have a Terramaster NAS, I'm considering either upgrading it or replacing the OS with Unraid, any suggestions would be helpful! - My aim is 4K transcoding remotely, internally it works fine with what I have.
Thanks for making this... literally an IT tech explaining this to people 2 months prior. They show me this video (I have already watched it, and have my own server and pfsense router for several years) and now very adamant about making their own of course with my help for very if not nothing compensation... I NEED NEW FRIENDS...
Edit: I will make them pay with computer parts...
Running Plex with lifetime pass on my Synology NAS for years! It still blows my wife's mind that even when we're traveling, we have access to our entire library. Tried Jellyfin about a year ago but it just felt inferior. Even the wife disliked it and asked to switch back to Plex. Also running Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, Prowlarr, and Ombi. Plex Amp is amazing. It even works with android auto! Love having my entire music library everywhere I go.
Instead of Ombi, try Overseerr
I know right? Like you're at a hotel, in a different country and you just continue watching your show from the exact timestamp you switched it off at home few days ago. It still blows my mind. My wife tho, not that impressed which is understandable considering she wasn't the one tasked with predicting what we'll watch, and transferring it to the ipad AND laptop before the trip.
I bought a lifetime membership for 150 bucks way back when and I've been pretty dang happy with it the whole time I've been a member.
Been using plex for years. I store all my files on a NAS then steam them over the network to the Plex server. I then just update the files on the NAS and Plex takes care of the rest. I can also increase my file storage on the NAS and not worry about the storage on the PC that is hosting Plex. While I do see increased network usage, 99% of the time it is not an issue.
As for the hardware that I am running on it is my old AMD 3850 CPU, with a crappy Nvidia 710 video card. The system actually runs headless and it works great. The system before my current server was a Intel Core2 Quad. That system had issues doing 1080p files where the AMD system can do 4k files at least to one or two PC's at a time.
I don't have a lot of stored media in the first place, but I set up a Plex server on an old PC a few years ago. It was cool to access stuff locally, but I have less than 1mbps upload speed, so I'm not accessing it anywhere else.
Hey Linus, next time you speak to the folks at Plex, would you please tell them we want AV1 support?
I've been learning a lot about this lately as i plan on buying some land soon and living off grid, i will be having others live on the land with me as well and i wanted to build a media server that uses plex so they can have the absolute best most straight forward experience possible, without constantly streaming off of my starlink wifi i plan to get. Starlink is great but stellite internet is only so good especially compared to the high demand most normal households have in todays day in age. The issue is i also don't want to be using the internet as the bridge for the content to be streamed over routers and such at ALL. Im currently trying to see if it would be possible to run the server from my home and have it literally stream through a fiber connection that i can bury and route myself to several different locations, on the land, and maybe from there they can use their own roater to stream said content to their various devices.
I imagine it would take far more firepower to encode and send all the data to the correct locations on demand and then further figure out the streaming from each location, i'd guess I'd have to basically create my own "internet" that their devices connect to that basically only gets data from one source, namely the media server. This has been an awesome project to workshop with my cousin and its looking like we'll have to setup some cool stuff with linux to automate a lot of this, if anyone has any insight on ways this could be done i'd be happy to hear it!
You can do what you just said in several different ways. You can also put up servers to cache a lot of different things like games, webpages etc to reduce the strain on your internet connection. With a good firewall between the devices and the internet you'll be able to choose exactly what, at which speed, they can do. Then again depending on the number of people living on your land it could be also interesting to make a professional contract to get fiber to your land plot
@@lilietto1 yea i've considered that, along with also getting the nearest city to actually run power out to us as well, the issue being its a 40 acre plot with neighboring plots so doing something like that probably requires i get the other neighbors on board as well, and yea my main idea was to just have the internet central to my home and i can update and add things to the server there and find some way to send all thay data over LAN so we aren't stressing the bandwidth of the internet just to play some media thats literally stored on a drive no more than 30 yards away, i think your idea of saving webpages and such is good too though and i hadn't considered it. Since the home will be off grid i have to take power consumption into account because it will mostly be solar here in AZ with backup storage and generators, the plan was to only really have the server and requisite hardware running for a few hours at night while everyone is winding down from a long day
Setup your own private CDN and use Jellyfin instead of Plex since it won't phone home and work completely locally. You could easily run LR fiber from your main switch to each house or connection on the property then have a router connected to each using either a router with an SFP connection or a small converter that does 1gbps SFP to RJ45 then connect a normal router. Each router gets it's own IP address from your main router which would basically be a double NAT from there. You would need some sort of pool of public IP addresses like a /28 subnet to do it without double NAT, but I doubt starlink offers static subnets. My local ISP does surprisingly.
Just recently started a plex server (after seeing your last video about home servers) now lots of my friends use it too
I use Jellyfin as the backend and Kodi as the front end on my Firestick 4K, it's the sweetspot for me and my media and my livingroom set up. I use the native Jellyfin client on my phone.
I have it all hosted on an old HP microserver running Ubuntu server and mergerfs/snapraid that I admin via Cockpit web gui. (1.5GHz Turion and 8Gb ram haha!) Basically I have most of the functionality of Plex and Unraid, using FLOSS.
Hey Linus would love to see Anthony take a dive into Home assistant and home automation. Kind of feel he would love it
Home assistant doesn't pay for the pool or the home theater.
@@TheRaretunes no but the sponsors for products that they can integrate into Home assistant would and also show some people that are interested in making they non HomeKit supported devices supported again. I think it would be a cool avenue for them to explore
I feel like Jake has more experience with home assistant.
@@seifenspender good point actually
I have a friend with a NAS who is letting me use about 2TB basically for free, I mounted that using SSHFS to a free tier Amazon AWS EC2 instance, and the only thing that doesn't work is video transcoding, so I turned that off with the downside of some lesser compatibility on some devices. But just using direct play works great. Got some 4k stuff up there too.
Worth noting though that my entire setup was completely destroyed by changing my password after Plex's recent data breach. I hit the button that said "sign out of all devices", and even when I signed back in to my server, I was locked out of all functionality. I had to completely reinstall and configure.
"I'll just toss my legally obtained DRM-Free titles into the folder" - that was good XD
About 10 years ago, i bought a thinkserver with no ram off of ebay for 175 bucks. Four shucked cheap usb drives and 16 gb of ram later, that machine still runs plex wonderfully to this day. I have great upload speed since fiber came around a few months ago, so I do not have to be concerned with transcoding any longer, to be fair. Before that, everyone was forced to 720p so my upload speed wasn't saturated(usually). Even then, it worked pretty well as long as it wasn't more than 3 simultaneous streams.
Jellyfin better
Newer AMD encoders have unofficial support as well. They're kind of a beta feature and Plex doesn't guarantee functionality, but most newer cards do work.
I know this video is sponsored, but I've had a lifetime plex pass for what feels like almost a decade now and the core functionality that I use it for has always been well supported. I don't care about the free streaming and paid options that are currently being pushed. Until there is a good reason to migrate to something else i'll stick with Plex but jellyfin looks like a promising competitor.
I tried jellyfin, and then run them both forcing myself to use jellyfin, even tried jellyfin kodi combo on the tv, but I always had some issues be it with subtitles, downloading subtitles, jellyfin forced transcoding when it shouldnt have, over the internet issues with jellyfin, gorup watching with jellyfin is shit vs plec never working correctly, and most important jellyfin issues playing 4k hdr or dolby vision, meanwhile plex never had those issues, so at the end I just gave up. I fount free plex trakt scrbobbler that works live as well without having to pay anything ,so now I got everything with plex I need. Hope jellyfin gets better in the future.
@@Rijads I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that's having problems with Jellyfin and 4K HDR content.
I ended up switching to Emby instead of Plex for some reason. I couldn't stream 4K HDR files to Chromecast at some point. That killed it for me
@@LuukDomhof To me it seemed that PLEX had a client for every device out there but they don't get supported. Emby seems to be on less clients but they are supported very well and don't stress the server as much with transcoding.
@@Rijads same, if someone doesn't need subtitles, it's perfect, but for me it's unusable till I can search for subtitles natively as plex allows me to do.
@@Rijads jellyfinners hate him, for he told the truth.
One thing to consider: for remote streaming, your server must have a PUBLIC IP. CGNAT is a problem for remote streaming.
The server doesn't need to have a public IP. I have remote access disabled and route everything through a dns and reverse proxy. Works great.
Or just use ipv6
With the current energy prices I'd love to see LTT do an ultra low power home server setup. For example I currently have a celeron QNAP nas and a R7 5825u with 32gb of memory and the whole thing with drives runs below 100w under load
Considering how much bang for your buck you get with an off the shelf solution like QNAP, you can build your own, have money over to pay for electricity and have a similar power need.