Is Plex still a thing?

edgedemon · 2024-11-26T05:30:32+0000

Back in the day I used to run Windows home server which then migrated to Media portal and I went through the painful process of ripping our entire DVD collection to MKV to stream around the house.
I now have a QNAP NAS and wifey wants to sell all our DVD's to reclaim the space, which is fair enough, we don't even own a player anymore, streaming services have replaced DVD's.
Before she sells them I was thinking that I could re-rip everything and use the NAS as a Plex media server.
Is Plex still a thing?
Is MakeMKV still the best way to rip copies of our DVD's. For some weird reason, even though we haven't watched them in ages, I still feel I should give this a go now that we have the disk space available to us..USB DVD's are cheap on Amazon this week and most of our TV's are still 1080p so this could be an Xmas hols project for me.

theone8181 · 2024-11-26T07:21:18+0000

I used it last night, but I don't understand how it works. Do you just have access to lots of people's servers? (I have used it to stream at home from my pc to a TV in a different room, but I did that via logging in).

Begbie · 2024-11-26T07:30:19+0000

Yes it's still a thing. I have mine on an unraid server

robj20 · 2024-11-26T07:33:06+0000

Yep I run the server on my NAS dumped all my old DVDs and Blurays on to it. The children especially find it really handy with all their Disney films on there can watch them from anywhere in the house.

edgedemon · 2024-11-26T07:50:50+0000

robj20 said:
Yep I run the server on my NAS dumped all my old DVDs and Blurays on to it. The children especially find it really handy with all their Disney films on there can watch them from anywhere in the house.

Pretty much what I plan on doing. It might be more than an Xmas project though, a quick estimate now, I stopped counting after 200 discs, no wonder she wants the space.

I'm laughing at makemkv, I'm pretty sure it was in beta 15yrs ago when I last used it.

Oh god, Plex does music as well, that will be a very deep rabbit hole...

NovaKill4 · 2024-11-26T07:54:07+0000

If you have a smart TV there might be an app for plex on it, I have an movies on my PC acting as my Plex server and and LG tv with the Plex app installed, easy to use.

barmyllama · 2024-11-26T08:10:11+0000

Yes it's still a thing, I still use it and have many Blu-ray's ripped using MakeMKV to my server.

They do seem to push using it as streaming service than for your own media nowadays.

You don't need a Plex pass to use it fully, it just adds a few bells and whistles.

The app is free for most TVs and streaming devices. But phones and tablet versions are paid for apps.

robj20 · 2024-11-26T08:25:44+0000

barmyllama said:
Yes it's still a thing, I still use it and have many Blu-ray's ripped using MakeMKV to my server.

They do seem to push using it as streaming service than for your own media nowadays.

You don't need a Plex pass to use it fully, it just adds a few bells and whistles.

The app is free for most TVs and streaming devices. But phones and tablet versions are paid for apps.

The biggest plus for Plex Pass is hardware transcoding. I have a few films such as Planet of the Apes with subtitles that really struggle without it. Probably get Pass as some point, I did try Jellyfin a while back but the app isn't available on my TV.

john_smith · 2024-11-26T08:38:47+0000

Yes, I use it on a Synology NAS and my media is shared to various family members.

Bubo · 2024-11-26T09:08:17+0000

I run a Plex media server on a Synology NAS and the only thing that bugs me is that Plex will not let your drives power down when not in use, they are permanently on, I assume because of the constantly running media scanner. I don't know if other media server apps are the same in a NAS environment. Apart form that I wouldn't be without Plex, am also currently setting up a mini PC rig to run a Plex server for my dad.

Raymond Lin · 2024-11-26T09:08:23+0000

I stopped using it a while ago. Stopped getting DVS/Bluray so just stream them now. Was running out of space too so can't be bothered to get more HDD/NAS, not to mention the time it takes and also as 4k kicked in and became popular, my NAS just can't do it anyway so streaming provided better quality. I wasn't going to leave the Mac on 24/7 on the off chance of me wanting to use the Plex server on that.

heeeed · 2024-11-26T09:18:38+0000

It's great. I have a server on my NAS, and bought lifetime plex pass years ago. I've got 10 friends/family who share my plex server so I essentially run a netflix for them.

jaybee · 2024-11-26T09:23:33+0000

Yes still a thing. Been running it for years on unraid with no issues. It compliments (not replaces) netflix/prime/disney imo.

robj20 · 2024-11-26T09:23:50+0000

Bubo said:
I run a Plex media server on a Synology NAS and the only thing that bugs me is that Plex will not let your drives power down when not in use, they are permanently on, I assume because of the constantly running media scanner. I don't know if other media server apps are the same in a NAS environment. Apart form that I wouldn't be without Plex, am also currently setting up a mini PC rig to run a Plex server for my dad.

It's not a Plex issue but a configuration issue. I presume you have the server running on the same volume as your storage.
What you need to do is have a separate volume for your server I use a 256GB SSD this rightly stays active. But Volume 2 which is my RAID5 with all my files on powers down no issues.

Infidelus · 2024-11-26T09:25:59+0000

edgedemon said:
Before she sells them I was thinking that I could re-rip everything and use the NAS as a Plex media server.
Is Plex still a thing?
Is MakeMKV still the best way to rip copies of our DVD's. For some weird reason, even though we haven't watched them in ages, I still feel I should give this a go now that we have the disk space available to us..USB DVD's are cheap on Amazon this week and most of our TV's are still 1080p so this could be an Xmas hols project for me.

I'll just point out the obvious here. If you sell your DVDs you have no legal right to keep any ripped copies of the media. Just saying

MakeMKV is my go-to for ripping my DVDs & Blu-rays.

Begbie said:
Yes it's still a thing. I have mine on an unraid server

Yep, me too though I do tend to use it mostly for the PVR functionality and so I can stream my music.

john_smith · 2024-11-26T09:28:47+0000

robj20 said:
It's not a Plex issue but a configuration issue. I presume you have the server running on the same volume as your storage.
What you need to do is have a separate volume for your server I use a 256GB SSD this rightly stays active. But Volume 2 which is my RAID5 with all my files on powers down no issues.

Oh, that's interesting. What NAS do you have? I'm a 920+. I've 2xSSD as cache and 4x10TB (in Raid5) for data. Are you saying I could have the OS, docker, plex etc running on the SSD and then the raid5 will spin down when not being used?

Ch3m1c4L · 2024-11-26T09:29:56+0000

Very much still a thing, can use jellyfin as an alternative now though if you prefer, or there's a third option to I've forgotten. I think plex is most developed/feature rich at this time.

Ch3m1c4L · 2024-11-26T09:31:28+0000

john_smith said:
Oh, that's interesting. What NAS do you have? I'm a 920+. I've 2xSSD as cache and 4x10TB (in Raid5) for data. Are you saying I could have the OS, docker, plex etc running on the SSD and then the raid5 will spin down when not being used?

Should always have your os and docker/VMs running from an ssd and the raid is just storage.

Bubo · 2024-11-26T09:33:05+0000

robj20 said:
It's not a Plex issue but a configuration issue. I presume you have the server running on the same volume as your storage.
What you need to do is have a separate volume for your server I use a 256GB SSD this rightly stays active. But Volume 2 which is my RAID5 with all my files on powers down no issues.

This does sound like this would solve the problem, but in a 4 bay NAS I don't want to sacrifice one of the drive slots to a dedicated drive and thus lose out on total storage in a 4x6tb set up using Synology btrfs, which as far as I understand it gives you 3 drives worth of space with 4 identical drives. My way round it is just to schedule a power down when no one is going to be in the house.

Bubo · 2024-11-26T09:35:43+0000

john_smith said:
Oh, that's interesting. What NAS do you have? I'm a 920+. I've 2xSSD as cache and 4x10TB (in Raid5) for data. Are you saying I could have the OS, docker, plex etc running on the SSD and then the raid5 will spin down when not being used?

As far as I know the NVME slots on the Synology NAS can only be used for cache, I have the same NAS btw. Would gladly be educated otherwise though.