Now that the Plex Cloud fork will have support for media stored (not synced) on Amazon Cloud Drive, will the regular Plex Media Server get the same support? I have no real problem to have a NUC or other small computer act as my server at home, but I would love to get rid of that hot and loud 8-disk array and use cloud storage instead.
I suspect we will not get that, as a way for Plex to force lifetime Plex Pass members to pay for another service, but I really hope that I’m wrong…
Plex supports it now, depending on the OS you run plex on.
All that is required is the ability to map ACD to a mount point on you computer
For example if your PMS runs on linux, see : https://github.com/yadayada/acd_cli
Very good question. I have been using NetDrive2 mounting Google Drive on a Windows VPS server with only so so performance. It takes forever to do a library scan because PMS pulls junks of each file during scanning of the your folders which is slow when you are mounting a virtual drive. Someone I assume Plex Cloud has addressed. Hopefully they will pass this new feature of mounting cloud storage to main version of PMS as well.
@peterhjalmarsson said:
I suspect we will not get that, as a way for Plex to force lifetime Plex Pass members to pay for another service, but I really hope that I’m wrong…
When Premiun Music rolled out, there was no additional cost beyond a PlexPass subscription
When Plex DVR rolled out, there was no additional cost beyond a PlexPass subscription
When Secure connections was added there was no additional cost to anyone
I have also in the past tried “acd_cli” on a Ubuntu box. Yes it works sort of but not ideally. Again mainly scanning takes forever because PMS is assuming your media folder is on a nice fast locally attached hard drive. I am sure with the PMS they will use for “Plex Cloud” it will take into account performance issues associated with a cloud based virtual drive .
@hthighway said:
@peterhjalmarsson said:
I suspect we will not get that, as a way for Plex to force lifetime Plex Pass members to pay for another service, but I really hope that I’m wrong…When Premiun Music rolled out, there was no additional cost beyond a PlexPass subscription
When Plex DVR rolled out, there was no additional cost beyond a PlexPass subscription
When Secure connections was added there was no additional cost to anyone
But Plex Cloud actually hosts the server for you which meand increased costs while you save money yourself because you don’t have a server running! so I expect a small subscription for this
This is> @mandrup said:
@hthighway said:
@peterhjalmarsson said:
I suspect we will not get that, as a way for Plex to force lifetime Plex Pass members to pay for another service, but I really hope that I’m wrong…When Premiun Music rolled out, there was no additional cost beyond a PlexPass subscription
When Plex DVR rolled out, there was no additional cost beyond a PlexPass subscription
When Secure connections was added there was no additional cost to anyoneBut Plex Cloud actually hosts the server for you which meand increased costs while you save money yourself because you don’t have a server running! so I expect a small subscription for this
This is a very valid point. As Cloud PMS also does transcoding, then the hardware must be costing a fortune and will only go up. Struggling to see the business model here for Plex?
@reddwarfcrew said:
This is> @mandrup said:@hthighway said:
@peterhjalmarsson said:
I suspect we will not get that, as a way for Plex to force lifetime Plex Pass members to pay for another service, but I really hope that I’m wrong…When Premiun Music rolled out, there was no additional cost beyond a PlexPass subscription
When Plex DVR rolled out, there was no additional cost beyond a PlexPass subscription
When Secure connections was added there was no additional cost to anyoneBut Plex Cloud actually hosts the server for you which meand increased costs while you save money yourself because you don’t have a server running! so I expect a small subscription for this
This is a very valid point. As Cloud PMS also does transcoding, then the hardware must be costing a fortune and will only go up. Struggling to see the business model here for Plex?
Unless they get a cut from Amazon pr. client
@hthighway said:
Plex supports it now, depending on the OS you run plex on.
All that is required is the ability to map ACD to a mount point on you computerFor example if your PMS runs on linux, see : GitHub - yadayada/acd_cli: An unmaintained command line interface and FUSE filesystem for Amazon (Cloud) Drive
No, actually, PMS does not support it now, you need a thirdparty solution to make it work, whereas in Plex Cloud it is an integrated solution, very likely using the Amazon Cloud Drive API directly.
@hthighway said:
@peterhjalmarsson said:
I suspect we will not get that, as a way for Plex to force lifetime Plex Pass members to pay for another service, but I really hope that I’m wrong…When Premiun Music rolled out, there was no additional cost beyond a PlexPass subscription
When Plex DVR rolled out, there was no additional cost beyond a PlexPass subscription
When Secure connections was added there was no additional cost to anyone
Which of course have very little to do with what will be done with Plex Cloud:
However, all this is pure speculation on our part, unless someone actually has any substantial information?
@peterhjalmarsson said:
- Plex Cloud has additional running costs, which has been pointed out numerous times already, and those costs need to be covered.
So do the other services, Gracenotes licences and Digi-Cert licences are running cost, some per user.
- Your above examples are PMS/Plex client functions, and as such part of the Plexpass deal. Blatantly reneging on that deal (even though Plex might have right to do so according to the license) would piss everyone off something horribly. However, you don’t need to be a financial whiz to understand that it is not a sustainable business model. To secure future income, there must be new products that generate revenues. It’s very likely that Plex Cloud is just such a service.
and as such part of the Plexpass deal and so is Plex Cloud. But you are welcome to continue to not believe it.
Honestly I’m willing to pay a small subscription fee if this works as-advertised and Amazon is clear about what they will, or more importantly won’t, do with my media. This does seem like a logical next-step. I sometimes question my sanity when replacing yet another 3TB drive in my array.
However, the interesting thing is how the two worlds are converging as time goes on.
The costs of a roll-your-own “streaming” service (NAS, drives, usenet, trackers, electricity) still do add up while the mainstream methods of Netflix, iTunes, Prime, Twitter(!), Vue, Hulu, or whatever become slightly cheaper. They’re both fighting the same Goliath of a $120/month unnecessary bundle from a horrible cable company, and both doing a good job at it.
Then take into account the tradeoffs of availability/selection of mainstream offerings (which seems to trend upwards) and the time and effort it takes to tinker with a roll-your-own service isn’t worth what it used to be.
@peterhjalmarsson said:
No, actually, PMS does not support it now, you need a thirdparty solution to make it work, whereas in Plex Cloud it is an integrated solution, very likely using the Amazon Cloud Drive API directly.
I never commented that it was a built-in function, I wrote that it is supported in the same way that you can attached a NAS drive to your computer that runs PMS. You need an OS that supports attaching a NAS just like needing an OS that supports mounting ACD.
@hthighway said:
@peterhjalmarsson said:
- Plex Cloud has additional running costs, which has been pointed out numerous times already, and those costs need to be covered.
So do the other services, Gracenotes licences and Digi-Cert licences are running cost, some per user.
Yeah, and there’s a lot of other costs in running Plex’ infrastructure as well. Nothing on the scale of running servers including realtime transcoding though.
- Your above examples are PMS/Plex client functions, and as such part of the Plexpass deal. Blatantly reneging on that deal (even though Plex might have right to do so according to the license) would piss everyone off something horribly. However, you don’t need to be a financial whiz to understand that it is not a sustainable business model. To secure future income, there must be new products that generate revenues. It’s very likely that Plex Cloud is just such a service.
and as such part of the Plexpass dealand so isPlex Cloud. But you are welcome to continue to not believe it.
I have never said that I did not believe it, I just asked for official confirmation. Thanks for providing that in the other thread.
@hthighway said:
@peterhjalmarsson said:
No, actually, PMS does not support it now, you need a thirdparty solution to make it work, whereas in Plex Cloud it is an integrated solution, very likely using the Amazon Cloud Drive API directly.I never commented that it was a built-in function, I wrote that it is supported in the same way that you can attached a NAS drive to your computer that runs PMS. You need an OS that supports attaching a NAS just like needing an OS that supports mounting ACD.
There’s no OS that supports mounting an ACD drive without using a thirdparty driver. You need to manually install and configure additional software on top of the OS and PMS, unlike Plex Cloud, where it is all included. And very likely better implemented since there are so many reported issued with the Linux hack.
According to your definition of “supported”, PMS supports streaming from a Commodore 1541 disk drive as well - all you need to do is add a serial 488 interface and some drivers.
@hthighway said:
and as such part of the Plexpass deal and so is Plex Cloud
Not to say this is not true but:
While we are always hard at work adding rich new features and functionality to your Plex Pass subscription, in the future we may have to charge separately for some new content and/or features (e.g. for content or functionality that we license from third parties).
Source: https://www.plex.tv/about/privacy-legal/subscriptions-and-billing/
@Wiidesire said:
@hthighway said:
and as such part of the Plexpass deal and so is Plex Cloud
Not to say this is not true but:
While we are always hard at work adding rich new features and functionality to your Plex Pass subscription, in the future we may have to charge separately for some new content and/or features (e.g. for content or functionality that we license from third parties).
Source: https://www.plex.tv/about/privacy-legal/subscriptions-and-billing/
Look at the table at the end of this page: it clearly lists Plex Cloud as part of the Plex Pass service. I would be extremely disappointed if Plex go back on their word about it. I hope they remember what happened to Endomondo when they did the same…
[hat tip to @hthighway ]
