Hello everyone (especially the dev team).
I have two servers capable of running plex. Home server with all my media and a much beefier server at work. I would like to see if those two servers could work in teendom whenever transcoding is required. I have full network control with a gigabit internet connectivity at both locations, so the backbone should be plenty for a pretty smooth operation.
What am I doing now: I have an NFS share over VPN to provide the work server with access to the library, it is than setup as a sole plex server. This works to help me keep my home server workload light and power bill lower (work power is part of the lease, my transcodes there do not cost extra).
How I would love it to work (and herein the suggestion):
Setup my home server as a primary server with work server as a transcode server. Anything capable of using a direct (non transcoded) stream would get data directly from the home server, but as soon as transcoding is required the transcode server would get the direct stream and the client would be pointed to the transcode server to get their transcoded stream.
Data would transfer over https (vs VPN) and the setup overall would be a bit more reliable / responsive.
In summary my setup now (example):
Home (truenas) > NFS over VPN > work (plex on ubuntu) > https > home (plex client).
How I would love it to work:
Path A (direct stream):
Home (plex on truenas) > https > worldwide (plex client).
Path B (transcode):
Home (plex on truenas) > direct stream over https > work (plex on ubuntu) > https > worldwide (plex client).
The transcode server would not require to manage the library at all, it would get a stream of data, transcode it and forward it as needed. The client would only see one server and the serving server would handle the job of determining if transcoding is needed and than providing either the direct link to it’s local plex server instance, or to the transcode server.
