Server Version#: 1.22.3.4392-6000
Player Version#: 8.16.0.24423
I’m enjoying using Plex very much. A few inconsistencies between players but overall very good.
After having set up all my NAS based media, music, videos, photos etc, I thought it would be great to also add in my libraries of Blu-ray, DVD, CD & Vinyl disks, (without ripping them to the NAS). I searched the forums and web for ways to do this but came up with zilch. So I have developed my own method below that I’d like to share with you.
What I did was convert a jpg of each media type’s logo to a tiny 1 second mp4. I then created libraries such as DVD Disks, Blu-ray Disks, Google Play Movies, TV Series, Vinyl Disks etc. Into these I placed a copy of the appropriate mp4 logo for each title, renaming each one to as what it represented, eg, Avatar (2009).
This had the effect of fooling Plex into thinking that these files were actual media files stored on my NAS. So it went ahead and downloaded all the relevant metadata and listing them in the appropriate libraries exactly the same as NAS stored media. If you try to play any of these titles the 1 second MP4 flashes up to remind you the title is on Blu-ray or whatever.
So now my Plex Server not only displays libraries of my NAS based media but also library lists of my non-ripped collections of Blu-rays, DVDs, CDs, Vinyl Disks and even Google Play Purchases. So if I’m looking for a movie to watch I am presented with my plastic disk only versions to choose from as well.
Otherwise I think you tend to forget what media you have outside of your ripped libraries as you are never reminded to watch them.
There really is no limit to this and you may well have other types of media collections you’d like to catalog this same way.
Sometimes you may have a NAS based version as well as say a DVD version of the same title. You can have both these on Plex and as long as they are named correctly, Plex will treat them as different versions of the same title.
Hope others find this idea useful!
