This is something I would very much like to see...
Like many of you I am sure, I have shared my massive media library with my family. The problem is, I only have 5 mbps up bandwidth, so a realistic limit is 3 streams at once. If all three are HD 2.0 mbps streams going on at the same time, it can start lagging.
So I have shared it with a grand total of 3 accounts. Well, the problem is one of these family members I have allowed access to has clearly gone out and shared their username and password with God only knows how many people. I will see sometimes this ONE account streaming THREE videos at the same time! So then when someone else tries to get on and watch something, the experience is horrible. I know this account has been shared around because I ran a netstat -np TCP | find "32400", and then geolocated the IPs and they were coming from all over the country! I am blocking IPs at the Windows firewall level, but IPs can change, so this is getting to be a pain to constantly monitor.
So what I would LOVE LOVE LOVE is the ability to restrict any given account where they are abusing their privilege. To cap this problem user to 1 stream open at a time. It seems like it should be doable if they wanted to program something like that in.
If anyone has any non-Plex solutions for this on my Windows 2012 server, I am very much open to those ideas as well.
Keep up the AWESOME work Plex devs! Love this software!
Even better would be if you could just limit the number of concurrent streams period. Although, by user would be nice as well.
I'm in the same boat as you. Almost exactly actually. 5Mbps up, most of my stuff is approx 2Mbps, share with friends, etc.
I had a guy sharing his account with people. I stopped sharing it with him. He called and said he couldn't get on. I told him I can see that he's sharing his account, I told him the IP addresses that were used to access what movies and from which devices (I use plexwatch and plexwatch/web to monitor usage). I told him that I'd only share it with him again if he changes his myplex password and doesn't share it again. And that if I saw anything that made it obvious he was sharing his acocunt again I'd just remove his access for good. It hasn't been an issue since.
Recently though, I got a low-end dedicated server through a hosting company. I now have 200Mbps upload speeds, and the people I share with chip in to cover the montly rental fee.
Yes, a limited amount of concurrent streams by users would be ideally good. Go by an FIFO queue stack when selecting which streams to boot. This is actually a very good idea.
That looks promising! Thanks for the tip, I will try that out when I get home tonight.
I would also love to see this feature. I don't share my library with a lot of folks because I know they will just pass it along to others.
I also have some other people I would share with, but I don't because I have to account for the fact that this one account frequently is using up a huge chunk of bandwidth by streaming multiple files concurrently.
+1 also. I would like to limit concurrent streaming period. Max streams = x. Obviously, my "admin" account should be exempt. Would also be nice to be able to "kick" someone from the server with a message if you needed too. Just a thought, I truly appreciate everything you guys do - it's an amazing product.
I agree this would be a cool feature. However I already manage to achieve this along the lines of.. "My server, my media. Abuse the fact that I'm sharing with you and...."
Id love this as well. Its kinda ridicilous that this hasnt been implemented already. The lack of such feature is a huge flaw imo.
I have a friend who gave his girlfriend and her kids access to my server. I dont mind, but when they all log on concurrently, they take more bw than I would like. Please fix this devs.
wouldn't a better solution be instead of giving out your own primary plex username and password to anyone but your sellf. tell them to get their own free plex account and then you being the plex media server administrator "invite" their plex ID to share your library. Once you have correctly setup sharing you can then turn "sharing" ON and OFF when ever you like. If you find one particular member who you have shared your library to has gone and shared their own username and password, then you just punish that user by revoking your shared library from them. this will then prevent that particular user from seeing your library whilst still allowing the other members access.
I have the following structure setup for sharing,
PlexAccount1 with plex pass - this account is purely for the PMS and my own personal use on IOS devices.
PlexAccount2 "free account" - this account is used on the guest / media center PC in the lounge room
PlexAccount3 "free" - Brothers account
PlexAccount4 "free" --- mothers account
ect ect - The benefit from each person having individual plex ID's means that you have greater control over managing your shared media. You have the ability to share and stop sharing to any one person at any time. You also have the ability to then only share particular media library's to certain people - such as, a colleague from work would like access to my plex "movies" but I don't want them to see my plex "photo" album which is published in PMS also... I then, when inviting the user to PMS I have the option to "select" which library s I want to share with that particular person.
