Server Version#:1.29.0.6244 (I think)
Player Version#: not sure - use Fire TV stick app
Hello,
When I discovered Plex I was hoping it would be the answer to my goal of consolidating all of my media, DVDs and CDs, to one place from which I can watch and listen. My media collection, granted it’s probably small compared to some of yours, is approx. 150 CDs and 100 DVDs. However, after doing some research through the Plex support articles, it seems incredibly complicated just to figure out which equipment I need to operate the server.
My desktop computer is an older iMac, 2013 version, with intel i5 CPU, quad core, 2.7 GHz, and the OS is Catalina 10.15.7, and is incredibly slow now.
I thought about using NAS, but after starting to read through the qualifications and compatibility lists, my head was about to explode. I will be using this only locally in my house and only using one Plex app at a time.
I’m not at all sure where to go and what to get at this point. Hopefully I’m overcomplicating this process and someone can show me that there is an easier way to get started.
Quickly looking at your hardware specs there are no real issues. I would just buy a External HD for your content. A couple if you want to backup your Content.
Just make sure your content will not be transcoding often to your Player apps, Example: Smart TV, Apple TV, Roku are just some.
Most of my content is in HEVC, which helps a lot with storage space.
The greatest complexity is when your Plex server needs to transcode your content to play on clients that can’t support the video natively… Like, playing a 4k HDR movie with subtitles and Atmos sound on your toaster. That’s where you get into the hardware details and might want to pay for a Plex Pass to enable hardware accelerated operations.
If you are playing files sourced from DVDs and CDs, they should play directly on just about every client, and if they do need to be transcoded, an audio or standard definition transcoding operation is relatively lightweight.
Plex is free to try, so I would just put it on your Mac, rip a few discs, and try it out. If something doesn’t work, start a thread with a specific problem and we can figure it out.
Thanks so much for responding. That makes it sound doable. I probably should have prefaced this by admitting I’m kind of a neophyte when it comes to this tech. So, a couple of questions. So just rip the DVDs and CDs to an external HD and the Plex server can access the content there? What would be the recommended software to rip? Also, not sure what HVEC means, sorry. None of my DVDs would have subtitles; most would be standard and Blu-ray with a few 4K.
Meant to also say that all of my CDs are currently copied to iTunes on my Mac. Is it possible to copy from there to an external HD and play through the server and player on my fire tv stick?
Thanks, that worked. Got the music in and able to play it in various locations around the house. Now on to movies. Any recommendation on a good software to use for ripping DVDs to a hard drive?
