OK so I have a friend who turned me onto this, and I am thinking about building a Plex server for friends and family to use.
I see there are a LOT of topics and threads, but it feels a bit overwhelming trying to make heads or tails of all of the information that is out there.
Does Plex offer any services for those looking to build a Windows based media library that they would like shared over the internet to devices and accounts they setup for users? Limit what users can see what folders with their accounts? Is there help for all of this? Help for the network setup?
Again, just trying to understand this all and I have seen others have a bit of confusion as well. Issues with things like AT&T routers, servers showing up indirect and video quality is choppy, and things like TV Shows not coming in like they should, or meta data not creating how it should.
Just lots of questions and I donāt want to be the person out there who can never seem to get this right. If it is a great media server service, and support is there, I am all for it! I have so much media that I want to take from disc and move to storage to play from it is not funny. I am using DivX to rip all of my movies and TV shows, and I donāt have a tool for BluRay yet. DivX said a BluRay version is on the way, unless anyone can suggest a solution for this.
Thanks for the help and time! Want to find a good shareable solution that can be used outside of my home network.
Welcome to the Plex universe
When preparing your setup, you might want to take a look at the Plex support articlesā¦ thereās a whole bunch of examples on how to share your server in your home (e.g. with family members sharing 1 account, each having their own PIN) or with friends (having their own Plex accounts).
Thereās a whole bunch of other support articles on a variety of topics.
As for the forumā¦ this is how the internet works. People without issues usually just use their stuff and donāt post about it. As Otto just statedā¦ go for it
if you are sharing with others (regardless of which way) you have little control over which client devices they will use. Prepare for that (and expect transcoding by the Plex server).
Think about how much use your server is likely to see in 6 months / 2 years. Plan for that - you may not have to buy all the storage up front but you will want the CPU/Graphics performance for transcoding - upgrading those later is harder.
Work out how/where your server will run - if will have to be on 24/7 if sharing or youāll get complaints from āfriendsā and family.
Monitor usage. I use Tautulli. Will give you great info for planning including peak usage times, users taking the piss (who probably should have their own server).
My personal choices were:
standard PC hardware but running unRAID (really easy to upgrade and expand storage over time)
Plex running in a docker (and other apps the same) for easy maintenance, updating, etc.
All content re-encoded to MKV/H.264 (720p,level 4.1,Main,Fast Decode)/AAC 2.0+AAC 5.1 to minimise transcoding for most used clients.
If you want explanations of any choices please ask.
Yep I agree although if you eventually venture down the PlexPass route then with a compatible CPU or graphics card, then media format worries basically become redundant with hardware acceleration enabled.
My system is a Lenovo T440 laptop with i7, 1.5Tb of SSD drive space that I can expand and 16Gb of RAM, on a hardwire LAN line.
Since I want to add accounts to this, I assume that means that I need to add Premium and get a PlexPass? Really only sharing this with my family, 6 or so people, but want individual accounts, and kids to only have access to their level of movies.
I find handbrake annoying but use it on the back end of Vidcoder which is much more user friendly.
As I remux all my mkvās to mp4, MCEBuddy is fantastic.
I actually donāt see many mkvās as Buddy automatically finds them and remuxes into the same folder and moves the (old) mkv to another folder for me to check or delete later.
