Non sequiturs are so easy though.
1 Like
Oh, you plan to host that on Hetzner huh ?
Good luck 
I think you missed the point of this thread.
I tested them on same file alongside each other and igpu transcoding was absolutely higher quality
I think youāre being intentionally pedantic and misconstruing what Iām saying. You are arguing against other people in this thread, at me.
Let me put it this way:
People bought their Plex pass under the presumption of network neutrality. Blocking one of the largest and most popular network providers among their customer base constitutes a material change to how the product (free and paid) can be used. This also raises questions about future enforcement actions they will take against other network operators. This amounts to some pretty legitimate reasons to be pissed off, and I can see why somebody would want their money back.
If you want to argue semantics, sure letās say Plex is telling us to move to a more reputable āareaā of the Internet. You win.
1 Like
I intentionally delineated the portion of my reply where I was addressing you from where I was āarguing against other people.ā I donāt know how I could have been more clear.
Iām not arguing at all with the fact that certain folks will have to change how they use Plex Media Server. And let me say it again: I sympathize with those folks. Itās a tough thing. Theyāre going to have to adjust. Those adjustments can be made in several ways, already discussed in this thread so I wonāt repeat them.
I donāt want to win or lose, and itās not about semantics. Itās about intellectual honesty. I just want folks to be honest (with themselves and with others) when speaking about what they are losing because of this action without making statements which suggest that Plex has somehow invalidated their Plex Pass. Itās still available to them and it can still be used to deploy a server.
It has been claimed time and again in this thread that, because of this enforcement action by Plex, that their Plex Pass is somehow no longer useful. Those who make a cogent argument make one along the lines of āI have to remotely host my server because X and I can only use Hetzner because only they support X.ā
The most common āXā folks have latched onto is hardware-accelerated transcoding. The follow-on conclusion being that Plex has now prevented them from using it. The [insert country here] judge awards them a perfect 10 for their mental gymnastics.
At the end of the day, Iād just like folks to go back to assuming the best of others. Plex did not throw a dart at a board here and say āHey, it landed on Hetzner, letās hoseāem! Ok, Bob, youāre up now, Letās see who we can hose next!ā No company who wants to stay relevant makes a move like that. So assume that Plex had all of our best interests in mind when make this decision.
3 Likes
I bought my PlexPass (Lifetime) knowing that there was NO network neutrality.
I knew at the time (over 10 years ago) that Plex software enabled some users to host pirated material and at best, media sharing that was at the time potentially violating copyright laws. This wasnāt Plexās intention obviously and letās move on from the argument of media hosting. Personally, I use Plex for sharing personal family photos and videos. Time shifting is still legal here so I have that use as well, for personal use.
Iāve hosted my Plex server locally and offsite. Currently local now I have speeds above 50/15 Mbps, which is sufficient for our needs (local network, country wide, is rubbish).
Plex provide the software, up to me to figure out hosting (unless I missed something about Plex offering hosting). Edit - Gloppie points out, they did used to offer Cloud hostingā¦
Hetzner offer dedicated hosting, shared web hosting, virtual private servers, managed servers, domain names, SSL certificates, storage boxes, and cloud .
Edit - oh and personally, for my current hardware, software transcoding is far better (speed and quality) than hardware transcoding. I am stifled by using an ancient RX580X however. The CPU does just fine with multiple streams (2700X) 
I have modest needs for media however.
They did offer plex cloud back in the day.
2 Likes
True, they used to offer photo upload too - sad face.
Priorities ā¦
1 Like
They had security vulnerabilities in the photo upload and were probably getting peopleās boxes popped from what I remember of the removal.
1 Like
Going offtopic but photo upload in itself is not a security issue, just the method Plex used at the time.
I guess it has some relativity to the topic though, the approach Plex takes is not always what users want.
Edit - Plex can reverse decisions though, in rare cases. Iām currently using Plex HTPC 
. In that particular case however, it did not involve a third party such as the current situation with Hetzner.
The general description of a ālifetime licenseā is that after you buy the software, you can use the purchased version for as long as you want, providing that the machine you use it on meets the initial program system requirements. "Specialā offerings also have that proviso.
On that note, Iām done with the topic. Good luck to those legitimate users who were impacted.
1 Like
Good grief. For everyone quoting GDPR, here is a flow chart.
Are you a lawyer?
yes - Call us when you file suit.
no - continue
Have you called a lawyer?
yes - Ask him if he will file suit
no - call a lawyer or stop talking about laws
Will he file suit?
yes - Call us when the trial is over
no - stop talking about laws.
Itās as simple as that. Either you have a case or not. Stop threatening a lawsuit if that is all you have, threats. It is silly and all bark and no bite.
5 Likes
How am I supposed to use the Plex Pass features (for example hardware transcoding) when Iām no longer able to reach my server. I bought plex pass with no restrictions whatsoever and with the only intent to use it on my server hosted on hetzner and now Iām being restricted.
Hosting at home or elsewhere is not an option for me and when I bought Plex Pass there was no rule stating I can only host it at home.
Restricting users afterwards because some users misbehaved is not a justified reason to cut legitimate users off and I think these legitimate users should at least be able to get a refund.
If you ask me, you are following the licensing agreement as they are newly explaining it - you are using it at home, but it just happens to be located elsewhere.
I donāt run FreeBSD, but the fact that both of those got removed sucks. I am sorry to hear that.
Ah, FreeBSD. If only anyone cared about Unix any more. Linux is sexier I suppose. Such are the legal battles of the early nineties. One gets embroiled in legal issues while the other stands on the shoulders of giants and thus climbs to the top.
Well Plex is not 100% at fault for either of the issues really.
First, I should correct myself. They removed hardware acceleration for Intel iGPUs. Acceleration on NVidia is still there. Personally I see the iGPU acceleration as really where you want to be regardless as itās taking place on the CPU you are already using for the general server ā itās āfreeā acceleration. Compare that to the additional power/cooling/noise of a graphics card. The removal was due to the difficulties in supporting it due to a lack of official support from Intel for BSD.
The Sonic Analysis issue is more complicated. Again itās an issue of lack of official support from a third party. Whatās interesting is this is a second version of āpremium Plex Music Library featuresā and one reason the original feature set was dropped from PMS was ā lack of support for FreeBSD (I seem to remember Elan personally using FreeBSD at the time, or something like that ā he had skin in the game at the time)ā¦ anyway, It just feels very odd to me we moved away from that other set of Plex Pass music features to head in a new direction and let ourselves get mired in the same situation where we canāt have feature parity for all PMS platforms.
Imagine if the layoffs were from plex employees selling access at hetzner >_>
Ha, Iām an offender, too. Because, come to think of it, Iām blocking entire countries and continents on my server too.
And of course Iām observing the practice of providing or denying services based on an ip-range on a daily basis., e.g. āSorry, this content is not available in your regionā on News-sitesā¦
Iām not grinding a pitchfork here and still think itās a bad approach in this case. By the way, demanding refunds and calling for lawsuits is ridiculous also.
But Iām also not looking for a workaround. If plex insists to follow through with this policy, so be it. The thing Iāll miss the most will be plexamp and smart audio playlists.
But at this point, with the radio silence from plex, people who are effected should think solution-oriented
1 Like
Just to get back on topic here -
This should be an absolute clear warning sign for everyone using Plex. This is the first step in regulating what and where you host you plex library and soon it will become more.
If I would be an Plex user - which Iām currently - I would consider to move my library to a different solution.
Yes, even PB sized libraries and a ton of work.
Of course you all the mighty IT hackers here can VPN, hide IP blah blah blah. But be true to yourselfā¦ next step is account banning, and then your Plex server is worthless.
This is a step Iām personally not accepting - even if i have to downgrade my experience with a different solution.
5 Likes
I donāt know: how does someone with a 100TB home server fill that up? Ripping thousands of blu-rays? Possible. Likely? No.
And of course piracy isnāt piracy if you do it from your home. Everybody knows that, right? Or as lowendbox.com put it: āPlex themselves basically said if you want to continue pirating; do it at home.ā
Lost in all of this is that Plexāwho are blocking the servers of their own customers without actually charging them with having violated the TOSāare a company whose traditional business model relied almost entirely on piracy. As some wag on Ycombinator summarized the message of the Hetzner block: āthese pirates, who constitute a percentage of our business that rounds to 100, are really getting in the way of our business.ā So Iām the suspected bad guy for running a server in full compliance with the TOS and have to be blocked from using Plex at all from my server of choice but Plex itself and all those using home servers are as clean as the driven snow despite what we all know but pretend we donāt.
As for how I load my rips onto the server: I have a full symmetrical 1Gbps connection at work. Only 50Mbps upstream at home. Canāt serve from work but can upload from there (my employer is cool with it).
2 Likes
