I’ve setup a raspberry pi3 to work as a plex media server. So now I can take my plex library anywhere, I stream from this to a couple of android tablets mounted to the car headrests.
What I’d love is for this home brew solution to be adopted by Plex
Official build for the raspberry pi so updates to the server are easy.
Ability for a media server to be a slave from another server
In my case I store all my content on my home NAS running plex, then use Optimized Versions to transcode all the content to a lower resolution (simply due to the limited storage on the pi sd card). I then plug the pi into the network, mount the optimized versions directory and sync the content. PMS on the raspberry then picks this up and indexes it.
Vote for #2 specifically. The ability to sync content from one PMS to another (using the same login) would be great for things such as the WDPassport PRO or other mobile PMS.
I have started other threads on this… but I still don’t see a viable solution yet.
Basically, have a car with built-in headrest entertainment system already, therefore want to hook into the exsiting system’s AUX jacks which is easy to do, and setup a local router (also easy to do).
The problem I keep running into is that for an on-board RasPLEX server (localized to the vehicle), when the car shuts off, there is nothing to safely shut down the RasPlex that works. I’ve tried Mausberry’s 3A circuit, and it just plain doesn’t work. It doesn’t shut down the RasPlex at all, and half the time it drains the battery.
I’d love to see SOMEONE who actually installed a PMS in their car, and figured out how to shut it down safely (initiate a shut down script) every time they turn the vehicle off, and a startup script everytime they turn the vehicle on.
Mausberry was a nice thought… but it doesn’t work, at least on modern vehicles.
I set up a portable plex server for my kids to use in the car. Didn’t use a PI though. Ended up using one of the small “pocket” windows PCs that you can find all over Amazon mostly from Chinese companies. The device I picked up had a built in battery and could be charged via USB. Set it to shut itself down when on battery for more than 15 minutes. That way it would shut down safely. Then I bought a little TPLink travel router (Also powered via USB) to handle the wireless between the server PC and the kids tablets. Works great, though it takes a few mins to get everything booted up and connected to the wireless. And the best thing is that it isn’t limited to the car. I can take it into the hotel and the kids still have their movies and shows.
Would love to have way to slave the travel server to my home server and have them sync up automatically when on the same network. My current solution is pretty manual for copying media from the home server to the travel one. So I would totally vote for #2.
I do use the pi3 wireless, and the onboard microSD card, so essentially its a self contained server, just needs a usb power input.
I hadn’t really thought about using an external hdd. My focus was/is on keeping it small so it sits in the centre console of the car near the 12v socket.
I use the wired port to connect the pi to my home network in order to sync the content.
I have a 64G microSD card and transcode content to 320kbps, the quality is fine for the kids in the car.
I don’t have any startup/shutdown scripts. The 12v in my car stays on for 20mins so that keeps everything running even if the engine is off (stopping for fuel etc). I clone the SD card so I have a backup of all the settings. So if it does get corrupted I can recover it quite easily. So far just hard removing the power has not caused any issues.
I can’t quite recall the exact steps to setup the pi. But found these in my bookmarks.
I have a PI3 running Plex server. It sets-up a hotspot supports at least 4 non-transcoding streams. Connected to it are a 26000Mah battery and a 2TB Mybook. I also have scripts setup on my home Plex server to sync files whenever the mobile server comes within range of the home WIFI network.
