I have a somewhat interesting use case that I would like to set up, but I am not sure if it is even possible. I ran across a video showing how to make a raspberry pi plex server. This is very interesting to me as I am an over the road truck driver and although I have a server at home with a plex pass, getting it into the truck is not practical. Truck stop WIFI is way too slow and/or unreliable and mobile data is prohibitively expensive.
My idea then would be to use a smaller portable raspberry pi server to just stream locally in the truck with no actual need to transmit large amounts of data. This is where I’m stuck and not sure what I want to do is even possible.
What I would like to be able to do is to have my Roku TV connect directly to the Plex server and then stream inside the truck with no internet or even router involved. Is this even possible before I spend a lot of time trying to work out the how to do it part.
You will need to get some sort of travel router, something needs to manage the network even if it is just the Pi and Roku talking to each other. You will need to initially set things up on the internet.
probably easier to just download movies either from your plex server or directly to a pc and then cast it to the roku or tv or whatever you are using. The other route you mention above sounds cool in theory but i’d assume especially without internet it may be more hassle than its worth.
The easiest way i can come up with would be, if you want to have your shows uptodate, to use the the download feature from the plex app, which auto downloads the newest X episodes. So I’d install the plex app, have that running as a service somehow to stay active and download. Then install plex server and point to the plex app download location.
Or you could get to know the api and get a “recent episode” list that way and download them with plex-tokens.
Do you have a laptop you bring with you? The reason I ask is that you might be able to have two functions with this: Your over the road movie viewing and offsite backup.
I was going to take a trip and did not know the Internet speeds at the location we were staying, and face it rental owners are not network engineers. I am sure that where truck stops and various other locations catering to over the road drivers are not the best as far as Internet options.
I also shudder to think of my content ever getting lost due to hardware failure. So, I back up my entire content to now, two sets of three 18-TB USB Hard Drives. What you need will be dependent on your library size.
You could make a complete backup of your home content and then use the USB drive (set) you take with you when you are over the road and play it from a laptop (if you use that).
I am not sure what you use to view in your cab but if it takes any kind of input and is preferable to a laptop, you could just adapt your laptop’s display options to your cab device(s).
With my MKV files, VLC seemed to be best experience.
I am not sure this is viable for you but it would allow you to view your content locally in your cab and keep yourself an offline copy of your content should something happen to your home server and not be dependent on unreliable Internet connectivity. I know it is not “Plex” but, I am trying to give you a solution that is independent of bad Internet availability.
