I am about to give Plex a go since i want to rip my Blu-ray collection to my NAS. But before i do so i needed to clarify a few things, and hope someone can provide help
1- the people accessing the server will be using modern devices: fire tv sticks 4k, fire TV 3. generation, shield tv pro, mi box sā¦ So h265 should not be the issue. I have my doubts about sound thoā¦ I have a full fledged soundbar that supports everything, but my family members have no surround capable devices. What format should i encode so that i get surround sound and they get stereo without the server having to transcode? AC3 or AAC? Or can i just leave Dolby/DTS 5.1?
2- with Plex i donāt need to bother with lets encrypt certificates and subdomains when setting up remote access over ssl/tls? I ask because other media servers from the competition need this
3- a lot of people rave about the kodi plex addon, and admitedly i have a lot of years of experience with kodiā¦ My question is if connections with the Kodi Addon will be securely encrypted as well?
Correct. Plex provides a unique certificate for each server. The only time youāll need to provide your own certificate is if youāre using a custom domain (plex.yourdomain.com). Custom domains are mostly used when setting up a Plex Media Server behind a reverse proxy.
Yes, it will use a secure connection if available. Thereās also a configuration setting in Plex Media Server (Settings ā Network ā Secure connections) which you can set to only allow secure connections to your server.
Regarding your first question, discussing which codecs should be used for video and audio usually devolves into a religious debate, so I wonāt say a lot about that. However, Iād suggest that leaving whatever the highest quality audio track is available on your Blu-ray (TrueHD or DTS), and then providing an AC3 5.1 track as well, should allow most players to direct play/stream with good audio quality.
2- do you think it is beneficial in terms of security to set up a reverse proxy, or is the certificate enough?
3- i have read about that setting, and found a page where it listed all the client apps that supposedly establish secure connections, but the Kodi addon wasnāt one of them. Glad that it works tho
1- my question wasnāt really about video since (i think) the clients support h264 and h265. But i am glad that you pointed me to ac3, so i can leave aac out of the equation. And i agree with you that itās best to leave a high quality surround/HD track for me as well
Since i wanāt to do this as cheap as possibleā¦ do you think that when dealing with 1080p and ac3 audio i need to invest in a full-fledged NAS? or can i just use my shield tv pro as a server and connect the USB drives to it?
At most the server will be used by 2 or 3 people at the same time.
The Plex-provided secure connection via their certificate is sufficient, in my opinion. One of the primary reasons for deploying a reverse proxy is hosting multiple services via a single port. For example, if you also hosted a website or some other service, and you wanted to expose everything via port 443, youād use a reverse proxy.
If itās only going to be a few users and 1080p content, Iād say give the Shield TV Pro a go as your server and see how it works for you. With it you get hardware accelerated transcoding without having to purchase a Plex Pass (though I recommend subscribing anyway, if only to support Plex). Just keep these potential limitations in mind.
Yes, i will definetly get a Plex Pass to support the project after i test it a few days
Just out of curiosity:
How far advanced is 4K HDR Transcoding? I remember 3/4 Montha ago people were saying that it already worked pretty well with the new Shield and Windows.
How is it with other devices like the Fire TV 4K Stick or the Mi Box?
If someone would have a Plex Pass, letās say a 8th or 9th Generation Intel CPU with QuickSync Support and fast Upload speedsā¦ Would it be feasable?
I donāt personally have any experience in this area so Iāll leave you in the hands of folks more experienced in that topic. Thereās some good information in this thread though:
Thx for that link. Was aware of it but not the recent Update
Sorry if i have to get on your nerves a bit more but the page that explains secure connections is a bit confusing to meā¦
There is something about not being able to connect locally to the server when https is enabledā¦ Is there a reason for that?
So letās say a friend of mine is streaming, i have to disable https to access the server?
Cheers
Edit: just went back and read it againā¦ I think now i understand. So the secure connection is linked to the domain for which is issued the certificate, and not the IP Address. So that domain is what i have to give my friends to connect securely on their devices, correct?
My ISP provides me with my own ip4v address, but still sometimes it changes when my router is restarted and suchā¦ What happens then? Will my friends still be able to connect?
And when i want to connect locally to my server i canāt delete Cookies? I have my browser do that automatically once i exit.
You donāt need to provide a domain at all. If you use Plexās built-in remote access functionality, and you share libraries with your friends accounts, theyāll see your server/libraries as being available when they log in. This is the case whether theyāre using https://app.plex.tv or using a dedicated Plex app.
You donāt need to worry about custom domains or certificates with Plex remote access at all; itās completely optional. As mentioned above, the primary use case (but not the only) for a custom domain with Plex is if you want to run it behind a reverse proxy. In that case you would be responsible for maintaining the certificate for that domain.
However, even so, you wouldnāt need to worry about the public IP address at the Plex level. There is a setting (custom server access URLs) in Plexās settings (Settings ā Network) where you can specify the URLs at which your server can be reached. As long as the domain(s) specified there point to your serverās public IP address, everything will work as expected, with no special requirements on your friendsā parts.
But again, the ānormalā configuration doesnāt use custom domains at all. You just enable remote access for your server and ensure port forwarding is configured correctly on your router. After doing so, anyone to whom youāve allowed access to your server should have access using Plex apps.
The implication of clearing your browserās cookies whenever you close it is that youāll have to supply your username/password log back in to Plex; it should not affect overall connectivity.can
So i just add my friends accounts to my Plex friends (or was it home?), and when they log into their accounts, they will see my libraryā¦? Is this correctā¦
This is different than what for example jellyfin does. There you have to provide your friends your domain for them to log in. They donāt need to create a jellyfin account at all.
This is what confused me
Got that with the Browser Cookies as well. Thx
To finish:
When my friends connect through the Mi Box Plex App or Fire TV Plex App, they need to buy the App, otherwise they will be limited to 1 Minute streaming?
Because even tho those are not Mobile or iOS Apps, Plex considers every device that it based on Android as a mobile App? But the Kodi Addon notā¦
Yes, that is correct. For your friends, you would just share your libraries (the Plex Home is intended for managing users in your home).
Right. Plex provides an automated way to allow secure remote access. With Jellyfin itās a manual configuration.
It depends on the app. I think itās mostly (only?) the mobile apps that require a purchase to unlock. I donāt think the one minute limit applies to the set-top-box apps, but I could be wrong. Others may have some more concrete input on that last part. Iāve had my Plex Pass for so long Iāve forgotten where some of the free vs. paid boundaries are, but the docs only mention the mobile apps.
