What use is Plex after going completely legal?

General Discussions Plex Features
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So back when I obtained movies via “not-so-legal” methods, I relied on Plex for pretty much all of my entertainment. I had a server running, 20+TB, 6 core i7, fiber internet with no data cap, Plex Lifetime Pass, and I was in heaven. Then I purchased a 4k TV, and my favorite source site got shut down (tehparadox). It was great timing tho cause my logic was what is the point of having a 4k TV only to watch recompiled compressed 1080p movies… ya know? So I began my physical movie collection, learned all about SteelBooks and their awesomeness. Now I’ve stopped watching movies and mainly watch Directv NOW and PS Vue On - demand content.

Here’s what I’m wondering… and you’ll have to forgive me, I have not stayed up to date at all, and it has been about 2 years since I relied on Plex at all. Given my current situation of not storing/hoarding media anymore, is there any use for Plex at the moment for me?

If I used cable/satellite or OTA TV, I know Plex could be very useful as a personal cloud DVR. However my TV providers are OTT (Over The Top, for those of you who are unfamiliar… this is how TV service that utilizes the internet is referred to…). Therefore, Plex has no way to make my TV experience any different since Plug-ins for PS Vue and DTV NOW will likely never be a thing.

I was thinking maybe I could use Plugins for a good central location for all of my TV Anywhere logins (one central setup where I’m logged into all of the TV Network apps such as A&E, Travel Channel, USA, etc), so that I can peruse all on demand content without having to jump from app to app. But then (remember, I’ve been out of the loop), I discovered Plex has discontinued support of Channels/ plugins, so we’re left without that option.

So I’m officially perPLEXed. What useful way can I incorporate Plex into my current digital life?

BTW, I’m just informing the uninformed/curious…

PlayStation Vue is the best TV service provider, hands down. However, the name is misleading. You do not need to own a PlayStation to subscribe to PS Vue. I haven’t owned one in years! They have a virtually unlimited DVR, the catch is that it only saves recorded media for 28 days. The only reason I have DTV NOW is because Vue doesn’t have A&E, Comedy C, History, and other networks associated with them. I need my LivePD, man!!! Lol. Fortunately I have the old DTV NOW plan, before they rolled out their new plans that no longer include the very channels I was looking for in the first place! Lol.

Anyway, my goal is simplicity. I don’t really wanna have to perform maintenance on the server, so I’m not interested in complicated things. If I am able to rip my UHD BD collection to the server, then play it back at a high bitrate, that would be of interest for sure! 4K BD’s were very rare last time I attempted such a thing, not to mention I mean 4K BD’s available on that website I mentioned earlier that is no longer around. There were no 4k BD players for computers back then, so I’m totally clueless regarding the ability or status of ripping 4K BD’s to computers. I would not mind having each movie take up ~100GB to stream in high quality at 40+Mbps Over the network. I have TONS of Ethernet cables (in the closet lol).

In case it helps, my server is/was/would be a i7-4930k (6-core), 1kW PSU (wish it was less after only ever getting up to 650W of usage under load), 16GB RAM (DDR3, freaking expensive) 2 GTX 780 Ti’s, ~20TB storage (I have some unused SSD’s amounting to roughly 1-2TB, but would just rely on old fashioned HDDs unless otherwise suggested), I can install Windows Server (any version after and including 2008 R2), but I haven’t really played with newer versions of W Server, and don’t see any immediate benefit, so I would likely install regular Windows 10. (I’m an ITE student at local college, so we get free Microsoft software, in any and every flavor imaginable lol. Ironically they just added Office ~2 years ago, which drove me nuts).

I look forward to any and all input. I was honestly a little disappointed when I discovered how limited Plex has turned out. I had assumed that Plex had flourished over time. But I don’t see where, so I feel like I’m missing something…

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Oh, forgot to mention… for client devices, I have Roku’s, nvidia shield Pro 2015 (my favorite!!), and firestick TV that I’ve never really used.

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Those services remove shows all the time. Movies go bye bye, TV show licenses don’t get renewed, good luck ever finding full versions of old SNL episodes instead of the butchered 23 minute versions Hulu has.

What “new” did you expect from Plex since you last used it? It plays media stored on your personal hard drives. The only newish stuff I can think of is using it for music and to record live TV (which is great for stuff like PBS). If you’re comfortable with never knowing if your favorite TV show of all time is going to disappear, I guess that’s your prerogative. I’ll be enjoying my uncensored Beavis and Butt-head episodes WITH the music videos for the rest of my life.

If you have kids it’s a no-brainer. Log into Plex before you leave the house and download all the episodes to the device itself and put Plex in offline mode for car rides.

I’ve ripped by 4k movies and my old i7 from 2010 plays them fine without transcoding. If you are worried about the CPU not being powerful enough (even though it should be), you can buy an NVidia 1050 for $150 used and turn on GPU transcoding and your CPU won’t even budge.

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Well, at some point it felt as though the ambitions of Plex were large. I remember observing the development of features go from requests to actual fruition… things as simple as various ways of integrating subtitles, all the way to being able to download media for offline use on plex clients.

The initial idea of Plex was solely a basic Server-Client model aimed to have a central location for media storage.

However at one point, it definitely appeared that the ambitions and goals of Plex went above and beyond a simple Server-Client model. I think I noticed this ambition from the Plex team around 2013.

Things seemed like they were progressing well even when I stopped relying on Plex. Now I’m perusing Plex in 2019, and it appears to me as though the Plex dev team’s goal is no longer to expand in features; but rather slide into a perfect niche and fulfill its role in that niche very well.

Honestly, my biggest hope was that I would have a single plugin or app for all of the TV Anywhere (or is it Everywhere?) apps that my credentials work on. Just select the channels for which I have subscription access, login to each one if necessary, then voila: all subscription available content at my fingertips. Now I know that’s not going to happen, but that’s what I was hoping.

I was also hoping that there would be some cool new inventive features. That’s the very reason I came to Plex in the first place, and during the early years (beginning in late '08-'09 for me, anyway… not sure how far back Plex actually goes…) there were many cool inventive features; so what I was hoping for is based off of things that have happened in the past.

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Probably because there were things to add/improve in the past. I’m not sure what more Plex can add for something that’s just supposed to easily serve you your TV shows and movies to various devices.

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Plex has… plans. ;^)

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