[Hostile_18]

So I got really stupid with mine. Like I mentioned before, I've got multiple instances of Sonarr and Radarr running based on Riff's recommendations. 3x to be exact. One instance for regular 1080p, one for 4k, and one for anime, on both Radarr and Sonarr. Each has their own folder and own profiles/quality settings/custom formats. Not totally sure the exact reasoning for this but it had something to do with organization and categorizing things appropriately. He specifically mentioned how anime gets messed up with regular TV shows so I just took his word for it. But my folder structure is based on what he does and it's pretty discombobulated:

Spoiler: Tree

├── data
│   ├── downloads
│   │   ├── torrents
│   │   │   ├── complete
│   │   │   │   ├── radarr
│   │   │   │   ├── radarr-4k
│   │   │   │   ├── radarr-anime
│   │   │   │   ├── sonarr
│   │   │   │   ├── sonarr-4k
│   │   │   │   └── sonarr-anime
│   │   │   ├── incomplete
│   │   │   └── watch
│   │   └── usenet
│   │       ├── complete
│   │       │   ├── radarr
│   │       │   ├── radarr-4k
│   │       │   ├── radarr-anime
│   │       │   ├── sonarr
│   │       │   ├── sonarr-4k
│   │       │   └── sonarr-anime
│   │       ├── incomplete
│   │       ├── nzbs
│   │       └── watch
│   └── media
│       ├── movies
│       │   ├── 1080p
│       │   ├── 4k
│       │   └── anime
│       └── tv
│           ├── 1080p
│           ├── 4k
│           └── anime

Aside from the fact that it's made it a nightmare to troubleshoot things, it completely jacked up my Plex because it started mixing shows together. I was able to fix it but still. Also discovered that with the current custom formats and quality settings (which are based on Trash), it'll reject grabs unless I go in and tweak down settings somewhat.

I may switch it up to OG Trash since that actually seems more simple.

Oh shit that is complicated. Would it not be easier to use usenet? Here's mine;

Data;
- Recycle Bin
- media
movies
tv
- usenet
complete
incomplete

That's literally it. I don't really download much anime but did get Death Note and Attack on Titan just fine. I don't know what problems one would have as long as your searching for the right show and even then you can just use identify if it incorrectly chooses a similar show with a different year (for example).

 

[Showdown]

Oh shit that is complicated. Would it not be easier to use usenet? Here's mine;

Data;
- Recycle Bin
- media
movies
tv
- usenet
complete
incomplete

That's literally it. I don't really download much anime but did get Death Note and Attack on Titan just fine. I don't know what problems one would have as long as your searching for the right show and even then you can just use identify if it incorrectly chooses a similar show with a different year (for example).

For sure yours is much more simple. And if you're a quality junkie and that works for you, then it would definitely work for me. And all I'm using is Usenet. I set up the other stuff prior to taking the leap of faith into the Usenet world. As far as anime goes, I wasn't sure what he was classifying it as. Like, ALL animated shows or actual anime? I assumed the former. I think I may go in and restructure everything next weekend. It was such a pain to get it set up that I'm hesitant to blow half of it up but man, it would be so much easier running one instance of each and having all profiles tied to them. And I think my shit would function more like it's supposed to instead of running at 70% like it currently is.

 

[kiNeMs]

I havent heard of Overseerr, but I am now going to look into it.

It just needs to be more useful than trakt.

With trakt a user can make their own account, I can then set up a list monitor and they can go and add whatever they want. Radarr and Sonarr go and grab it. Trakt is good because its online and it also has an app. No Nas footprint.

But its definately not as customizable as it seems Overseer is.

 

[Showdown]

I havent heard of Overseerr, but I am now going to look into it.

It just needs to be more useful than trakt.

With trakt a user can make their own account, I can then set up a list monitor and they can go and add whatever they want. Radarr and Sonarr go and grab it. Trakt is good because its online and it also has an app. No Nas footprint.

But its definately not as customizable as it seems Overseer is.

I haven't heard of trakt but sounds somewhat similar. I can't answer unfortunately since I've only just started this adventure and only have experience with overseerr. Your standard Google "vs" search will probably tell you. I think with overseerr, I'd have to set up Nginx for it to be accessible to remote users, which I'm ok with. Just need to get my shit working for myself before I start offering others stuff to outsiders.

 

[Hostile_18]

I wouldn't mind other users putting in requests, but I wouldn't want them having the authority to add stuff at the quality I'm keeping my media. Partly because there has to be a quality bar for it to qualify, partly because of storage constraints (30gb a movie will add up, much more for a tv show) and also because I use custom art work for seasons and film collections. Plus if anyone watches something on my server it's almost a guarantee it's not shit in any kind of objective lense, entertainment wise.

 

[Showdown]

I wouldn't mind other users putting in requests, but I wouldn't want them having the authority to add stuff at the quality I'm keeping my media. Partly because there has to be a quality bar for it to qualify, partly because of storage constraints (30gb a movie will add up, much more for a tv show) and also because I use custom art work for seasons and film collections. Plus if anyone watches something on my server it's almost a guarantee it's not shit in any kind of objective lense, entertainment wise.

I believe you can limit requests with overseerr based on quality. So they can't be requesting 4k stuff unless you allow it.

 

[Hostile_18]

How is your server progress coming along @Showdown ? I have very little to do these days (thank god lol). Did you decide on a quality profile for Movies/TV Shows?

 

[Showdown]

How is your server progress coming along @Showdown ? I have very little to do these days (thank god lol). Did you decide on a quality profile for Movies/TV Shows?

I'm still in awe with this whole setup. I actually need to temper my requests because I'm like a kid in a candy store at this point. Too easy to pull down all these iso's with zero effort.

As far as my profiles, I decided to stay with the 3 instances of Radarr and Sonarr. For one, I already have them set up so I don't want to undo all my work. But the other reason is I see the reasoning behind it. Seems like each instance runs their own quality profiles and I'm not sure if you can merge them all together cleanly under one instance. So I've got my 1080p instance but it's also linked to my 4K instance. So when I go to pull down a 1080 iso, SABnzbd will pull the best version of that but also pull down the best 4K version for me (encodes). So I can jump into Plex and choose which version I want to play. Totally nuts. Love it.

The one thing that I'm finding is my 1080p quality profile is set for Web-Rip/Web-DL. Honestly, seems like I've got more than enough space just starting off where I could do remuxes instead. But I'm not sure if there's a transcoding penalty for streaming remuxes remotely. Not that I stream remotely but for family. The ideal way of doing this would be to set up another quality profile for just remuxes, then I can go into Radarr/Sonarr and manually assign that profile to whatever item I want to upgrade. Some get the remux treatment if I really like that movie while the others stay on the default. I don't see a reason to do 100% remuxes but with the amount of space I have, I'm thinking better to do it than not. But honestly, the Web-RIP/Web-DL's quality have been great. I'm not super eagle eye when it comes to spotting artifacts unless it's somewhat obvious. But then I either have to find a way to do it in Recyclarr or I just need to take the time to follow Trash Guides and manually create that profile.

 

[Hostile_18]

I'm still in awe with this whole setup. I actually need to temper my requests because I'm like a kid in a candy store at this point. Too easy to pull down all these iso's with zero effort.

As far as my profiles, I decided to stay with the 3 instances of Radarr and Sonarr. For one, I already have them set up so I don't want to undo all my work. But the other reason is I see the reasoning behind it. Seems like each instance runs their own quality profiles and I'm not sure if you can merge them all together cleanly under one instance. So I've got my 1080p instance but it's also linked to my 4K instance. So when I go to pull down a 1080 iso, SABnzbd will pull the best version of that but also pull down the best 4K version for me (encodes). So I can jump into Plex and choose which version I want to play. Totally nuts. Love it.

The one thing that I'm finding is my 1080p quality profile is set for Web-Rip/Web-DL. Honestly, seems like I've got more than enough space just starting off where I could do remuxes instead. But I'm not sure if there's a transcoding penalty for streaming remuxes remotely. Not that I stream remotely but for family. The ideal way of doing this would be to set up another quality profile for just remuxes, then I can go into Radarr/Sonarr and manually assign that profile to whatever item I want to upgrade. Some get the remux treatment if I really like that movie while the others stay on the default. I don't see a reason to do 100% remuxes but with the amount of space I have, I'm thinking better to do it than not. But honestly, the Web-RIP/Web-DL's quality have been great. I'm not super eagle eye when it comes to spotting artifacts unless it's somewhat obvious. But then I either have to find a way to do it in Recyclarr or I just need to take the time to follow Trash Guides and manually create that profile.

Sounds like a brilliant setup. I'm amazed as well when you see new episodes of tv shows just added automatically (or upgraded) each time I log in. I currently have all 1080p remux's and have no problems with people Streaming them without transcoding, I think a 4k UHD Remux would be too much though. It's tempting to have encodes myself and get everything ever made lol but I'm trying to reign myself in. I currently have 260 TV shows and 1013 movies with 59TB free. I worked out I could have another 1600 1080p Remux movies even if I did stick with that quality. TV shows are a different story of course, but it tends to be older shows that have tons of episodes, modern ones have around 10 episodes a season, which is very manageable. I think I've got all the older TV shows I want now as well, so the focus is on newer content.

I use Drop it to bring all my media directories minus the movie files themselves over to a USB stick, so that's all secure and off site. So yeah only problem now is staying on top of new releases lol. I did ask my PSU manufacturer and turns out the extra sata cables I have are compatible so that's good. Gives me easy scope to add even more drives in the future should I ever need them.

 

[Showdown]

Sounds like a brilliant setup. I'm amazed as well when you see new episodes of tv shows just added automatically (or upgraded) each time I log in. I currently have all 1080p remux's and have no problems with people Streaming them without transcoding, I think a 4k UHD Remux would be too much though. It's tempting to have encodes myself and get everything ever made lol but I'm trying to reign myself in. I currently have 260 TV shows and 1013 movies with 59TB free. I worked out I could have another 1600 1080p Remux movies even if I did stick with that quality. TV shows are a different story of course, but it tends to be older shows that have tons of episodes, modern ones have around 10 episodes a season, which is very manageable. I think I've got all the older TV shows I want now as well, so the focus is on newer content.

I use Drop it to bring all my media directories minus the movie files themselves over to a USB stick, so that's all secure and off site. So yeah only problem now is staying on top of new releases lol. I did ask my PSU manufacturer and turns out the extra sata cables I have are compatible so that's good. Gives me easy scope to add even more drives in the future should I ever need them.

I haven't even gotten into the shows that update with new episodes. I'm just going with older stuff currently but it's amazing that those apps monitor for new episodes or movies. If you have that much leftover space with remuxes with that many shows and movies, I may try to just modify my current profile to include them as the top upgrade.

I'll have to check out Drop It. Is that just a backup solution that maintains the directories so it's Plex ready?

You know, the funny thing is that it's more fun for me just collecting this stuff vs viewing it. I can already tell I'll probably watch maybe 20% of the stuff I'll acquire, if that. It's one of those things where I just want to make sure I have it just in case.

 

[Hostile_18]

I haven't even gotten into the shows that update with new episodes. I'm just going with older stuff currently but it's amazing that those apps monitor for new episodes or movies. If you have that much leftover space with remuxes with that many shows and movies, I may try to just modify my current profile to include them as the top upgrade.

I'll have to check out Drop It. Is that just a backup solution that maintains the directories so it's Plex ready?

You know, the funny thing is that it's more fun for me just collecting this stuff vs viewing it. I can already tell I'll probably watch maybe 20% of the stuff I'll acquire, if that. It's one of those things where I just want to make sure I have it just in case.

Yeah it can't hurt. As once you have the best quality you can forget about ever needing to upgrade it. Storage price is always coming down and Internet speeds going up.

Drop it is just another back up for me. I literally copy and paste my TV and film directories and it puts it on my USB stick minus the video files. So all my custom art work, collection files, special episode info are all saved. Should the worst happen I can just copy and paste it back over. I've put loads of hours into making season sets match or film franchises all with the same layout. I'll have to show some of the best art work on here.

 

[J-Roderton]

Why is setting up remote access for Jelly Fin so fucking difficult?

 

[Hostile_18]

Why is setting up remote access for Jelly Fin so fucking difficult?

Yeah it's not easy. I use Nginx reverse proxy. At least when it's done you can use your server even if the Internet is down and it doesn't need to contact Plex servers to access local content.

 

[J-Roderton]

Yeah it's not easy. I use Nginx reverse proxy. At least when it's done you can use your server even if the Internet is down and it doesn't need to contact Plex servers to access local content.

Cool. Just dropped Plex for various reasons and got a rocking jelly fin going on. Wanted to share with some family members and such and realized I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing.

 

[Hostile_18]

Cool. Just dropped Plex for various reasons and got a rocking jelly fin going on. Wanted to share with some family members and such and realized I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing.

Yeah you definitely need to follow a guide. Are you using Unraid?

 

[Showdown]

Storage price is always coming down and Internet speeds going up.

Yep, I know. That's why I need to pump the brakes on all my acquiring lol.

Drop it is just another back up for me. I literally copy and paste my TV and film directories and it puts it on my USB stick minus the video files. So all my custom art work, collection files, special episode info are all saved. Should the worst happen I can just copy and paste it back over. I've put loads of hours into making season sets match or film franchises all with the same layout. I'll have to show some of the best art work on here.

Oh sweet. I'll look into that. Could be a lifesaver. You ever look into Overseerr BTW? You probably don't need it. I didn't realize the same functionality is built into Radarr/Sonarr but I still do all my requests there for a few reasons:

1. Centralized
2. Better user interface IMO.
3. Easier. Literally two clicks to grab what I need.
4. I can hand the link to other people so they can request what they want without them mucking around in the *arr's.

Cool. Just dropped Plex for various reasons and got a rocking jelly fin going on. Wanted to share with some family members and such and realized I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing.

How is Jellyfin compared to Plex? I just ran into my own issues recently with Plex fuckery when setting this up in a docker. Namely having to phone home to Plex when I was trying to add my server to other Plex clients. BS that you need to do that when it should all be on your local network. Luckily I found out how to bypass that nonsense but still, I was pissed off enough where I was contemplating running JF.

 

[J-Roderton]

Yep, I know. That's why I need to pump the brakes on all my acquiring lol.


Oh sweet. I'll look into that. Could be a lifesaver. You ever look into Overseerr BTW? You probably don't need it. I didn't realize the same functionality is built into Radarr/Sonarr but I still do all my requests there for a few reasons:

1. Centralized
2. Better user interface IMO.
3. Easier. Literally two clicks to grab what I need.
4. I can hand the link to other people so they can request what they want without them mucking around in the *arr's.



How is Jellyfin compared to Plex? I just ran into my own issues recently with Plex fuckery when setting this up in a docker. Namely having to phone home to Plex when I was trying to add my server to other Plex clients. BS that you need to do that when it should all be on your local network. Luckily I found out how to bypass that nonsense but still, I was pissed off enough where I was contemplating running JF.

I like it since it doesn't have all the other bullshit that Plex pushes. It's just my shit whenever I want to watch it. Great for my household.

 

[Hostile_18]

@Showdown I'll have to look into Overseerr, I never got round to it, but it does sound promising. Here's some screenshots of my custom art work;

 

[Showdown]

@Showdown I'll have to look into Overseerr, I never got round to it, but it does sound promising. Here's some screenshots of my custom art work;

Looking good. When you say "custom artwork", you just mean that you changed the posters to something else correct? Also, I'm in the process of reconfiguring my quality profiles. I'm assuming you're only remuxing movies?

 

[Hostile_18]

Looking good. When you say "custom artwork", you just mean that you changed the posters to something else correct? Also, I'm in the process of reconfiguring my quality profiles. I'm assuming you're only remuxing movies?

Yeah I download sets from either;

The Poster Database

The Best Media Poster Database!

theposterdb.com

https://mediux.pro/

and no 1080p Disc Remux everything where possible. I value my favourite tv shows, loads more over movies!

 

[Showdown]

Yeah I download sets from either;

The Poster Database

The Best Media Poster Database!

theposterdb.com

https://mediux.pro/

and no 1080p Disc Remux everything where possible. I value my favourite tv shows, loads more over movies!

So weird. I don't need to do anything for my artwork. They're somehow all getting imported automagically into Plex. And I always have like 20+ posters I can choose from if I want to change it out.

Man. I don't think I could do TV shows too. I'm wincing at just the handful of movies I'm going to have to upgrade to remux. I can't imagine the amount of space TV shows would take up. Never mind the fact that my ISP would start questioning why I'm chewing through TB's of data every month.

 

[Hostile_18]

So weird. I don't need to do anything for my artwork. They're somehow all getting imported automagically into Plex. And I always have like 20+ posters I can choose from if I want to change it out.

Man. I don't think I could do TV shows too. I'm wincing at just the handful of movies I'm going to have to upgrade to remux. I can't imagine the amount of space TV shows would take up. Never mind the fact that my ISP would start questioning why I'm chewing through TB's of data every month.

Oh don't get me wrong I can choose art work within Jellyfin, but if you want it matching and neat custom is the way. Just beware it's a rabbit hole lol.

Yeah I hammered my ISP initially. But once you have everything it goes down substantially. My server is around 204 TB raw with 59 TB free.

 

[J-Roderton]

Finally grabbed a NAS and a 4TB IronWolf drive. Went with an Asustor Drivestor 2 Lite. Took a while to really get it up and running and files transferred but seems to be working okay. I use Jellyfin, but should I not have installed the server on the NAS? It's painfully slow now when trying to load up my content. Should the NAS itself only be used for storage?

 

[Showdown]

Finally grabbed a NAS and a 4TB IronWolf drive. Went with an Asustor Drivestor 2 Lite. Took a while to really get it up and running and files transferred but seems to be working okay. I use Jellyfin, but should I not have installed the server on the NAS? It's painfully slow now when trying to load up my content. Should the NAS itself only be used for storage?

Is it just loading that takes a while, not actually playing media?

I like it since it doesn't have all the other bullshit that Plex pushes. It's just my shit whenever I want to watch it. Great for my household.

I ended up moving over to Jellyfin myself recently. Found out some other stuff about Plex concerning privacy that I just didn't care for at all. I always thought it was weird that I had to use their servers to authenticate when I'm supposed to be self-hosted. That and if you can't connect to them, you can't access your media if your Internet connectivity goes out. Those both should've been a red flag for me long ago. I know you can get around both of those issues with some configuration tweaks but neither of those things should ever have been on the table. Either way, Jellyfin has been rock solid and I wish I would've jumped on earlier.

 

[J-Roderton]

Is it just loading that takes a while, not actually playing media?



I ended up moving over to Jellyfin myself recently. Found out some other stuff about Plex concerning privacy that I just didn't care for at all. I always thought it was weird that I had to use their servers to authenticate when I'm supposed to be self-hosted. That and if you can't connect to them, you can't access your media if your Internet connectivity goes out. Those both should've been a red flag for me long ago. I know you can get around both of those issues with some configuration tweaks but neither of those things should ever have been on the table. Either way, Jellyfin has been rock solid and I wish I would've jumped on earlier.

Seems to be only loading and that's on each tv, laptop, and phone app. Takes ages to load images and folders.

Totally agree with you on that other stuff. Plex was just rubbing me the wrong way.

 

[Showdown]

Seems to be only loading and that's on each tv, laptop, and phone app. Takes ages to load images and folders.

Totally agree with you on that other stuff. Plex was just rubbing me the wrong way.

If I had to take a guess, it's because your cache/metadata are on your spinners instead of something fast like an SSD. If I have those things on spinners, it takes a bit for them to load up. So for me, cache/metadata are on an nvme and the media lives on the spinners. Not sure if you are able to add an SSD to that NAS though.

 

[J-Roderton]

If I had to take a guess, it's because your cache/metadata are on your spinners instead of something fast like an SSD. If I have those things on spinners, it takes a bit for them to load up. So for me, cache/metadata are on an nvme and the media lives on the spinners. Not sure if you are able to add an SSD to that NAS though.

Would it be possible to move meta/cache info to say an external ssd via usb?

 

[Showdown]

Would it be possible to move meta/cache info to say an external ssd via usb?

Yeah, I would think you'd be able to do it unless there's something wonky about Asustor Drivestor (I'm not familiar with it).

 

[J-Roderton]

Yeah, I would think you'd be able to do it unless there's something wonky about Asustor Drivestor (I'm not familiar with it).

Neat. I'll see if I can test that out this weekend.

I'm not familiar with any of this so it's totally a learning experience.

 

[Hego Damask]

Plex announces Plex Pass price increase and paywall for remote streaming - 9to5Mac

As it continues to test a dramatic redesign of its app, Plex has announced several other imminent changes. In a...

9to5mac.com

As it continues to test a dramatic redesign of its app, Plex has announced several other imminent changes. In a blog post today, the company announced a price increase for its Plex Pass subscription, alongside changes to remote streaming for personal media.


Starting on April 29, 2025, Plex says that Plex Plass prices will increase as follows:

• Monthly: $6.99 (up from $5.99)
• Yearly: $69.99 (up from $49.99)
• Lifetime: $249.99 (up from $119.99)

This marks the first price increase for Plex Pass in over 10 years. Plex says the price increase is necessary "to keep up with rising costs" while also staying "committed to ensuring both Plex Pass and our support for personal media continue to thrive."

The company says there are three primary things on the Plex roadmap for personal media users this year:

• A valuable integration with Common Sense Media featuring extras for Plex Pass holders.
• A new bespoke server management app that works on browsers or mobile clients for a better curation experience with more visibility into who is on your server, and how.
• An open and documented API for server integrations, along with the ability to create custom metadata agents.

But there's another big change for Plex users who utilize the remote playback feature for streaming personal media when not on the same local network as the server. Starting on April 29, Plex says remote playback will no longer be available as a free feature.

A key detail from this announcement: If a server owner has a Plex Pass, all users with access can stream remotely at no extra charge. For example, if you share a Plex server with family members outside your home, they can stream content as long as you have a Plex Pass subscription.

Upgrading to any Plex Pass subscription is a great option for server owners, as it ensures all users accessing the Plex Media Server can stream remotely, without an additional charge. Even if you don't run your own Plex Media Server, a Plex Pass subscription will not only allow you to stream remotely from any server to which you have access, but also lets you make use of other Plex Pass functionality like Skip Intro and Skip Credits

Plex is also introducing a new Remote Watch Pass subscription option:

Our brand-new subscription offering, Remote Watch Pass, allows individual users to remotely stream media from any personal media server to which they have access. This is a great option for users who don't run their own server and are looking to stream from a server belonging to a friend or family member who does not have a Plex Pass. It's also a good alternative for server owners who may not need the full feature offering of a Plex Pass, but are looking for a more cost-effective option to access their media remotely. Beginning April 29, 2025, Remote Watch Pass will be available for an introductory price of $1.99/month or $19.99/year.

Finally, Plex is doing away with its mobile unlock fee:

Our Android and iOS mobile apps previously required a one-time activation fee or Plex Pass to remove the one-minute playback limitation when streaming content from a Plex Media Server. As part of these changes, there will no longer be any such one-minute playback limitation. Playing content on a local network will be free in the new mobile apps. These changes will go into effect when the new mobile Plex experience exits the preview period and launches publicly.

More details on today's Plex announcements are available on the company's website.

 

[Arkam]

I dont want any of that. All I want is what I have had for the last 8 years....plus AI powered subtitles. The rest is a complete waste on me. If I didnt like being able to stream on my TV or laptop, I would be just fine running everything via VLC like I did for years and years.

 

[Hostile_18]

Sounds awful, Jellyfin has all those features but for free for everyone.

The price increases are in line with the industry though. There is little money to be made in lifetime subscriptions.

 

[Showdown]

Yeah I caught the Plex price increase news a day ago and just laughed to myself. I should be kicking my own ass about it though because I was dopey enough to buy a lifetime Plex Pass a few years ago (on sale). Knowing what I know now about Plex and their multitude of shenanigans, I would've never even spent the money and moved over to Jellyfin sooner. Jellyfin is truly SELF-HOSTED and is truly just as good as Plex as a media server. It being free is just a cherry but I'd pay for it as a standalone solution because it's that good. The only thing that needs work are some of their apps and prettying up their UI but that's me just nitpicking. Oh, and collections if you have multiple libraries. That's one area that Plex was much better in.

The amount of shilling that I see in the Plex Reddit is incredible. It's painful to see people ignore the bullshit that Plex has been pulling over the years and then lap up this latest price increase. Of course, many of those jokers had already bought Plex lifetime when it was like around 80 bucks so I'm sure it's a case of "Screw you, I've got mine." But I really hope this motivates more people to jump on the Jellyfin bandwagon. Maybe that will, in turn, motivate the developers to kick it into gear and get some things fixed up at tad more.

There is little money to be made in lifetime subscriptions.

I see this comment a lot around the Interwebs. "Developers have to make a living wage!" I'm not singling you out when I say this but... what exactly did we do before everything went to a SaaS model? People survived. People had jobs. People made money. The reason for subscriptions is bloat and greed, much like it is with gaming now. Keep growing your team and maximize profits. I mean Plex is a good example. It's pretty far removed from what it initially was. And all the while the company has just continued to grow in headcount while pushing things that users don't want. Oh, and moving to subscriptions.

I'd much rather go back to the good old days of standalone purchases and if you want to upgrade to the latest and greatest version every release, then you buy that version. Or you stay on the version that you're already on until you're ready to upgrade when it makes sense. I can't even describe the disdain that I have for subscription models, I absolutely despise them.

 

[J-Roderton]

Yeah I'm going to fix my Jellyfin server. Screw that.

 

[ExpandKong]

What bullshit has plex been pulling over the years exactly? I'm using them presently but I'm not gonna pay for some shit jellyfin does for free

 

[Amorous Biscuit]

The enshittification of Plex continues. More annoyingly my 2019 LG OLED can't run Jellyfin, so I guess that I need to either upgrade my TV or just stick to strictly home streaming. Irritating, as I had friends and family using my Plex server as way of bypassing paying for the slop on Netflix.

 

[Hostile_18]

The enshittification of Plex continues. More annoyingly my 2019 LG OLED can't run Jellyfin, so I guess that I need to either upgrade my TV or just stick to strictly home streaming. Irritating, as I had friends and family using my Plex server as way of bypassing paying for the slop on Netflix.

Can the OS not be updated? My 2022 and 2024 LG Oleds have the app in the app store (I run it on both of mine, no firestick needed).

@Showdown with regards to life time subscriptions it was more about the cost of inflation and continued developer support (which is usually really high for just one programmer etc). I too would rather pay for new versions, but likely continued security is a bit of a grey area and obviously essential.

 

[Amorous Biscuit]

Can the OS not be updated? My 2022 and 2024 LG Oleds have the app in the app store (I run it on both of mine, no firestick needed).

@Showdown with regards to life time subscriptions it was more about the cost of inflation and continued developer support (which is usually really high for just one programmer etc). I too would rather pay for new versions, but likely continued security is a bit of a grey area and obviously essential.

Sadly Jellyfin is only available on 2020 models onward!

 

[kiNeMs]

Ok i will be checking jellyfin. I've had plex for a damn long time and have a lifetime sub. I also have about 30 people who connect.

This is not gonna fly.

 

[Showdown]

What bullshit has plex been pulling over the years exactly? I'm using them presently but I'm not gonna pay for some shit jellyfin does for free

For me:

1. It's not 100% self-hosted. They require an account and you need to auth with their servers... to access my own server. I mean, think about that for a sec. If your internet takes a dump, you can't hit your own server on your own LAN because you can't auth with theirs and trust me, tons of people have complained about this. Yes yes, you can configure it to skip auth for your local network but that's not the default and there's still a stupid amount of Plex users that don't even know this and it's not something that really stands out in the settings if I recall. This really should've been the first indication that things were uncool but I let it slide for some reason.

2. Privacy. This is the big one for me. I've got Pi-Hole running on my network and I periodically check it. I'd see soooooo much chatter going out to Plex that it was insane. And of course, I'm thinking to myself, "Why would Plex be phoning out to the internet constantly? I'm not logging in constantly and it can't be pulling metadata that much." Well, because they collect telemetry on you, which was something I don't remember seeing but I'm sure it was in some TOS that I just clicked through. And at the time, it wasn't "Opt-in". You had to go to some obscure web page on Plex and disable it if I recall.

3. PRIVACY. Back in '23, Plex had something enabled called Discover Together which basically shared your watch history with other users. And them with you. You'd get emails announcing what viewers were watching. There was HUGE backlash about it for obvious reasons. Not that I particularly care what people see that I watched. My bigger concern was how exactly does Plex know what I'm watching and when I'm watching it? Like, when they're pulling telemetry off me, are they scanning files/filenames on my server, are they getting it from metadata, etc? I don't know but in order to send those emails out, they have to be collecting info on you and your users. Fuck. That.

4. Plex blocked entire address blocks for Hetzner making users Plex servers unusable. From the very little I read about it, users were using VPS's in those address blocks to share their content and/or charging for it. Obviously, total bullshit that people would charge other to access their Plex media and that's not what it's supposed to be used for but again, this going back to "How does Plex even know that I'm running a server in a Hetzner IP range for them to block it?" Well it goes back to your media server having to connect back to Plex servers to be usable. Again, not truly self hosted.

5. Pushing all sorts of shit that people don't want. The vast majority of the folks out there just want a standalone media server. Then Plex decided to start dipping their toes into the streaming waters and started adding streaming services to people's media server software. I specifically use my own media server to get away from that shit, not have thrust back on me and bloating my UI.

6. The latest price increase is bullshit but the bigger issue that people are complaining about is the fact that you now need to have Plex Pass in order to remotely access your server. That never used to be the case. That was a core feature before and now you're either locked into a subscription to use that or you need to purchase lifetime. Now, I haven't read enough about it but I believe that this may only apply to Plex's relay servers (which you shouldn't even be using anyways unless you absolutely need to). I think you can still get around it by setting up a reverse proxy or VPNing back into your network. But still....

7. Like someone mentioned before... needing Plex Pass to do something as basic as transcoding. I direct stream all my stuff so this doesn't affect me but on the off chance that I have a remote user that needs to transcode, now I need Plex Pass to accomplish that.

I'm sure there's something else I'm forgetting that maybe someone else can chime in on but these were the big ones for me. And I was only aware of #1 up until about late last winter. As soon as I found out about the telemetry collecting and the sharing of watch history, I "noped" right out of Plex and forklifted everything over to Jellyfin and haven't looked back. Like I said before, Jellyfin is fantastic and just as easy to configure and use as Plex is. And it's all free. I'd say the only thing that was more involved with my setup now is that it's an absolute requirement to use a reverse proxy or a VPN to share your Jellyfin with remote users.