My good ol 2+ year Plex server host has been banned again. I have given up on this, I do not have access to an obscure server with few customers that will avoid future bans.

What’s the platform of choice moving forward? Need wife-approval factor. Emby and Jellyfin? Where can I source servers? Reddit has made these hard to find and I haven’t found a good community here.

    • @[email protected]
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      279 months ago

      Agreed, as long as you handle the HTTPS or VPN setup, and set up any automatic media downloading ( jellyseer, sonarr and radarr and jackett) the end product is certifiably wife approved and works nicely out of the box

        • @[email protected]
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          129 months ago

          Enemy and Jellyfin both have Android TV and Roku apps. I don’t have an apple TV, but I imagine apps exist there too.

        • @[email protected]
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          9 months ago

          I have a Chromecast Ultra connected by ethernet to my network. There’s an android app with a cast functionality which we both use with our respective accounts. I also hear good things about the Android TV and roku clients (but have neither myself)

  • @[email protected]
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    609 months ago

    Host your own. Plex wasn’t designed to be a mass distribution. It is designed for home theater/personal use in or out of network.

  • @[email protected]
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    579 months ago

    Wait, people get on to strangers plex accounts? Like for money or something?

    Bro, pirate your own movies and provide your Plex access only to your friends, friends friends, friends friends friends, coworkers, and family, as god intended.

    • @[email protected]
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      129 months ago

      Especially if you’re friends have servers then you can cross share to have more coverage and backup

  • @[email protected]
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    309 months ago

    Host the shit yourself. The monthly costs of paying a hoster will be far greater than just getting the equipment yourself. Imagine you pay for example $50 a month for a half way decent server. That’s $600 a year. That alone is a decent plex server with decent storage. Times that by 5-10 years and you are paying out the ass for the same server and the same storage vs using that same money to spend on HDD space and the plus side is it’s actually YOUR equipment in the end. Now i get some guys have shit internet and those people I’m not talking about. Some will try and say they don’t have space. I call BS. An intel NUC is extremely tiny and power efficient and can be hooked up to an external enclosure tucked away. I myself have the space for a rack with multiple JBODs but i know not everyone has that luxury.

    I tried jellyfin but for the life of me I can’t figure out why my search takes 1-2 mins to load when searching something. Multiple people have this issue but none of the fixes work for me. So sadly it’s still plex for me.

    • @TSUTiger
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      109 months ago

      Most people aren’t paying anywhere near $50/mo, and the headache from hosting and time $avings from letting someone else do it is worth it.

      • wolfshadowheart
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        39 months ago

        x to doubt - most services I see listed here are at least a combined amount of $30+ which over a period of 5 years, it’s far cheaper to buy the hardware once, set it up once, and be done with it. Bonus, in 5 years if you really did eat up 16tb of data you can just add one more 8tb hard drive for the cost of 4 months of streaming.

        I personally get really frustrated with linux and self-hosting is a pain in the ass, I enjoy it, but it’s a pain. Self-hosting something like plex is completely different. Set it up once right the first time and you forget about it forever.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      19 months ago

      I’m paying $5/mo and love self hosting but i have cable internet and expensive electricity so it makes more sense to outsource.

  • @[email protected]
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    259 months ago

    Why don’t you host your own server? You need as much as NUC or Raspberry Pi even combined with a couple of harddisks or SSD’S.

    • @[email protected]
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      9 months ago

      and an industry grade internet connection if you plan on sharing your library with a few friends. Otherwise, fully agreed

      edit: if you have mostly full HD stuff it might be pretty feasible with regular internet

      • @[email protected]
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        139 months ago

        A 40mpbs up connection can host quite a few people. I used to have 40 up and i was able to do 4-5 people remotely just fine.

      • @[email protected]
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        79 months ago

        I have gigabit and my users who have gigabit have no problem watching but those on 300mbps can hit a snag. But I only host remuxes

        • Overzeetop
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          49 months ago

          I have xshitty 200/15 service at my house and share my server with my parents and sister, plus a have a Roku stick I take on travel. I set them up for 720/2Mbps or 3mbps remote view quality and have yet to encounter any issues. I have everything for a few old school 480 rips up to 4k. Everything except local feeds gets transcoded with quicsync.

            • Overzeetop
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              19 months ago

              The worst thing is that my only other choice is ADSL at 7M/768k. I live a mile from a university with two 500Gb primary connections and regularly tops 10Gb net throughout on a daily basis.

              • @[email protected]
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                19 months ago

                Almost better off with tmobiles 5G if you only had adsl. I’ve never had comcast but did have spectrum. It wasn’t that bad but definitely worse than fiber. I had fiber since 2006 or so at my parents with symmetric 25 or 50.

                I think I have the option to hit 5gb but I just have a seed box

                • Overzeetop
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                  19 months ago

                  Almost better off with tmobiles 5G

                  Yeah…except we’re 5 miles from the closest interstate, so T-mo home service puts us in the “Lite” option. If you’ve never looked, the “Lite” option is not “Lite” because it’s cheaper - they charge you the same (more if you’re a Magenta/MegentaMax subscriber) and cap you at 50GB. LOL Someday I’ll move and get better internet. :-/

      • @[email protected]
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        39 months ago

        Industry grade? Just need fiber with a good upload speed. Not that rare where I am anymore.

      • @[email protected]
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        -19 months ago

        lol industry grade

        What 3rd world country are you dialing in from 🤣

        I think my backup line is like 150 Mbps max upload

            • William
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              29 months ago

              I’m pretty sure they mean upload doesn’t go over 50mbps here. We have pretty easy access to 1gbps download in tons of places, especially cities. But high upload is pretty hard to come by without a business line.

        • m-p{3}
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          19 months ago

          Best I can get upload-wise where I live is 20mbps, and I’m not even in a rural area.

    • @[email protected]
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      279 months ago

      Plex are banning Hetzner IPs because libraries are hosted there and shared with thousands. I see people are moving to Emby/JellyFin because Plex is trying to become the next Netflix app OS trying to clean up what they see as pirated content

      • krolden
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        199 months ago

        Thats not being banned from Plex tho. Maybe just host your server elsewhere.

        • m-p{3}
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          29 months ago

          Yeah just host the server elsewhere. You don’t need all the media files to reside on the actual server either, you can just mount the external data using FUSE/rClone or something and cache the most requested data.

        • @[email protected]
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          9 months ago

          Received an email from Plex:

          “We’re contacting you to let you know about an upcoming action that is likely to affect your Plex Media Server setup. You’re receiving this notice because the IP address associated with a Plex Media Server on your account appears to come from a service provider that hosts a significant number of Plex Media Servers that violate our Terms of Service.”

          I pay a few Euro a month for access to Plex with a lot of content. That content is hosted on Hetzner

      • RBG
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        79 months ago

        Sorry for this maybe very naive question, but how can you possibly use Plex with only legal content? Can you actually purchase content within Plex? I always thought its just to play the content you provide, which almost always means its illegal since ripping your own discs is mostly piracy too, legally speaking.

        • @[email protected]
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          99 months ago

          depending on where you live. in some places its legal to make copies of disk for personal use or as “backups”. Same with music, or do you think apple would include a “cd ripping feature” in itunes if the usage would be illegal ?

          • RBG
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            29 months ago

            Yes, I know thats the case, but at least in the case of Germany where you are allowed a private copy, its still illegal to break DRM to do so. So most stuff you could rip for private use is made illegal, since it comes with DRM.

            • @[email protected]
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              59 months ago

              But you can always use the DVR, you dont violate any DRM-Laws. As its included in many settop-boxes or even TVs. Plex even has a feature to automatically record for you based on EPG data

              • RBG
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                39 months ago

                Thanks, you are the first person to actually provide a real argument. I did not know Plex can connect to a DVR.

                • @[email protected]
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                  29 months ago

                  plex can be a dvr. I have my cableTV directly pluged into my server and use plex for recording, as well as watching tv

                • @[email protected]
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                  19 months ago

                  Jellyfin can work as a DVR too. You just need some extra hardware like a TVHeadend or a TV tuner card to hook it up to your cable/satellite/antenna feed

        • @[email protected]
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          29 months ago

          I don’t disagree with your definitions of legality, but I do disagree fundamentally that ripping a movie should be under the same umbrella of piracy if the intent is not to distribute.

          Even blurays that offer a bonus “digital copy” are redeemed through a third-party that packs it with DRM so you can’t use it for your own media server. How are they even supposed to enforce this absolute assanine law that I can’t watch the damn movie that I bought on my own terms?

          • RBG
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            -19 months ago

            Just to be clear, I don’t support this definition either, its stupid.

            Technically often making a copy is not illegal, but breaking DRM is. Unfortunately almost everything comes with DRM so in consequence rippping becomes indirectly illegal. At least in Germany this is the case.

            • @FigMcLargeHuge
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              9 months ago

              I mean if you want to go full technical here, your dvd/bluray player is breaking the DRM as well.

              Edit: Ignore this, I am a dumbass.

              • RBG
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                9 months ago

                No it is not. Those players usually come with a purchased license to unlock the DRM. If you try and play them on a laptop you need a player software that has the same type of license. Try opening a disc like that on your PC with a freshly installed VLC player, it won’t work. There you need to break DRM by adding the famous libraries like libdvdcss and what else they are called.

                • @FigMcLargeHuge
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                  49 months ago

                  Oh yeah, I forgot about that. My brain is not a good brain.

        • @[email protected]
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          19 months ago

          which almost always means its illegal since ripping your own discs is mostly piracy too, legally speaking

          Is this actually the case?

          • @[email protected]
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            19 months ago

            Hasn’t been tested in this context. But if you’re sharing it, that puts you in another set of legal cross hairs.

            • RBG
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              19 months ago

              So I clarified this in another post, and I admit I only know German law on this but ripping is technically legal for a private copy, but you are not allowed to break DRM for it. So indirectly it makes it fully illegal since almost nothing comes without DRM anymore.

              • @[email protected]
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                29 months ago

                In the US it is more breaking the DRM is applicable to the software/hardware used to break DRM. Against US citizens that break DRM for their own personal use hasn’t been tested and most legal experts seem to argue it is fair use as long as you don’t share.

      • @[email protected]
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        59 months ago

        Plex got in bed with the devil when they started moving to hosting content with their free stuff. Now content creators have leverage over them.

    • @TheGuy
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      9 months ago

      deleted by creator

    • Scott
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      59 months ago

      I’m assuming the blanket hetzner ban

  • @[email protected]
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    29 months ago

    Plex has been dead for years now. They have been trying to distance themselves from “piracy” for years… throw in some telemetry behind the scenes… and I have no clue why people still run Plex.

    https://cordcuttersnews.com/plex-is-coming-under-fire-for-piracy/

    https://torrentfreak.com/courts-sentence-men-for-pirating-thousands-of-movies-tv-shows-including-via-plex-210325/

    "Earlier this month the conclusion of another file-sharing case was reported by SØIK. Following a process at the Copenhagen City Court, a 35-year-old man was convicted of downloading and sharing 9,440 movies.

    According to SØIK, the movies were made available “to at least 21 users via a server” and for this offense, he was sentenced to 30 days probation. TorrentFreak requested additional information from anti-piracy group Rights Alliance which has now revealed a completely different type of case.

    In December 2019, Rights Alliance filed a criminal complaint against a Denmark resident after discovering he was running a Plex server containing copyrighted content.

    “It was a Plex server running on a NAS-server and operated from a Mac Mini. The owner and operator of the Plex server shared the content with friends and family. They were sent a password by mail,” the group explains.

    While the Plex software is entirely legal, like other media software it can be put to illegal uses. Prosecutions are extremely rare, especially when people only share their libraries with close friends and family, but in this case Rights Alliance felt a criminal case was warranted.

    TF asked Rights Alliance if those who accessed the server face any action but the group would only confirm that they were users of the server. Meanwhile, the convicted operator must pay for the legal proceedings and abide by a settlement agreement with rightsholders, the terms of which remain confidential."