Plex
A community for discussing Plex Media Server. Plex Media Server is a smart software that makes playing movies, tv shows, and other media on your computer simple.
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Rules
Rule 1 - Don't be a dick
Don't be a dick. This includes any kind of trolling, baiting, etc. Bigotry may result in an instant permaban.
Rule 2 - No misleading or non-descriptive titles
No misleading or non-descriptive titles. Try to be brief but detailed.
Rule 3 - Keep post and comments relevant
Posts must be related to Plex and Plex-related products, apps. etc. Try to keep comments relevant to the parent comment and to the post.
Rule 4 - Keep discussions of "media aqcuistion" limited to means and methods only.
Discussions regarding media acquisition should be limited to the "how" not the "what", as this is not the place to discuss piracy of specific media. There are other communities for that, and we don't want to get this community defederated from instances where it's a forbidden topic. Posts/comments discussing specific acts of piracy ("How do I find X show?" or "Where can I download Y film?")will be removed. For further clarification see this post
Rule 5 - No asking / offering Plex shares.
No asking / offering Plex shares. There are other communities for that.
Rule 6 - No low-effort / spam / meme posts
No low-effort / meme posts. These are considered spam, and will be removed. Repeat offenses may result in a ban.
Rule 7 - No referral / self-promotion / affiliate links, personal voting / campaigning / funding, or selling posts
No referral / self-promotion / affiliate links, personal voting / campaigning / funding, or selling posts. These are considered spam, and will be removed. Repeat offenses may result in a ban.
Useful Resources
- Plex FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions about using Plex Media Server and client apps with many useful links
- Plex App Setup Guide - Visual guide for first-run setup of Plex apps on smart devices
- c/Plex Add-ons Guide - Detailed info on many of the most popular Plex add-ons with links to setup guides and other resources. Mantained for this community.
- Servarr Wiki - The consolidated wiki for Lidarr, Prowlarr, Radarr, Readarr, and Sonarr.
- TRaSH-Guides - Guides mainly for Sonarr/Radarr/Bazarr and everything related to it.
- Awesome-arr - a complete list of Plex-related companion apps, user scripts, etc.
- Plex Hardware Transcoding Cheat Sheet - NVidia GPUs
- Organizing and Naming Your Media Files
- Troubleshooting Server Connections
- Plex User Forums
^This^ ^is^ ^a^ ^community^ ^page^ ^and^ ^is^ ^not^ ^affiliated^ ^with^ ^Plex,^ ^Inc.^ ^in^ ^any^ ^way.^
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Plex is a media server. You can think of it like an instance of Netflix that you host yourself, with all your own media.
It lets you keep your media on one computer, and access it from anywhere on any device.
Plex Media Server (PMS), or sometimes just referred to as Plex, Is the server itself. It tracks all your media, metadata, etc, and handles servery stuff like transcoding, and actually serving the media.
Just like any other streaming service, to connect to the server and actually play the media, you need a client. There are many different Plex clients including but not limited to:
Yes! you can cast from your phone to a Chromecast in the Plex app. If you've got an android TV, you can also install the native Plex app, and browse Plex like any other streaming service.
Probably because you (will) have a lot of media sitting around, and need a way to access the media without being physically in front of the computer it is stored on. Maybe you want to share your media collection with other people.
Plex works pretty well on its own! You just need to provide your own media, and point Plex at where your media is. This can be through ripping Blurays, or ... less than legal means. If you plan on going the legally murky route, there are many other applications like Sonarr and Radarr that will automatically find and download media, but that's too advanced for now.
LMK if you have any other questions, I'd be glad to give more answers.
Which hardware do you recommend? I am thinking about setting up pihole as well in the same server. Do you think this would work? I am trying to find a reasonably priced refurbished server, but I am finding difficult to find/understand how big HDD these support.
You can definitely run pihole and Plex on the same machine!
I would go for a used PC over a refurb server. servers eat up a lot of electricity and will increase your electric bills quite a bit.
go for something with an Intel CPU, maybe a 10th gen i3, or even older if you want cheaper. Intel's quicksync will let you do hardware transcoding without a GPU. you really don't need a very powerful cpu otherwise, both Plex and pihole aren't very heavy on the cpu.