What are some of you guys using for Media Servers?

I moved to Emby a couple years back and it's been great.

Are you guys moving off Plex with the direction they are taking? Heard most recently they are going after a hosting provider because of piracy?

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Re: Media Servers
By: niter3 to All on Mon Oct 02 2023 08:06 am

What are some of you guys using for Media Servers?

Plex, for probably almost a decade now.

Are you guys moving off Plex with the direction they are taking? Heard most recently they are going after a hosting provider because of piracy?

I hadn't heard anything, but then again I don't follow along with news or e-news or anything like that. I run plex-media-server on Archlinux, and don't pay for anything.

That said, just a few days ago I asked everyone in the house if they had used it at all recently, and got a unanimous 'no' from everyone. So I'll probably just delete it when I get around to it. I haven't added anything to it for a bit, and most things we just stream these days. One less VM to maintain. ;)

Regards,
Nick

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On 02 Oct 23 08:06:01, Niter3 said the following to All:

What are some of you guys using for Media Servers?

I moved to Emby a couple years back and it's been great.

Using Emby here for awhile, works perfectly.

Atreyu

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on 02 Oct 2023, Accession said...

I hadn't heard anything, but then again I don't follow along with news or e-news or anything like that. I run plex-media-server on Archlinux, and don't pay for anything.

That said, just a few days ago I asked everyone in the house if they had used it at all recently, and got a unanimous 'no' from everyone. So I'll probably just delete it when I get around to it. I haven't added
anything to it for a bit, and most things we just stream these days. One less VM to maintain. ;)

Same boat. I used to run my own DLNA servers but found less and devices with good clients, so eventually migrated to Plex, but I run a local Plex server off of my Debian based NAS box. Not much power for transcoding, etc. but good enough for most uses, and seemingly everything under the sun has a Plex client these days. I don't use mine much either, only for the occasional thing I run into that I can't easily stream.

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That said, just a few days ago I asked everyone in the house if they had used it at all recently, and got a unanimous 'no' from everyone. So I'll probably just delete it when I get around to it. I haven't added
anything to it for a bit, and most things we just stream these days. One less VM to maintain. ;)

Makes sense if you're not using it.

We don't pay for any streaming services if you know what I mean.

I use it with IPTV too.

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Hello niter3,

02 Oct 23 08:06, you wrote to All:

What are some of you guys using for Media Servers?

I moved to Emby a couple years back and it's been great.

Are you guys moving off Plex with the direction they are taking? Heard
most recently they are going after a hosting provider because of
piracy?

i am using self hosted plex server(s).

Regards,
--
dp

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: jack phlash to Accession on Mon Oct 02 2023 06:27 pm

Same boat. I used to run my own DLNA servers but found less and devices with good clients, so eventually migrated to Plex, but I run a local Plex server off of my Debian based NAS box. Not much power for transcoding, etc. but good enough for most uses, and seemingly everything under the sun has a Plex client these days. I don't use mine much either, only for the occasional thing I run into that I can't easily stream.

Plex just happened to be the first one I ever setup, and just stuck with it because the need for it wasn't all that major, and it's super easy to maintain and/or upgrade. I used to throw movies on there quite a bit, but haven't in the past few years or so.. probably more due to the lack of good movies that have come out since the great and powerful covid scare of 2020. :|

Once we picked up streaming services, there really hasn't been a need to use it. I'm definitely not going to try to keep up with downloading everything we enjoy watching when I can just flip on the TV and pick and choose. Still less than paying for cable, and we have half a dozen services probably. The money I save from getting rid of cable is able to take care of my gig internet upgrade and then some.

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Media Servers
By: niter3 to Accession on Tue Oct 03 2023 08:17 am

Makes sense if you're not using it.

We don't pay for any streaming services if you know what I mean.

Sure do. I'm not sure how you're able to do it, seeing as though it would take me quite a long time to try to snag any/all TV series we actually watch somewhat regularly. I don't have time for that shiii.. lol.

I use it with IPTV too.

If you use the hell out of it, then it's definitely worth it. It was worth it for us for quite awhile until we just damn near flat out stopped using it. *shrug*

I probably won't even delete it. I shut down the VM for now, and if the time ever arises where someone asks about it I can just start it back up, run an update on the OS and plex-media-server package via AUR, and away we go. lol

Regards,
Nick

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Sure do. I'm not sure how you're able to do it, seeing as though it
would take me quite a long time to try to snag any/all TV series we actually watch somewhat regularly. I don't have time for that shiii..
lol.

It's a bit to setup, but once you get the following configured it just works and it's automated.

I DVR stuff as well with my HDR's and other means of live TV.

See below.

Radarr
Sonarr
Transmission
NZBGet
JellySeer

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Re: Media Servers
By: niter3 to Accession on Wed Oct 04 2023 07:24 am

It's a bit to setup, but once you get the following configured it just works and it's automated.

I bet. But I guess, if there's a way to automate it, at least you only have to do it once, then update as needed.

See below.

Radarr
Sonarr
Transmission
NZBGet
JellySeer

I use one of those five. Can you guess which one? ;)

Regards,
Nick

... I'm not broke, I'm just badly bent.
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Re: Media Servers
By: Accession to niter3 on Tue Oct 03 2023 05:36 pm

Sure do. I'm not sure how you're able to do it, seeing as though it would take me quite a long time to try to snag any/all TV series we actually

If you use Kodi as your client/media center, it can run 3rd party add-ons that you can get online. Some of these add-ons will go out and find the content that you want for you to stream. Once in a great while there's something I really want to see "right then" and this method fails, so I have to resort to downloading, but otherwise I haven't downloaded anything in years.

Current good Kodi add-on is Scrubs v2, but that will change.
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on 03 Oct 2023, Accession said...

Plex just happened to be the first one I ever setup, and just stuck with it because the need for it wasn't all that major, and it's super easy to maintain and/or upgrade. I used to throw movies on there quite a bit,
but haven't in the past few years or so.. probably more due to the lack
of good movies that have come out since the great and powerful covid
scare of 2020. :|

Yep, Plex tends to be a lot easier for basic management than most other options out there I'm aware of, though if you end up getting deep into building an archive and getting your meta data and everything just right, you'll do just as much work as when we used to do it mostly by hand back in the day. :P

Agreed about the lack of good movies. I've seen quite a few decent to good ones, but not many that have done all that much for me. Maybe I'm just less obsessed with good movies than when I was younger though.

Once we picked up streaming services, there really hasn't been a need to use it. I'm definitely not going to try to keep up with downloading everything we enjoy watching when I can just flip on the TV and pick and choose. Still less than paying for cable, and we have half a dozen services probably. The money I save from getting rid of cable is able to take care of my gig internet upgrade and then some.

I'm the same way. Streaming services are cheap and convenient. The only issue is that now there are so many, and individually, they seem to be going down in quality content, plus having too many counteracts the cheap part. We keep a couple all the time and rotate others depending on what we want to watch. I still download movies sometimes, but it's rare to need to download a show.

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on 03 Oct 2023, Accession said...

Sure do. I'm not sure how you're able to do it, seeing as though it
would take me quite a long time to try to snag any/all TV series we actually watch somewhat regularly. I don't have time for that shiii..
lol.

Stealing is its own reward!

Joking (mostly) but most of my friends who do this have close to fully automated processes to snag things, download them, and put them on their media servers. I'm sure practically everyone reading this would enjoy setting something like that up. :) Still, the number of people I know who do this has dropped drastically since the rise of streaming services. I wouldn't be surprised if more start up again though...

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: jack phlash to Accession on Fri Oct 06 2023 08:45 am

Yep, Plex tends to be a lot easier for basic management than most other options out there I'm aware of, though if you end up getting deep into building an archive and getting your meta data and everything just right, you'll do just as much work as when we used to do it mostly by hand back in the day. :P

Whatever do you mean? I've always done it mostly by hand, granted it wasn't
all that hard. Just time consuming downloading and then copying it to my shared media folder.

Or are you referring to hitting the record button on the VCR? :D

I'm the same way. Streaming services are cheap and convenient. The only issue is that now there are so many, and individually, they seem to be going down in quality content, plus having too many counteracts the cheap part. We keep a couple all the time and rotate others depending on what we want to watch. I still download movies sometimes, but it's rare to need to download a show.

I just came to that realization when this thread started, to be honest.
Started looking at what we all had and asked the rest of the family what I can get rid of. Come to find out we get MAX from our AT&T cell package for free, yet still pay for Discovery+. That one was cancelled immediately. Within the next 24 hours I had 3-4 emails from them begging me to come back with offers up to 50% off for the first few months.

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: jack phlash to Accession on Fri Oct 06 2023 08:52 am

Stealing is its own reward!

Just saying, we watch a lot of different oddball shit. It would take awhile to try and automate all of it. ;)

Joking (mostly) but most of my friends who do this have close to fully automated processes to snag things, download them, and put them on their media servers. I'm sure practically everyone reading this would enjoy setting something like that up. :) Still, the number of people I know who do this has dropped drastically since the rise of streaming services. I wouldn't be surprised if more start up again though...

I wouldn't mind setting something like that up, but I still have flashbacks of guns in my face. lol

I wouldn't be surprised if more start doing this again either, especially when the greed continues rearing it's ugly head. Discovery+ had just emailed me that it was going from 6.99/mo to 8.99/mo, which is chump change in dollars and cents, but calculate the percent increase on that once. Have you ever gotten a 20-30%+ pay raise? Fuck them.

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Media Servers
By: niter3 to All on Mon Oct 02 2023 08:06 am

What are some of you guys using for Media Servers?

I moved to Emby a couple years back and it's been great.

Are you guys moving off Plex with the direction they are taking? Heard most recently they are going after a hosting provider because of piracy?

I've been using Plex for quite a while, and I think I had seen some mention about that but so far it hasn't seemed to be a problem..? I haven't had any issues with Plex lately. What exactly does that mean? And how would they be able to detect whether any of your content was pirated or whether you ripped it yourself from your own discs? I thought part of the idea of Plex was to be able to rip your own content and put it on your Plex server..

Nightfox

on 06 Oct 2023, Accession said...

Whatever do you mean? I've always done it mostly by hand, granted it wasn't all that hard. Just time consuming downloading and then copying
it to my shared media folder.

Oh, sorry, I was referring specifically to organizing your media files and ensuring they have the correct, full metadata, cover art, etc. If you're just leeching a movie and sticking it on your server to watch the same day, then nuking it later (which is how I usually do it) it really doesn't matter much, but for people building a massive collection of their favorite movies and shows, they're usually a bit more anal about this kind of thing.

With older DLNA / UPnP servers there were often counterintuitive or at least esoteric rules for how they'd automatically scrape and populate meta data - files would often need to be organized and named in very *exact* ways, etc. and that's if they even supported doing it in the first place (some required plug-ins or totally separate applications to do this.) Plex has some of those issues still, of course, but it's much better at figuring out and matching on titles on its own, and of course metadata searching and scraping is built-in and automatic.

I just came to that realization when this thread started, to be honest. Started looking at what we all had and asked the rest of the family what
I can get rid of. Come to find out we get MAX from our AT&T cell package for free, yet still pay for Discovery+. That one was cancelled immediately. Within the next 24 hours I had 3-4 emails from them begging me to come back with offers up to 50% off for the first few months.

Ha! They're taking another one from cable companies' playbooks, I see. Yeah, Netflix used to be one of my constants but it doesn't have nearly as much good stuff as it used to, and its original content hasn't been all that compelling for a while so I suspect that'll change soon. Prime, I rarely stream on, but I have it because I pay for Prime for various other reasons and it definitely comes in handy on occasion (they have quite a lot of weird, obscure stuff if you really dig around.) HBO/MAX has felt pretty strong at times, I think I have it more often than not these days. Apple, Discovery+, Disney, etc. are all sort of on an as-needed basis for me. Hulu and Paramount+ are always battling each other for a spot. I've been watching more on Paramount+ lately, but generally we've used Hulu more. I don't think I've ever had Peacock. I'm sure I'm forgetting some other major ones...

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on 06 Oct 2023, Accession said...

I wouldn't be surprised if more start doing this again either,
especially when the greed continues rearing it's ugly head. Discovery+
had just emailed me that it was going from 6.99/mo to 8.99/mo, which is chump change in dollars and cents, but calculate the percent increase on that once. Have you ever gotten a 20-30%+ pay raise? Fuck them.

Exactly! It really does feel like we're in "late stage capitalism" here with so many companies (definitely not just streaming services) just saying "fuck it!" and going all in on greedily milking consumers while they still can, before the whole thing collapses. Beyond my own inbox, there's been so many headlines lately about companies aggressively upping prices, changing terms and conditions, etc.

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: jack phlash to Accession on Sat Oct 07 2023 10:13 am

Oh, sorry, I was referring specifically to organizing your media files and ensuring they have the correct, full metadata, cover art, etc. If you're just leeching a movie and sticking it on your server to watch the same day, then nuking it later (which is how I usually do it) it really doesn't matter much, but for people building a massive collection of their favorite movies and shows, they're usually a bit more anal about this kind of thing.

Oh I see. I guess I never really needed to do any of that since Plex did most of the grunt work for me. At least everything that I needed, which was basically a title and cover art.

Ha! They're taking another one from cable companies' playbooks, I see.

Of course. Where else would they learn it from? They came in hot with offering services for way cheaper than cable, and then slowly up their rates (cough, cable company, cough). Then everything else falls in line as well.

Yeah, Netflix used to be one of my constants but it doesn't have nearly as much good stuff as it used to, and its original content hasn't been all that compelling for a while so I suspect that'll change soon. Prime, I rarely stream on, but I have it because I pay for Prime for various other reasons and it definitely comes in handy on occasion (they have quite a lot of weird, obscure stuff if you really dig around.) HBO/MAX has felt pretty strong at times, I think I have it more often than not these days. Apple, Discovery+, Disney, etc. are all sort of on an as-needed basis for me. Hulu and Paramount+ are always battling each other for a spot. I've been watching more on Paramount+ lately, but generally we've used Hulu more. I don't think I've ever had Peacock. I'm sure I'm forgetting some other major ones...

We have Hulu Live TV with no ads as our main, which is fairly expensive (75/mo or something). We also have Prime, but I think the last thing I watched on there was Mr. Robot, which was years ago. But like you, we have Prime for other things. Netflix, but I always fight myself and the rest of the family to get rid of it, same reasons as you. We've watched all the good stuff already, and nothing new has come in awhile. MAX is free for us, which now includes most of what's already on Discovery+, and Paramount+ is nice for skipping the theatres for some movies (Top Gun and Transformers were the last couple I watched anyway). I think we have Peacock, but we don't pay for it (shared account or some such).

So with that said, it's still at or under $100 probably. Whereas cable is like 140 for their medium package around here. Not saving an arm and a leg, but plenty enough to not want to go back to cable. I remember flipping through cable channels with absolutely nothing on, wondering why I was paying so much for it. At least now when I actually want to watch TV there's always something to watch.

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: jack phlash to Accession on Sat Oct 07 2023 10:18 am

Exactly! It really does feel like we're in "late stage capitalism" here with so many companies (definitely not just streaming services) just saying "fuck it!" and going all in on greedily milking consumers while they still can, before the whole thing collapses. Beyond my own inbox, there's been so many headlines lately about companies aggressively upping prices, changing terms and conditions, etc.

That'll never change. It's greed, and greed only. Another example, we switched our probably 20 year cell provider about a year and a half ago from US
Cellular to AT&T. I think the main reason we switched was because I walked into US Cellular and asked about their phone deals. They said it only applies to new customers. I asked why they don't ever do anything for their long time loyal customers and basically got a blank response. Went over to AT&T and with our trade ins we got two Galaxy S22 Ultras and two IPhone 12 or 13s all for $0/mo. Great! I love not paying a monthly payment for phones on top of my bill. Got everything situated and with around a $200/mo bill we walked out happy. Over the course of that year and a half my bill is now $260/mo. even without any actual phone payments. Fuck them too. One thing I can say, is US Cellular *NEVER* increased my bill during whatever plan we were on. Obviously, the prices would change a little when changing or upgrading the plan, but never just for the sole reason that they were raising their rates.

Long story short, we will probably be going back to US Cellular after our 'bill credits' for our phones is done (basically meaning the phones are paid off through our promotion). At least we'll be considered new customers again, and be able to get into another good deal.

Regards,
Nick

... Don't force it, get a larger hammer.
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Hi Jack,

On Friday October 06 2023, Jack Phlash said to Accession:

I'm the same way. Streaming services are cheap and convenient. The only issue is that now there are so many, and individually, they seem to be going down in quality content, plus having too many counteracts the
cheap part. We keep a couple all the time and rotate others depending

That's what now stinks about the streaming services.. There used to be just
a couple, and now every company wants to run one. Then pulls there show's
from the main players...

I'd love to see past S2 of the Expanse (Moved from Netflix to Amazon), I'd
love to see the new Star Wars's shows (Not on Netflix), I'd love to see the
new Star Trek show's (Same thing, not on Netflix).. Would love to see the Avangers's themed shows (Not on Netflix).

I'm just not willing to pay for 5+ diffrent streaming services (at $12-15AUD+ for basic) to watch the show's that used to be on the one platform.

I have a heap of shows in my list on Netflix, and have been going though them...Some are Netflix producted shows and are pretty decent, also just finished watching Startrek: TOS, TAS and about to start on TNG. Will watch
some other's first to have a break....



\/orlon
aka
Stephen

Rocking Agoranet with an Amiga 4000 and Zeus BBS.

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I've been using Plex for quite a while, and I think I had seen some mention about that but so far it hasn't seemed to be a problem..? I haven't had any issues with Plex lately. What exactly does that mean? And how would they be able to detect whether any of your content was pirated or whether you ripped it yourself from your own discs? I
thought part of the idea of Plex was to be able to rip your own content and put it on your Plex server..

Correct, that's exactly it.

What I understand is they are going after people they share their content with. Well these bigger players using a hosting provider.

Not sure how they narrowed it down to pirarcy. You'd have to google for more details.

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: Vorlon to jack phlash on Sun Oct 08 2023 01:57 pm

I'm the same way. Streaming services are cheap and convenient. The only issue is that now there are so many, and individually, they seem to be going down in quality content, plus having too many counteracts the

Pisses me off I can't watch football games without paying for channels I won't watch!

|07 HusTler



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on 07 Oct 2023, Accession said...

Oh I see. I guess I never really needed to do any of that since Plex did most of the grunt work for me. At least everything that I needed, which was basically a title and cover art.

Point proven! ;)

We have Hulu Live TV with no ads as our main, which is fairly expensive (75/mo or something). We also have Prime, but I think the last thing I watched on there was Mr. Robot, which was years ago. But like you, we
have Prime for other things. Netflix, but I always fight myself and the rest of the family to get rid of it, same reasons as you. We've watched all the good stuff already, and nothing new has come in awhile. MAX is free for us, which now includes most of what's already on Discovery+,
and Paramount+ is nice for skipping the theatres for some movies (Top
Gun and Transformers were the last couple I watched anyway). I think we have Peacock, but we don't pay for it (shared account or some such).

Jesus, didn't know it was so expensive, but Live TV is something I don't really need (or want) personally.

Prime's content is pretty odd compared to most services. Like I said, they do have a lot of really esoteric stuff if you dig for it, which can be cool. Amazon has also had some decent *attempts* at original content. Jack Ryan, Wheel of Time, the Lord of the Rings one, I know The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is popular. My favorites are the recent Reacher series, The Boys, and of course, The Expanse (if that counts, heh.)

I don't think this requires a Prime membership (but I could be wrong) but one compelling case (well, to me at least) for Amazon is "renting" with media credits. If you buy stuff from Amazon even semi-regularly, you sometimes get the option to receive a few bucks credit that you're only allowed to spend on media (I think) when you group items for slightly slower delivery. They've been doing this for years now, but I rarely did it and when I did I'd be like "cool, I'll have to use that credit sometime..." and then forget about it. Nowadays, anything we're not in a hurry for, we pick that option, and every time I watch something I can't stream for free, I see if I can rent it from Amazon (I usually can) and just use those credits to do it for free (which it actually defaults to doing.) The only downside is that they expire after a while, but it's several months.

So with that said, it's still at or under $100 probably. Whereas cable
is like 140 for their medium package around here. Not saving an arm and
a leg, but plenty enough to not want to go back to cable. I remember flipping through cable channels with absolutely nothing on, wondering
why I was paying so much for it. At least now when I actually want to watch TV there's always something to watch.

Your last two sentences there pretty much sum up one of my main reasons for never regretting leaving cable for even a second (and an early compelling case for piracy too.) Unless there's some kind of major event going on I want to watch live, I have zero need to watch TV on *someone else's* schedule.

I'd guess the millennials are the last generation to experience that, but it's really ingrained in a lot of older people. My parents, for example, whose evening pretty much every night of the week is turning on the ol' boob tube to watch... well, whatever the fuck there is to watch. I mean, they have their favorite shows of course, but they watch stuff they'd probably not watch otherwise just to pad out their schedule, they watch reruns, or whatever random stuff if nothing better is on. It's kind of gross to me to think of how much time they've wasted in their lives watching some bottom of the barrel bullshit they never had any real interest in, and a third of which was commercials anyway. When I spend all evening watching TV, it's at least a show or a movie that I actively want to watch.

I admit, I do miss occasionally finding a hidden gem or developing an appreciation for something you might have never gotten into if you weren't in an entertainment desert, but then there's virtually limitless stuff on streaming services (and to leech) that you can explore if you want to spend your time that way. I simply don't - I have enough stuff in my backlog I want to watch, and a lot of other things I'd rather be doing than watching something that is likely to be garbage. *shrug*

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on 08 Oct 2023, Vorlon said...

That's what now stinks about the streaming services.. There used to be just a couple, and now every company wants to run one. Then pulls there show's from the main players...

Yes indeed. By doing so, they're watering down the entire streaming ecosystem, and I think the whole thing will eventually lose popularity if it continues. As I said earlier, a lot of us who have been happy to trade dollars for convenience will likely go back to piracy when this happens, if we haven't already.

I'm just not willing to pay for 5+ diffrent streaming services (at $12-15AUD+ for basic) to watch the show's that used to be on the one platform.

I have a heap of shows in my list on Netflix, and have been going though them...Some are Netflix producted shows and are pretty decent, also just finished watching Startrek: TOS, TAS and about to start on TNG. Will
watch some other's first to have a break....

Yep, definitely. Like I mentioned, watching the things I want on one service, then canceling and going to another is part of my strategy. For instance, there have been a few things building up on Apple TV I want to watch. When I do, I'll subscribe for as long as it takes to watch all of them back to back, then cancel again. More management then I'd prefer to do, and I miss most everything being in one or two places, but it's easy enough.

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: jack phlash to Accession on Sun Oct 08 2023 08:13 am

Jesus, didn't know it was so expensive, but Live TV is something I don't really need (or want) personally.

If I wasn't a fan of the local sports teams around here, I wouldn't need it either. As of right now I'm considering it a sacrifice, but depending on how our new quarterback performs this season, I may not need it for the next 15 years. :D

I don't think this requires a Prime membership (but I could be wrong) but one compelling case (well, to me at least) for Amazon is "renting" with media credits. If you buy stuff from Amazon even semi-regularly, you sometimes get the option to receive a few bucks credit that you're only allowed to spend on media (I think) when you group items for slightly slower delivery. They've been doing this for years now, but I rarely did it and when I did I'd be like "cool, I'll have to use that credit sometime..." and then forget about it. Nowadays, anything we're not in a hurry for, we pick that option, and every time I watch something I can't stream for free, I see if I can rent it from Amazon (I usually can) and just use those credits to do it for free (which it actually defaults to doing.) The only downside is that they expire after a while, but it's several months.

I think my wife gets something like that. But I had thought they were redeemable for e-books only or some shit like that, so we just give them to our neighbor.

compelling case for piracy too.) Unless there's some kind of major event going on I want to watch live, I have zero need to watch TV on *someone else's* schedule.

Yeah definitely. We basically watch TV as a last resort when we wind down for the night. We're going to watch what we want to, when we want to.

I'd guess the millennials are the last generation to experience that, but it's really ingrained in a lot of older people. My parents, for example, whose evening pretty much every night of the week is turning on the ol' boob tube to watch... well, whatever the fuck there is to watch. I mean, they have their favorite shows of course, but they watch stuff they'd probably not watch otherwise just to pad out their schedule, they watch reruns, or whatever random stuff if nothing better is on. It's kind of gross to me to think of how much time they've wasted in their lives watching some bottom of the barrel bullshit they never had any real interest in, and a third of which was commercials anyway. When I spend all evening watching TV, it's at least a show or a movie that I actively want to watch.

Oh same, for sure. My parents watched shit like Wheel of Fortune and Married with Children (and probably other's I'm forgetting) like it was religion. I was the one who had to get up and change the dials on the TV to whatever they wanted to watch. I basically got an hour or two after school and Saturday/Sunday mornings. Then again, they made me go outside and not come
home till the street lights came on too. ;)

I admit, I do miss occasionally finding a hidden gem or developing an appreciation for something you might have never gotten into if you weren't in an entertainment desert, but then there's virtually limitless stuff on

I don't think I ever would've watched The Office until streaming services. Then came to realize it's probably one of the best shows ever, hell we've probably watched it from front to back about a dozen times already. We turn it on to fall asleep to. Superstore was another one that I probably never would've even heard of. Also kind of nice they hold on to some of the oldies like Married with Children, Frasier, and random shit like that that we watched as kids but there's no way we caught every episode.

Regards,
Nick

... A man's only as old as the woman he feels.
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I don't think I ever would've watched The Office until streaming services. The
came to realize it's probably one of the best shows ever, hell we've probably watched it from front to back about a dozen times already. We turn it on to fall asleep to. Superstore was another one that I probably never would've even
heard of. Also kind of nice they hold on to some of the oldies like Married

If you like the Office and Superstore, you might also like Welcome to
Flatch, which is a FOX show that I think has some relation (writers or producers) with the Office and/or Parks and Recreation. It also co-stars one of the actresses from You're the Worst ("Gretchen").

It is a mockumentary about life in a small town which, unfortunately, after
2 seasons was cancelled just last week. :(


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jack phlash wrote to Accession <=-

Exactly! It really does feel like we're in "late stage capitalism" here with so many companies (definitely not just streaming services) just saying "fuck it!" and going all in on greedily milking consumers while they still can, before the whole thing collapses.

That's just the internet business model. Underprice your service, get a
mass of users and start raising prices once they're used to your
service.

Given the competition out there, it seems foolish. Netflix could get
away with that a couple of years ago, now not so much.

I like the idea of paying for *1* service, watching it for a couple of
months, then cancelling and switching to another service instead of
keeping a couple of services at once. Since they're not contracted
services, why not?



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Accession wrote to jack phlash <=-

Long story short, we will probably be going back to US Cellular after
our 'bill credits' for our phones is done (basically meaning the phones are paid off through our promotion). At least we'll be considered new customers again, and be able to get into another good deal.

If AT&T provides decent coverage, look at Cricket Wireless. They're a
MVNO owned by AT&T and use their network. I've got their family plan 5G "unlimited" service with hotspot.

Unlimited means 25GB of data (per phone) at 5G and the remainder slowed
to something like 1mbps - works for messaging just fine. Hotspot allows
for 5 gb of data. They offer wifi calling on most phones.

My service is $130/month for 4 lines. Prices haven't gone up in years.

Customer service is spotty most of the time, but the service mostly
works.


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HusTler wrote to Vorlon <=-

Pisses me off I can't watch football games without paying for channels
I won't watch!

Pisses me off to have to pay for sports channels I don't watch!

The cable companies have seemed to find a business model that pisses off
all of their customers half of the time. it's almost like they rode
decades of government subsidies into a monopoly position and Just Don't
Care.



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on 09 Oct 2023, Accession said...

I think my wife gets something like that. But I had thought they were redeemable for e-books only or some shit like that, so we just give them to our neighbor.

Not sure. I remember back when it was semi-new e-books were a thing for sure, and you could download digital albums with those credits too. Maybe being able to rent stuff with it is a bit newer?

Yeah definitely. We basically watch TV as a last resort when we wind
down for the night. We're going to watch what we want to, when we want
to.

We kind of do the opposite. We watch 1 episode of one longer form show every night with dinner. We don't usually watch more than that unless we're just not really in the mood to do much else besides veg out, or if the show we're watching is really good and we want to keep watching more.

Oh same, for sure. My parents watched shit like Wheel of Fortune and Married with Children (and probably other's I'm forgetting) like it was religion. I was the one who had to get up and change the dials on the TV to whatever they wanted to watch. I basically got an hour or two after school and Saturday/Sunday mornings. Then again, they made me go outside and not come home till the street lights came on too. ;)

Yeah, I was thinking as I re-read that about wasting their lives away "shit, I should say the same thing about myself for playing video games or whatever. In fact, our parents DID used to give us tons of shit about that when we were kids." :P

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: Accession to jack phlash on Mon Oct 09 2023 04:21 pm

probably watched it from front to back about a dozen times already. We turn it on to fall asleep to.

I find it hard to fall asleep having a TV show playing. But I also don't really like leaving things like the TV turned on when I'm going to go to sleep.

the oldies like Married with Children, Frasier, and random shit like that

I used to watch reruns of Married With Children in the mid 90s, but that was one of those shows where I'd start to find it a bit annoying after a while and stop watching it for a little while, but then I might go back to watching it for a while.

Nightfox

Re: Re: Media Servers
By: poindexter FORTRAN to HusTler on Tue Oct 10 2023 05:47 am

The cable companies have seemed to find a business model that pisses off all of their customers half of the time. it's almost like they rode decades of government subsidies into a monopoly position and Just Don't Care.

I don't really watch a whole lot of TV. I don't have any kind of premium TV service, just over the air and other than that, a few other shows streaming here & there.

Years ago, I had Comcast internet and basic cable TV (before I realized I could actually get decent over-the-air TV reception at my location). I called Comcast to ask them to cancel the basic cable TV package, but they said my bill would actually increase. Also, the cable TV box they had given me was outputting a basic standard-definition signal, and it was even a square 4:3 aspect ratio. It was odd watching some content that was supposed to be in widescreen with the sides cut off. I could get a better quality (and widescreen) image free over the air..

When I moved from that address, I was able to get fiber internet, so I switched away from Comcast and haven't looked back.

Nightfox

Re: Re: Media Servers
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Accession on Tue Oct 10 2023 05:45 am

Unlimited means 25GB of data (per phone) at 5G and the remainder slowed
to something like 1mbps - works for messaging just fine. Hotspot allows for 5 gb of data. They offer wifi calling on most phones.

Then that isn't really "unlimited". That's another shitty selling point of
most cell providers around here as well.

My service is $130/month for 4 lines. Prices haven't gone up in years.

That's really decent. However, around here.. Cricket, Boost, T-Mobile and
even Sprint are all terrible service. I've looked into them in the past, and have talked with people that have went with them because of the price. When ~25% of their calls drop, I'm not interested. :(

Regards,
Nick

... I never used to be able to finish anything, but now I
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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: jack phlash to Accession on Tue Oct 10 2023 04:37 pm

Not sure. I remember back when it was semi-new e-books were a thing for sure, and you could download digital albums with those credits too. Maybe being able to rent stuff with it is a bit newer?

No idea. I don't pay attention to any of that, really. It may have even been promotions you're stuck with when you originally signed up. I don't think I get anything, but the wife gets e-book credits.

We kind of do the opposite. We watch 1 episode of one longer form show every night with dinner. We don't usually watch more than that unless we're just not really in the mood to do much else besides veg out, or if the show we're watching is really good and we want to keep watching more.

Bro, we've had a few Sundays where we watch an entire season of something fucking stupid, like Naked and Afraid. All depends on what we have going on, I guess. lol

Yeah, I was thinking as I re-read that about wasting their lives away "shit, I should say the same thing about myself for playing video games or whatever. In fact, our parents DID used to give us tons of shit about that when we were kids." :P

Yep, I catch myself yelling at my kids like, "Aww damn, my mom used to
say the same shit.."

Hulu Live TV is gone now as well. Oops! :)

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: Nightfox to Accession on Wed Oct 11 2023 10:59 am

I find it hard to fall asleep having a TV show playing. But I also don't really like leaving things like the TV turned on when I'm going to go to sleep.

I don't mind having that bit of white noise, if you want to call it that. Low volume, something we've already seen and set the sleep timer for an hour. The Office, Superstore, and Frasier seem to take that role most of the time.

I used to watch reruns of Married With Children in the mid 90s, but that was one of those shows where I'd start to find it a bit annoying after a while and stop watching it for a little while, but then I might go back to watching it for a while.

Yeah, we switch it up quite a bit, too. Usually those are the ones that I fall asleep to, and every once in awhile I get unlucky and it'll be a good episode. So I end up staying up a bit later than I should. ;)

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: Accession to Nightfox on Wed Oct 11 2023 05:55 pm

N I find it hard to fall asleep having a TV show playing. But I also
N don't really like leaving things like the TV turned on when I'm going
N to go to sleep.

I don't mind having that bit of white noise, if you want to call it that. Low volume, something we've already seen and set the sleep timer for an hour. The Office, Superstore, and Frasier seem to take that role most of the time.

For me in that case, I'd mainly be concerned about the use of electricity for something beint left on that's not actively being used for anything. If I'm not watching the TV (or perhaps streaming some music on it), I'd rather have the TV off (especially if I'm asleep).

Nightfox

The cable companies have seemed to find a business model that pisses off all of their customers half of the time. it's almost like they rode decades of government subsidies into a monopoly position and Just Don't Care.

I stopped watching baseball years ago when half the games were only on Sportschannel. Now they are doing the same with Football. I might be better
off just ignoring the sport I've loved all my life. The Jet's and Giant's are playing terribly so I won't miss much paying for their games.

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: Nightfox to Accession on Wed Oct 11 2023 04:20 pm

For me in that case, I'd mainly be concerned about the use of electricity for something beint left on that's not actively being used for anything. If I'm not watching the TV (or perhaps streaming some music on it), I'd rather have the TV off (especially if I'm asleep).

Small appliance electricity isn't of much concern to me, really. I mean, most of us run BBSs and or multiple VMs of them on a machine that stays on 24/7. Easily the same amount of electricity as a TV would use (and the TV still gets turned off automatically soon after we've fallen asleep). I'd be more concerned about the HVAC that makes the energy bill so expensive, if cost is what the concern is here.

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: Accession to Nightfox on Thu Oct 12 2023 04:30 pm

Small appliance electricity isn't of much concern to me, really. I mean, most of us run BBSs and or multiple VMs of them on a machine that stays on 24/7. Easily the same amount of electricity as a TV would use (and the TV still gets turned off automatically soon after we've fallen asleep). I'd be more concerned about the HVAC that makes the energy bill so expensive, if cost is what the concern is here.

Yeah, though the reason I keep my BBS PC on is for people to connect to it and use it (which people do throughout the day). And HVAC at least is useful for making you comfortable (though I like to avoid it running up my bills). If I leave something like a TV on when I'm not watching it, that seems wasteful to me - like leaving the light on in the bathroom or something when I leave. It might be small, but if you leave multiple things on when they're not being used, it can add up.

Nightfox

On 12 Oct 2023, Nightfox said the following...

Yeah, though the reason I keep my BBS PC on is for people to connect to
it and use it (which people do throughout the day). And HVAC at least
is useful for making you comfortable (though I like to avoid it running

it's at least nice that the amount of computing power we have nowadays doesn't require running the A/C just to cool your "bbs room" or whatever :)

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: fusion to Nightfox on Thu Oct 12 2023 07:54 pm

Yeah, though the reason I keep my BBS PC on is for people to connect to
it and use it (which people do throughout the day). And HVAC at least is
useful for making you comfortable (though I like to avoid it running

it's at least nice that the amount of computing power we have nowadays doesn't require running the A/C just to cool your "bbs room" or whatever :)

True. :) Though even in the 90s, I think I only had one computer that would overheat on hot summer days - Its CPU was an AMD K6-2 300mhz, I think. I worried that PC had an inadquate CPU cooler, though I thought I had always bought a CPU cooler rated for the CPU.

Nightfox

On 12 Oct 2023, Nightfox said the following...

it's at least nice that the amount of computing power we have nowaday doesn't require running the A/C just to cool your "bbs room" or whate :)

True. :) Though even in the 90s, I think I only had one computer that would overheat on hot summer days - Its CPU was an AMD K6-2 300mhz, I think. I worried that PC had an inadquate CPU cooler, though I thought
I had always bought a CPU cooler rated for the CPU.

yeah i had a couple of those Pentium D machines around 2006 i think that really put out the heat. one of them the fan failed and got so hot it self destructed and near burned down the place. left my room smelling like toxic factory smoke for a week..

had one of those same k6-2's back when they came out.. that was a reliable machine.. ran os/2 on it for a long time. finally sold the mobo/cpu this year for a pretty penny since it's retro now to run windows 98 -_-

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: fusion to Nightfox on Thu Oct 12 2023 11:32 pm

had one of those same k6-2's back when they came out.. that was a reliable machine.. ran os/2 on it for a long time. finally sold the mobo/cpu this year for a pretty penny since it's retro now to run windows 98 -_-

Yeah, sometimes I wish I had kept some of my old computers & misc. hardware. I also had a TurboGrafX-16 video game console that I had bought new in 1993 along with some games and their portable system (which I bought used from eBay), and I sold all of that in 2000 on eBay. I thought I got a pretty good sum of $200 for it at the time, but it would probably sell for a lot more now..

Nightfox

Re: Re: Media Servers
By: Nightfox to Accession on Thu Oct 12 2023 04:50 pm

Yeah, though the reason I keep my BBS PC on is for people to connect to it and use it (which people do throughout the day). And HVAC at least is useful for making you comfortable (though I like to avoid it running up my bills). If I leave something like a TV on when I'm not watching it, that seems wasteful to me - like leaving the light on in the bathroom or something when I leave. It might be small, but if you leave multiple things on when they're not being used, it can add up.

And in our case, leaving the TV on for an hour while we fall asleep makes us comfortable, much like that HVAC. :)

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: Accession to Nightfox on Fri Oct 13 2023 04:32 pm

And in our case, leaving the TV on for an hour while we fall asleep makes us comfortable, much like that HVAC. :)

But do you really benefit from having the TV stay on after you've fallen asleep? ;)

Nightfox

Re: Re: Media Servers
By: Nightfox to Accession on Fri Oct 13 2023 04:08 pm

And in our case, leaving the TV on for an hour while we fall asleep
makes us comfortable, much like that HVAC. :)

But do you really benefit from having the TV stay on after you've fallen asleep? ;)

What if it takes us 59 minutes to fall asleep? Did we only waste 1 minute of TV time? Egghh, I didn't realize this pettyness would continue this far, but it did, and I helped it along. lol

Regards,
Nick

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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: Accession to Nightfox on Sat Oct 14 2023 07:54 am

of TV time? Egghh, I didn't realize this pettyness would continue this far, but it did, and I helped it along. lol

erm.. :/ wasn't trying to sound petty..

Nightfox

Hi Hustler,

On Sunday October 08 2023, Hustler said to Vorlon:

Re: Re: Media Servers
By: Vorlon to jack phlash on Sun Oct 08 2023 01:57 pm

I'm the same way. Streaming services are cheap and convenient. The
only issue is that now there are so many, and individually, they seem to
be going down in quality content, plus having too many counteracts the

Pisses me off I can't watch football games without paying for channels
I won't watch!

Yeah.. Back in the late 90's when I tried Paytv (Cable for you guys, but via Sat).. There was a basic package, and then add-ons.. Usally the addon's had channels you didn't want or intrested in but had to get to get the one you wanted....


\/orlon
aka
Stephen

Rocking Agoranet with an Amiga 4000 and Zeus BBS.

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Hi Jack,

On Sunday October 08 2023, Jack Phlash said to Vorlon:

That's what now stinks about the streaming services.. There used to be
just a couple, and now every company wants to run one. Then pulls
there show's from the main players...

Yes indeed. By doing so, they're watering down the entire streaming ecosystem, and I think the whole thing will eventually lose popularity
if it continues. As I said earlier, a lot of us who have been happy to trade dollars for convenience will likely go back to piracy when this happens, if we haven't already.

Or just not bother. There is a reason Game of Throwns was the most pirated
TV show... (I've not seen a single ep).

I'm just not willing to pay for 5+ diffrent streaming services (at
$12-15AUD+ for basic) to watch the show's that used to be on the one
platform. I have a heap of shows in my list on Netflix, and have been
going though them...Some are Netflix producted shows and are pretty
decent, also just finished watching Startrek: TOS, TAS and about to
start on TNG. Will watch some other's first to have a break....

Yep, definitely. Like I mentioned, watching the things I want on one service, then canceling and going to another is part of my strategy.
For instance, there have been a few things building up on Apple TV I
want to watch. When I do, I'll subscribe for as long as it takes to
watch all of them back to back, then cancel again.

That's just to much of a pain in the backside... Plus forgetting what
services are paid for and what knot... It's to much effort for only a few shows.... I'd just rather go without, or wait until they are released on
DVD. The only remaining shop here that sell's DVD's has a good range, but
it's not as huge as it used to be... Need to go and see if they have more seasons of "The Expanse" etc...



\/orlon
aka
Stephen

Rocking Agoranet with an Amiga 4000 and Zeus BBS.

--- Zeus BBS 1.5
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Hi fusion,

On Thursday October 12 2023, Fusion said to Nightfox:

And HVAC at least is useful for making you comfortable (though I like
to avoid it running

it's at least nice that the amount of computing power we have nowadays doesn't require running the A/C just to cool your "bbs room" or whatever
:)

Hey I liked that my room was a little warmer due to running my Amiga 2000
for the BBS back in the day! #-;


\/orlon
aka
Stephen

Rocking Agoranet with an Amiga 4000 and Zeus BBS.

--- Zeus BBS 1.5
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That's just to much of a pain in the backside... Plus forgetting what services are paid for and what knot... It's to much effort for only a few shows.... I'd just rather go without, or wait until they are released on
DVD. The only remaining shop here that sell's DVD's has a good range, but it's not as huge as it used to be... Need to go and see if they have more seasons of "The Expanse" etc...

Buying the Expanse Season 4 DVDs was cheaper than streaming them. I have
yet to see any Season 5 or 6 sets, though. I think Amazon got wise and
have not made them.

Also, those S4 DVDs are the "unfriendly" ones that you can only watch on a
DVD player. I cannot watch them from my PC or laptop DVD drives.

This is in the US so your mileage may vary.


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On 17 Oct 2023, Dumas Walker said the following...

Buying the Expanse Season 4 DVDs was cheaper than streaming them. I have yet to see any Season 5 or 6 sets, though. I think Amazon got wise and have not made them.

looks like the complete series is getting a blu-ray release in november

i'd rather pay to have that show erased from my memory lol

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Dumas Walker wrote to VORLON <=-

Also, those S4 DVDs are the "unfriendly" ones that you can only watch
on a DVD player. I cannot watch them from my PC or laptop DVD drives.

Have you tried some of the tools out there for ripping DVDs? Ripping a
DVD and keeping a copy both a) for archival purposes and for allowing
for display on a device not supported is OK, but decrypting it is
illegal. Wonderful, convoluted world we live in, when legislators don't understand what they're legislating.



... The tape is now the music
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Also, those S4 DVDs are the "unfriendly" ones that you can only watch
on a DVD player. I cannot watch them from my PC or laptop DVD drives.

Have you tried some of the tools out there for ripping DVDs? Ripping a
DVD and keeping a copy both a) for archival purposes and for allowing
for display on a device not supported is OK, but decrypting it is
illegal. Wonderful, convoluted world we live in, when legislators don't understand what they're legislating.

I tried several linux utilities. The included advertisements rip fine, but they all report errors, or don't work at all, on the other containers.


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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: Dumas Walker to VORLON on Tue Oct 17 2023 09:36 am

Also, those S4 DVDs are the "unfriendly" ones that you can only watch on a DVD player. I cannot watch them from my PC or laptop DVD drives.

Interesting, I didn't know DVDs could behave that way. I wouldn't think there would be a difference in what device you played it in, perhaps aside from a region code. And since DVDs are read-only, I'd think it would be the PC or laptop refusing to play it for some reason - and perhaps different DVD player software would play it (such as VLC).

Nightfox

Re: Re: Media Servers
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Dumas Walker on Wed Oct 18 2023 08:33 am

Have you tried some of the tools out there for ripping DVDs? Ripping a DVD and keeping a copy both a) for archival purposes and for allowing for display on a device not supported is OK, but decrypting it is illegal. Wonderful, convoluted world we live in, when legislators don't understand what they're legislating.

It sounds like technically from a legal standpoint, you'd be legally unable to make a backup because you need to decrypt it in order to do so. Odd world we live in.

Nightfox

Re: Re: Media Servers
By: Dumas Walker to POINDEXTER FORTRAN on Thu Oct 19 2023 08:16 am

I tried several linux utilities. The included advertisements rip fine, but they all report errors, or don't work at all, on the other containers.

Was makemkv one of the ones you've tried? I often use makemkv to rip DVDs and blu-rays, and I usually don't have a problem. I usually use the Windows version though. When it has ripping problems, often it seems to be the disc, and if I clean the data side, that sometimes helps. Otherwise, if the disc is a very new release, it may fail because it has a new encryption key and nobody has cracked it and provided that key to the makemkv database yet.

Nightfox

Interesting, I didn't know DVDs could behave that way. I wouldn't think there
ould be a difference in what device you played it in, perhaps aside from a reg
n code. And since DVDs are read-only, I'd think it would be the PC or laptop fusing to play it for some reason - and perhaps different DVD player software uld play it (such as VLC).

I tried multiple (linux) ones. It won't play. It is likely some
encryption scheme.


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Re: Re: Media Servers
By: Dumas Walker to NIGHTFOX on Wed Oct 25 2023 09:52 am

Interesting, I didn't know DVDs could behave that way. I wouldn't think

I tried multiple (linux) ones. It won't play. It is likely some encryption scheme.

I think Linux may still have worse support overall for playing DVDs & such than Windows, as there may be more DVD player software for Windows than for Linux.

Nightfox

Nightfox wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

It sounds like technically from a legal standpoint, you'd be legally unable to make a backup because you need to decrypt it in order to do
so. Odd world we live in.

Not odd, quite predictable when lobbyists for content owners can sway
legislators who don't know what they're legislating, because their
grandparents who've been in politics since Reagan was in office.

Remember Ted Stevens, (R-AK) trying to explain net neutrality? It's all
TUBES!






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Re: Media Servers
By: Accession to niter3 on Mon Oct 02 2023 04:22 pm

Re: Media Servers
By: niter3 to All on Mon Oct 02 2023 08:06 am

What are some of you guys using for Media Servers?

Plex, for probably almost a decade now.

Yeah, me too. Though the usage has declined.
--
digital man (rob)

Breaking Bad quote #2:
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Re: Media Servers
By: Accession to niter3 on Tue Oct 03 2023 05:36 pm

We don't pay for any streaming services if you know what I mean.

Sure do. I'm not sure how you're able to do it, seeing as though it would take me quite a long time to try to snag any/all TV series we actually watch somewhat regularly. I don't have time for that shiii.. lol.

I've done that and generally haven't had a problem getting TV series I want to watch.

If you use the hell out of it, then it's definitely worth it. It was worth it for us for quite awhile until we just damn near flat out stopped using it. *shrug*

Yeah, I still use Plex quite a bit. I haven't had cable in years, and I generally don't use streaming services (there really isn't a whole lot I can think of that I want to watch on them), so I'm not sure I want to spend the money on them. But there are several shows I can get over the air (Jeopardy, etc.), and I've been using Plex as a DVR for those so I can watch them any time I want to. Over the past few years, I feel like Plex has been increasingly useful for me, as I've been using it as a DVR, and for other things I want to watch, I can throw them on my Plex server and watch them fairly easily. I've also ripped much of what I have on blu-ray (movies and TV shows) and put them on my Plex server so I can watch them whenever I want.

One thing that bugs me about streaming services is that they could remove content at any time, or change what you can watch. One time, I was watching a TV series on Amazon Prime that was included free with Prime, and then suddenly one day they changed that series so you had to pay extra to watch it.

Nightfox

on 03 Nov 2023, Nightfox said...

One thing that bugs me about streaming services is that they could remove content at any time, or change what you can watch. One time, I was watching a TV series on Amazon Prime that was included free with Prime, and then suddenly one day they changed that series so you had to pay
extra to watch it.

Oh yes, this one is definitely high up on my list of gripes about steaming services. I've had the same thing happen. I've also, on many occasions, been watching a show to find the latest season (or even a random previous one) unavailable on the service, forcing me to either halt my binging and be patient, or find a torrent.

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Hello Digital,

On Thu Nov 02 2023 21:27:34, you wrote to me:

Plex, for probably almost a decade now.

Yeah, me too. Though the usage has declined.

I just recently powered down the VM hosting plex-media-server because nobody uses it right now. Granted, I haven't been updating it with new content and everyone has already watched what was there numerous times. Usually by the time the kids want a movie to watch, it's already out on one of the streaming services we're hooked up to. One less thing I need to keep updated and maintain, I guess.. so win for me! ;)

Regards,
Nick

... "Take my advice, I don't use it anyway."
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Hello Nightfox,

On Fri Nov 03 2023 16:59:56, you wrote to me:

Sure do. I'm not sure how you're able to do it, seeing as though
it would take me quite a long time to try to snag any/all TV
series we actually watch somewhat regularly. I don't have time
for that shiii.. lol.

I've done that and generally haven't had a problem getting TV series I want to watch.

It's not that it's a problem getting them, it's the time taken to get them. We're not much for planning ahead when it comes to what we want to watch. So in my case, it would probably be something like, "hey we should get this series" and by the time I've downloaded it all we're already halfway through it on a streaming service.

Yeah, I still use Plex quite a bit. I haven't had cable in years, and
I generally don't use streaming services (there really isn't a whole
lot I can think of that I want to watch on them), so I'm not sure I
want to spend the money on them. But there are several shows I can
get over the air (Jeopardy, etc.), and I've been using Plex as a DVR
for those so I can watch them any time I want to. Over the past few years, I feel like Plex has been increasingly useful for me, as I've
been using it as a DVR, and for other things I want to watch, I can
throw them on my Plex server and watch them fairly easily. I've also ripped much of what I have on blu-ray (movies and TV shows) and put
them on my Plex server so I can watch them whenever I want.

That sounds like it could come in handy, especially if you're not hooked up to streaming services. I never even thought of using PLEX as a DVR before.

In our case, though.. we don't have anything over the air. I tried fitting up every TV in the house with some antennas and analog doo-dads (because long before we moved in some 20 years ago, the antenna in the attic was bypassed for cable - and I don't feel like crawling up there to confuse myself with whatever shoddy wiring that was done in the 80s) and would get like 2 fuzzy channels, so I ended up taking everything back and getting a refund. Not worth the money for channels I'm supposed to get for free.

One thing that bugs me about streaming services is that they could
remove content at any time, or change what you can watch. One time, I
was watching a TV series on Amazon Prime that was included free with Prime, and then suddenly one day they changed that series so you had
to pay extra to watch it.

Yeah, Amazon has done that to me before as well. I was binge watching Mr. Robot quite a few years ago. Watched the first 3 seasons, and was waiting on the 4th season to come out. When it came out you had to pay extra for it. I don't remember exactly what I did - I either grabbed the last season myself and put it on my plex server, or I waited it out, and eventually (maybe after the season was a year old or something) you didn't have to pay extra for it any more.

However, I don't think any other streaming service has done that to us. Granted, they all remove old content when it has ran it's course, but usually another service picks it up. The Office has been removed and picked up by another a few times now, for example.

Regards,
Nick

... "Take my advice, I don't use it anyway."
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Re: Media Servers
By: Accession to Nightfox on Sat Nov 04 2023 06:54 am

That sounds like it could come in handy, especially if you're not hooked up to streaming services. I never even thought of using PLEX as a DVR before.

Yeah, I think the DVR may be one of Plex's premium features (and also requires setting a TV tuner up with Plex). Several years ago, I bought a lifetime Plex Pass when it was on sale for half price, so I'm able to use its premium services forever (hopefully they don't change that).

In our case, though.. we don't have anything over the air. I tried fitting up every TV in the house with some antennas and analog doo-dads (because long before we moved in some 20 years ago, the antenna in the attic was bypassed for cable - and I don't feel like crawling up there to confuse myself with whatever shoddy wiring that was done in the 80s) and would get like 2 fuzzy channels, so I ended up taking everything back and getting a refund. Not worth the money for channels I'm supposed to get for free.

Yeah, since the switch to digital broadcasts, it seems it's difficult or impossible to get some channels over the air unless you live relatively close to the broadcast antennas, which is a bummer.

Nightfox

\Hello Nightfox,

On Saturday November 04 2023 17:10, you wrote to me:

Yeah, I think the DVR may be one of Plex's premium features (and also requires setting a TV tuner up with Plex). Several years ago, I
bought a lifetime Plex Pass when it was on sale for half price, so I'm able to use its premium services forever (hopefully they don't change that).

Ahh, that explains it. I've never purchased anything from plex. I've only used their free service.

Regards,
Nick

... "Take my advice, I don't use it anyway."
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