5 ms·

>My Plex server will never close Plex is proprietary and can shut down any time. Although it runs locally, it contacts the plex servers for quite a lot of stuf

>My Plex server will never close Plex is proprietary and can shut down any time. Although it runs locally, it contacts the plex servers for quite a lot of stuff. Granted, you won't lose your media and can replace plex easily.

svnpenn 8y ago
any good alternative? Kodi? Universal Media Server?
- kakarot 8y ago
  Depends on which features matter to you. If you want an immersive content library like Plex, it's harder to find substitutes. If you just want a way to stream music and movies from your own server or home computer, with on-the-fly re-encoding to adjust to available bandwidth, I would recommend airsonic. https://github.com/airsonic/airsonic https://github.com/airsonic/airsonic
  - svnpenn 8y ago
    sounds good, but i dont do anything java on principle.
    - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
      Huh? What's wrong with Java?
    - _underfl0w_ 8y ago
      You must have either: 1) insufficient knowledge of the source code behind the tools you use, or 2) a really dull and limited computing experience
      - kazinator 8y ago
        I've never touched Java; do I have a dull and limited computing experience? I maintain my own Lisp implementation that has a decent object system, exceptions, delimited continuations, compiler and virtual machine, and a whole-document pattern matching language for easy text transformation. I've worked on early versions of the POSIX threading library for Glibc, Linux device drivers, all sorts of middleware stacks in wireless, VoIP and such. Code of mine is in e2fsprogs: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/ext2/e2fsprogs.git/tree/lib/support/dict.c https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/ext2/e2fsprogs.git/tree/li... In Wireshark: https://code.wireshark.org/review/gitweb?p=wireshark.git;a=blob;f=epan/except.c https://code.wireshark.org/review/gitweb?p=wireshark.git;a=b... I started working with 8 bit microcomputers in the early 1980's, writing games and utilities, and dial-up BBS's, using assembly language and BASIC. I had dabbled in 3D graphics and the "demo" scene. I used to code in Pascal and Modula-2 before C. I've worked as a C++ dev for many years. Java simply isn't something that would interest me. Java programs look verbose and blubby. To be fair, a lot of what I use and have used is blubby, like the C language, Unix shell and whatnot. But I don't need more blubby. I have my fill of blub calories already. The Java platform bloated, and the ecosystem is self-absorbed. To its credit, it has a reputation for supposedly having good garbage collection and concurrency in its VM, that's about it.
        kakarot 8y ago
        I think it's admirable that you have such a wide experience with programming and open source. And I'm sure we could riff on Oracle and the Java platform all day. But considering airsonic runs on Java, and you aren't developing for it, the only relevant issues with respect to the source language are performance and program size in terms of both memory and storage. Considering you're storing videos on this server, storing a tiny Java app is a non-issue. And the memory the program itself takes up is meager compared to the memory usage from streaming and encoding/decoding media. If I had to guess, based on the lean interface, it has a lower memory profile than Plex. Performance, again on par with Plex. So, if you don't have an ideological opposition to Java due to its proprietary nature, then I don't understand why you give a shit if the best media server for your needs runs on it.
        8y ago
    - GrinningFool 8y ago
      > sounds good, but i dont do anything java on principle. Since you're just running it and not developing it, what difference does the language make (beyond making sure you have mem/cpu to meet application requirements)?
- berti 8y ago
  Emby works well for me, better than Plex ever did. https://emby.media/ https://emby.media/
  - bubblethink 8y ago
    Emby became proprietary as well. So no real reason to choose it.
    - berti 8y ago
      Didn't know that, thanks. The reason for me was that Plex kept corrupting it's database every few months, whereas I haven't had to touch Emby (other than upgrading via system package manager).
    - password4321 8y ago
      And forked as https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin
- bubblethink 8y ago
  Yes, kodi is good for the use cases it covers. It doesn't cover some of Plex's functionality though (mainly transcoding and the client server model)
- bni 8y ago
  Linux server with Samba share. I used this setup with XBMC/Kodi for many years. Recently switched to Infuse on the AppleTV 4K without changing a single thing with the Samba setup.
  - msla 8y ago
    > Linux server with Samba share. I used this setup with XBMC/Kodi for many years. Ha! I use precisely this setup for my media needs: Kodi runs on an Odroid-XU4 SBC hooked up to a wired gigabit Ethernet LAN and my Big Display Device (the one with the ATSC tuner) and my server is my laptop. I even created some hinky shell scripts to play arbitrary video files: https://github.com/chbarts/kodi-command-line https://github.com/chbarts/kodi-command-line I have the YouTube plugin so I can do things like kodi-play $YOUTUBE_URL or kodi-play -y $YOUTUBE_VIDEO_ID (When I was doing research on this project, it was kinda frustrating how many websites assumed I'd be making the SBC the server.)
- dleslie 8y ago
  I use Kodi for the media center, paired with Kore on our phones. mpd and icecast for in the go streaming.
- lbeltrame 8y ago
  You may want to follow the development of Jellyfin (https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin), which is a fork of the Emby Media Server when it became proprietary. Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Jellyfin's team, I just contributed one patch to the codebase.
cmiles74 8y ago
It would be inconvenient for Plex to stop functioning. But with all the data stored locally, it will be pretty easy to move to another product. Worst case I might setup Samba and just watch from a laptop.
tjbiddle 8y ago
Yes, but the underlying media is still yours. Just switch to a different media server and you're good to go.
__david__ 8y ago
For example, my dvd/bluray rips have gone through a number of servers: pytivo, stream-to-me, subsonic, and plex. Each time it's just setting up the daemon and pointing it to the media directory. It's nicer when you don't have to switch, but the non-DRM nature of the rips makes it so pretty much anything can serve them up to me.

svnpenn 8y ago

any good alternative? Kodi? Universal Media Server?

kakarot 8y ago
Depends on which features matter to you. If you want an immersive content library like Plex, it's harder to find substitutes. If you just want a way to stream music and movies from your own server or home computer, with on-the-fly re-encoding to adjust to available bandwidth, I would recommend airsonic. https://github.com/airsonic/airsonic https://github.com/airsonic/airsonic
- svnpenn 8y ago
  sounds good, but i dont do anything java on principle.
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    Huh? What's wrong with Java?
  - _underfl0w_ 8y ago
    You must have either: 1) insufficient knowledge of the source code behind the tools you use, or 2) a really dull and limited computing experience
    - kazinator 8y ago
      I've never touched Java; do I have a dull and limited computing experience? I maintain my own Lisp implementation that has a decent object system, exceptions, delimited continuations, compiler and virtual machine, and a whole-document pattern matching language for easy text transformation. I've worked on early versions of the POSIX threading library for Glibc, Linux device drivers, all sorts of middleware stacks in wireless, VoIP and such. Code of mine is in e2fsprogs: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/ext2/e2fsprogs.git/tree/lib/support/dict.c https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/ext2/e2fsprogs.git/tree/li... In Wireshark: https://code.wireshark.org/review/gitweb?p=wireshark.git;a=blob;f=epan/except.c https://code.wireshark.org/review/gitweb?p=wireshark.git;a=b... I started working with 8 bit microcomputers in the early 1980's, writing games and utilities, and dial-up BBS's, using assembly language and BASIC. I had dabbled in 3D graphics and the "demo" scene. I used to code in Pascal and Modula-2 before C. I've worked as a C++ dev for many years. Java simply isn't something that would interest me. Java programs look verbose and blubby. To be fair, a lot of what I use and have used is blubby, like the C language, Unix shell and whatnot. But I don't need more blubby. I have my fill of blub calories already. The Java platform bloated, and the ecosystem is self-absorbed. To its credit, it has a reputation for supposedly having good garbage collection and concurrency in its VM, that's about it.
      - kakarot 8y ago
        I think it's admirable that you have such a wide experience with programming and open source. And I'm sure we could riff on Oracle and the Java platform all day. But considering airsonic runs on Java, and you aren't developing for it, the only relevant issues with respect to the source language are performance and program size in terms of both memory and storage. Considering you're storing videos on this server, storing a tiny Java app is a non-issue. And the memory the program itself takes up is meager compared to the memory usage from streaming and encoding/decoding media. If I had to guess, based on the lean interface, it has a lower memory profile than Plex. Performance, again on par with Plex. So, if you don't have an ideological opposition to Java due to its proprietary nature, then I don't understand why you give a shit if the best media server for your needs runs on it.
        8y ago
  - GrinningFool 8y ago
    > sounds good, but i dont do anything java on principle. Since you're just running it and not developing it, what difference does the language make (beyond making sure you have mem/cpu to meet application requirements)?
berti 8y ago
Emby works well for me, better than Plex ever did. https://emby.media/ https://emby.media/
- bubblethink 8y ago
  Emby became proprietary as well. So no real reason to choose it.
  - berti 8y ago
    Didn't know that, thanks. The reason for me was that Plex kept corrupting it's database every few months, whereas I haven't had to touch Emby (other than upgrading via system package manager).
  - password4321 8y ago
    And forked as https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin
bubblethink 8y ago
Yes, kodi is good for the use cases it covers. It doesn't cover some of Plex's functionality though (mainly transcoding and the client server model)
bni 8y ago
Linux server with Samba share. I used this setup with XBMC/Kodi for many years. Recently switched to Infuse on the AppleTV 4K without changing a single thing with the Samba setup.
- msla 8y ago
  > Linux server with Samba share. I used this setup with XBMC/Kodi for many years. Ha! I use precisely this setup for my media needs: Kodi runs on an Odroid-XU4 SBC hooked up to a wired gigabit Ethernet LAN and my Big Display Device (the one with the ATSC tuner) and my server is my laptop. I even created some hinky shell scripts to play arbitrary video files: https://github.com/chbarts/kodi-command-line https://github.com/chbarts/kodi-command-line I have the YouTube plugin so I can do things like kodi-play $YOUTUBE_URL or kodi-play -y $YOUTUBE_VIDEO_ID (When I was doing research on this project, it was kinda frustrating how many websites assumed I'd be making the SBC the server.)
dleslie 8y ago
I use Kodi for the media center, paired with Kore on our phones. mpd and icecast for in the go streaming.
lbeltrame 8y ago
You may want to follow the development of Jellyfin (https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin), which is a fork of the Emby Media Server when it became proprietary. Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Jellyfin's team, I just contributed one patch to the codebase.

cmiles74 8y ago

It would be inconvenient for Plex to stop functioning. But with all the data stored locally, it will be pretty easy to move to another product. Worst case I might setup Samba and just watch from a laptop.

tjbiddle 8y ago

Yes, but the underlying media is still yours. Just switch to a different media server and you're good to go.

__david__ 8y ago

For example, my dvd/bluray rips have gone through a number of servers: pytivo, stream-to-me, subsonic, and plex. Each time it's just setting up the daemon and pointing it to the media directory. It's nicer when you don't have to switch, but the non-DRM nature of the rips makes it so pretty much anything can serve them up to me.