5 ms·

I agree with your frustrations about smart TVs but I also like the setup I have with my TV. I bought an LG OLED last summer (a 55" C9) and to be honest I don't

I agree with your frustrations about smart TVs but I also like the setup I have with my TV. I bought an LG OLED last summer (a 55" C9) and to be honest I don't hate the software (webOS) on it. However my setup is not really normal. Firstly my TV is connected via Ethernet to my router and is restricted to only Netflix, the LG web store and my internal network. I don't watch live TV, instead my viewing is limited to Netflix and content on my Plex server. Turns out the LG Plex app is very good. The TV supports pretty much every video and audio codec so I can do Direct Play from my Plex server. I mostly have direct Blu-ray streams extracted and remuxed into mkv files so there is no quality difference with using Plex vs. the actual Blu-ray. The rest is a mixture of H.264 and H.265 video with AAC and DTS audio in mp4 or mkv files. Everything plays perfectly with quality on par with or exceeding Netflix to give a comparison. This setup works great for me. I only really interact with the TV OS to switch between Netflix and Plex which isn't a big deal and the picture quality of the OLED panel is incredible with 4K HDR content. The real star of the show is Plex though which is just god damn fantastic. As everything I have is Direct Play compatible I can (and have) run the Plex server on a Raspberry Pi with a USB HDD attached and it works perfectly. Even for 80GB 4K HDR movies (direct Blu-ray remux files are large!) plays back from a Pi running openmediavault and Plex media server in Docker. In the past I have tried a few different solutions such as a HTPC running Windows plugged directly into the TV but nothing gave me as good picture quality with the same flexibility as using the native TV apps. In fact the Plex on a Pi setup works so well for me I set one up for my mother when I visited over the new year. She can watch any content on my Plex server as well as anything I upload to hers (as she often wants things I don't care for so don't want using up my disk space :) If you haven't looked into Plex I highly recommend you check it out. It really does 'just work' which is so nice when you want to sit down and watch a movie without having to deal with all the adverts and junk before the movie on a Blu-ray disc.

causality0 7y ago
I fear that soon we're going to need an open-source alternative to Plex. Increasingly aggressive monetization seems to be creeping into the Plex experience. I keep finding things I don't own and don't want showing up on my home screen. "Suggested movies" and "Suggested podcasts" and the like. You can prune them back but a few months later you find some other garbage you don't want.
- satysin 7y ago
  This is a very valid complaint however I understand their need to monetise and at least you can remove that items. At least so far. I am always open to alternatives however with everything I have tried over the years nothing has come close to how well Plex works. From the flexibility of running the server to the superb automatic content identification to the frame perfect delivery to my TV it has been flawless for me. However I feel I should point out again that I don't use the transcoding feature so I cannot comment on how well that works.
  - causality0 7y ago
    Eh, it's gotten noticeably worse of late, almost as if their resources are going somewhere other than UX. The client as picked up a habit of hard-crashing on certain files when "Automatic" transcoding or "original" is selected instead of manually choosing a certain bitrate.
    - satysin 7y ago
      I do not use the transcoding feature (it murders HDR content) so have never experienced any crashes. The only UI prompt I recall seeing is some new streaming feature which I haven't looked into but appears to be some kind of partnership with content providers? I was able to get rid of it easily enough to not even remember how I did it and haven't seen it since. Perhaps the mobile apps (which I assume are updated more regularly?) have had some more prompts? I only ever use the app on my TV.
- dvdgsng 7y ago
  > I fear that soon we're going to need an open-source alternative to Plex. Alternative: Emby https://emby.media/ https://emby.media/ Open-Source Alternative: Jellyfin (fork of Emby v3) https://jellyfin.org/ https://jellyfin.org/
  - lukifer 7y ago
    > no strings attached, no premium licenses or features, and no hidden agendas Subtle. :) Anyone know the motivation for this fork / dig against Emby, other than the premium licensing?

causality0 7y ago

I fear that soon we're going to need an open-source alternative to Plex. Increasingly aggressive monetization seems to be creeping into the Plex experience. I keep finding things I don't own and don't want showing up on my home screen. "Suggested movies" and "Suggested podcasts" and the like. You can prune them back but a few months later you find some other garbage you don't want.

satysin 7y ago
This is a very valid complaint however I understand their need to monetise and at least you can remove that items. At least so far. I am always open to alternatives however with everything I have tried over the years nothing has come close to how well Plex works. From the flexibility of running the server to the superb automatic content identification to the frame perfect delivery to my TV it has been flawless for me. However I feel I should point out again that I don't use the transcoding feature so I cannot comment on how well that works.
- causality0 7y ago
  Eh, it's gotten noticeably worse of late, almost as if their resources are going somewhere other than UX. The client as picked up a habit of hard-crashing on certain files when "Automatic" transcoding or "original" is selected instead of manually choosing a certain bitrate.
  - satysin 7y ago
    I do not use the transcoding feature (it murders HDR content) so have never experienced any crashes. The only UI prompt I recall seeing is some new streaming feature which I haven't looked into but appears to be some kind of partnership with content providers? I was able to get rid of it easily enough to not even remember how I did it and haven't seen it since. Perhaps the mobile apps (which I assume are updated more regularly?) have had some more prompts? I only ever use the app on my TV.
dvdgsng 7y ago
> I fear that soon we're going to need an open-source alternative to Plex. Alternative: Emby https://emby.media/ https://emby.media/ Open-Source Alternative: Jellyfin (fork of Emby v3) https://jellyfin.org/ https://jellyfin.org/
- lukifer 7y ago
  > no strings attached, no premium licenses or features, and no hidden agendas Subtle. :) Anyone know the motivation for this fork / dig against Emby, other than the premium licensing?