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Love it! Living-room media servers will be the Trojan horse that brings self-hosting back into existence, and will inevitably transform the internet back into a

Love it! Living-room media servers will be the Trojan horse that brings self-hosting back into existence, and will inevitably transform the internet back into a more peer-to-peer oriented existence. Once most folks have symmetrical connections and powerful Linux systems, it’s only a software problem keeping people from using the internet as it was intended, equally publishers as they are consumers.

heyoni 3y ago
I love this take and absolutely hate what the centralized internet has become. My god, even basic searches don’t work on major platforms.
Takennickname 3y ago
Never thought about it like that. Very possible.
sirspacey 3y ago
The Roku of the internet, I love this idea so much.
mikepurvis 3y ago
I've tried at several points to roll my own media center PC/server setup and it's always been a very far cry from what the fire stick does for like a tenth the price and zero effort. So yeah, I'm very keen for something plug and play in this space.
- stavros 3y ago
  This is probably a bit too custom, but I did the same, and it works really well after it's set up. Plex/Jellyfin just works for everyone (you do need to use the app, because I disabled transcoding). I have a repo that uses a Harbormaster (a Comppse-based deployment tool I wrote, https://harbormaster.readthedocs.io/ https://harbormaster.readthedocs.io/) to set everything up and keep it up to date, so all you need to do is run the Harbormaster container, point it to the above repo config, and the apps will run. Then, you just need to configure each app, but the directories will be set up properly. It's a bit of work, but probably not as intimidating as it sounds. https://github.com/skorokithakis/mediacenter-in-a-box/ https://github.com/skorokithakis/mediacenter-in-a-box/
  - buran77 3y ago
    > you do need to use the app, because I disabled transcoding You can use Plex as a DLNA server together with a DLNA client (like players built into most TVs), so Direct Play and Direct Streaming should work just the same.
    - stavros 3y ago
      It's not running locally, sadly, but the Plex app somehow also supports more codecs, so I've found it's generally better.
    - mikepurvis 3y ago
      I tried DLNA served from iTunes and Jellyfin and fiber there player experiences mostly pretty terrible— hard to browse, seeking was bad, UI ugly, etc.
- danr4 3y ago
  Piracy is super evil and I would never and have never pirated anything in my life. but I do know that Stremio + Torrentio + RealDebrid takes at max 30 minutes to set up and for a few bucks you can essentially stream everything in higher quality than most streaming platforms, it works great on a google tv chromecast (a friend told me).
  - throwaway07743 3y ago
    I prefer legal options whenever available, but most of the time the movie/series just never was available in my country, or is no longer available. Anyways, in my country it's legal to download for personal use.
CharlesW 3y ago
> Living-room media servers will be the Trojan horse that brings self-hosting back into existence… I had a living-room media server for many years. My recommendation: Don't put a media server in your living room. Instead, get a tiny, quiet, privacy-respecting client (e.g. Apple TV) and put the media on a NAS that lives elsewhere. Depending on your preferred client UX, you may (Plex) or may not (Infuse) need a separate app to serve the media. Whether the server lives in your living room or office/homelab doesn't really matter in terms of its effect on the popularity of "self-hosting". If anything, local media library management is likely to become less popular, and any "Trojan horse" effect has happened by now since people have been doing this for a couple of decades.

heyoni 3y ago

I love this take and absolutely hate what the centralized internet has become. My god, even basic searches don’t work on major platforms.

Takennickname 3y ago

Never thought about it like that. Very possible.

sirspacey 3y ago

The Roku of the internet, I love this idea so much.

mikepurvis 3y ago

I've tried at several points to roll my own media center PC/server setup and it's always been a very far cry from what the fire stick does for like a tenth the price and zero effort. So yeah, I'm very keen for something plug and play in this space.

stavros 3y ago
This is probably a bit too custom, but I did the same, and it works really well after it's set up. Plex/Jellyfin just works for everyone (you do need to use the app, because I disabled transcoding). I have a repo that uses a Harbormaster (a Comppse-based deployment tool I wrote, https://harbormaster.readthedocs.io/ https://harbormaster.readthedocs.io/) to set everything up and keep it up to date, so all you need to do is run the Harbormaster container, point it to the above repo config, and the apps will run. Then, you just need to configure each app, but the directories will be set up properly. It's a bit of work, but probably not as intimidating as it sounds. https://github.com/skorokithakis/mediacenter-in-a-box/ https://github.com/skorokithakis/mediacenter-in-a-box/
- buran77 3y ago
  > you do need to use the app, because I disabled transcoding You can use Plex as a DLNA server together with a DLNA client (like players built into most TVs), so Direct Play and Direct Streaming should work just the same.
  - stavros 3y ago
    It's not running locally, sadly, but the Plex app somehow also supports more codecs, so I've found it's generally better.
  - mikepurvis 3y ago
    I tried DLNA served from iTunes and Jellyfin and fiber there player experiences mostly pretty terrible— hard to browse, seeking was bad, UI ugly, etc.
danr4 3y ago
Piracy is super evil and I would never and have never pirated anything in my life. but I do know that Stremio + Torrentio + RealDebrid takes at max 30 minutes to set up and for a few bucks you can essentially stream everything in higher quality than most streaming platforms, it works great on a google tv chromecast (a friend told me).
- throwaway07743 3y ago
  I prefer legal options whenever available, but most of the time the movie/series just never was available in my country, or is no longer available. Anyways, in my country it's legal to download for personal use.

CharlesW 3y ago

> Living-room media servers will be the Trojan horse that brings self-hosting back into existence… I had a living-room media server for many years. My recommendation: Don't put a media server in your living room. Instead, get a tiny, quiet, privacy-respecting client (e.g. Apple TV) and put the media on a NAS that lives elsewhere. Depending on your preferred client UX, you may (Plex) or may not (Infuse) need a separate app to serve the media. Whether the server lives in your living room or office/homelab doesn't really matter in terms of its effect on the popularity of "self-hosting". If anything, local media library management is likely to become less popular, and any "Trojan horse" effect has happened by now since people have been doing this for a couple of decades.