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Does anyone else not really "get" these media managers? Personally I still find it much easier to grab media from a torrent and watch it on a computer using VLC

by wackget 9mo ago

Does anyone else not really "get" these media managers? Personally I still find it much easier to grab media from a torrent and watch it on a computer using VLC. It requires zero setup. I do have the benefit of a PC connected to my living room TV, but even if I didn't, most TVs these days can natively play media from a network share.

jaffa2 9mo ago
The benefit of plex ( and jelly fin falls down here) is that anyone with any smart tv can access your media library just like Netflix . So family, friends etc can download the plex app, sign in and start watching your stuff. There’s wide compatibility with all sort of devices and you dont need to firewall tunnel vpn or do any setup. It’s totally grandma friendly. Your approach works great for a single user with a tv connected PC. Lets say with your current system you want your parents, right now, to be able to view your movies files. How easy is that to do, and how much technical knowledge or assistance is required?
barnabee 9mo ago
It's mostly about the UI. Browsing a network share is pretty ugly (generic icons, filenames, etc.) and can be unintuitive. Basic things like quickly finding the latest file you've added can be quite difficult. Ultimately if you just want to browse a filesystem, network shares are fine, but if you want a nice looking front end for that with logos/artwork, descriptions or reviews from the internet, or features that require the files and metadata to be indexed in a DB of some kind, then these UIs come in handy. Plus they look nice are generally easier for other less tech. savvy members of the househould to use.
nvarsj 9mo ago
I went down the rabbithole when I started getting into seasonal Anime watching. Doing that manually is a huge PITA for every show/episode. Now I just get a pop-up on my phone that Plex has the latest episode. I sit on my couch, hit play on my nvidia shield, and watch on my giant OLED. It's great - and I've been doing this for years now. Once you go through the initial set up, the UX is fantastic. Far better than anything Netflix, or any commercial provider has ever built. And for music - Plexamp is an ode to Winamp and is worth it alone. It completely brought me back to the pre-Spotify world of music enjoyment.
kevstev 9mo ago
I kind of hear you on this- its not super necessary, but it can be convenient. I use Synology VideoStation which is a part of their NAS Suite. We keep a small library of often rewatched stuff- holiday movies, a few of the wifes favorites, etc... and the nice thing is I can play it on any TV in my house from an app on my phone. I can also stream to say my local laptop when I am away if I wanted to as well, though I think I have done that exactly once. What is a little nicer about it is that we can hear about something, have it downloaded to the folder that gets indexed, and have it available to play near instantaneously. My NAS also does transcoding if necessary, so that eliminates a lot of hassles around codecs and such as well. A lot of people take this a step further and avoid all paid services and just use tools like radarr and sonarr to get whatever content they are interested automatically off the high seas and play it when they want to. The network share is the hard part- well really having the always on server that hosts it- plex/jellyfin/emby etc are just a little bit of sugar on top that make it a nicer experience. And IME, you install once and you are done, there is no maintenance to deal with afterwards so there is little downside.
worksonmine 9mo ago
As a hoarder the *arrs makes adding content seamless. I just set my preferred quality and it will download it as soon as it's released from the trackers I've setup. Even for movie collections it adds sequels I wasn't aware was in the pipeline. It's more about the ecosystem than the individual tools. And my content is always available from my NAS no matter where I am or what device I have with me.
HauntingPin 9mo ago
I use Jellyfish so I can access my library from anywhere using any of my devices like my phone or laptoo. My partner can also easily access my library using her browser.
flylikeabanana 9mo ago
Beyond just playing the files from storage, I also get subtitles, metadata, play history / continue watching / next up, a nice 10-foot UI, and the ability to satisfy my ADHD curiousity by clicking around tags / actors / directors and seeing what else I have from them in my library.
TacticalCoder 9mo ago
> Does anyone else not really "get" these media managers? Personally I still find it much easier to grab media from a torrent and watch it on a computer using VLC. It requires zero setup. I do both. But when watching with the family it's much easier to have them a media streaming server than to have to hook the PC to the TV (or projector) and use VLC. Now at times for whatever reason some media file won't play over the network: dunno why... Maybe it's a blue moon, maybe there's a space in the filename, maybe I didn't respect the directory naming scheme or the file permission or whatever freaking bullshit. When that happens, I put the file on a USB stick, then on to a laptop, then HDMI cable. And that always work. (just had to make sure the TV wasn't using interpolation to 60 Hz or whatever otherwise every movie looked like a soap opera).
dandano 9mo ago
I'm almost like you, I just download what I want to watch. But instead of going through network files - I have Plex Media Server on my M1 Macbook Air. Plex looks at the downloads folder, indexes it into a nice viewing experience that I use Plex app on the TV to connect to my local Plex server. It's a very seamless experience.

by wackget 9mo ago

jaffa2 9mo ago

The benefit of plex ( and jelly fin falls down here) is that anyone with any smart tv can access your media library just like Netflix . So family, friends etc can download the plex app, sign in and start watching your stuff. There’s wide compatibility with all sort of devices and you dont need to firewall tunnel vpn or do any setup. It’s totally grandma friendly. Your approach works great for a single user with a tv connected PC. Lets say with your current system you want your parents, right now, to be able to view your movies files. How easy is that to do, and how much technical knowledge or assistance is required?

barnabee 9mo ago

It's mostly about the UI. Browsing a network share is pretty ugly (generic icons, filenames, etc.) and can be unintuitive. Basic things like quickly finding the latest file you've added can be quite difficult. Ultimately if you just want to browse a filesystem, network shares are fine, but if you want a nice looking front end for that with logos/artwork, descriptions or reviews from the internet, or features that require the files and metadata to be indexed in a DB of some kind, then these UIs come in handy. Plus they look nice are generally easier for other less tech. savvy members of the househould to use.

nvarsj 9mo ago

I went down the rabbithole when I started getting into seasonal Anime watching. Doing that manually is a huge PITA for every show/episode. Now I just get a pop-up on my phone that Plex has the latest episode. I sit on my couch, hit play on my nvidia shield, and watch on my giant OLED. It's great - and I've been doing this for years now. Once you go through the initial set up, the UX is fantastic. Far better than anything Netflix, or any commercial provider has ever built. And for music - Plexamp is an ode to Winamp and is worth it alone. It completely brought me back to the pre-Spotify world of music enjoyment.

kevstev 9mo ago

I kind of hear you on this- its not super necessary, but it can be convenient. I use Synology VideoStation which is a part of their NAS Suite. We keep a small library of often rewatched stuff- holiday movies, a few of the wifes favorites, etc... and the nice thing is I can play it on any TV in my house from an app on my phone. I can also stream to say my local laptop when I am away if I wanted to as well, though I think I have done that exactly once. What is a little nicer about it is that we can hear about something, have it downloaded to the folder that gets indexed, and have it available to play near instantaneously. My NAS also does transcoding if necessary, so that eliminates a lot of hassles around codecs and such as well. A lot of people take this a step further and avoid all paid services and just use tools like radarr and sonarr to get whatever content they are interested automatically off the high seas and play it when they want to. The network share is the hard part- well really having the always on server that hosts it- plex/jellyfin/emby etc are just a little bit of sugar on top that make it a nicer experience. And IME, you install once and you are done, there is no maintenance to deal with afterwards so there is little downside.

worksonmine 9mo ago

As a hoarder the *arrs makes adding content seamless. I just set my preferred quality and it will download it as soon as it's released from the trackers I've setup. Even for movie collections it adds sequels I wasn't aware was in the pipeline. It's more about the ecosystem than the individual tools. And my content is always available from my NAS no matter where I am or what device I have with me.

HauntingPin 9mo ago

I use Jellyfish so I can access my library from anywhere using any of my devices like my phone or laptoo. My partner can also easily access my library using her browser.

flylikeabanana 9mo ago

Beyond just playing the files from storage, I also get subtitles, metadata, play history / continue watching / next up, a nice 10-foot UI, and the ability to satisfy my ADHD curiousity by clicking around tags / actors / directors and seeing what else I have from them in my library.

TacticalCoder 9mo ago

> Does anyone else not really "get" these media managers? Personally I still find it much easier to grab media from a torrent and watch it on a computer using VLC. It requires zero setup. I do both. But when watching with the family it's much easier to have them a media streaming server than to have to hook the PC to the TV (or projector) and use VLC. Now at times for whatever reason some media file won't play over the network: dunno why... Maybe it's a blue moon, maybe there's a space in the filename, maybe I didn't respect the directory naming scheme or the file permission or whatever freaking bullshit. When that happens, I put the file on a USB stick, then on to a laptop, then HDMI cable. And that always work. (just had to make sure the TV wasn't using interpolation to 60 Hz or whatever otherwise every movie looked like a soap opera).

dandano 9mo ago

I'm almost like you, I just download what I want to watch. But instead of going through network files - I have Plex Media Server on my M1 Macbook Air. Plex looks at the downloads folder, indexes it into a nice viewing experience that I use Plex app on the TV to connect to my local Plex server. It's a very seamless experience.