Plex Home Server

[Raekwon]

I saw some other old threads but rather than to necro them I figured we could start a new thread.

With the prices of streaming rising so much I decided to take more effort to build my media server and put the money towards that but I need to automate it as much as possible.

I have a PC I'm using as a server right now, it has Freenas currently but I'm open to any solution that is easy, I use a private tracker and a seedbox to acquire media I used to go the usenet route but it got to the point where every new file was taken down too quickly or incomplete. Using a seedbox I suppose I don't need to go the private tracker route if public trackers are easier. One thing I used to have when using Usenet/SabNZB was I could setup a site for my wife to request a movie and it would find and downloads it automatically, not sure if that is an option or if its just easier to do that through a program like Jackett or Radarr.

Currently I manually click the file and it opens and downloads via deluge daemon on my seedbox and transfers to my fileserver automatically using syncthing. I had RSS setup but i was getting too many duplicates and filling the hard drive.

Looking to streamline this procedure for both movies/TV and add auto download of new episodes etc, using the easiest fileserver/OS for this and any tricks/tips.

[EldrickOnIce]

^ I'll take one (ready made) of whatever they are building, thanks!

[Krovikan]

OMBI > Radarr/Sonarr > NZBGet > Plex /done

Reverse proxy it via Nginx to get yourself a nice local domain, ie nzbget.something.ca

Make sure all your services have passwords on them for legal reasons and use Let's Encrypt on the reverse proxy. You can also use Docker to make things easier to manage.

Ditch BitTorrent, it's a red flag for most ISPs and can get you in legal trouble, also make sure you are in a country like EU/Canada for PII purposes for your Usenet service; and for the love of Pete always use TLS services, nothing unencrypted.

All of this information is provided for entertainment purposes only, I take no responsibility for you using it for illegal activity.

[Cheese]

^^^^


Is this english?

[TorqueDog]

I just have to say that it's hilarious how things come full circle.

As a kid, couldn't afford things so we pirated stuff.

We joined the workforce, could finally afford to buy things and did, but it was such a pain in the ass to use your media how you wanted to -- in the infancy of 'Media Center' setups, and who wants to wait an hour plus to DeCSS a DVD -- that you would just download stuff anyway.

Streaming services start popping up for music, movies, TV, and provide great value for money, so people start signing up to those in droves and cord-cutting, reducing casual piracy considerably.

More streaming services pop-up and content begins fracturing and requiring multiple services to get the same experience you once had, while subscription prices continue to increase.

People start considering cutting subscription services in light of high costs and start pirating content again.

[cKy]

My Plex server is based on the Unraid OS. You can setup multiple docker containers which is great for siloing out the applications.

I basically use Sonarr to automate the TV shows. JDownloader2 to get direct download links from my main sites.

You can easily setup nginx like was mentioned before as a reverse proxy and add some VPN layers on top if you need.

I have found lately (last 2-3 years honestly) Plex has wavered from being a media player to focusing on other things and has caused some playback issues on multiple devices. I've been experimenting a little with JellyFin as its open source and a direct connection. All data through Plex goes through the Plex server which is less than ideal in these times.

[Krovikan]

Originally Posted by cKy

I have found lately (last 2-3 years honestly) Plex has wavered from being a media player to focusing on other things and has caused some playback issues on multiple devices. I've been experimenting a little with JellyFin as its open source and a direct connection. All data through Plex goes through the Plex server which is less than ideal in these times.

My personal favourite, is my personal copies of videos in mkv format need plex to transcode them to play in Chrome. I've been considering adding in handbrake to automatically convert before they get onto my plex server.

[Raekwon]

Originally Posted by Krovikan

OMBI > Radarr/Sonarr > NZBGet > Plex /done

Reverse proxy it via Nginx to get yourself a nice local domain, ie nzbget.something.ca

Make sure all your services have passwords on them for legal reasons and use Let's Encrypt on the reverse proxy. You can also use Docker to make things easier to manage.

Ditch BitTorrent, it's a red flag for most ISPs and can get you in legal trouble, also make sure you are in a country like EU/Canada for PII purposes for your Usenet service; and for the love of Pete always use TLS services, nothing unencrypted.

All of this information is provided for entertainment purposes only, I take no responsibility for you using it for illegal activity.

I use the seedbox for torrents so its not an ISP issue then encrypted FTP transfer from seedbox to my server. I prefered NZB back in the day just ran in to issues, maybe its better now?

[Krovikan]

Originally Posted by Raekwon

I use the seedbox for torrents so its not an ISP issue then encrypted FTP transfer from seedbox to my server. I prefered NZB back in the day just ran in to issues, maybe its better now?

Once in a while, you can't get a show, and you have to switch NZB Indexers once in a while, but for the most part i"ve been satisfied with it. I have a usenet provider that I pay $10/month for and have seen up to 40MB/sec download (though honestly, I don't pay attention 99% of the time so it might have gone higher).

You could also run your own indexer to avoid having to switch, but that just seems like a giant pain every time I look into it.

Edit: I believe Sonarr (and maybe Radarr as well) have limited support for BitTorrent, so you may want to look into that.

[Raekwon]

Originally Posted by Krovikan

Once in a while, you can't get a show, and you have to switch NZB Indexers once in a while, but for the most part i"ve been satisfied with it. I have a usenet provider that I pay $10/month for and have seen up to 40MB/sec download (though honestly, I don't pay attention 99% of the time so it might have gone higher).

You could also run your own indexer to avoid having to switch, but that just seems like a giant pain every time I look into it.

I will have to look back into that, I pay $17/month for the seedbox/10gb storage so I could use that towards a usenet provider. I always preferred nzb, less hassle when it worked, easy to configure automation IMO, its been years but pretty sure I used Astraweb and nzbgrabit/nzbmatrix back then?

Edit: Apparently its been longer than I thought for Usenet, NZBmatrix shutdown in what 2015? Time to give this a shot.

[Hemi-Cuda]

I just have everything (Plex, Sonarr, Radarr, Deluge) on a small Dell PC I got from work and use public torrent trackers, all through a VPN though. DL speeds are good enough, and the price is right. Haven't received one of those "you've been naughty" emails from Shaw in well over 2 years now since getting everything configured, so I'm happy

I try to be a "gentleman pirate" though, I'm not doing this to save money. I still subscribe to Netflix, Disney, and Amazon Prime, and my NAS + disks costs would equal several years of streaming fees. My primary goal is to have everything I watch in one interface at the quality that I want, and not have some of my favorite episodes of shows taken away because of the latest bull#### censoring wave or because some licensing deal expired. Plus the Plex user interface absolutely ####s all over every other streaming platform and I get total control in how my content is presented. That alone means I couldn't go back to dealing with regular streaming services alone

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Krovikan

Edit: I believe Sonarr (and maybe Radarr as well) have limited support for BitTorrent, so you may want to look into that.

Out of the box Radarr and Sonarr only support a single public torrent tracker, rarbg. But you can install Jackett which supports basically every torrent site on the planet and feeds into both apps. It's very rare that I can't find what I'm looking for now, it has to be very old and/or very obscure not to return at least a few results

[Canadianman]

you guys are much more advanced than I am.


I've got Plex on my desktop. I use NORDVPN and torrent from torrentday (got the invite from someone here). Then I have Plex on my TVs and tablets to let me access it.

[Ozy_Flame]

Not exactly related, but I cut the cord to my Telus cable, and instead signed up for Stack TV through Prime. It has all the channels I was watching anyways. Note that you don't even have to pay for Stack TV, you can just watch the streaming channel for free with ads. It's if you want to pick and choose shows you really have to pay.

Regarding Plex, this is interesting - I might rip all my DVD's and put them on Plex so I can minimalize my physical possessions.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by cKy

My Plex server is based on the Unraid OS. You can setup multiple docker containers which is great for siloing out the applications.

I basically use Sonarr to automate the TV shows. JDownloader2 to get direct download links from my main sites.

You can easily setup nginx like was mentioned before as a reverse proxy and add some VPN layers on top if you need.

I have found lately (last 2-3 years honestly) Plex has wavered from being a media player to focusing on other things and has caused some playback issues on multiple devices. I've been experimenting a little with JellyFin as its open source and a direct connection. All data through Plex goes through the Plex server which is less than ideal in these times.

I might need to try JellyFin although I bought A lifetime Plexpass almost ten years ago. The VC investors want to make Plex another streaming platform and the media player is almost an afterthought for them. It used to just work but more and more issues come up all the time.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Oh and for those that like having subtitles and find Plex's built-in subtitle search lacking, give Bazarr a try. It's a companion service for Sonarr/Radarr and will automatically download subs from opensubtitles.org (plus a bunch of other sources) for your entire library

[Brendone]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Regarding Plex, this is interesting - I might rip all my DVD's and put them on Plex so I can minimalize my physical possessions.

Just finished doing this myself. Pretty slick having the DVD/blueray quality to stream to the projector and downsampling to other devices. Did the same with all out CD’s and iTunes music

[FlameOn]

I have an Unraid server running Plex for my friends/family. Using Sonarr/Radarr and Usenet/VPN torrents on SabNZBd/Qbitorrent. Friends/family request shows via Overserr (was not a fan of Ombi) and that shows up on Plex for them. Have Bazarr for subtitles and Prowlarr to handle all the search/indexer aggregation. It all works quite well together and you can set things up with custom collections too using Plex Meta Manager so you get recommendations and custom categories like with other streaming platforms, though this requires a bit of python commandline/scripting knowledge.



Lately I've set up Readarr for audiobooks as well and NextCloud instance for my personal cloud storage outside for Google Drive/Photos. Yea I'm kind of annoyed with Plex right now, there are so many bugs I keep on reporting to them that don't get fixed. Though Emby/Jellyfish haven't been a whole lot better.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Krovikan

Ditch BitTorrent

Use your torrent client in a docker behind a VPN, traffic won't be a problem them. Use Usenet for most downloads, torrents for fills.

Originally Posted by Raekwon

I saw some other old threads but rather than to necro them I figured we could start a new thread.

With the prices of streaming rising so much I decided to take more effort to build my media server and put the money towards that but I need to automate it as much as possible.

I have a PC I'm using as a server right now, it has Freenas currently but I'm open to any solution that is easy, I use a private tracker and a seedbox to acquire media I used to go the usenet route but it got to the point where every new file was taken down too quickly or incomplete. Using a seedbox I suppose I don't need to go the private tracker route if public trackers are easier. One thing I used to have when using Usenet/SabNZB was I could setup a site for my wife to request a movie and it would find and downloads it automatically, not sure if that is an option or if its just easier to do that through a program like Jackett or Radarr.

Currently I manually click the file and it opens and downloads via deluge daemon on my seedbox and transfers to my fileserver automatically using syncthing. I had RSS setup but i was getting too many duplicates and filling the hard drive.

Looking to streamline this procedure for both movies/TV and add auto download of new episodes etc, using the easiest fileserver/OS for this and any tricks/tips.

Overserr will make it dead simple for your wife/non techy users to request stuff. And you shouldn't end up with duplicates in Radarr/Sonarr if you set up your rules properly to not upgrade the episode/movie past a certain quality point https://trash-guides.info/ has some really good info on all the different settings.

You can also set up MDBLists or use Trakt lists to automate your movie adds/customize rules around what rating of movies get added and which don't. There are ways you can compress/delete movies too that can save on HDD space or you can set Sonarr/Radarr to only download HEVC which will save you tons of storage.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Krovikan

My personal favourite, is my personal copies of videos in mkv format need plex to transcode them to play in Chrome. I've been considering adding in handbrake to automatically convert before they get onto my plex server.

Tdarr is also an option to automate your transcoding needs. Has quite a few options to automate transcoding/renaming/moving video files that handbrake itself won't handle easily