PC died. Trying the legal options.

And fuck. I really miss plex. I’ve had Netflix and Hulu forever as family won’t let me cancel. Decided to sign up to Paramount + for some Trek. Twice in lower decks it didn’t save my watched episodes. Doesn’t mark episode as watched if you exit during the credits. And multiple playback issues.

Wanted to add no ad Disney to the Hulu for some Doctor Who. Only the add supported is available through Hulu. So I’d have to cancel, wait for the month to end and sign up via Disney. Deal with ads or pay almost double the duo plan costs, or include ESPN, and honestly fuck sports.

What is so difficult about just providing a decent service for a fair price? Why is plex like a decade ahead of the streaming UI’s? I’m trying to give you fucks money and you’re making it extremely difficult.

YaksDC,

I have been using this Mini PC as an always on running Kodi for over a year. Up to 4K resolution.

www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0B2C1GL48?psc=1&ref=p…

BananaTrifleViolin, (edited )

I’ve coincidentally bought this machine for similar purpose, arriving tomorrow.

I’m intending to install a Linux KDE environment on it and use it as a living room PC, steam Linux machine, stream from my PC for 4k gaming, and a Jellyfin /Kodi box. I could probably keep windows 11 on it but I prefer the privacy and control I get with Linux plus it’ll be a fun little project.

Was on sale for £270 here, and looks overpowered for what OP’d need.

Raspberry Pi 5 is also available for like £80 and that’s capable for 4k video (although frustratingly the web browsers aren’t able to take advantage of hardware video accel from my tinkering; you have to use dedicated apps like Kodi, freetube etc). That could also be a viable route for Plex / Jellyfin / Kodi machine media server and player or even just server.

Edit: worth point out a raspberry Pi costs the same as 10 months of just Disney+ without ads. Once you throw in other streaming subscriptions… May pay for itself much sooner…

Swarfega,

I read on the Jellyfin site that the Pi5 has no hardware encoders…

jellyfin.org/docs/…/hardware-acceleration

Since I’m only streaming locally (on a Pi4) I don’t need to record anything but still.

CurbsTickle,

I’ve got a slightly older (8th Gen Intel) off lease dell micro in my living room, mostly for early ed games for my kids. A quick user switch and it’s steam time for me.

Cost me about $150, then I tossed about $75 in upgrades, roughly 2 years ago.

Ultra small form factor PCs like this and the beelink are fantastic options. I’ve got a stack of them running all of my home services.

YaksDC,

I love it and it is so quiet.

CurbsTickle,

Exactly.

Most of these units don’t need (or have) a fan (except for the ones with like an Nvidia quadro in them, but those I keep in my rack for other purposes, like tdarr and work stuff)

Plenty of power for proxmox, containers, whatever. Intel QSV is fantastic for Jellyfin and Plex transcoding, I’d say 7th Gen and up is plenty for most people.

Really any of these little units are well worth it. I’ve got some older ones (4th-6th Gen Intel) doing other duties, like being testbeds, managing backup storage, etc.

StephniBefni,

Isn’t Dr. Who on Max? That’s where I’ve been watching it.

Pirate_lemmy_arrrrR,

The newest episodes with Tennant are on Disney, most of the 2005 series is on max from what I understand.

StephniBefni,

Oh so like just the 60th anniversary then.

Pirate_lemmy_arrrrR,

I think going forward it’s Disney. So the 60th specials and the next season with Ncuti Gatwa as the Dr.

StephniBefni,

Oh gotcha, well it’s a good thing I can use my brother-in-laws account lol.

norgur, (edited )
@norgur@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

While I wholeheartedly support all your gripes with the streaming services, how come everyone loves fucking Plex with *arr so much? Plex has been nothing but janky for me and constantly tried to push it’s own bullshit through dark patterns (some plex-tv-stuff added to a menu here, some recommendations to their own BS there), while looking and feeling super outdated. This is without the need to switch applications just to get to overseer.

Isn’t Stremio more comfortable for most ppl?

Pirate_lemmy_arrrrR,

You can hide any that stuff you don’t want. I have the lifetime plex pass and the UI in plex is better than any streaming service that I’ve tried. One thing I like that is missing from streaming services is the actor bios. Being able to see everything that an actor/actress has been in from the pause screen of the show/movie I’m watching if I want to see more. Then I can just add those to *arr from my phone.

Haven’t used stremio personally. Started with XBMC/Kodi. Plex is just better if you need to connect from multiple devices. And the *arr apps are a natural feeling progression to automate what I already know and have been doing.

FuckyWucky,

Check out real debrid and alldebrid

Ashiette, (edited )

For ~100€, through a Raspberry Pi, you can stream 4K60p to your TV. From there, you are the sole master of the seas, Captain.

Pirate_lemmy_arrrrR,

I’ll get the pc fixed. Pi is being used for pihole currently. Do you need a Nas to connect the pi to the hdd that have the video files? Been a while since I messed with the pi, but I don’t remember there being sata connections, or if there is, I have 3 hdd that would need to be connected.

chipt4,

The latest pi (5b) has a pcie connector that will allow you to connect sata drives, but I don’t know if there’s a commercial product for it yet…

wccrawford,

I think the newer ones have a single SATA. I’d probably go the NAS route even if it had 3 connectors, though. There’s something about having my data storage separate from my computing that I like. I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what since I’ve been typing this, and I’ve failed, though. :D

Pirate_lemmy_arrrrR,

I’ve thought about it. The NAS enclosures are pretty expensive though. And since I usually just run the server on my gaming pc I couldn’t justify the cost for another box when they fit in the pc just fine.

Thermal_shocked, (edited )

Don’t need a nas enclosure. Get old PC, load with drives, install truenas on a bootable USB. Once in, install Plex plugin, setup shares, and boom, it’s done. I’ve had the same setup for almost 15 years back when it was freenas, now running a 10 year old i7 with 4 8TB drives RAID 0 and mirrored. Performance is top, I share over 1500 movies and 50 series to friends and family, it has my photo backups, software storage, personal files. Can use other plugin, all web accessible (computer is in network closet, only has power and Ethernet connected).

I’d get a case with as many drive slots as possible in my next upgrade, but this is solid af and it’s all mine.

For streaming only, Nvidia shield pro with VPN app and stremio with torrentio settings. Nothing I cant stream if it’s a one off watch.

Don’t have to spend a fortune for a nice Plex server, drives will be the most expensive, but can be expanded when needed, can start with a 1-4TB drive and grow as needed and add RAID 1 later for redundancy. Can use SSD too.

Pretzilla,

Nice setup. Thanks for the specs.

Plex-wise, do I need plex pass to share with friends, or will the free version support that?

Thermal_shocked,

i tried the pass, not worth a monthly subscription in my opinion. you can access the library at app.plex.tv in any browser just fine.

Syl,
@Syl@jlai.lu avatar

I have a usb drive connected to it. You may need a powered usb hub based on the consumption of the usb drive.

ANIMATEK,

You don’t technically need a NAS, the Pi can be it, but you’d need a usb 3 enclosure (way cheaper than a NAS). But honestly just let your pihole be your pihole and don’t mess with it. You may wanna get a pi zero and use that as your DNS and your old pi as a Plex server.

theUnlikely,

There’s probably no reason to be running two Pis. A single one could easily do both.

ANIMATEK, (edited )

Yes you could but then every time you need to service your Pi your whole house will be left without internet.

For me personally it was a great decision to move my containers from the Pi with pihole to a dedicated media server. I did not ever get a warning that resources were low again and I have no unrelated downtime.

As a bonus, I also have the Pi VPN in there, so I can basically restart my media server remotely and not lose connection :D

theUnlikely, (edited )

I just recently got myself a Pi 4 8GB for €86 on Amazon, a barely used 10TB IronWolf NAS HDD for €120 on eBay, and an HDD enclosure for €20 that powers the HDD and plugs into the Pi via USB3. Currently it’s running Plex Media Server, qBittorrent, Wireguard, AdGuard Home, Nextcloud, Caddy, and a few monitoring containers. It’s handling all of that easily. I’m using it headless and just stream content to my TV. Currently I have no redundancy for my drive, but I’ll get around to that eventually.

You can of course keep using PiHole for your setup. I recommend you check out !selfhosted and r/selfhosted.

You don’t even need to buy a microsd card anymore because they now ship with the firmware that can boot from USB.

__init__,

Some more examples of why piracy is a service problem

Pirate_lemmy_arrrrR,

It really is. Everyone splintering off to their own app is what got me back to it. Had Netflix, Hulu, max, Disney, prime and I think Apple plus or peacock for a while and I could never remember what service the shows I was watching were on. Opening up 4 streaming apps to find what I was watching the other day got tiresome. When it was mainly Netflix and Hulu I only pirated the few shows that were on like HBO that I wanted to see. Arr apps with plex is so nice in comparison.

jesuiscequejesuis,

I could never remember what service the shows I was watching were on. Opening up 4 streaming apps to find what I was watching the other day got tiresome.

I know what community this is, but using something like a Chromecast w/ Google TV lets you search across all your streaming services simultaneously.

errer,

And those searches fucking suck, they are wrong half the time

BoastfulDaedra,

Uh huh… Operative word: Google

jesuiscequejesuis,

In my experience, the only problem I’ve run into is the remote’s microphone feature is a bit flakey, but generally when it does work it’s right most of the time.

lemming741,

I remember that was a Roku selling point back in the day

ArdMacha,

You can just use the Google TV app on your phone to search across services

Kwakigra,

There are steps to piracy which cost time and effort. For most of the media I consume that time and effort cost is significantly less than the time, effort, and capital I would need to invest in a paid service. However, the time, effort, and capital I spend to play videogames has been less than piracy would cost for me for decades. Being able to effortlessly get those games running on a mobile steamdeck is orders of magnitude cheaper than what it would have cost me to set everything up myself even if I’m not paying for software and my costly version wouldn’t be nearly as smooth. This quote would be true enough even if a counter-example didn’t exist, but Steam and GOG are pretty clear demonstrations of the kind of service the average person is satisfied with even if they still have some real issues.

wesley,

Am I the only one who has a distrust of pirating video games? Watching a movie is one thing but a video game is actual code running on your computer downloaded from an untrusted source.

KingJalopy,

What is so difficult about just providing a decent service for a fair price?

Nothing. It’s just not profitable.

darkmatterstyx,

A new PC will cost you far less in the long term.

Pirate_lemmy_arrrrR,

I’m working on it. Pretty sure it’s down to CPU, GPU or motherboard. I have an old gtx 660 that I’m going to try. Then probably buy a new MB and see if that helps. Really hope it’s not CPU or GPU as they’re a 5900x and 2080Super. Not exactly cheap replacements.

fartsparkles,

Have you got a buddy with a computer you can test components with? Might help you speed up the troubleshooting process?

Pirate_lemmy_arrrrR,

If I have to, I can canabilize the kids pc for parts. It’s my old ryzen 3600 and gtx 970. Trying to avoid doing that if I can.

fartsparkles,

Not to say cannibalize but perhaps one night just test their parts on your board or vice versa to figure out what component in yours has bitten the dust so you can understand what you need to replace and budget/save accordingly.

Hope you get it sorted soon, friend. I couldn’t live without my Plex server.

Pirate_lemmy_arrrrR,

If it’s not the GPU I’m almost positive it’s CPU or mobo. It’s hard locking anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour. No heat issues.

I’ve fresh installed windows 10, 11 and tried pop os. Pop froze twice during install. Disconnected everything except the ssd, GPU and a single stick of ram. Update bios. Tried both sticks of ram individually in slot 2 where it’s supposed to go and slot 3, which still freezes and tells me I’m a dumb ass for not reading the manual for ram location. Tried installing windows on a hdd. Ram memetest86, sfc, ssd check through the bios etc.

Wish my CPU had onboard graphics to narrow that out, but I’ll try the old GPU I have. At that point I guess I could throw my CPU in the kids pc and see if there’s issues, but will probably just buy a mobo and see.

OpticalMoose,
@OpticalMoose@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I’d definitely swap as many parts in/out as possible before buying new stuff. Besides, you might end up finding out something just became unseated or unplugged - it happens over time. Just have some thermal paste handy before you start swapping CPUs.

Does it boot / POST at all?

Pirate_lemmy_arrrrR,

It just hard locks minutes to an hour after boot. I tore it down to the cpu and removed the motherboard and reconnected everything. I’ve now narrowed it down to CPU, MB or power supply. My bet is on MB, so I have a new one ordered.

shadeless,
@shadeless@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Also look at the memory of you haven’t already - run memtest

Pirate_lemmy_arrrrR,

Yeah, that was one of the first troubleshooting steps. No errors. Also tried each stick individually. Confirmed the GPU is good as well. Ordered a new MB to try next.

Unforeseen,

Don’t count out the power supply, it can cause that issue as well.

wonderfulvoltaire,
@wonderfulvoltaire@lemmy.world avatar

Why not do both 😇

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