Media Server

https://www.plex.tv/

Plex Media Server

Hello and welcome back. I pray God has blessed you this week and that you are doing well in every way. I know he has surely blessed me this week. I praise him for all of us.

I recently installed Plex Media Server on my PC. I have to confess it took several weeks. Like I have said before, I work full-time, and I often start projects and have to stop and come back to them a week or weeks later. I ran into an issue while installing it on Linux. Linux has permissions which often cause issues. I have used Linux for years, but I am by no means a pro at using it, and I do not use Linux at work. That is a Windows machine and I do not do anything with it other than what is needed for doing my work. So that leaves me little time to play with my Linux system. I would encourage anyone that is disheartened with Windows these days to give Linux a try. There is a learning curve, but if I can figure it out, anyone can. There are all kinds of help online that can be found if you search for it and phrase the question correctly. Especially for installing Plex. Linux is coming into its own more and more software is being coded, re-coded, structured and updated to work on Linux. It is also more privacy and security oriented. At least more than Windows. However, this is not about Linux. It is about Plex.

Why use Plex?

Well we have a ton of movies from the previous years and still buy DVDs today. I do not like to buy digital movies, I want a physical copy of what I buy. Have you ever read the regulations on digital movies you have bought? You can watch them for as long as you live, but you can not download them etc. I do my best to never but digital copies. I rent them from time to time. I also want my family or anyone I want to allow watching what I have bought. Plex allows this. I store our movies on an external hard drive and attach that to my PC via USB 3.0 and Plex Media Server allows my children and grand children to watch them from their homes. Plex also allows you to set up streams as well. Plex also has tons of free movies and TV shows you can watch for free with ads. I have an 8 TB external hard drive and even with all the movies we have and other media we still have 4 TB free. Plex also allows me to watch from other televisions throughout the house. It is a totally free service, but I did pay for a year of Plex pass. If I find it useful, I may pay for the lifetime next year. Plex also allows you to add all your streaming services, I have not experimented with it much so I can not give much advice on it. If you are looking for a media server, Plex is very good service and works with Windows, Linux and Mac.

I have yet to open the firewall port needed to access outside our LAN. I am still working with my libraries. I wish I knew that the movies and TV shows needed to be named a certain way. That is why I have not opened the port, I need to get it all organized.

You have to separate movies and TV shows in their own folders and each of those in their own folders as well. If you do not take the time and organize your media, it will be a jumbled mess. Plex will automatically download the cover art etc. If you do as they suggest.

Plex has apps for just about every device made.

I think you will find it a very good piece of software. Give it a try and let me know how you like it.

So I hope God bless you and yours through the next week. Give him the glory when he does.

Until next time.

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