My First Plex Server

[TheCroShow]

I have a large blu-ray collection and for years I fell for the convenience of streaming movies off of various platforms. To dip my toes into the hobby, I ripped some of my blu-rays to my current computer and watched them via Plex and I was BLOWN AWAY. Physical media is King and I lost sight of that! I'll still use Netflix and Disney for example, no other way to watch Skeleton Crew for example. Fast forward a few weeks and I built my very first home server. Equipped with (4) 4TB NAS drives I have just under 12TB of storage to work iwith. While gaming I can comfortably rip my movies so here's a snapshot of my own personal streaming platform at home. I have shared my library with my brother, and a few close friends. I absolutely love sharing movies with loved ones. A proud moment as my buddy told me his daughters watched Frosty the Snowman (animated) off my Plex server and they loved it so much they watched a few times in the span of a couple of days. That makes me so  happy! Here's a snapshot or two of my library thus far. Still so many to rip! Love the ability of changing movie poster artwork!

[ubergeek]

I want to do this but I also dont want to tear up my storage so it all just stays on disks

[Nandroya]

Awesome Plex Server i have been doing the same its so cool to have my movies and tv shows on plex ... nice job man

[Loren Lang]

Nice - it definitely isn't perfect but I am fan of Plex. I get the compulsion - my family owned a video store when I was young so I have been a collector my whole life. If I hadn't already gone thru the misery of fixing a lot of the auto-labeling errors on my existing Plex server, I would have deployed the Plex app on my NAS when I built it.  I haven't been purchasing as much physical media since pre-COVID just because my local brick and mortar resource for used 4k Blurays have closed but there are some holes in my library I need to fill. If I upgrade my switch in my office to 10GB, I might spin up an instance and try to figure out how to get 4k and HDR/Dolby Vision to actually playback over Plex on my network so I only have to keep one extra tower running. It's not a latency issue, I am sure it's either a limitation of the plex app on Roku/Xbox or in the file format because it plays local from file. I just cracked the shrink on HexOS and only thing I am configured thus far was immich so I could consolidate my wife and I's photos into a single source backed up to personal cloud. If you get froggy and are a cord cutter, there are integrations for over the air TV into plex though not sure if that would be supported with a virtual instance of plex though I have no doubt someone has gotten it working. Good luck and enjoy!

[bmanone]

Love it! I'm the same, the main part of this hobby that I love is the sharing with people and seeing them watch my library. I also have running as a docker container Tautulli which is a plex monitoring app that shows you statistics on your library like what users have watched etc.

I've just built a new server today for HexOS to migrate my old Plex library to some more beefy hardware, fun little christmas project!

[BlueAsphalt]

On 12/28/2024 at 7:28 AM, TheCroShow said:

I have a large blu-ray collection and for years I fell for the convenience of streaming movies off of various platforms. To dip my toes into the hobby, I ripped some of my blu-rays to my current computer and watched them via Plex and I was BLOWN AWAY. Physical media is King and I lost sight of that! I'll still use Netflix and Disney for example, no other way to watch Skeleton Crew for example. Fast forward a few weeks and I built my very first home server. Equipped with (4) 4TB NAS drives I have just under 12TB of storage to work iwith. While gaming I can comfortably rip my movies so here's a snapshot of my own personal streaming platform at home. I have shared my library with my brother, and a few close friends. I absolutely love sharing movies with loved ones. A proud moment as my buddy told me his daughters watched Frosty the Snowman (animated) off my Plex server and they loved it so much they watched a few times in the span of a couple of days. That makes me so  happy! Here's a snapshot or two of my library thus far. Still so many to rip! Love the ability of changing movie poster artwork!

Do you rip each DVD one by one or do you have a ripping machine that works on multiple DVDs at once? I was wondering how much time it would take to build a digital library like this 

[TheCroShow]

20 hours ago, BlueAsphalt said:

Do you rip each DVD one by one or do you have a ripping machine that works on multiple DVDs at once? I was wondering how much time it would take to build a digital library like this 

I'm ripping blu-rays while I'm at my desk (which is a lot) It typically takes 15-20 minutes per blu-ray to finish. It's been an adventure, but I'm loving it!