I just discovered Plex for video streaming

[Slyfox696]

What an amazing piece of software this is. Basically, it allows you to set up a Netflix type of thing for your own network multimedia streaming. While it has some official "channels" you can add to it and stream from outside sources, it also also allows you to take your own multimedia and stream it from your computer in an organized format.

I've spent the last several days ripping my DVDs to digital copies and have been streaming my video to my Roku box. So far I've added two seasons of Friends, the first season of Boston Legal, the 8th season of The Practice and the first two seasons of Married with Children. It is awesome to be able to easily stream these videos to my TVs. And from what I understand, I can also stream it from computers in remote locations (I haven't gotten there yet).

Plex is an app which comes on many different pieces of hardware, whether it's a Roku, Google TV, PS3, Xbox, or smart TV.

I highly recommend this piece of free software.

 

[Ty Burna]

Been using Plex for months now, fantastic for streaming media as you said.

I set it up on my home server and my PS3 picked it up immediately and streaming in only a couple minutes. Have I mentioned how much I love the PS3's media server handling compared to the 360?

 

[The Butcher]

Would either of you go so far as to say it's a "Perfect Plex?"





...sorry, had to.

 

[.]

Viral marketing. BANT.

 

[Slyfox696]

Been using Plex for months now, fantastic for streaming media as you said.

Do you rip your own media, or are you just using...ummm...acquired media?

If you rip your own, what do you use?

 

[JGlass]

Do you rip your own media, or are you just using...ummm...acquired media?

If you rip your own, what do you use?

All the party people know that it's all about Handbrake.

 

[Slyfox696]

All the party people know that it's all about Handbrake.

You'd be surprised how many different pieces of software people use (I've researched this quite extensively over the last couple of days). I'm using dd on Linux and DVD Decrypter to rip the ISO and then Handbrake to encode. But there are many tools out there.

By the way, ripping the DVD using Handbrake isn't really the best idea, lot of wear and tear on the optical drive.

 

[JGlass]

You'd be surprised how many different pieces of software people use (I've researched this quite extensively over the last couple of days). I'm using dd on Linux and DVD Decrypter to rip the ISO and then Handbrake to encode. But there are many tools out there.

By the way, ripping the DVD using Handbrake isn't really the best idea, lot of wear and tear on the optical drive.

Is that right? I know most people in my line of work like using Handbrake to rip footage from DVDs, but a lot of the time it's ripping like, footage that was archived on a DVD rather than a movie or television series.

 

[Ty Burna]

Do you rip your own media, or are you just using...ummm...acquired media?

If you rip your own, what do you use?

Just using "acquired" media. I would need far more storage space then I have currently if I were to rip all the DVD's I have.

 

[Slyfox696]

Is that right? I know most people in my line of work like using Handbrake to rip footage from DVDs, but a lot of the time it's ripping like, footage that was archived on a DVD rather than a movie or television series.

Meh, the same principles apply. You should rip the .iso to the computer first and then use handbrake. Your optical drive won't take nearly the abuse and your encoding will probably go faster, since you're not limited by the speed of your drive.

Then just delete the .iso after if you want (or keep it as a backup).

Just using "acquired" media.

Yeah, using acquired media is probably faster than ripping it like I'm doing.

I would need far more storage space then I have currently if I were to rip all the DVD's I have.

I'm currently writing everything to a roughly 250 GB drive. I'll probably look to upgrade to a 2 TB drive (maybe a 3, depends on the price difference when I decide to buy).

I know I really should buy a couple drives and set them in a software RAID 1, but...meh. I'm not sure I want to go to that much work and spend that kind of money yet. A lot of it will depend on how reliant I become on this.

 

[FlexAmerican Dynamite]

How would you find this for PS3? I'm currently searching for it on the store but can't seem to find it.

 

[Ty Burna]

Meh, the same principles apply. You should rip the .iso to the computer first and then use handbrake. Your optical drive won't take nearly the abuse and your encoding will probably go faster, since you're not limited by the speed of your drive.

Then just delete the .iso after if you want (or keep it as a backup).

I love ISO files. Imgburn is a requirement on any PC of mine nowadays.

Yeah, using acquired media is probably faster than ripping it like I'm doing.

Having digital copies is nice, but at the same time the time and effort needed to convert everything wouldn't be worth it when I can just grab the DVD and put it in whatever device I'm using to watch a movie. Mind you I don't watch many movies, I just ended up inheriting a ton of them when I worked for a movie theater/video rental store and they'd sell the extra copies to employees for $2.

I'm currently writing everything to a roughly 250 GB drive. I'll probably look to upgrade to a 2 TB drive (maybe a 3, depends on the price difference when I decide to buy).

Hard drive prices aren't rock bottom like they were a couple years ago but they're definitely getting there. Right now a 3 TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0 Gb/s Seagate is $130 while a 2 TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0 Gb/s Seagate is $100. So $30 difference for 33% more storage.

I know I really should buy a couple drives and set them in a software RAID 1, but...meh. I'm not sure I want to go to that much work and spend that kind of money yet. A lot of it will depend on how reliant I become on this.

I have the same dilemma right now. My home server is set up with Drive Bender which allows me to just pool the hard drives connected to the server into one large hard drive if you will. It totals at about 1.75 TB, which I've only filled about 40% of. It's nice because I can just save files to my network drives and not worry about space available per drive, but there's no redundancy at all, and it would be easier just to set up a RAID array. If one hard drive were to break, the whole drive pool disappears. I really can't spend the money to set it up properly quite yet, though with the repair work and new computer builds I'm getting in, I might just spring for a couple 2 TB drives so I can set up the RAID properly.

 

[Ty Burna]

How would you find this for PS3? I'm currently searching for it on the store but can't seem to find it.

This isn't an app for the PS3. It's an app you would put on your computer where you would have movies and music saved. It sets up your PC to act like a server where your PS3 can then connect to and be able to stream your media over the network. The only thing you'd have to do for the PS3 is just search for a media server once Plex is set up on your PC and looking at your media directories.

http://www.plexapp.com/

 

[FlexAmerican Dynamite]

This isn't an app for the PS3. It's an app you would put on your computer where you would have movies and music saved. It sets up your PC to act like a server where your PS3 can then connect to and be able to stream your media over the network. The only thing you'd have to do for the PS3 is just search for a media server once Plex is set up on your PC and looking at your media directories.

Okay thanks, doing this now.

 

[LSN80]

So far I've added two seasons of Friends, the first season of Boston Legal, the 8th season of The Practice and the first two seasons of Married with Children. It is awesome to be able to easily stream these videos to my TVs. And from what I understand, I can also stream it from computers in remote locations (I haven't gotten there yet).
.

Gee, these wouldn't have anything to do with James Spader being added to the cast/getting his own spin/off, would they?

Does his new show Blacklist look promising to you, Sly? I'm intrigued myself.

[YOUTUBE]k9_qgX7pTlc[/YOUTUBE]

My wife loves Plex. She's used it with the first three seasons of Justified, the first three seasons of The Practice(can't find the others) American Horror Story, 6 seasons of Psych, both seasons of Suits, and a host of others.

Me? Completely inept when it comes to technology.

 

[Slyfox696]

Gee, these wouldn't have anything to do with James Spader being added to the cast/getting his own spin/off, would they?

Of course not...COMPLETELY unrelated.

Does his new show Blacklist look promising to you, Sly? I'm intrigued myself.

[YOUTUBE]k9_qgX7pTlc[/YOUTUBE]

I hadn't even heard of it. The trailer looks very good, though most trailers will. I'm not sure if I like his hair cut though, but I'll definitely give it a chance.

My wife loves Plex. She's used it with the first three seasons of Justified, the first three seasons of The Practice(can't find the others) American Horror Story, 6 seasons of Psych, both seasons of Suits, and a host of others.

Me? Completely inept when it comes to technology.

It's already amazing for me, because I HATE to have to change discs when watching TV shows.

 

[M]

So is it supposed to rename stuff to something completely different to what it usually is? It keeps renaming the tv show episodes I put into it as various Star Wars film titles, while renaming the series as a whole Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead and replacing the title poster with something else I don't even recognise.

 

[Slyfox696]

So is it supposed to rename stuff to something completely different to what it usually is? It keeps renaming the tv show episodes I put into it as various Star Wars film titles, while renaming the series as a whole Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead and replacing the title poster with something else I don't even recognise.

Have you read this?

http://wiki.plexapp.com/index.php/Media_Naming_and_Organization_Guide

 

[M]

I looked at all the help pages to figure out what was going on and came to the conclusion that I need to either rename a lot of my stuff or find a setting to turn off the internet scan it does. It now tends to stack my episodes into one file, which would be alright if it didn't cut off everything after the first episode but all my problems are stemming from that damn scan it does to find data on the files as it does a lot more overwriting than it should.

My general naming system is
"(title) - EP001 - (title of episode)"
for example "Another - EP001 - Rough Sketch" - if I follow this style it combines the first 8 episodes into one thing titled "Another" which is just the first episode, and proceeds to call episode 9 a completely different series while combining the last couple of episodes into one thing, naming it game of thrones and giving it the poster from raiders of the lost ark

 

[Slyfox696]

I looked at all the help pages to figure out what was going on and came to the conclusion that I need to either rename a lot of my stuff or find a setting to turn off the internet scan it does. It now tends to stack my episodes into one file, which would be alright if it didn't cut off everything after the first episode but all my problems are stemming from that damn scan it does to find data on the files as it does a lot more overwriting than it should.

My general naming system is
"(title) - EP001 - (title of episode)"
for example "Another - EP001 - Rough Sketch" - if I follow this style it combines the first 8 episodes into one thing titled "Another" which is just the first episode, and proceeds to call episode 9 a completely different series while combining the last couple of episodes into one thing, naming it game of thrones and giving it the poster from raiders of the lost ark

You're trying to exercise too much control over software. Try it this way (using Boston Legal season 1).

Boston Legal - s01e01
Boston Legal - s02e02


And so on. Then once you do a refresh on your Plex, it'll automatically generate what you want. I'd just rename your stuff, it should be pretty easy. And then you get the benefit of all the Plex generated content related to your media.

 

[M]

Haha trust you to use Boston legal as your example

I'll make a mental note to use that system in the next series I upload then, thanks

 

[ottykool]

All the party people know that it's all about Handbrake.

Handbrake can process most common DVD sources that do not contain any kind of copy protection.

If DVDs come with DRM protection, you will need to use some other utilities like VLC, DVD Shrink, etc.

The best by far ripper I have used is AppGeeker DVD Ripper.

http://www.ilikemall.com/convert/rip-dvd-to-mp4-mac.html

Most DVD's I've been able to rip to my hard disk with this software. The only DVD I couldn't copy to hard disk so far was the pixar movie UP.

 

[Slyfox696]

Haha trust you to use Boston legal as your example

It's just what I'm currently uploading to my media server.

I'll make a mental note to use that system in the next series I upload then, thanks

Yeah, it works wonderfully for me.

Handbrake can process most common DVD sources that do not contain any kind of copy protection.

If DVDs come with DRM protection, you will need to use some other utilities like VLC, DVD Shrink, etc.

The best by far ripper I have used is AppGeeker DVD Ripper.

http://www.ilikemall.com/convert/rip-dvd-to-mp4-mac.html

Most DVD's I've been able to rip to my hard disk with this software. The only DVD I couldn't copy to hard disk so far was the pixar movie UP.

I'm old school...DVD Decrypter.