Netflix/Hulu/HBOMax/Prime (All Streaming Services) • Page 1437

I have a huge Plex library but it's mostly 720p, which I don't mind right now but eventually I probably will.

Storage is cheap though and only continues to get cheaper. I wouldn't think it'd be any more expensive to hoard 4k content than paying monthly fees to streaming services.

 

720p isn't even that bad. I have every episode of Guy's Grocery Games from Food Network in 720p and sometimes I forget it even is.

And cheap until you hit a point. lol It would cost me like $1500 to upgrade to the set up I'd need next. But I'm also insane so not the best person to listen to about storage and hoarding data.

 

i think the thing that's holding me back more than storage/setup is the effort that it'll take to find/add everything i want. i don't have an optical drive so i can't rip Blu-rays, i only have a cursory knowledge of P2P networks and torrenting, and i would have to make a detailed list and put time and effort into downloading and tagging everything properly.

 

Here's a solution to the latter problem. FileBot

 

Hmm I've never had a problem tagging things from P2P to work with Plex anyways. I just give a folder the name and year of the show or movie and dump my downloads into it. Plex figures it out magically, and if I don't have subtitles, the Plex player on my TV is able to look them up for me. I've never renamed any files

 

this is something to consider. i just don't know where to start re: looking for stuff. only P2P i occasionally access is Soulseek

 

The storage is cheap. I got 18TB for like $120 I think. It's only 1/3 full and I have like 5000 movies and 100 TV shows.

Now getting a better server will cost some money. But I still feel like it'd pay for itself in a year or two versus subscriptions.

 

DM me if you want some help

 

How the hell did you get an 18TB for $120? They’re still going for at least double that from what I can see. Lol

 

I have a hard time playing 4k content via Plex without it buffering every few seconds, it's so annoying. I have fantastic internet upload and download speed, my TV is 4k, I'm not sure what I should be doing. I guess I can go to Reddit and ask those whizzes but they are all so technical and I just want to press play

 

What streaming device?

 

If your router has the ability, I found that reserving a static IP address and setting manual port forwarding for the device hosting the content helped this problem

There's a guide in the manual port forwarding section here: Troubleshooting Remote Access

It also helps you have more than one Plex server haha. I use my Shield TV Pro with a 1TB external SSD plugged into it for most of my content... Then when I ran out of space, I made my laptop a secondary server

 

You're right, the Seagates are like $280 on Amazon rn. I remember getting it on sale, and maybe I paid a little more than $120, but it was definitely a good deal at the time.

 

Yeah that’s insane. I would’ve killed for that because I need 6 of them. lol

 

6!?!?! I guess if you're wanting super HQ video, but like I said at 720p, it's going to take me years to fill it up. I would like to get another one for redundancy though.

 

Just my computer to my Samsung TV?

It's a Google router, I didn't know much else haha. I'll look into this for sure. I use Plex super low key, my "server" is only stuff I haven't watched yet, I don't keep a library, so I have like 5-10 movies and maybe 10-15 TV episodes at a time

 

Well your first problem is that Samsung TVs are ass for plex. Lol A couple of my friends can’t even stream my stuff in HD at all and it still buffers. I’d recommend grabbing a 4K fire stick for like $30 or whatever they go for now. If your budget is a little bigger and you start using plex more, I’d go Apple TV and use the Infuse app with your plex library. It’s better than the plex app but it’s only on Apple devices.

But all my friends have fire sticks because of me because it has the least issues with plex streaming. Something like a Samsung TV isn’t gonna be great at playing 4K content. I don’t really know how it all works and I’m probably using the wrong word, but basically they struggle to transcode the content because they’re not strong enough. Netflix is doing that on their end, so you don’t have to worry about it obviously.

You should also check your settings. Make sure the video settings in your plex app are set to stream at “Original or “Maximum” quality for local and/or remote if you watch outside your house on your phone or something. It doesn’t do it by default, so your settings could also just be wrong. So it might be trying to play it at the wrong quality, making it transcode, making it buffer constantly. Some plex apps have the same setting for audio that has to be set to original. Check the settings on the actual plex server too because I think you can set it so your computer will do the transcoding if your device sucks at it. At least I think that was a thing.

Just some thoughts from a stoned dude with too much time on his hands and a massive plex library. Lol

 

Yeah I agree

 

Fire sticks would definitely work, but they have such a clunky UI. Tbh, for a cheap streamer, I would recommend an Onn TV 4K box for $20, or if you have Dolby vision on your TV, an Onn TV 4K Pro for $50. Can confirm I have streamed Dolby vision and HDR content from Plex on there. But, really up to user preference

 

Oh yeah if there’s a better cheap option than a fire stick, take others’ advice please because I genuinely fucking hate the fire stick’s UI. Lmao

 

It's sooo bad hahaha. Plus, lack of chromecasting support is such a bummer on a device that has android built into it. I hate how Amazon just makes android way worse on all of their devices, whether it's a TV stick or their tablets lol.

First thing I did when getting a fire tablet for someone as a gift was getting Google play services and the play store on there since you can't even get YouTube out of the box

 

i think the internals in most TVs probably aren't strong enough to handle things natively the way an external box or dongle would.

i've heard great things about the Onn boxes if you're looking for a cheaper device.

i've been enjoying the Google TV Streamer quite a bit. the only downside is that if you care about lossless/TrueHD audio, it supposedly doesn't support it on the device or via passthrough. but other than that, it's been a great investment.

 

Or you can go balls to the wall and drop $200 on a Shield TV Pro and host a Plex server on there. Mines really slowed down over the years though.

 

@digitalsea this is super helpful, I guess I just assumed if I have the Plex app it should play everything fine haha. Yeah when original quality is chosen, it just fucks up, so I usually have to downgrade it to the lower options when playing. I have a fire stick in another room but I don't think it's 4k, I'll dig in and it definitely sounds like I should use that for the heavy duty stuff. I'll report back!!

 

i've heard the Shield TV Pro has been many people's go-to device, even though it's a bit older now