What do you use for a home media server
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Following along after my post about how do you listen to your music on the go, I am curious on what you all do for home media.
The biggest solutions I am aware of are Plex and Emby. Kodi can be used as a player of stuff on your network, but it is not a media server itself.
https://plex.tv
https://emby.media/I have installed both Plex and Emby, but I find myself gravitating to Plex. My Samsung TV has native apps for both, and the interface sees generally better in Plex.
Plex is closed source while Emby is open source.
Both have apps on iOS and Android that you have to pay too unlock playback.
Both have a subscription service for advanced functionality.
Both seem to work very good. -
One of the reasons I am gravitating to Plex is the OTA TV functionality.
https://www.plex.tv/features/live-tv-dvr/It requires that you have their Plex Pass subscription, but getting OTA TV recorded for time shifted viewing is a great deal IMO.
I get something like 30+ OTA channels thanks to living in the Chicago Suburbs. Granted most of it is not anything I will watch consistently, but there are some live programs that air that I would like to be able to time shift. Also, someone has released a script tha toyu can run on your Plex server to strip commercials out of the OTA recorded media.
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Both Emby and Plex are $120, one time, for all the features.
https://emby.media/premiere.html
https://www.plex.tv/features/plex-pass -
I just use a Netgear ReadyNAS.
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@scottalanmiller said in What do you use for a home media server:
I just use a Netgear ReadyNAS.
Same here.... Kodi pulls media from the NAS fine.
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I built a media server and put both Emby and Plex on it, I seemed to gravitate more to Emby mainly due to the iOS experience and my IPTV setup.
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Been a Plex user for years. Love it!
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Plex VM (Ubuntu Server) and media on a ReadyNAS. Thought about trying Emby but haven't yet.
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I do not have a NAS to hold the media, so I just built a Fedora VM with nearly 2TB of space and put Plex and Emby on it.
Liked Plex more, and removed Emby, but now I think I may give Emby a second shot.
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@jaredbusch I hadn't heard of Emby until this thread. I'm going to try it too. I try to use Opensource as much as I can, although I did already pay the lifetime subscription for Plex.
![😕](https://mangolassi.it/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f615.png?v=3hrg7a1ige4 ":\")
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@wirestyle22 said in What do you use for a home media server:
@jaredbusch I hadn't heard of Emby until this thread. I'm going to try it too. I try to use Opensource as much as I can, although I did already pay the lifetime subscription for Plex.
Meh, you've blown more than $120 on something in the past so there is that.
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@jaredbusch said in What do you use for a home media server:
@wirestyle22 said in What do you use for a home media server:
@jaredbusch I hadn't heard of Emby until this thread. I'm going to try it too. I try to use Opensource as much as I can, although I did already pay the lifetime subscription for Plex.
Meh, you've blown more than $120 on something in the past so there is that.
$400+ purse for Laura. You've got a point sir
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It seems that Emby also has a live TV functionality. But there is so little information available for Emby compared to Plex.
I'll spin the media server up, no problem, but I really want to know how the Live TV compares.
It works through one of the same devices as Plex, the HDHomerun Network Tuner.
https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/Live TV -
@jaredbusch said in What do you use for a home media server:
It seems that Emby also has a live TV functionality. But there is so little information available for Emby compared to Plex.
I'll spin the media server up, no problem, but I really want to know how the Live TV compares.
It works through one of the same devices as Plex, the HDHomerun Network Tuner.
https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/Live TVAwesome, I'll hit BB on the way home and buy one of these to try out.
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@dashrender said in What do you use for a home media server:
@jaredbusch said in What do you use for a home media server:
It seems that Emby also has a live TV functionality. But there is so little information available for Emby compared to Plex.
I'll spin the media server up, no problem, but I really want to know how the Live TV compares.
It works through one of the same devices as Plex, the HDHomerun Network Tuner.
https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/Live TVAwesome, I'll hit BB on the way home and buy one of these to try out.
Plex works with more gear.
https://www.plex.tv/features/live-tv-dvr/ (scroll down)
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I will probably jsut break down and buya one month pass for both systems once I have a little time to dedicate to smoothing this out.
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@jaredbusch said in What do you use for a home media server:
I will probably jsut break down and buya one month pass for both systems once I have a little time to dedicate to smoothing this out.
I'm running Plex on my Windows machine right now - it's also my gaming rig... No extra machine to run as a VM host to use nix on, other than Hyper-V on Win 10 - anddddd.. nah!.
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@dashrender My current VM is running on an old Dell T410 with a manufacture date of 2011.
No PERC controller, so I dug out an old 3 port LSI controller I had and put 2x 2TB drives in RAID 1.
Really just for testing things out.
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Not sure a server is worth the cost or power cost in my situation.
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@dashrender said in What do you use for a home media server:
Not sure a server is worth the cost or power cost in my situation.
It was for testing out KVM locally first. Also, the power costs are not relevant when I have to run an electric heater in my office all day.
That said, my old desktop will become my new KVM server. Lower power needs will be a benefit.
