Plex Megathread: Your .ASS Is Getting Transcoded

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Plex Megathread: Your .ASS Is Getting Transcoded

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Sir DonkeyPunch: Mar 23, 2007; I didn't hear no bell

I use Windows Server 2012 R2, that doesn't try to restart on it's own

# ? Jul 17, 2020 18:46

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 17:38

IOwnCalculus: Apr 2, 2003

nexus6 posted:

RDP just doesn't work. At all. It's been such a pain to try and set up that I just use Teamviewer instead.

Edit

What an excellent design choice.

Is it silly, yes, but why on earth are you trying to make this work using Home instead of Pro or Windows Server?

# ? Jul 17, 2020 19:13

nexus6: Sep 2, 2011; If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes

IOwnCalculus posted:

Is it silly, yes, but why on earth are you trying to make this work using Home instead of Pro or Windows Server?

Because... I don't have another license for Pro?

# ? Jul 18, 2020 11:35

Khablam: Mar 29, 2012

Trying to make a headless server out of Windows 10 home edition is, unfortunately, awkward.
It's precisely why people just throw linux onto it. Plex is popular enough that there's pre-made docker images for both it, and sonarr/radarr/jacket. Once it's running you can manage everything related to getting and managing content through a web interface. The commands aren't hard to use, for instance if you want to start plex, it's "docker start plex".

Don't trust teamviewer as far as you can walk whilst saying "teamviewer" since literally everyone knew it was hacked in '16 (after massive, rampant, account abuse even through 2FA) and they spent three years denying it before finally admitting it.
Jump, anydesk, et al all have the same core issue; they're small teams making a program that is a huge target which is fundamentally insecure. They bypass firewalls by design, and secure access through a web account. Web accounts that may or may not be sitting on a server that'll be hacked the first time someone looks at it funny. You have no way of knowing.

If you want to use Windows, at least use a secure-by-design setup. A 'dumb' VNC client like TightVNC/UltraVNC will only work on your local network, with no central weak-point.
TightVNC is a small neat solution, that will also let you install it as a service (boots with windows, before account login) as standard and has an iOS client. It will also work with any other VNC viewer, so anything that does the same on android works too.

# ? Jul 18, 2020 12:53

nexus6: Sep 2, 2011; If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes

Khablam posted:

Trying to make a headless server out of Windows 10 home edition is, unfortunately, awkward. It's precisely why people just throw linux onto it.

Yeah, maybe if I get the motivation to start again from scratch I will, but for now this is working well enough for me with only occasional minor annoyances.

Khablam posted:

Plex is popular enough that there's pre-made docker images for both it, and sonarr/radarr/jacket. Once it's running you can manage everything related to getting and managing content through a web interface. The commands aren't hard to use, for instance if you want to start plex, it's "docker start plex".

Everything I currently use has a web interface that I use already. I have tried multiple times to understand what docker is/does/is for and it just melts my brain every time.

Khablam posted:

Don't trust teamviewer as far as you can walk whilst saying "teamviewer" since literally everyone knew it was hacked in '16 (after massive, rampant, account abuse even through 2FA) and they spent three years denying it before finally admitting it.
Jump, anydesk, et al all have the same core issue; they're small teams making a program that is a huge target which is fundamentally insecure. They bypass firewalls by design, and secure access through a web account. Web accounts that may or may not be sitting on a server that'll be hacked the first time someone looks at it funny. You have no way of knowing.

I appreciate that, I do, but like many things it's the best of a lot of bad solutions.

Khablam posted:

If you want to use Windows, at least use a secure-by-design setup. A 'dumb' VNC client like TightVNC/UltraVNC will only work on your local network, with no central weak-point.
TightVNC is a small neat solution, that will also let you install it as a service (boots with windows, before account login) as standard and has an iOS client. It will also work with any other VNC viewer, so anything that does the same on android works too.

Thanks, I will look into this.

# ? Jul 18, 2020 13:15

forest spirit: Apr 6, 2009; Frigate Hetman Sahaidachny
First to ~~Fight~~ Scuttle, First to ~~Fall~~ Sink

I have an old Sony Vaio tablet with a 4th gen i7 (but it's a Y variant) and 4gb of ram that I want to set up as the Plex server, how do I transfer my library over? Just move all my content folders and tell the new install to find it? I've made some changes to metadata (I guess) from inside Plex so I don't know if that's been changed in a database file or if it changes the metadata of the file directly.

I hope this works out, I don't really have a use for this tablet but it's still pretty decent. If it doesn't no bigs, it's about time I built a proper server for this and minecraft

# ? Jul 18, 2020 16:13

Khablam: Mar 29, 2012

It's possible to preserve it - https://support.plex.tv/articles/201370363-move-an-install-to-another-system/

# ? Jul 18, 2020 16:36

Pilfered Pallbearers: Aug 2, 2007

nexus6 posted:

Yeah, maybe if I get the motivation to start again from scratch I will, but for now this is working well enough for me with only occasional minor annoyances.

You should be able to upgrade to pro in place with a license key if I�m not mistaken.

# ? Jul 18, 2020 21:41

Khablam: Mar 29, 2012

SAmart and/or eBay do sell 10-pro keys for around the $5 mark.

# ? Jul 18, 2020 22:07

Warbird: May 23, 2012; America's Favorite Dumbass

nexus6 posted:

Everything I currently use has a web interface that I use already. I have tried multiple times to understand what docker is/does/is for and it just melts my brain every time.

For your purposes just consider it to be a lightweight single purpose virtual machine. It isn�t correct, but it�s close enough. If you do get around to it, the folks at linuxserver.io have a great selection of containers to choose from and folks here can answer your questions.

# ? Jul 18, 2020 22:22

chocolateTHUNDER: Jul 19, 2008; GIVE ME ALL YOUR FREE AGENTS

ALL OF THEM

Just set all the programs to run on boot, and set your windows account to auto-login. That's how I did it for years before I moved to Unraid, it worked great. I also installed TeamViewer host on it, which launches at boot also and works on the login screen before you actually sign in.

# ? Jul 18, 2020 22:23

forest spirit: Apr 6, 2009; Frigate Hetman Sahaidachny
First to ~~Fight~~ Scuttle, First to ~~Fall~~ Sink

Is there any reason I shouldn't use Chrome remote desktop? Haven't heard it mentioned in the discussion

# ? Jul 18, 2020 22:25

teagone: Jun 10, 2003; That was pretty intense, huh?

Penpal posted:

Is there any reason I shouldn't use Chrome remote desktop? Haven't heard it mentioned in the discussion

I use CRD to remote manage 3 4 other Plex Servers running Win 10 Pro just fine. Have been doing so for a few years now without any problems.

# ? Jul 18, 2020 22:46

Khablam: Mar 29, 2012

CRD is fine vis-a-vis account security. If google were ever root-level compromised, someone's personal desktop session would be of little concern.
You just need to have windows auto-login to use it seamlessly. It also (can be) a little buggy if you don't have a screen attached.

# ? Jul 18, 2020 23:02

RichterIX: Apr 11, 2003; Sorrowful be the heart

Khablam posted:

CRD is fine vis-a-vis account security. If google were ever root-level compromised, someone's personal desktop session would be of little concern.
You just need to have windows auto-login to use it seamlessly. It also (can be) a little buggy if you don't have a screen attached.

I've been using CRD to work from home and for whatever reason it works even at the login screen after a reboot, which is nice

# ? Jul 18, 2020 23:15

LODGE NORTH: Jul 30, 2007

Is there any rhyme or reason to when Plex decides to give out the $74.99 lifetime deal? It's almost ironic that veery time I get involved with something that could benefit heavily from Plex, the deal isn't a thing. Anyway, if there's a "trick" or a way to make the magical email appear or up my chances of getting the email, I'll hop on that.

# ? Jul 19, 2020 03:40

kri kri: Jul 18, 2007

# ? Jul 19, 2020 14:27

RichterIX: Apr 11, 2003; Sorrowful be the heart

LODGE NORTH posted:

Is there any rhyme or reason to when Plex decides to give out the $74.99 lifetime deal? It's almost ironic that veery time I get involved with something that could benefit heavily from Plex, the deal isn't a thing. Anyway, if there's a "trick" or a way to make the magical email appear or up my chances of getting the email, I'll hop on that.

There are whole threads of people trying to collate their experiences to figure out how to trigger that offer-- buying a lifetime pass and getting all the way to checkout and then cancelling, making new accounts, etc. It all seems to be a lot of rain-dancing though, I think it's just random.

# ? Jul 19, 2020 14:42

priznat: Jul 7, 2009; Let's get drunk and kiss each other all night.

Are there any plugins that can take Plex shows/movies that you have rated highly (5stars) and then ensure they are backed up remotely?

I was thinking it would be nice to back up stuff I really like to onedrive or other cloud storage and just have it do that automagically through plex.

Perhaps if the ratings can be parsed by an external application or if the plex plugin produces a csv with all the files/folders of the good stuff.

# ? Jul 20, 2020 19:10

The Diddler: Jun 22, 2006

priznat posted:

Are there any plugins that can take Plex shows/movies that you have rated highly (5stars) and then ensure they are backed up remotely?

I was thinking it would be nice to back up stuff I really like to onedrive or other cloud storage and just have it do that automagically through plex.

Perhaps if the ratings can be parsed by an external application or if the plex plugin produces a csv with all the files/folders of the good stuff.

I don't think so. I move stuff I want to keep to a different directory, with an hourly cron job kicking off Rsync to move everything in that folder to my google drive. It works pretty well now, but was a real PITA getting set up because I'm bad at Linux.

# ? Jul 20, 2020 19:31

Khablam: Mar 29, 2012

Plex dropped plugins, so I doubt anyone is making anything new, or maintaining anything that needs effort, in that space.
Your best 'plex option' might be to just add things you like into a playlist, and then you have a list of things to go backup.

# ? Jul 20, 2020 20:21

Pilfered Pallbearers: Aug 2, 2007

priznat posted:

Are there any plugins that can take Plex shows/movies that you have rated highly (5stars) and then ensure they are backed up remotely?

I was thinking it would be nice to back up stuff I really like to onedrive or other cloud storage and just have it do that automagically through plex.

Perhaps if the ratings can be parsed by an external application or if the plex plugin produces a csv with all the files/folders of the good stuff.

I don�t know if this kind of plug-in exists, but there�s a third party plug-in �store� for plex called webtools. I�d check there.

# ? Jul 20, 2020 20:31

priznat: Jul 7, 2009; Let's get drunk and kiss each other all night.

Thanks all, some good options. Probably will have to roll my own to protect my sacred animes (hah it�s more really just for music I don�t want to have to rip again).

# ? Jul 20, 2020 21:36

nexus6: Sep 2, 2011; If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes

Does Plex have support for multiple versions of the same movie e.g. theatrical cut, director's cut/special edition?

# ? Jul 21, 2020 17:12

EL BROMANCE: Jun 10, 2006; COWABUNGA DUDES!
🥷🐢😬

Kind of. It'll pick up multiple versions and put them together in the same entry, then playback gives you the option to choose which one. However, it's not useful as it tends to differentiate by resolution/bitrate and nothing else.

An option is to then 'Split Apart' the entry, and then manually adjust the name and artwork to match what you want.

# ? Jul 21, 2020 17:17

madsushi: Apr 19, 2009; Baller.
#essereFerrari

nexus6 posted:

Does Plex have support for multiple versions of the same movie e.g. theatrical cut, director's cut/special edition?

Put the files together in the same movie folder. Plex will merge them into a single movie object in your library. The object will have an icon indicating that there's multiple files. Go to the menu for that object and use `split` to break it into two movie objects in your library. Name each object individually, and now you have two library objects, one for each version.

It's a little bit janky since if either file gets updated, it likes to re-merge them.

# ? Jul 21, 2020 17:24

catspleen: Sep 12, 2003; I orphaned his children. I widowed his wife.

Khablam posted:

Trying to make a headless server out of Windows 10 home edition is, unfortunately, awkward.
It's precisely why people just throw linux onto it. Plex is popular enough that there's pre-made docker images for both it, and sonarr/radarr/jacket. Once it's running you can manage everything related to getting and managing content through a web interface. The commands aren't hard to use, for instance if you want to start plex, it's "docker start plex".

Don't trust teamviewer as far as you can walk whilst saying "teamviewer" since literally everyone knew it was hacked in '16 (after massive, rampant, account abuse even through 2FA) and they spent three years denying it before finally admitting it.
Jump, anydesk, et al all have the same core issue; they're small teams making a program that is a huge target which is fundamentally insecure. They bypass firewalls by design, and secure access through a web account. Web accounts that may or may not be sitting on a server that'll be hacked the first time someone looks at it funny. You have no way of knowing.

If you want to use Windows, at least use a secure-by-design setup. A 'dumb' VNC client like TightVNC/UltraVNC will only work on your local network, with no central weak-point.
TightVNC is a small neat solution, that will also let you install it as a service (boots with windows, before account login) as standard and has an iOS client. It will also work with any other VNC viewer, so anything that does the same on android works too.

I use RealVNC for all my machines, with 2FA as well. Is that bad? I can�t keep up after having kids lol

# ? Jul 22, 2020 04:35

nexus6: Sep 2, 2011; If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes

madsushi posted:

Put the files together in the same movie folder. Plex will merge them into a single movie object in your library. The object will have an icon indicating that there's multiple files. Go to the menu for that object and use `split` to break it into two movie objects in your library. Name each object individually, and now you have two library objects, one for each version.

It's a little bit janky since if either file gets updated, it likes to re-merge them.

Does this make the movie appear twice in the library listing, as if they were independent entries?

# ? Jul 22, 2020 12:51

Warbird: May 23, 2012; America's Favorite Dumbass

I migrated my Plex config/metadata folders over to a SSD last night and got a nice bump in responsiveness for my trouble. Would recommend for anyone with one sitting around. It was a beefy boy though, any best practices for trimming things down? I already have the built in stuff enabled for culling and cleaning.

# ? Jul 22, 2020 14:01

stevewm: May 10, 2005

Warbird posted:

I migrated my Plex config/metadata folders over to a SSD last night and got a nice bump in responsiveness for my trouble. Would recommend for anyone with one sitting around. It was a beefy boy though, any best practices for trimming things down? I already have the built in stuff enabled for culling and cleaning.

If you have video preview thumbnail generation on, this is what is taking the bulk of space. (https://support.plex.tv/articles/202197528-video-preview-thumbnails/) My own Plex metadata folder is in excess of 70GB now because of this feature.

# ? Jul 22, 2020 14:17

Khablam: Mar 29, 2012

catspleen posted:

I use RealVNC for all my machines, with 2FA as well. Is that bad? I can�t keep up after having kids lol

Just use it without cloud connect at all.
They're a small company that turns over �2mil per year. Like others, I doubt they'd stand up to be sneezed at.

# ? Jul 22, 2020 14:24

Warbird: May 23, 2012; America's Favorite Dumbass

Ah, no surprise there then. It�s a nice feature to have so I guess I�ll just deal with it. I�m only at 60 gigs and that drive isn�t really being used for anything else. I am debating whether or not to set up a rsync job to port new stuff back to the platters for backup, but the need is debatable as that would all redownload and populate if needed.

# ? Jul 22, 2020 14:32

stevewm: May 10, 2005

Warbird posted:

Ah, no surprise there then. It�s a nice feature to have so I guess I�ll just deal with it. I�m only at 60 gigs and that drive isn�t really being used for anything else. I am debating whether or not to set up a rsync job to port new stuff back to the platters for backup, but the need is debatable as that would all redownload and populate if needed.

I would recommend backing up the Plex folder if you can. Especially if you have it shared with others. If you don't have a backup, you have to re-invite everyone and they have to re-confirm the invitations. Also not to mention it would take several days for Plex to rebuild/rescan a library that large.

# ? Jul 22, 2020 14:42

Warbird: May 23, 2012; America's Favorite Dumbass

I�ll give it some thought. 99% of usage these days is me watching stuff I�ve grabbed via my YouTube-dl workflow so no real loss there if I have to wait a hot minute for things to reconfigure. I�m not sharing with anyone either so that�s not really an issue either.

# ? Jul 22, 2020 15:02

EL BROMANCE: Jun 10, 2006; COWABUNGA DUDES!
🥷🐢😬

I wish Plex had some built in benchmarking that would run some fake tests to see what scenarios of people accessing your stuff would max it out. Like, it'd be neat to find out "how many 8mbps 1080p streams from this library work fine before one of them buffers" and the like. I have a handful of friends I access and half the time I'm thinking "well this person is in a different time zone, so theoretically they shouldn't be streaming at the same time as this person who I know is locked to 4mbps while this other guy is fine because he can direct play 99% of my stuff".

# ? Jul 22, 2020 18:32

madsushi: Apr 19, 2009; Baller.
#essereFerrari

nexus6 posted:

Does this make the movie appear twice in the library listing, as if they were independent entries?

Yes, correct. So, for example, I have "Movie 1" and "Movie 1: Director's Cut". They're separate items in the library. Because Plex doesn't have the concept of "versions" of a single library item (outside of resolutions), you have to have separate library items for them. So, for some items, I have several library items (Directors, Extended, Theatrical, etc).

An alternative strategy is to have a separate library entirely, which is what I do for alternate versions of TV shows (normal TV and "extended" TV), etc.

# ? Jul 22, 2020 18:47

Pilfered Pallbearers: Aug 2, 2007

Warbird posted:

I�ll give it some thought. 99% of usage these days is me watching stuff I�ve grabbed via my YouTube-dl workflow so no real loss there if I have to wait a hot minute for things to reconfigure. I�m not sharing with anyone either so that�s not really an issue either.

Is your YouTube DL stuff automated? If so I�d love to know the process. It�d be great to setup some kind of automated DL, especially for overwatch league content so I don�t have to deal with YouTube�s garbage app and offline is easier.

# ? Jul 22, 2020 18:56

Warbird: May 23, 2012; America's Favorite Dumbass

It�s a pretty straightforward setup. I�ve got a cron job that calls a script using YouTube-DL every 30 minutes or so and it goes and pulls down anything in my watch later playlist that it hasn�t already grabbed and outputs it into where Plex is watching. Then the YouTube agent for Plex goes and grabs metadata for the videos and I get around to watching them later. The metadata is a bit finnicky but that�s not a huge issue. I assume you�d be able to get fancier than that for more dynamic OWL stuff but it suits my needs. If you want additional details I�d be happy to break it down further.

If you�re using an android phone for video consumption it�d honestly be a bit easier to do something different. I used to travel weekly for work in the before times so this was a quick and dirty way to get offline videos that didn�t cost 12 $/month. Now I mainly use it to watch videos on my TV/phone without ads since DNS ad blocking doesn�t work for YouTube.

Warbird fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Jul 22, 2020

# ? Jul 22, 2020 19:03

OldSenileGuy: Mar 13, 2001

Is there any way to add a custom filter in Plex that's not already there? I hate when I put something on to watch, only to find out everyone sounds like they're on helium because it's PAL-sourced. I'd love to be able to filter by frame rate for 25fps, but that's not an option.

# ? Jul 22, 2020 23:19

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 17:38

Sir DonkeyPunch: Mar 23, 2007; I didn't hear no bell

Probably won't help anyone, but if you're on windows, don't install the latest update (1.15.0.1354-d31489f0), it breaks playback entirely across the board

# ? Jul 23, 2020 02:45

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Plex Megathread: Your .ASS Is Getting Transcoded

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