I’ve installed plex but I don’t even know where to start with it. Is there an “idiots guide” anywhere that I can follow?
What can it do? Can I access it from my chromecast? Is there a difference between plex player and plex? Why do I even need it? If I get it to work, what else do I need to make it useful?
So many questions and most guides I’ve found are far too advanced, or they don’t tell you enough. I want to know, just explained in a way that doesn’t assume I’m an plex expert.
The primary use case of Plex is to allow you to view and listen to your own media files: movies, tv shows, music. If you have a lot of those types of media files, then Plex is very useful. It can do a few other things, like let you view your photos and watch some free movies/tv offered through Plex the company, but I don’t think the majority of those who run Plex really care about those.
The short version is that you install Plex, point it at your media files, let it index those files and download all the metadata (cover pictures, actors, etc.), and then watch. Plex has apps for most media players these days, including Chromecast. You would install the Plex app on your Chromecast, log into your Plex account/server from the app, and then you’ll be able to browse and consume your own media files. You do need to buy a Plex Pass to consume your content from a mobile device.
To use it from your office, as long as your company isn’t blocking it on the network, then you would just log in through the browser and consume your media files that way. One thing to recommend Plex over Jellyfin or Emby for the relative newbie is that Plex handles the authentication and relaying of traffic between your server, so if you’re not comfortable setting up a reverse proxy or VPN to access things on your server from the outside world, Plex handles that for you.
If you have any more questions I’ll do my best to provide helpful answers.
Check out YouTube guides. I think LTT did a pretty basic one at some point. Lon.tv us another channel that does guides and I’m sure he has one since his channel is artly sponsored by Plex.
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Plex is a media server. You can think of it like an instance of Netflix that you host yourself, with all your own media.
What can it do?
It lets you keep your media on one computer, and access it from anywhere on any device.
Plex Media Server (PMS), or sometimes just referred to as Plex, Is the server itself. It tracks all your media, metadata, etc, and handles servery stuff like transcoding, and actually serving the media.
Just like any other streaming service, to connect to the server and actually play the media, you need a client. There are many different Plex clients including but not limited to:
- The webclient on the plex.tv website
- Windows / MacOS
- Android / iOS Plex apps
- Plex for HTPC
- Android TV apps
- Plexamp (solely for music) So the difference between PMS and Plex is that one is the server, and one is the client you need to access the server.
Can I access it on Chromecast?
Yes! you can cast from your phone to a Chromecast in the Plex app. If you’ve got an android TV, you can also install the native Plex app, and browse Plex like any other streaming service.
why do I even need it?
Probably because you (will) have a lot of media sitting around, and need a way to access the media without being physically in front of the computer it is stored on. Maybe you want to share your media collection with other people.
What else do I need to make it useful?
Plex works pretty well on its own! You just need to provide your own media, and point Plex at where your media is. This can be through ripping Blurays, or … less than legal means. If you plan on going the legally murky route, there are many other applications like Sonarr and Radarr that will automatically find and download media, but that’s too advanced for now.
LMK if you have any other questions, I’d be glad to give more answers.
Which hardware do you recommend? I am thinking about setting up pihole as well in the same server. Do you think this would work? I am trying to find a reasonably priced refurbished server, but I am finding difficult to find/understand how big HDD these support.
You can definitely run pihole and Plex on the same machine!
I would go for a used PC over a refurb server. servers eat up a lot of electricity and will increase your electric bills quite a bit.
go for something with an Intel CPU, maybe a 10th gen i3, or even older if you want cheaper. Intel’s quicksync will let you do hardware transcoding without a GPU. you really don’t need a very powerful cpu otherwise, both Plex and pihole aren’t very heavy on the cpu.
Thanks everyone for your input. I’ve set it up and it’s kind of working. At least I can see one of my videos on the built in player. It’s choppy as hell which seems to be a cpu constraint, but it’s kind of working.
I’ll just have to tinker with it a bit more and then I’m sure to come back with more questions. Making the media library a webdav share didn’t quite work as expected for example. Don’t know why yet.
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