Dumb question: what’s a media server? (eli5 please) Is it like a netflix with your own vids? Why not open the directory, double click the file, and lean back?
The convenience of netflix (whatever you want to watch, from any device in any location), populated with any media you decide; and easy to share with anyone you want.
I currently have 5114 movies and 39033 tv episodes from 483 shows; shared with friends and family. New episodes of any TV show that I’ve added get downloaded automatically as they air. Movies can be added before they release and will download as soon as they are available, with cam rips being ignored.
You provide one of these media servers (Emby, Jellyfin, or Plex) with folders of video files that are named after movies/shows and it identifies them, downloads all the necessary metadata, and presents it in a very similar format to comercial streaming services.
They can also perform tasks like converting media on the fly to support devices that can’t play a particular format, or are trying to stream over a poor/low speed remote connection. You can search, sort, and filter by things like genre, studio, cast/crew members, tags. Vist links to imdb, the tvdb, tmdb, rotten tomatoes, etc.
Then tools like sonarr/radarr/lidarr remove the need to manage files at all; making it so you simply search for a title, click ‘add’ and it’s hunted down and downloaded for you.
It’s just overall a much better experience than managing folders full of files.
I was initially talking about just one piece, but realized the comment you replied to was talking about the whole ecosystem and expanded.
I’ll break it down better:
The main piece of the puzzle is media server software. There are three big names here; Emby, Jellyfin, and Plex. (only one is needed, they just provide several options) These are provided with folders of media files and do all the heavy lifting to present and stream it to clients just like a comercial streaming platform such as Netflix.
Next is finding and collecting new media. For that there is Radarr, Sonarr, and Lidarr. (Movies, TV Shows, and Music) These manage searching through torrent/usenet indexers to find files that match the media you’ve told them to find. They then pass the desired torrent/nbz files to your chosen torrent/usenet client for downloading, and finally move+sort the downloads into your media folders for your chosen media server software to serve on demand.
Finally there are tools like Ombi, which can automatically manage requests for media from users, without them having to ask you to find/add things.
These can be setup to be LAN only, or with a bit more configuration be accessible from anywhere. This may require purchasing a domain name to enable proper SSL/HTTPS security; but that’s actually a really useful thing to have. I started with media streaming; but now run a VPN, immich, vaultwarden, and many other services all accessed/secured via my own domain name.
Plex is designed to make that part really easy, providing SSL/remote access for you; but at the expense of giving Plex corp access and control over your server, requiring users (including you) to login to plex.tv before being able to access your server, as well as selling your info to advertisers while pushing their content to you.
Jellyfin is fully open source and honestly a great option, but lacks some features like an XboxOne client.
Emby is in the middle. Closed source, and requires a subscription to enable some features; but there are lifetime license options and its been a very reliable product for me.
It’s both the media downloading stuff to get new stuff that you might want, and the program that takes all that media and puts a netflix-like web (and apps). That second part is the one you criticized.
However, since sometimes my PC is off and my partner wants to see the stuff, or we like watching it on the tv, sometimes on the phone on the bathroom, having a separate PC that does all that has value. It’s always on too so sometimes it downloads new chapters of series at night and they are already there by the time I get to watch them.
Yeah, you got it. It’s a collection of different services, though. I think that the link in the original comment of this chain is that of a script that manages the while install.
Right now I have a service that searches in torrenting sites (prowlarr, for anime Tosho and thepiratebay), that is linked to the media managers (sonarr for series, radarr for movies), which are both linked to qbittorrent for the download. Then, after the download they move the files to the prior folders, where jellyfin serves them in my local LAN.
As I told my friends, if they don’t see value in jellyfin they can still get value from the rest of the stack, or if they have enough with prowlarr and then with the magnets download the videos manually, sure.
If you are not savvy though (or even if you are, let’s be real, I’m lazy) that script might be helpful.
Oh, I forgot, I also have another service called Bazarr that links to sonarr and radarr to detect series/movies and downloads subtitles via opensubtitles. It’s cool but optional.
If you didn’t already guess it, the naming convention of *arr is a joke, Arrr, pirate!
Once again I implore you to build your own media streaming tools. It’s very easy: https://yams.media/
Dumb question: what’s a media server? (eli5 please) Is it like a netflix with your own vids? Why not open the directory, double click the file, and lean back?
The convenience of netflix (whatever you want to watch, from any device in any location), populated with any media you decide; and easy to share with anyone you want.
I currently have 5114 movies and 39033 tv episodes from 483 shows; shared with friends and family. New episodes of any TV show that I’ve added get downloaded automatically as they air. Movies can be added before they release and will download as soon as they are available, with cam rips being ignored.
You provide one of these media servers (Emby, Jellyfin, or Plex) with folders of video files that are named after movies/shows and it identifies them, downloads all the necessary metadata, and presents it in a very similar format to comercial streaming services.
They can also perform tasks like converting media on the fly to support devices that can’t play a particular format, or are trying to stream over a poor/low speed remote connection. You can search, sort, and filter by things like genre, studio, cast/crew members, tags. Vist links to imdb, the tvdb, tmdb, rotten tomatoes, etc.
Then tools like sonarr/radarr/lidarr remove the need to manage files at all; making it so you simply search for a title, click ‘add’ and it’s hunted down and downloaded for you.
It’s just overall a much better experience than managing folders full of files.
Holly macaroni! That’s a lot of stuff!
thanks :)
I was initially talking about just one piece, but realized the comment you replied to was talking about the whole ecosystem and expanded.
I’ll break it down better:
The main piece of the puzzle is media server software. There are three big names here; Emby, Jellyfin, and Plex. (only one is needed, they just provide several options) These are provided with folders of media files and do all the heavy lifting to present and stream it to clients just like a comercial streaming platform such as Netflix.
Next is finding and collecting new media. For that there is Radarr, Sonarr, and Lidarr. (Movies, TV Shows, and Music) These manage searching through torrent/usenet indexers to find files that match the media you’ve told them to find. They then pass the desired torrent/nbz files to your chosen torrent/usenet client for downloading, and finally move+sort the downloads into your media folders for your chosen media server software to serve on demand.
Finally there are tools like Ombi, which can automatically manage requests for media from users, without them having to ask you to find/add things.
These can be setup to be LAN only, or with a bit more configuration be accessible from anywhere. This may require purchasing a domain name to enable proper SSL/HTTPS security; but that’s actually a really useful thing to have. I started with media streaming; but now run a VPN, immich, vaultwarden, and many other services all accessed/secured via my own domain name.
Plex is designed to make that part really easy, providing SSL/remote access for you; but at the expense of giving Plex corp access and control over your server, requiring users (including you) to login to plex.tv before being able to access your server, as well as selling your info to advertisers while pushing their content to you.
Jellyfin is fully open source and honestly a great option, but lacks some features like an XboxOne client.
Emby is in the middle. Closed source, and requires a subscription to enable some features; but there are lifetime license options and its been a very reliable product for me.
That’s an awesome break down! Now I see that my “double click the files in the directory” was… well… “cute”, compared to this.
Thanks again for the explanation, kind stranger. Salutations!
It’s both the media downloading stuff to get new stuff that you might want, and the program that takes all that media and puts a netflix-like web (and apps). That second part is the one you criticized.
However, since sometimes my PC is off and my partner wants to see the stuff, or we like watching it on the tv, sometimes on the phone on the bathroom, having a separate PC that does all that has value. It’s always on too so sometimes it downloads new chapters of series at night and they are already there by the time I get to watch them.
I see. So it is a central server (in your LAN?) that looks ahead and cache the media, and serves many local clients.
Cool! Is this one program that does it all? Or are there different parts to configure?
Yeah, you got it. It’s a collection of different services, though. I think that the link in the original comment of this chain is that of a script that manages the while install.
Right now I have a service that searches in torrenting sites (prowlarr, for anime Tosho and thepiratebay), that is linked to the media managers (sonarr for series, radarr for movies), which are both linked to qbittorrent for the download. Then, after the download they move the files to the prior folders, where jellyfin serves them in my local LAN.
As I told my friends, if they don’t see value in jellyfin they can still get value from the rest of the stack, or if they have enough with prowlarr and then with the magnets download the videos manually, sure.
If you are not savvy though (or even if you are, let’s be real, I’m lazy) that script might be helpful.
Oh, I forgot, I also have another service called Bazarr that links to sonarr and radarr to detect series/movies and downloads subtitles via opensubtitles. It’s cool but optional.
If you didn’t already guess it, the naming convention of *arr is a joke, Arrr, pirate!
Thanks a lot! It’s much more clear. The arr bit made me chuckle
Ohhh that looks slick! Gonna have to keep that in mind if I ever have to do a rebuild