[SOLVED] Who needs PLEX? and why does it exist?

[siaan312]

Not sure if this is the right subforum, but here goes

I've seen tons of youtubers and such talk about their home plex server, and saw the app in appleTV's or android boxes, or for download on the app store and i've been wondering

Why is PLEX popular?

Who watches a movie more than 1 or 2 times, and on anything other than their TV?
And say you did do that, who buys blu-ray or digital copies? aren't almost all movies available in streaming services like netflix or hulu?

I'm not from the US so maybe I'm missing something, but I've never even seen a bluray drive.

 

[USAFRet]

Lots of people watch a movie more than once. I know I do.
Not everything is available on streaming services.
I have several hundred titles in the Movie folder on my NAS.
It can also handle a music collection.

Plex is an easy to navigate menu system.
My QNAP Nas has a Plex server application built in. I've not yet implemented it, but I will sometime soon.

 

[2plash6]

It's

aren't almost all movies available in streaming services like netflix or hulu?

Not all movies are available on Netflix and Hulu.

 

[siaan312]

Lots of people watch a movie more than once. I know I do.
Not everything is available on streaming services.
I have several hundred titles in the Movie folder on my NAS.
It can also handle a music collection.

Plex is an easy to navigate menu system.
My QNAP Nas has a Plex server application built in. I've not yet implemented it, but I will sometime soon.

Okay, so you do watch a movie more than once, but how many times? do you watch any movie frequently enough that it warrents a couple hundred dollars in NAS storage (yes, your nas probably does more stuff, but you need a better cpu and ram for plex, unlike a plain storage server making it more expensive) and a couple hours or more of tinkering with it?

Where do you even get your movie copies? where can you buy digital copies aside from blu-ray, which as i've said, I don't know about america, but where I live that is not a thing.

 

[USAFRet]

My QNAP NAS is much more than just a movie repository.

Movies
Music
Nightly backups from the other house systems
~20 years of family photos
Next level backup

Overall, ~50TB available drive space built up over the last few years.

The space for a single movie is maybe 5GB?
0.01% of the available space. Trivial.
But viewable as many times as I want.

For instance...I have a bi-annual Star Trek binge. Every TV episode, Every movie. In chronological order.
Similarly, Star Wars.
Similarly, Bond. I just started (again) on Bond, with the 1953 version of Casino Royale.
Or a whole host of other things I may wish to watch again.

20-30 years from now, when you are no longer a young pup...you may wish to revisit the things that were popular when you were young.

 

[hang-the-9]

Not sure if this is the right subforum, but here goes

I've seen tons of youtubers and such talk about their home plex server, and saw the app in appleTV's or android boxes, or for download on the app store and i've been wondering

Why is PLEX popular?

Who watches a movie more than 1 or 2 times, and on anything other than their TV?
And say you did do that, who buys blu-ray or digital copies? aren't almost all movies available in streaming services like netflix or hulu?

I'm not from the US so maybe I'm missing something, but I've never even seen a bluray drive.

Not being from the US is one thing, but I'd also guess you are under the age of 30, maybe under 25? And I'm guessing no kids?

What if you don't want to keep paying every month for 4 services to get the movies you want? MANY people watch movies more than once or twice (I known kids that ask for the same movie several times in a day) I can name 30 I've seen at least 3 times or more (StarWars, LOTR, Monty Python stuff, Zucker and Zucker movies, Matrix, tons of others). I have a ton of movies on my storage, not just movies but other things like photos. Don't need an internet connection when it's on local storage. Copy movie to phone or tablet, watch it anywhere. Don't have to logon to anything, don't have to hunt around if something is streaming somewhere or maybe it was removed from the streaming list. When traveling I have what I want stored locally so no issue on planes or in cars or in a hotel. I also have a ton of instructional older videos not available on line and sport videos not online. Many people have DVD and even VHS tapes they converted to digital saved, for those need a media server or share to run them without the player hardware like a VCR.

I want to check on some training lessons while at a tennis court or in a pool hall, or show a movie to someone at their house or in the park or in a cave, or camping, or on the moon, copy to a thing, watch on that thing. No data fees, no slow connection issues, turn it on anywhere.

There are dozens of reasons to have physical copies of something.

I have similar questions people ask about having actual physical money on them LOL, why have cash where there are all these apps? Us "old" people still like things not being virtual.

 

[USAFRet]

Having just set up Plex on my new HTPC, I am sufficiently unimpressed.
It does NOT read ISO files of DVD's.

Of course, at least 1/2 my collection is ISO.

It is good for what it can read (mp4, avi, wmv, mp3), but not my library.
Oh well.

 

[siaan312]

Not being from the US is one thing, but I'd also guess you are under the age of 30, maybe under 25? And I'm guessing no kids?

What if you don't want to keep paying every month for 4 services to get the movies you want? MANY people watch movies more than once or twice (I known kids that ask for the same movie several times in a day) I can name 30 I've seen at least 3 times or more (StarWars, LOTR, Monty Python stuff, Zucker and Zucker movies, Matrix, tons of others). I have a ton of movies on my storage, not just movies but other things like photos. Don't need an internet connection when it's on local storage. Copy movie to phone or tablet, watch it anywhere. Don't have to logon to anything, don't have to hunt around if something is streaming somewhere or maybe it was removed from the streaming list. When traveling I have what I want stored locally so no issue on planes or in cars or in a hotel. I also have a ton of instructional older videos not available on line and sport videos not online. Many people have DVD and even VHS tapes they converted to digital saved, for those need a media server or share to run them without the player hardware like a VCR.

I want to check on some training lessons while at a tennis court or in a pool hall, or show a movie to someone at their house or in the park or in a cave, or camping, or on the moon, copy to a thing, watch on that thing. No data fees, no slow connection issues, turn it on anywhere.

There are dozens of reasons to have physical copies of something.

I have similar questions people ask about having actual physical money on them LOL, why have cash where there are all these apps? Us "old" people still like things not being virtual.

I guess so. I'm much younger than your guesses, almost 17 actually, no kids obviously.

All your use cases are alright, but I still can't see it.
All the shows I watch I either pirate, or watch on netflix, but I guess "older" people are more likely to want to own their stuff, and have less time to tinker with stuff like that.

Thank you for your reply, guess I personally just don't have a use case for such a server.

 

[hang-the-9]

I guess so. I'm much younger than your guesses, almost 17 actually, no kids obviously.

All your use cases are alright, but I still can't see it.
All the shows I watch I either pirate, or watch on netflix, but I guess "older" people are more likely to want to own their stuff, and have less time to tinker with stuff like that.

Thank you for your reply, guess I personally just don't have a use case for such a server.

This is why you don't have a use for PLEX or anything else, you never grew up with anything other than what you are using now. 4 yr olds don't have a use for cars, 90 yr olds don't have a use for bath toys, birds probably can't figure out why humans use boats instead of just flying over water, people that only ever used streaming services don't have a use for owning their own media and with being young you don't have enough experience past your own that you can easily see other uses for things. It usually takes to the mid 20s to really understand things past what you yourself experience.