From bouncing around my favorite corners of the Internet, I get the impression that large numbers of people have “a guy” (of any gender), akin to a weed dealer in furtiveness and legality, who is hooking them up with an underground, probably Plex-based (but increasingly moving to Jellyfin), streaming service. I get the impression that there are hundreds to thousands of these little “Plex server” operations, each serving a couple dozen to a hundred or so users out of the goodness/vileness of each “guy”'s heart and the hobby budget of that “guy”'s homelab. This isn’t all Plex gets used for or even necessarily the main use case, but I think they’re out there.

Obviously no “guy” will admit to doing this, but my “Plex Server Guy Theory” neatly explains this post announcing that general discussions of piracy are allowed in the Lemmy.ml Plex community and this post by someone apparently serving enough new Plex user volume that a webhook would be convenient to have. I’ve also seen people discussing Plex refer to “my users”, as if they have a user base of friends and trusted or semi-trustred acquaintances rather than just a household or family.

I personally neither have nor am a “Plex Server Guy”, nor do I know anyone who has admitted to me that they do have or are one, so I can’t be sure they really exist. But I have suspicions.

Are “Plex Server Guys” as I imagine them real and common and I am just too square to have ever been invited to do crimes with everyone else? Are they rare in real life but enriched in the dubious/cool corners of the Internet? Does it depend on your country? What’s the deal?

  • deranger@sh.itjust.works
    482·
    4日前

    I’m a Plex server guy for friends and family, I have about a dozen users and maybe 3-4 at a time at the peaks. I charge nothing, it’s just a hobby. We’re out there.

    I’d switch to Jellyfin but my users need transcoding and Plexamp is my favorite audio player since Winamp.

    • kandykarter@lemmy.ca
      23·
      4日前

      I’m a Jellyfin Server Guy, and same deal. Around a dozen friends & fam, no charge.

      I’m not sure why needing transcoding would keep you off Jellyfin though, Jellyfin transcodes just fine.

    • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
      11·
      4日前

      Does Jellyfin not do transcoding? I’ve been using it with transcoding for almost two years, so if it doesn’t, man that’s gonna be quite the shock.

      • deranger@sh.itjust.works
        71·
        4日前

        I dunno, maybe it didn’t when I was first setting up my server a few years back. It doesn’t have Plexamp though and that’s a deal breaker.

          • deranger@sh.itjust.works
            12·
            4日前

            Doesn’t have the excellent Plexamp automix nor ability to add all my friends shares to my radio stations.

            I appreciate the efforts but I’m very happy with my current setup. It works, it’s almost zero maintenance, and I got lifetime plex pass for like $50 years ago.

            • TunaLobster@lemmy.world
              2·
              4日前

              By radio are you referring to proxying internet radio streams, rebroadcasting OTA using an SDR, or an endless playlist stream?

              • deranger@sh.itjust.works
                3·
                3日前

                None of the above, well maybe the last one. Plexamp has algorithmically generated playlists based off song/album/artist, decades, genres, top rated tracks, etc. including auto mixing with crossfading, and ability to choose tracks not only from your own libraries, but from all libraries shared with you.

                This feature has done wonders for library discovery as I have an absolutely massive music stash. It’s completely replaced music discovery via streaming apps for me.

                I really do appreciate all the efforts to inform me of JF features but I am quite happy with my setup currently, and I don’t want to reconfigure all my shit AND get 12 n users to switch apps. It was hard enough as it is.

    • thermal_shock@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      4日前

      I’m that guy as well, but can’t get family to use it. So when they complain they can’t stream something, I just ignore them. I do it for myself, they just get it because. But I’m not going to keep offering, fuck it. Go spend your money on shitty streaming services. I’ve got 7000 movies now and almost 300 series.

    • AZX3RIC@lemmy.world
      1·
      4日前

      I’ve been wondering about this, how does hiding the activity from your ISP, as well as the ISP of the person streaming from your server, work?

      I have friends I’d like to share my library with but am always nervous about the risk.