It used to be that simple: r/plexshares, click any link, join the server, watch all you want.

Well, they really cracked down on that. Plex purged the servers en masse, my server switched to some obscure emby, r/plexshares is closed for good.

I’m in a need of a new server. Where do I even go? What platform is best to sail the seas now? Jellyfin?

P.S. my torrent days are over, thanks. I’m not interested in self-hosting anything either, again, thanks. 10$/month is a reasonable subscription fee for an all-you-can-eat streaming service

  • kate@lemmy.uhhoh.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    9 months ago

    If you’re willing to pay $10 and you want all the content without torrents, maybe usenet is what you’re looking for?

  • inlandempire@jlai.lu
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    Pay for Netflix or whatever if you want ease of usage

    Piracy isn’t supposed to be easy nor should it be spoonfed to you

    • kratoz29@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      9 months ago

      Pay for Netflix or whatever if you want ease of usage

      Shitty and limited catalog, Stremio with RD FTW.

    • where_am_i@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      9 months ago

      I’d pay for Netflix if they stopped removing and geolocking content. As it is, I can legally acquire half of the content I want to watch. In order to get all of it, I need a vpn to the default country a valid default country credit card, and a subscription to 5 services. I’ll rather set up a seedbox with jellyfin than play their dumb games. But why wouldn’t I pay someone to just do it for many of us instead? This labor scales very well.

  • swampdownloader@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    9 months ago

    This sub gets butthurt about paid services except for usenet.

    Have you checked out stremio + real debrid? Have to have a computer connected but it works well and is dirt cheap.

    I pay for IPTV and Emby services. This community will hate emby for not being FOSS but it has a better user experience than jellyfin IMO. There is not a great place to find them unfortunately.

  • Brownian Motion@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    9 months ago

    “obscure Emby”… You don’t get out much, do you.

    Emby is a direct competitor to Plex, and its better. It doesn’t require and internet connection to work, doesnt force signup, its completely self hosted if you want. The dev is responsive, bugs are fixed quickly.

    It does have subscription options if you want, none are required for full functionality.

    Emby is not FOSS, but neither is Plex.

    • where_am_i@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      9 months ago

      Needed a cracked version for Android. I’d pay them 5$ or whatever, but they insisted on a ludicrous subscription. There’s a very limited TV support. Web app is glitchy.

      We switched from Plex to emby and the difference is night and day.

    • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      Isn’t jellyfin just Emby under the hood?

      Edit:

      Jellyfin is descended from Emby’s 3.5.2 release and ported to the .NET Core framework to enable full cross-platform support.

      https://jellyfin.org/docs

      • Brownian Motion@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        no. Jellyfin aims to be totally open source.

        Emby is not, and the reason it works better. They pay the licenses for mp4 etc. earn it back from those who support, but it never was truly open source.

        Jellyfin is open source, and that is the reason they have “problems” (licensing issues, that you have circumvent if you look hard enough).

        For set and forget, Emby and Plex are the choices. Emby does not have a bullshit money making agenda, and is the better option - currently.

          • Brownian Motion@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            9 months ago

            Well, yeah true it started like that. But still Jellyfin followed the open source path. I’d expect that under the hood there would be very little left of what was Emby, it was just a starting point. (https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Emby , before they changed the licensing and removed any further work to the GPL 2 version).

            Also Emby is at 4.8.1 now and has been making leaps and bounds in changes lately.

            As I said, licensing was the issue for Emby, and the easiest solution was to change their license. It wasn’t just to make money, it was about being able to handle licenses from other software, such as Fraunhofer

    • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      9 months ago

      While this is a great and easy option, bear in mind… Where do you think RD gets the content for you? It’s entirely reliant on other people doing the work. It’s the uploaders and seeders who keep it alive.

      It’s very easy for you to just go grab that content for yourself without sharing it, but what will happen if everyone starts doing it?

      Especially people like OP, who want the ease without the effort

  • harry_balzac@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    9 months ago

    I appreciate this post. It’s brought out some interesting comments and I’ve been able to block some idiots who apparently think they’re gatekeepers.

    I went through the same thing as you but when we moved to Emby, things have been better. Plex was always crashing when I’d search.

    If you can get back with them, give Emby another shot.

    I think self-hosted might be better but I don’t have the ambition right now. I’m reading up on it but I need to finish a couple of other projects first.

    • where_am_i@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      9 months ago

      If you watch on your TV/streaming stick in a browser you get exactly zero support for any picture-enhansements. Not to mention remote controls etc. It can be dealt with but not ideal.