Media Center/Server Setups

[Rummy]

So, as some might know this was something I was angling for my living room, and I've come to find there's lots of different ways or possibilities to do it.

 

I seem to have struck rather lucky with Plex, which I simply installed on my Linux machine with a guide, and then it...didn't work. So I stopped.

 

Coming back a couple days later, I'm not sure why, I've found it works after all! Some fiddles to get it down to what I'd like, and I must say...I'm impressed.

 

Add folders from your 'server'(server software is free) and then access them from literally anywhere on the internet with a username login via the plex site, or with a plex app for your phone(£3 on android), and I think free on other computer systems(tho no real need with the web app). It seems to cast perfectly to my chromecast, on what I'd say is a pretty basic machine(link to come), and the phone makes it even nicer cos I could theoretically take my chromecast somewhere, and BAM! Instant media library to the TV in front of me. I haven't actually tested that one yet though, mind. Only done local stuff mostly(did try accessing from a laptop in a different house yesterday tho, and music over my phone's 3G - has a small delay at times but that's small and it's not a primary use given ease of putting music onto a phone etc).

 

 

But yeah. Basically I am super impressed with Plex. For £33 I've got an instant media machine on any HDMI TV. Ignoring the cost of my server, of course, but that's just my laptop(that I'm using anyway right now, whilst watching my downloaded stuff streamed to my chromecast on TV).

 

The only downside is - I have almost zero clue how it actually all works. There isn't any high end command line stuff, literally username+password login and it seems to just work; possibly potential security issues that I'm not aware of, but then I'm not too fussed about that right now - not a lot that could happen to this Ubuntu machine afaic.

 

 

Enough about that and me though - I'm interested if any of you guys have media server setups and how you run them? How do you find them? Ease of setup, ease of use? I've googled but you get so much different information, just thought I'd get some thoughts off of folks I'm more familiar with.