Plex
This guide details setup for a Plex Media Server. In the context of this guide, this will be used to host media that you own, rather than otherwise obtained media. Legalities regarding licencing of media differ on a per country basis, please refer to the laws in your area.
My server is currently running on Ubuntu, and was installed using a binary.
In future, I will probably roll my server using Docker, or use the snap version of Plex Media Server.
For Windows/macOS, I would use the .exe/.dmg version.
echo deb https://downloads.plex.tv/repo/deb public main | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/plexmediaserver.list
curl https://downloads.plex.tv/plex-keys/PlexSign.key | sudo apt-key add -
^ Debian/Ubuntu only
My server is running on an Intel NUC (tall boi) with:
- i5-10210U Frost Canyon
- 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 SO-DIMM
- 250GB WD Blue M2 SSD (Operating System)
- 1TB Samsung 860 EVO (Server Operations)
- 4TB WD Red HDD (External to NUC - Media Drive, running over thunderbolt)
Plex General Settings Panel
Plex Remote Access Settings Panel
Plex Agents Settings Panel
Plex Agents Settings Panel
Plex Agents Settings Panel
Plex Agents Settings Panel
Plex Agents Settings Panel
Plex Agents Settings Panel
Plex Library Settings Panel
Plex Plugins Settings Panel
Plex Network Settings Panel
Plex Transcoder Settings Panel
Plex Languages Settings Panel
Plex DLNA Settings Panel
Plex Scheduled Tasks Settings Panel
Plex Extras Settings Panel
In this section, we will be backing up a legally purchased disc, and importing it into Plex using MakeMKV.
Get MakeMKV, a really nifty tool that can parse and export discs.
It's free whilst it's in beta (it's been in beta forever), but the licence is a trial, so you'll need to download an updated version occasionally.
Note: DVD's come out in a great size, usually ~700MB. Blu-ray's are considerably larger (~40GB), and will likely need re-encoding into a smaller filesize for ease of use/storage.
Load MakeMKV. You'll need a built-in or external DVD/Blu-ray drive in order to get started with backing up discs. I like the Pioneer BD-RW BDR-XD05!
As for settings, I leave everything as default. Make sure
DVD structure is set to auto, and minimum title length is 120s.
Insert the disc, and select the drive icon.
MakeMKV will parse the disc, figure out how to open it, and lead you to step four.
Here you'll want to select your title (the biggest one is normally the one you want 😉), any audio streams, and any subtitles you want (which will come in handy for Plex).
Select and name your export folder - I've named mine with the imdb-tt code which will make it easier on the Plex matching engine.
Once you've selected everything you want, hit the MakeMKV button.
Wait paitently for MakeMKV to process your disc.
🥳 Congrats, your export is complete! 🎉
Grab your exported folder, and drop it into the relevant media directory. Plex will pick it up immediately, or on the next library poll (depending on your settings).
The best trilogy, with sweet posters!
There are a couple of places to get great collections of posters, for that ultimate aesthetic library.
A Netflix Originals style preroll
It's possible to set custom intros which will play before a movie. Prerolls are set in the Extras settings panel. Setting a directory will force Plex to randomly choose a preroll video from the directory, else setting semi-colon separated paths will use those specific files.
Last modified 1yr ago