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you've got all these photos videos and music sitting on your computer at home

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just sitting there when you could be enjoying them from anywhere you need to

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get a media server i have a google drive where i keep my

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photos in movies and you're paying google how much a month

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just to access files remotely there's a

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much better and much cheaper way it's called plex and while plex did sponsor

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this video it's no secret that i was already a mostly happy longtime user of

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their product and it's not just me one in every seven people in our office

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hosts their own plex server why because

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of its ease of use general polish and near universal cross-platform

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compatibility and they're one of the few software companies that still offers

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perpetual licenses with affordable per-device licensing or more expensive

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memberships that cover all devices connected to your server

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so the topic we landed on for our collaboration is three ways that you can

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set up your own server at home along with some simple tips and tricks to get

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you up and running first things first though whyplex

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if you are someone who has a lot of media stored on your computer be it high

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quality audio files photos home movies or home

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movies plex is pretty much the easiest way to

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get your own media server up and running so you or your friends and family can

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access your collection from anywhere and on nearly any device be it a computer

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phone game console or smart tv one of the brilliant features of plex is

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its ability to find the metadata for all of your files automatically sorting them

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into folders with episode titles thumbnails descriptions and cast members

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it'll even find and sort behind the scenes clips and trailers

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my deployment is pretty simple with two personal folders one for tv and one for

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movies and i don't even sort anything more than that i just toss my legally

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obtained drm-free files with descriptive titles into those folders and let plex

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sort out the rest misidentified clips and other problems can crop up

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occasionally but it can be easily corrected more on that later

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also the darn thing can handle pretty much any file format you throw at it be

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that video audio even subtitles it's pretty amazing alright this all sounds

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great but how do i do it we'll strap in for some tech tips here because we're

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going to give you a rundown of three different ways that you can implement a

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personal plex server using a Windows pc an NVIDIA shield that's not my shield

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there it is or a network attached storage server or nas ooh a server hey

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doesn't that need like super expensive high performance hardware

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not really as we demonstrated in this recent video

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your old pc is sitting there waiting for its second life as your new server and

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the basic features of plex are light enough that you can install it on some

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pretty dated hardware though there are a few things to consider

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if you have slower hardware that could limit the performance of your server

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particularly if you have multiple clients connected at once or if you are

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transcoding the videos being viewed when a client tries to watch a file that

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is too beefy for their connection or that was encoded in a format that isn't

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natively supported on their device your server will attempt to convert that

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file on the fly so that it can be viewed this can take a lot of computational

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power especially if the files are big so if you're using an older system as your

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server you may consider limiting the resolution of your media one benefit of

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plex's paid tier plex pass is that it allows you to use hardware encoding so

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if you have an Intel CPU or NVIDIA GPU

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from the last decade or so you can take advantage of those super fast hardware

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encoders to ensure a smooth streaming experience

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now the question is which platform should you use

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using your current pc is the simplest has the most users and thus the most

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support materials but the downside is that if your server is being used say by

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a sibling or a spouse while you are

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using your computer say to game you can encounter performance issues also your

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precious local storage is going to be taken up by your media files

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so the NVIDIA shield is one of the cheapest ways to move the processing

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load away from your main rig if you don't have another device to host your

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server though it does come at the cost of easy expandability and it doesn't

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really have a meaningful upgrade path your nas well that requires a bit more

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know-how and also a nas but it can be easy to expand and you can

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configure your system to be as powerful or lean as you like

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adam is going to get you started with Windows first go to plex.tv and download

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the plex media server follow the steps in the setup wizard and then select your

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media folders you can use pretty much any folder but for the best experience use dedicated

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library folders that only contain a single form of media each don't mix your

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photos with your drm free digital movies

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then give a quick test to make sure your media is working and you are off to the

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races download the plex app on well pretty much anything log in and boom you

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have your media libraries at your fingertips yeah it's really that simple

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at least on your local network we'll talk about remote access a little bit

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later though we're going to give you some tips on how to manage your server

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but first we're going to show you how to get things up and running on my favorite

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streaming device the NVIDIA shield tv pro nice backpack Linus i know right

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it's super durable and comes with a limited lifetime warranty from

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ltdstore.com there are two versions of the shield tv with nearly identical

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features as far as most people are concerned but we need the pro version

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for our application because it supports expandable storage over usb

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first you'll download the plex app and the plex media server app then boot up

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the plex app click on enable plex media server follow the prompts wait for the

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server to configure and you're done now take your external hard drive and

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plug it into your NVIDIA shield click on the notification and tap to setup

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then eject the drive and take it to a computer you'll see that the shield

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created a folder aptly named NVIDIA shield this is the folder on the drive

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that the shield will be able to access move your media folders inside the

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shield folder and while we're on the computer log into app.plex.tv so you can

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configure your server in the next step plug your drive back into the shield

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then back on the plex browser app click manage libraries and add folders and

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select the folder on the drive that contains your media you should see plex

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begin to auto populate with your folders your plex server will scan the files

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find poster art metadata and all sorts of other fun stuff but this stuff will

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be stored directly on your shield meaning that your 16 gigs of internal

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storage could start filling up especially if you have a large media

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library we recommend moving the server location to an external drive but that

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puts us in a bit of a pickle because if we want to add media to our drive then

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we need to unplug our server that's no good but there is an easy fix just use

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the shield as a network drive where you can drop files in from your pc we don't

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have time to cover exactly how to do that here so check out lawn.tv's video

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we're gonna have that linked down below that looks inconvenient so here's the

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king's way of doing things on your own nas i mean you already have the server

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set up why not use it while plex is available on open source operating

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systems like truenas which is meant for storage our tutorial will be centered

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around unrated since that's what Linus and i both use at home if you've never

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configured a nas before i know it can sound a little intimidating but it's

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actually not that hard as long as you don't have to do it with Linus at your side check out Floatplane.com for a

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longer version of us building the server that runs our firewall here it was total

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absolute shenanigans we're going to assume you already have an unraid nas up

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and running but if you want to learn more about doing that you can check out our video about it down in the

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description the first thing you're going to need to do is set up a new share this will be

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the folder structure that will hold your media files and you can name it

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something like media or my stuff or files or not prawn

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and then you can make a couple of subfolders for your categories like movies family videos tvs photos whatever

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you want go to apps and install the community

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apps plugin we'll have a link to that in the description follow the instructions

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search for plex media server and then hit the download icon from this screen

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we're going to need to input a couple of things first off in the host path 2

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where it says slash transcode you're gonna type in slash temp slash this is

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where files will live when they're being transcoded for a client in host path

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three which is slash data type in slash mount slash user slash whatever you

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named your media share earlier so not prawn or whatever you titled your media

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share then in key one which is titled plex claim you're going to input your

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plex claim code to get one head to plex dot tv slash claim and log into your

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plex account if you don't have one already you can make one at this step

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and then copy and paste that code into the text box leave everything else alone

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and then click apply then the app will automatically get downloaded via docker

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and set up to get started using your plex server go to the docker tab click

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the plex logo and then hit web ui this will take you to the web ui of your plex

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server and before you can actually start watching anything you're going to need

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to go into your settings and set up your library folders so each of those folders

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you made before let's say tv or movies select those then plex can actually see

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the media and you can watch see i told you it wouldn't be that hard back to you

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Linus but plex isn't just a bring your own media affair when you sign up for a

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plex account you also get access to 300 live tv channels and 50 000 on demand

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movies and tv shows completely free you've got things like i tonya or

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Anthony bourdain's the cook's tour and another cool feature is that plex will

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let you keep a watch list that includes not just your local files not just plex

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tv but media from every other streaming service too for free you get a ton of

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awesome features but if you're keen for a couple more things you can get plex

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pass for 4.99 a month 40 a year or 120

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dollars for the rest of your life you can upgrade your plex experience to

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take advantage then of members only features like hardware transcoding which

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if you plan on having a lot of people using your server is a must you can even

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use plex as a dvr with your set top box or antenna and record broadcast

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television or you can download media to your mobile device to watch on the plane

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there are even fun settings like playing trailers before your movie so that you

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can get the cinema experience right in your home if you're into that sort of

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thing do they have a feature where i can press a button to pay an extra 10 for my

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popcorn and new features are always being added with early access for plex

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pass members like support for multiple editions of movies so you don't have to

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find out 15 minutes into return of the jedi that you chose the version with

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that awful jedi rock song oh and we haven't even mentioned that

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plex has their own audio player targeted at audio files called plex amp which

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allows you to listen to your audio files at full bitrate and has the ability to

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link with your title account so that you have all your hifi audio in one slick

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media player now that your server's up and running you're probably ready for some tips and

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tricks if you want to watch content from your server on a mobile device you'll

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have to either have plex pass or pay a one-time fee for your mobile device also

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during setup the server will attempt to configure remote access so you can get

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to your media files from outside of your own wi-fi network

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this configuration uses universal plug-and-play or upnp which

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should work fine as long as you have a router that's less than 10 or so years

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old but if you have a unique home router configuration or if you disabled upnp

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because it's a fundamentally flawed feature that carries enormous security

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risks then that might not work thankfully plex's massive knowledge base

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and large and enthusiastic community means that almost any issue you'll

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encounter well someone else has probably had it too and there's likely a solution

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if upnp isn't an option you can either open the ports manually or use something

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like nginx reverse proxy to make sure that your server is secure again check

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out the description for a link to the software and a tutorial for setting it

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up with plex if your system struggles with transcoding your media you can optimize

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your media ahead of time this function converts your media to a file size and

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format that's ideal for specific scenarios like streaming to your tv or

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to your mobile phone so you don't have to deal with buffering or processing

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when you're just trying to enjoy your content on that subject if you don't want to see

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anything other than your own content like the free tv shows and movies here's

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how to turn that off in the left hand menu you have your pinned libraries so

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just hover over that click the dots and select remove from pinned this will hide

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the content of those libraries from the side menu and from the plex home page

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should you ever change your mind you can see all of your servers and their

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respective libraries and from here you can pin them if any of your content gets

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misidentified or is missing metadata you can manually set them like this

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but you should be able to mostly avoid this if you follow plex's published best

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practices for file naming we're going to have that linked down below and if

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renaming all your files sounds incredibly tedious don't worry tiny

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media manager is your knight in shining armor allowing you to batch process

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these tasks now all of this is super cool but we do

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need to take a second to acknowledge something inconvenient timing for this

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collaboration but plex was just in the tech news due to a recent data breach

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this past august usernames email addresses and encrypted passwords were

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accessed from plexus servers that sucks however plex immediately

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alerted their customers and encouraged users to change their passwords even

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though the passwords that were stolen were encrypted this is a good response

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and it's also nice to know that plex isn't storing credit card data on those

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servers this kind of thing is a downside with any centrally authorized service and i

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sincerely hope that they can do better in the future but

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i do applaud them for their transparency and that's the reason we were still

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comfortable working with them back to the stuff they'd rather i talked

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to you about next week is plexus pro week between september 19th and 23rd

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2022 it's a great time to learn how to take your personal media experience to

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new heights and throughout the week plex will be highlighting experts and

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community members to discuss the various features and benefits of plex pass we're

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also included in the lineup by the way so be sure to check out the video next

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week at the link down below if you enjoyed this video why not check

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out our video about my home server you can learn more about unraid or zfs

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cool right