Plex is locking remote streaming behind a subscription in April
-
We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.
I dumped Plex years ago even though I paid for it. Too many issues with it. Constantly losing movie folders, unable to stream to the device I wanted to watch on, wrong codec, wrong sound, etc, etc. I gave up. I’m sure it worked fine for most, but it got to be a pain. Switched to Jellyfin and a DDNS address and have had zero problems since. And it’s free.
-
We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.
Yeah that's what I'm doing next. My domain name/DNS provider doesn't let me do it though so i have to self host DNS first. Turned into quite a rabbit hole, and would have just worked if I could just get traffic on port 80!
-
@bamboo @Chocrates "acme.sh" is pretty much the easiest solution for that.
https://github.com/acmesh-official/acme.sh #letsencryptYeah that's what I'm doing next. My domain name/DNS provider doesn't let me do it though so i have to self host DNS first. Turned into quite a rabbit hole, and would have just worked if I could just get traffic on port 80!
-
I run ffmpeg on my phone. Alternately, I could shrink the file on my server and then download it without much trouble. You’re in a vanishingly small subset of users who know enough to care about file-size and know what can be done about it, but can’t be bothered to do it themselves.
I was avoiding suggesting getting more storage, but it sounds like in your case, keeping a 720p x265 version of each file(~1gb per movie) on-hand would cost you nothing.
Alternately I could keep using plex.
-
If you want free, there are alternatives. Plex is a business, with employees. Plex pass is their business model.
I think locking remote play is entirely enshitification however, but I get it. Plex model has them provide authentication and relay services. They are now trying to push their own streaming services which I expect is a real money sink.
I actually jumped ship a while back. I agree that Plex is a business and they do deserve to get paid for development and infrastructure costs, but it's the blatant enshitification that I have a big issue with.
They chose to lock a previously-free feature behind a paywall for everybody and asked for more money to get it back. The less shitty alternative would have been to ask only the users who needed to use the relays to purchase a Plex Pass. Or, if they wanted to make it seem like a positive thing, they could have made the new subscription into an "enhanced quality" remote streaming experience that enabled higher bitrates over relays.
-
Huh? I'm streaming from my Jellyfin just fine when I'm on the go, with no tailscale or other VPN set up
It was significantly harder to set up remote access for Jellyfin than Plex 6 months ago. I ha ent attempted since. With Plex there was literally no set up, it just works. Until it just works without having to do any extra work, Jellyfin will struggle with adoption.
I have both running, and thatd a big difference to me. Also I prefer the way Plex detects intros and credits for skipping and their detection for captions. Once that's all sorted Jellyfin wins in every field.
-
Reading about NAT Traversal and all that nonsense makes me want to start out my own ISP and we just configure things to be good because the corporate assholes clearly haven't. Imagine how much better things could be if hosting stuff from your home internet connection was just a thing you could do with no drama
-
We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.
-
So I have a lifetime Plex pass, but my friend (who is remote) does not. Does this change mean they have the have a Plex pass to connect to my device remotely?
Option 1: Remote playback with a Plex Pass
Upgrading to any Plex Pass subscription is a great option for server owners, as it ensures all users accessing the Plex Media Server can stream remotely, without an additional charge. Even if you don’t run your own Plex Media Server, a Plex Pass subscription will not only allow you to stream remotely from any server to which you have access, but also lets you make use of other Plex Pass functionality like Skip Intro and Skip Credits.
-
I mean, I'm with you, it is nice to support something you use, financially. But you made a one time payment 12 years ago. Your money is certainly not there anymore, they used it and paid something with it. I don't know, it just sounds like a really weird take reading your post. But maybe its me whose weird, I would prefer one time payment over subscriptions too.
You're right the guy who paid $5 once for a month of Plex Pass is way more valuable than the one who paid $75 (or $120 full price). The only people more valuable to the company than the $5 guy are the ones who use the app for free.
-
All these comments mentioning jellyfish and I haven’t see a single mention of emby. Is it considered bad or something? Because I switched over to it and I am liking it a lot better than plex so far
Jellyfin is a fork of Emby, so they share much of their codebase.
-
I just figured it out. You have to open the port on your router
That works but is pretty insecure as you have nothing protecting your server outside of a basic password.
-
We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.
Glad I went Emby.
-
All these comments mentioning jellyfish and I haven’t see a single mention of emby. Is it considered bad or something? Because I switched over to it and I am liking it a lot better than plex so far
I believe emby went proprietary, and jellyfin is the fork that stayed open source. Naturally Lemmy prefers the FOSS one
-
I've heard rumors that they do play well together, but that's people running it in socket with a "read-only" flag set for the content folder, with metadata saved in the config folder
I've used the Jellyfin app to listen to audio books, but for my purposes, it's easier to run the separate client/server Audiobookshelf.
I've had Plex and Emby (what Jellyfin was forked from) running alongside one a other for years now on Windows with zero issues. They shouldn't have any effect on one another.
-
FUCK Emby! What they did was worse than what Plex is doing even now
What did they do?
-
What did you pay for exactly?
What are you asking? I bought a lifetime subscription to Plex pass.
-
Fair enough, although that actually has worse optics IMO. It goes from "this costs us money, so pay us" to "we need money, so we're creating an artificial reason for you to pay us"
Oh yeah, I am in no way arguing in favour of it
-
We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.
Well that fuckin sucks dick.
-
We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.
If the server you are stealing movies from has a pass you still don't need to pay
They could have worded this better
