From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

I don't really understand storing lots of common media. Storing your own photos I get, since only you have them. But how many times do you watch the same movies/shows over again?

Storing music makes a bit more sense, at least if you had the original media and it was ripped well. But that doesn't take much space at all; nowdays you can easily fit a huge music collection on a small storage device or even just in your phone+cloud drive+computer.

For me, it’s a nostalgia thing. I want to be able to watch obscure shows from my youth reliably. Having a funny moment from an old episode of Committed pop into my brain and not being able to show others is a major frustration.

It’s about having reliable access to the media that has been important to me.

Some things aren't available for streaming, so you have to find a way to download it. Sometimes you have a bunch of DVDs you want to store and watch digitally without buying it again.

And then sometimes there's shows that just aren't worth paying Amazon $25 each for 15 seasons so you pirate it.

Now you have video on a disk somewhere and want to watch it on your TV and phone and tablet and grandma's computer. Systems like this are arguably the least painful way of doing that.

Will you watch any of those videos multiple times? Probably not, but it will always be there if you want it. It won't randomly disappear on the whims of a third party just when you want to show a new friend this cool show they definitely need to watch.

You might not have noticed how many shows and movies have disappeared from streaming services over the last few years, but many people have.

At the end of 2016, Netflix has 4335 movies, in May 2021 they had 3622. If what you wanted to watch was one of those 713 movies, you might have been inspired to think, hey, maybe I don't want to rely on byzantine licensing agreements.

In addition, while several people are fixated on transcoding on this page, for reasons unclear to me, one hugely popular feature of Plex is sharing libraries with others, so you can grant your parents access to your library. It's not necessarily just "you" watching movies and show over again.

True story: Friday night I was at happy hour with former coworkers, and I brought up the movie _Attack the Block_. Turns out it's not available on any streaming service. Not a single one! You know where it is available? My Plex sever.

And that movie is worth watching again.