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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Plex.tv

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I setup a Plex server with a Raspberry Pi 3b+ today. It really could not have gone smoother. Between the RetroPie, ArPiCade and this thing, the usability of Raspberry Pi devices really is easy and amazing.

I followed the instructions here - https://thepi.io/how-to-set-up-a-raspbe ... ex-server/ and got the server going in less than an hour. Everything Just Worked.

The advantage for me is getting content to the television downstairs where my wife and I can view it. Now I can download stuff on my main PC, SFTP it over to the Raspberry Pi and we start the Plex.tv app on our phones. It knows about the Raspberry Pi running Plex.tv. We then Chromecast it to the TV. I would imagine if you wanted you could hook the Raspberry Pi up directly to your television, but what we have now works great. My wife likes a minimalist living room so this is another board that can live in the arcade or whatever and wireless communicate with everything it needs to.

Pretty slick, I like the whole setup a lot.
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Flack
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Re: Plex.tv

Post by Flack »

Hey, that's great! The Pi really is amazing and versatile!

You should be able to add a USB drive to that Pi server, if you want to start building a media library. If you ever want all the episodes of Teddy Ruxpin to it, I know a guy.

If you do decide to connect that Pi (or a separate client one) to your television, there are lots of bluetooth remotes on Amazon that look and feel like regular television remotes that work with the Pi. Then again, "happy wife, happy life" and all that. :)

Either way, kudos on the project! I think this is my next Pi project:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/magic-mirror/
"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: Plex.tv

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Best of all, for most people the hardest bit of reproducing this project at home won’t be the Raspberry Pi end – frankly, the bit we’d expect you to find most tricky is making the wooden frame.
That's.... accurate.

I have a giant-ass arcade control pad I made which is fine, but the wood thing was the toughtest part. It still does not have a bottom.

The lack of cables and stuff around the TV has made a huge difference. I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't want to live in a house decorated by a man. Maybe a man on Queer Eye. But I've seen a house I decorated. I don't know if any of you were in it at the end. I had the Milker's brother paint every wall eggshell. I took off all the art. I was getting ready to sell it, but I wasn't THAT ready. It was great. I do know some of you were in the house when the kitchen was painted in salmon and that was awful.

I had a 25" HDMI cable that went from the 360 to the TV. We'd use the 360 for games sometimes, but mostly for retro stuff to be honest. Nothing the RetroPi can't do. So I folded up the giant cable and brought the 360 upstairs. It's the little things we do.

(/giant-ass HDMI cable unwraps itself like an automatic garage door spring, decapitating me)
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

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Flack
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Re: Plex.tv

Post by Flack »

I recently bought a 30' flat HDMI cable off of Amazon for $15. Being flat, you can either tuck it in where the carpet meets the wood trim along the wall, or run it around a door frame. I didn't really need a 30' cable, but I remember when I bought my PS3 this guy tried to sell me a 6' cable for $79.99 at Best Buy, and spent five minutes explaining to me how "not all digital signals are the same." I politely passed on the cable and bought one from Dollar General on the way home that I still use to this day. But even that cable was like $10, so a 30 foot cable for $15 just seemed like the way to go this time.

When I built by first PC-based video server (RIP PiVo), it was in a full-sized tower filled with hard drives and fans. Had I balanced them more carefully, I suspect the whole thing would have taken off like a drone when I fired it up (woosh!). My entertainment center had two cabinets with doors for speakers on the bottom row. One of them hid this PC -- and by "hid" I mean you could still see the lights behind the cloth grill, hear the fans and hard drives, and feel the heat blowing out when you walked by. In contrast, the Raspberry Pi I'm currently using with one of my televisions is mounted to the back of it with a small square of double-sided Velcro that I got from the same Dollar General I got that HDMI cable from like ten years ago.

This post has been brought to you by Dollar General. For all of your non-name brand and inexpensive needs, please visit Dollar General. Free shipping on all orders over $50, or pick up at a store near you using our convenient store locator. Dollar General: Not just for Generals anymore (TM).
"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."

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