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What do you guys think of the new Amazon/Plex cloud service?


Bjorr

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I just read this article on techcrunch and my mind started racing :)

https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/26/plex-partners-with-amazon-to-launch-a-hardware-free-media-server-plex-cloud/

 

I would like my emby server hosted on a service like bytesized-hosting.com and all my data on amazon cloud unlimited storage.

Anyone have anything like this setup with emby?

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Yes I´ve read that.

you ofcourse pay for the Amazon storage with Amazon giftcards bought with bitcoins through some shady service on the deepweb like all normal people would do :)

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mastrmind11

Amazon encrypts everything on their disks, so unless you're advertising what you've put up there, it's highly unlikely you'd get shut down for having questionable material.  That said, this would be a simple enough undertaking by simply mounting your Amazon drive and pointing Emby to it (simple enough on Linux, haven't checked for a Winblows method since I don't run it).  I researched this a few weeks ago and was going to give it a try, but came across an interesting point...  the max upload size at the moment is around 15GB, and from what I've read the max download size is between 5-10GB.  Not a big deal if you're just using the cloud for syncing.  But if you wanted to replace your NAS with the cloud drive, you'd potentially lose the ability to get your files back once they've been uploaded (since they'd breach the max download size).  Again, pure speculation since I've not tried to use it for this purpose, but a potential deal breaker if it is the case.  Similarly, if you did replace your NAS w/ the cloud, and they did somehow figure out what you were doing, you'd lose all your media.  There are also some interesting points in their Terms of Service.... ie, "we reserve the right to shut this down whenever we want"...  so you'd lose all your media w/o any recourse simply because Amazon decides to shutter the service.  

 

Some things to think about anyway.

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Deathsquirrel

Given our major ISPs' pish to charge us for bandwidth used, and the generally poor transfer speeds I've encountered on similar services, this makes no sense to me.

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Tranquil

That's an awesome feature I think. If transcoding is also be done on the amazon servers, that would be just great. Hopefully Emby will go this way in a near future. As long as not I will stay with a dedicated Emby server in my office.

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Koleckai Silvestri

Looks interesting. However, I wouldn't want to be tied to it. My wife wants to eventually move to the backwoods of Oregon, Washington State or Alaska. It wouldn't be feasible in those locations. There is 300 Mbps internet where we live now. In the backwoods, not so much.

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mastrmind11

That's an awesome feature I think. If transcoding is also be done on the amazon servers, that would be just great. Hopefully Emby will go this way in a near future. As long as not I will stay with a dedicated Emby server in my office.

Depending on the number of users and/or how much media you watch, paying Amazon for the transcode cycles would soon outweigh the benefits of not simply running your own box.

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Tranquil

The article just says, that they partnered up with Amazon. So the question is: which additional costs will rise up if you need CPU Power? Will there be an extra charge or is one transcode a time included in their partnership. Furthermore, I could not find the limits @@mastrmind11 mentioned in his post.

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mastrmind11

Furthermore, I could not find the limits @@mastrmind11 mentioned in his post.

I was/am speaking strictly as an implementation using Emby as the backend.  Obviously Plex would have those details worked out in their partnership w/ Amazon.

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I think some of you guys are mixing up two different things here.  

 

Amazon is just providing the storage solution.  It isn't clear where the server is actually running.  Perhaps that is in an Amazon aws as well but they don't say.  Plex could just be running their own virtual servers and planning to charge for that as a service.  More likely, though, they have partnered with some sort of virtual host hosting site.

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For me the issue is still the upload time. I uploaded my music library to the Google cloud, since you can upload up to 50,000 songs. I'm nowhere close to that number. Actually I believe that what I uploaded was smaller than the size of just 1 Blu-ray movie. It took forever to upload that. So now I'm just trying to think what would happen every time I get a new movie. After encoding the movie, it might take days to upload 5~15gbs. That's for one movie, now imagine moving your collection, even a small collection with 50 movies, it is half a TB.

 

I could only see it work, if it is something like  Apple match, where they would identify the movie that you are trying to upload and then match it. That will never happen for copyright issues.

 

Another example, I record a show from my antenna, would I have to upload the show before I can even watch it? That might mean waiting hours to be able to watch a show, as opposed to being able to watch it right away in your local server.

 

So to me that is one thing that sounds good in theory, but in practice as it is right now, it wouldn't work.

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blade005

I'm not sure I would be ready to have a cloud based solution as my primary or only option, but I would welcome the idea of one as a backup and/or fail over solution.

 

It would be nice to know there would always be an updated and complete off-site solution available in the case of software or hardware issues with primary home Emby server. And when remote, perhaps hitting a cloud based solution rather than home Emby server as an option. Minus Live TV and DVR functionality, you could even leave your home Emby server off if you plan to be away for an extended time and only require Library Collection access. I know we currently have Sync to Folder and Download options, but that requires pre-planning what to watch that inevitably become spontaneous 'want to watch' moments when you are remote, and you will not have planned for that.

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PenkethBoy

when you start looking at the numbers it all gets a bit well...Wibble time

 

i am lucky to have a 200/10 Mbit fibre link which is fast for the UK outside a major city - just tested it and as its late in the UK i was getting 220/15 Mbit

 

so what does 15Mbits get you assuming you can get this all the time

 

Well 15/8 is 1.875 MB/s = 112.5 MB/min = 6.75GB/hr so TV HD episode per hour not too shabby

 

Well the problem comes when you look at your Emby Library and realise its 18TB (some other stuff as well in that number) and growing. So 18,000/6.75 = 2,666.67 hrs or 111.11 days - rofl - wibble!

 

This assumes my friendly isp will let me upload that amount through their network for 4 months - yeah not going to happen

 

Now if you lived in South Korea things might be very different - not just the nutter who lives in the north

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Spaceboy

You say that.... last year I experimented using the one drive backup tool on my nas. It is as you say painfully slow but I had it running for about 2 months nonstop before I got bored. Got about 2tb uploaded in that time. It's not the upload speed that is the problem, one drive were throttling it at their end

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Jdiesel

I am currently using acd_cli, encfs and Union-FUSE to sync encrypted media with Amazon Drive. The media stored in the cloud still flows through my rented dedicated server but it solves the issue of expensive storage on rented servers. I have it setup with Cron jobs so new media stays locally on the server for a month at which time it is uploaded to the cloud and removed from the local server. Emby is able to easily include both the local and cloud files in the same library and update when the files from from the local drives to the cloud automatically. It really is quite seamless. I am able to upload to the cloud at 10 MB/s and download at 15 MB/s which is enough for a couple of concurrent 1080p streams. I currently have approximately 2TB of encrypted media stored on my Amazon Drive.

 
 

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breezytm

From what I have gathered so far:

 

1. Plex is hosting the server for you. Free of charge if you are a Plexpass account holder. They have not decided if they would be charge extra for it.

2. You sign up for amazon drive. Amazon drive apparently is truly unlimited. Someone said they uploaded up to 200TB and there were no restrictions. Someone also mentioned they were able to upload up to 40GB+ file size without any issues. The limitation is application but not API base. 

3. The only issue people are wondering about is encryption. According to Plex, if you are not running some sort of service business with your server you should be fine. Not sure if that truly means Amazon does not care about your illegal contains. 

4. Plex Cloud server is capable of transcoding. 

 

Sounds like a win to me. I would love to not worry about loosing drive. That's pretty costly. I loose 1 or 2 drives a year. 

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Jdiesel

I honestly am a bit skeptical as it seems too good to be true. I'm sure that abuse will quickly ruin it for everyone. Hope I'm wrong though.

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PenkethBoy

Couple of quotes from Plex TOS which might give a few people food for thought

 

 

 

Your files will always be encrypted in transit (uploaded to Amazon, and when sent to you via plex). However at rest they are not (i.e. when stored in the amazon cloud). This does mean amazon can look at what you have should they have a desire.

 

and

 

 

 

You continue to retain any ownership rights you have in content you make available via the Services, or otherwise use in conjunction with the Services. However, by using the Services with particular content, for example by using the Services to share particular content or access particular content, you grant to Plex (and to each of the third parties with whom we work to provide you with the Services) a worldwide license to reproduce, modify, create derivative works, transmit, publish, publicly perform, publicly display, distribute, and otherwise use the particular content and metadata associated with the content, such as images of you or images otherwise associated with your account. The rights you grant us in this license are only for the limited purpose of providing you with our Services. You may not use the Services in connection with any content for which you do not have the right to grant us this license.

 

One thing i'm not clear on is the whole copyright material thing - any movie or TV show etc is copyrighted - so any rip is technically an infringement - so how are Amazon going to know if you .... cough... borrowed a copy of X DVD from Fred down the road vs bought it from a shop.

 

Also if you are in different parts of the world different versions of copyrights apply.

 

If you Stream content via Plex currently to say your parents house so they can watch the latest addition to you collection - i believe that's a violation of copyright - if you believe the FBI "feel the love screen" at the beginning of your latest Blu-Ray. No they a not going to chase you for this - but with the Amazon/Plex deal the info on who you streamed it to and when is readily available etc etc.

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Deathsquirrel

Couple of quotes from Plex TOS which might give a few people food for thought

 

 

 

 

and

 

 

 

 

One thing i'm not clear on is the whole copyright material thing - any movie or TV show etc is copyrighted - so any rip is technically an infringement - so how are Amazon going to know if you .... cough... borrowed a copy of X DVD from Fred down the road vs bought it from a shop.

 

Also if you are in different parts of the world different versions of copyrights apply.

 

If you Stream content via Plex currently to say your parents house so they can watch the latest addition to you collection - i believe that's a violation of copyright - if you believe the FBI "feel the love screen" at the beginning of your latest Blu-Ray. No they a not going to chase you for this - but with the Amazon/Plex deal the info on who you streamed it to and when is readily available etc etc.

 

Your statements on what is or is not infringement are location specific.  In the US sharing woth your family in another house is almost certainly illegal distribution.  Ripping to another format is fair use but breaking the encryption to perform that rip is a dmca violation and there haven't been any cases I know of to decide if the dmca encryption breaking rules override your right to format shift media you purchase.  Here it's a bit of a mess as a result but if you aren't distributing media to other people it's darned unlikely to ever come up.

 

Putting your rips, let alone all the stuff some folks download, on a third party server seems like a terrible idea, legally speaking.  Granting plex rights to all the images and such that you host is downright horrifying.

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shaefurr

I use the cloud for some things (like photos), but id never backup my entire media collection to it. I just don't see a point, I have a perfectly good working server in home that I can access from anywhere, so why should I back it up online. At the rate of $59 a year I could use the same amount to add an extra 3TB drive every year. I see why some people would find it appealing to not need a server, but personally id never use it.

 

Plus I have one of "those" ISPs with a retarded bandwidth cap. For one my speeds here suck maxing at 40MB down 5MB up, but ive already had emails about using too much bandwidth in a month, apparently my cap is 250GB/month and the only way to get higher cap is to get on a business plan, 2x the price for 1/4 the speed. Yeah no thanks.

 

I can't believe amazon would partner with plex allowing uploads of user libraries, im guessing they have no clue that a ton of users out there have illegally obtained media. :P

 

Sharing a plex library through the cloud with infringed media is just asking for trouble.

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shaefurr

Sounds like a win to me. I would love to not worry about loosing drive. That's pretty costly. I loose 1 or 2 drives a year. 

Really? That sounds nuts. Ive only lost 2 drives over the past 7 years.

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Guest asrequested

I can't believe amazon would partner with plex allowing uploads of user libraries, im guessing they have no clue that a ton of users out there have illegally obtained media. :P

 

Sharing a plex library through the cloud with infringed media is just asking for trouble.

 

Amazon checks the copyright and flags any media that it deems an infraction. 

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shaefurr

Amazon checks the copyright and flags any media that it deems an infraction. 

Wouldn't that technically be any rip? I mean whats the difference if I rip a movie myself, or if someone else does and posts it online. The whole point in ripping is to remove the copyright.

 

What does that leave then just digital downloads?

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