Plex Cloud shutting down

[Jdiesel 1114]

This will come at no surprise to many who have questioned the feasibility of Plex's Cloud service since it was first mentioned but Plex has officially announced that it will be shutting down.

 

I'm glad the Emby didn't waste resources on this when all the people were whining about Plex doing it so Emby should too. 

Edited September 11, 2018 by Jdiesel

[Luke 37240]

Yea it was never really a core interest of ours. I think the server is easy enough to install that if you want to set up a cloud server it shouldn't be too difficult.

[Sammy 739]

Google Drive Plugin right?

[Hitsville 37]

I already do this. I use rclone mount on a cheapish Linux dedi. It works superbly well.

Far better than Plex Cloud did.

 

Obviously I now have Emby installed on the dedi rather than Plex.

 

However if you really wanna run the server locally to a Googe Drive mount then again either rclone or Net Drive seem the best options. Personally I have never had much joy with Drive File Stream.

 

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Edited September 12, 2018 by Hitsville

[One2Go 98]

Over at the Plex forum where they discuss the shutting down of Plexcloud there are a few glowing posts of how much better Emby and it's support is versus Plex and it's support. They really upset several people who bought the licenses solely for using it as a cloud service and not having to manage their local machines. This was really a half backed effort on their part and even worst the reasoning why they stopped which resulted in sarcastic posts in their forum. Their suggestion is get a NAS or use a VPS with no way to export any of the meta data or pictures created for the Plexcloud server. A total mess and not very pretty. Some of the posts come from users that I recall having seen here and their PR for Emby is pretty good. Allocate your Dev resources carefully Plex did not.

Edited September 12, 2018 by One2Go

[Hitsville 37]

 

 

Allocate your Dev resources carefully Plex did not.

That's why I personally switched.

Emby seem to prioritize making sure the server/clients work.

Plex prefer to push to more and more devices and barely any of them work. At he same time they blog about there latest "cool" features.

 

 

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[One2Go 98]

Well, for their discontinuation of Plexcloud they offered the choice of getting a NAS or VPS. Not going to spend a fortune on a new NAS when I already have two but neither is powerful enough to be used for a few multiple users when transcoding and I surely don't want all that traffic through my home connection. So ordered a VPS from SSDNodes who had a 7 year special sale on and it was a decent price for a total of $360 using for 3 years I get a KVM X-Large+ server that has the following:
Memory     24.00 GB
SSD     120.00 GB
Transfer 12TB
Thanks Plex for by discontinuing the Plexcloud service you helped me find a decent VPS and the sad part didn't have to pay Plex. I guess it is called tuition for an education.

[adamstewiegreen 149]

 

Plex prefer to push to more and more devices and barely any of them work. At he same time they blog about there latest "cool" features.

 

 

 

That's why I jumped ship too: news, podcasts, VR, and a dedicated music app all announced and released while their Fire TV app is - still - going to up in flames.

 

My sole existence on the Plex forum now is to tell disgruntled Plex users that there are greener pastures.

[adamstewiegreen 149]

Memory     24.00 GB

SSD     120.00 GB

Transfer 12TB

 

This whole VPS thing is completely foreign to me, so I'm a little confused.

 

What's the difference between those 3?  I think I know, but I'm not sure...

[Hitsville 37]

The first two are pretty much like a home PC.

Memory is RAM

The SSD is storage. It doesn't need to be massive because after all the purpose is to immediately send the files to Google Drive ( Or other provider.)

Transfer is the data cap. Think of it like the data allowed on your mobile phone contract.

 

Personally I picked up one of these for $22 a month. Because I deal in UHD mainly so needed extra storage before sending to Gdrive.

 

Dedicated Server O - dedi-par-xxxx (16/09/2018 - 15/10/2018)

Service #xxxx - xx.xxx.xx.xxx

Bandwidth: Unmetered @ 1Gbps

IP: 1

HDD: 2x 1TB (HDD SATA)

RAM: 16GB - DDR3

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 v2 - 3.3 GHz - 4 core(s)

Country: Paris - FR

 

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Edited September 12, 2018 by Hitsville

[One2Go 98]

This whole VPS thing is completely foreign to me, so I'm a little confused.

 

What's the difference between those 3?  I think I know, but I'm not sure...

With Plex there were 3 options on how to stream your content to yourself and friends 1. a NAS, 2. a Virtual Private Server (VPS) 3. Plexcloud a server that streams the cloud storage to users. Emby always had the first two. Now Plex stopped the Plexcloud service and it has upset people who did not want to have to maintain a server but just let the cloud services stream it to Plex. It had major issues for some but worked fine for others.

 

I was forced also into the research of what is a VPS and it actually makes more sense then a NAS at you preferred location. The VPS I have for the next 3 years is more powerful then my NAS at home and the connection to stream is a 10GB connection far more then what I have at home. Sharing the content while I travel or with friends makes much more sense using a VPS then doing so from my home location using my home connection. Again if you want to play you have to pay.

 

Added to this is the possibility to use a Google Drive storage or any of the other cloud services that can be connect as your media content. I have an office 365 subscription and have 5 users with 1TB each of storage that I can use with the VPS. Also you can encrypt what you upload, store at the cloud service and then again encrypt when you stream. It is a well thought out process. Take a look at the link that shows you how to set Plex up on a VPS and I am sure Emby follows the same pattern.

https://www.techperplexed.ga/2017/04/part-1-creating-infinite-plex-server.html

[Hitsville 37]

 

 

Take a look at the link that shows you how to set Plex up on a VPS and I am sure Emby follows the same pattern.

https://www.techperplexed.ga/2017/04/part-1-creating-infinite-plex-server.html

It does. Ironically the author of that guide has also abandoned Plex for Emby. [emoji3]

 

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[adamstewiegreen 149]

My confusion was how anyone could seriously use a cloud media server with 120 gb data, I understood the basic concept, but the google drive bit was the piece of the puzzle I was missing.

 

My biggest issue (among others) is that my 5/Mbps upload speed (rocking it in outback 'Straya!) makes uploading 15TB of stuff a punishment fit for Sisyphus.

 

Besides, I'm the only one using the server away from home, and it works fine on my phone/ipad.

[adamstewiegreen 149]

I just checked out google drive.  I'd be looking at $125/month (AUD) for 10TB.  I'd pay for infrastructure upgrade to my home internet before considering that kind of monthly expense.

[Hitsville 37]

I just checked out google drive. I'd be looking at $125/month (AUD) for 10TB. I'd pay for infrastructure upgrade to my home internet before considering that kind of monthly expense.

Look at Gsuite $10 unlimited storage, own domain name..... Ignore the 5 user minimum thing as they don't enforce it.

 

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[arrbee99 1561]

I just checked out google drive.  I'd be looking at $125/month (AUD) for 10TB.  I'd pay for infrastructure upgrade to my home internet before considering that kind of monthly expense.

 

You really should hop over the ditch sometime...

[Hitsville 37]

https://gsuite.google.com/intl/en_au/pricing.html

 

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[One2Go 98]

I have an office 365 subscription for US $100 per year with that I get licenses for 5 users and each user can install the suite on 5 devices and also each user has 1TB free online storage. So with a VPS and rclone you can add these 5 accounts and then have 5TB of cloud storage plus office 365 for 5 users.

[Hitsville 37]

I have an office 365 subscription for US $100 per year with that I get licenses for 5 users and each user can install the suite on 5 devices and also each user has 1TB free online storage. So with a VPS and rclone you can add these 5 accounts and then have 5TB of cloud storage plus office 365 for 5 users.

Though personally I would rather have unlimited , I am curious... How is streaming with OneDrive? Its not something I have tried for many years.

 

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[One2Go 98]

I used the Onedrive for storing my TV Shows and then using the Plexcloud server to stream them friends and while travelling. I made sure that the format could be streamed to a Roku client using the original format which is 720p with audio that the Roku could handle natively. I had no problems and it went to a few of my friends that are in different parts of the world. Never heard any complaints from them and streamed two episodes of John Adams (HBO) to my phone while in Wales (UK) no problems. The Onedrive is a bit more difficult to set up using rclone then like the GSuite you mentioned but it worked, now I have till November 30th to change my setup and move my friends to the new platform.

[Spaceboy 2504]

Waiting to give the google business service a go once drivebender supports it. I also have onedrive storage included with my office package but 5tb wouldn’t touch the sides

[CBers 6787]

Waiting to give the google business service a go once drivebender supports it. I also have onedrive storage included with my office package but 5tb wouldn’t touch the sides

 

CloudXtender supports it now, but it will be further enhanced when DriveXtender is released.

[Carlo 4331]

Plex Cloud had a couple of nice features that you can't duplicate with a normal Plex install or Emby install.

First it had built in providers for Google Drive (and others) and no need for 3rd party connection tools.  This in itself really isn't a big deal but is helpful.

The real "gem" was being able to pass off the direct play link of media stored in GD to the client so it could play back the file without it having to go through the server.  It could also make use of Google Transcoding with a direct link as well.

 

IF Plex incorporates this into the normal server version than it could still be a better fit for some people than Emby when running in a VPS or home environment.  You could for example have thousands of movies in GD using MP4/H.264/AAC 2 audio + other audio tracks and these would be able to be played back directly from most clients.  So if you ran your server from your home with only a 5 Mb upload all clients would use your server for screen updates, searches, etc but would play the media directly from GD itself.  This type of things would really stretch the 5 Mb upload limit and still allow you to share your home server with pathetic upload speeds.

 

I had mentioned this to Luke previously but the above is similar to how SYNC in Emby works EXCEPT that you have to have the files locally so they could sync to the cloud.  If Emby had an addin or built in support of GD as a native drive type then it would be possible for clients to play these files directly from the cloud provider.

 

Not really on topic but interesting side note:

Plex Cloud also had another unique feature and that was distributed transcoding.  If the file couldn't be played directly from the cloud it had to be transcoded by the "server".  Only the server could pass off a "link" that was running to another server with Hardware/GPU transcoding support.  You could have one computer packed with nvidia GPUs and it was a "transcoding" monster".

 

I'd love to see something like this "borrowed" down the road for Emby.  Imagine having a couple of Shield TVs as client devices in your home as well as a low end NAS/Computer where Emby runs.  Now when the NAS/Emby needs to transcode a file, it hands off a link to one of the Shield TVs to handle the transcoding with it's built in Tegra GPU.  Each Shield TV could handle a few transcodes (even H.265).   Of course Emby is close to having native support on the Shield TV already so it's not a stretch.  But in this case instead of running a full Emby setup on the Shield you only use it for Transcoding (16 Gb fine for this) support.

A 10 year old computer with 2 or 3 Shield TV in the house (as clients) could then combined make up a very powerful system that could stream a number of transcoded streams anywhere.  Of course this wouldn't need to only use Shield TVs but could use any home computer with a GPU in it as well.

 

But each Shield TV could be thought of similar to a GTX 1050 card available for transcode purposes.  Just like we currently have stand-alone tuners (HDHomeRun) that Emby uses, we too could have stand-alone transcoders as well.  This would help alleviate alleviate the need of "clusters" that some people have asked for.

 

This would be an interesting concept to play with as a side project once Emby is fully running with HW GPU support on the Shield TVs as this is getting close. I've thought about this since 2015 when the Shield TVs were first introduced and HW support was being added to media servers.

 

Carlo

[One2Go 98]

Plex Cloud had a couple of nice features that you can't duplicate with a normal Plex install or Emby install.

First it had built in providers for Google Drive (and others) and no need for 3rd party connection tools.  This in itself really isn't a big deal but is helpful.

The real "gem" was being able to pass off the direct play link of media stored in GD to the client so it could play back the file without it having to go through the server.  It could also make use of Google Transcoding with a direct link as well.

 

IF Plex incorporates this into the normal server version than it could still be a better fit for some people than Emby when running in a VPS or home environment.  You could for example have thousands of movies in GD using MP4/H.264/AAC 2 audio + other audio tracks and these would be able to be played back directly from most clients.  So if you ran your server from your home with only a 5 Mb upload all clients would use your server for screen updates, searches, etc but would play the media directly from GD itself.  This type of things would really stretch the 5 Mb upload limit and still allow you to share your home server with pathetic upload speeds.

Most excellent post. I am faced with the situation of either continuing with Plex and a VPS and not having to reeducate my friends that use it OR lead them down the path of switching to Emby with a massive amount of tech support for different time zones. I only would go that route if a Direct play or Direct streaming from the cloud services is possible. At the moment I am trying to set up a VPS with a Plex server but the provider does not allow transcoding which seems to be more and more common since that hits their resources.

 

I hope that the direct mounting of cloud storage as it is done by Rclone can be part of the Emby installs.

[Carlo 4331]

You have a tough decision in front of you.  Being that you basically need to start over I would make the switch in a heart beat to Emby.  I'm a long time Plex user and was a Ninja for a while as well (if you know what that is) and I only use Emby myself these days.  I still run both since I've got a lifetime subscription on both and it's nice to have a backup but Emby is the future for me.

 

I don't know if you are aware but Plex just announced more "shut downs" of services and features: https://www.plex.tv/blog/subtitles-and-sunsets-big-improvements-little-housekeeping/?_ga=2.10939826.72245785.1537819313-1211748293.1461472709

Discontinuation of Plugins, Watch Later, Recommended, and Cloud Sync.  So not only did they announce the shut down of their Cloud service but now they are removing Cloud Sync as well as other features.

 

You can most certainly mount a local drive to Google Drive and have Emby support this.  Several options available so if you already have your media hosted in a Google Account you can use Emby with it.  Emby is actually much better then Plex running this way.  One major reason why is that Plex will FULLY read every file so it can create data points used by it's Streaming Brain to control bandwidth and transcoding.  Emby has no such stupid requirement so it's much, much more friendly in this environment.

 

Emby will also run circles around Plex when checking for new data/files.  Just to put this in perspective.  I was a tester of Cloud at Plex.  I had my media in the Cloud at the time and Plex spent over 6 months scanning my libs and still had NOT finished.  Emby on a local VM pointed to the same data finished in 4 DAYS.  Emby easily was able to keep up with changes of new media being added while Plex still hadn't finished the initial scan.  That's some difference!

 

So for those reasons and many more which I won't go into I wouldn't even begin to consider running Plex locally while pointed to a cloud storage.  The fact it has to read in every file completely is a show stopper IMHO.

 

There are other tricks you can do with Emby as well that can't be done with Plex.  For example Emby supports the use of STRM files.  These are basically place holder files that are text based containing a link to where the media resides.  So you could create a file containing the direct play address of the good drive link for the media and the clients could play back directly from this link!  If this interests you (it should) you can find more info on here about that and a program/script to automate the creation of these files for you.  That's about the closest you will get right now to running a local server while using Internet based files.

 

Carlo

Edited September 27, 2018 by cayars