techsupport

I wish I could say I was surprised. I remember several great, extensive wikis on various subreddits but no one ever used them, and a lot of others that for which wikis should've been a great feature failed to utilize them properly, if at all. .

Yup. You get the Jellyfin server installed on a "real"computer, hooked up to whatever storage you need, then you install a client app on the Pi, or even use a web browser to connect to the server.

The benefit of keeping them separate;

1. you don't have to look at the server and array of hard drives

2. you can use any device with a web browser to talk to the server; phones, tablets, even the Amazon fire stick has a Jellyfin client app

Sharing files isn't that hard. I'm using Win10 pro so it's as simple as right clicking a folder, selecting properties, selecting the Sharing tab, clicking the share button. Then select the user and the rights they have. Since it's just media files over a local network I usually select "everyone" but only give them read only permissions.

I use to give read/write permissions but I've accidentally deleted files using the trackpad on the wireless (fat fingers). I figured read only is fine.

The added plus side to this method is I also have a monitor and computer in the bedroom (I'm an insomniac). From there I can access the same shared files on the "media server" computer.

To find the files on the network, open Run and put \name-of-computer and hit enter. A list of the shared directories will open and you can map these (right click and you'll see the menu option) so they show up in "my computer".

The only other thing you might have to deal with is the firewall in Windows. But there is a pretty easy option to allow file sharing in the local network.

And yeah, you need the right space for a projector. Start with an appropriate size monitor and upgrade as needed.

Also, the Win10 computer I'm using in the living room and bedroom are just really basic computers. They don't need much power since they're only playing movie and music files and sometimes a browser. You can find Lenovo ThinkCentre computers for dirt cheap and they're tiny. These work really well.

My media server computer is actually one of my older desktop PCs with a hardware raid card and a bunch of drives in RAID1 array. RAID 1 is two drives mirrored so if one fails you don't lose anything. I've been collecting moving and music files for 20+ years so I figured it was nice to have a little redundancy on my collection. But you could use anything and upgrade over time.

No idea on Lemmy tbh because my interaction with tech community is "something broke and I don't know how to fix it"/// I don't lurk because I have nothing to useful contribute lol

Plex kind of has to advertise itself as that because it's real product is sort of in the grey area, legally speaking.

Essentially, a Plex server allows you to stream locally stored files from your computer to any clients running the Plex app. A lot of people use this as a way to watch pirated media.

For example, I run my server (desktop) in my home office and have several drives attached to it and in one of those drives is "Pride.and.Prejudice.2005.mp4" and because I have my Plex server attached to that file, I can go to my TV and watch Pride and Prejudice (2005) on my sofa. The movie file "moves" through my hard drive into my desktop, then goes through my router and gets streamed into my TV. (A bit of a simplification but it gets the point across.)

So, no payment necessary to stream media you own through Plex. There is a paid tier but the features it enables are nothing someone wanting to watch movies on their sofa should worry about, all the essential stuff is in the free option.