this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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723
Netflix officially removes Basic - the cheapest ad-free tier (m.gsmarena.com)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
135 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Netflix execs needs a new jet.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Cool, I was planning to cancel this month anyway. I just finished ripping all of our DVDs and Blurays, so I have quite a bit of content ready to go. I have told my wife and kids I'll buy whatever they want, within reason, and rip it to our private streaming service. I think we'll end up saving quite a bit of money eventually this way, and we have no ads with our self-hosted video service.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Not only no ads but shit you actually want to watch and all right there no hopping from this service to that service to watch a frickin show

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yup. The main issue is exclusives, but most of those suck anyway. I told them we'll give it a few months and see where we're at.

But between the two, I'm spending $40/month to avoid ads, so it's probably cheaper to just buy what we want to watch instead.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

A 5TB portable hard drive only costs as much as three months and can hold most of the stuff you ACTUALLY wanna watch. To be fair, DVDs and BluRays can get expensive but at least that's yours forever and you don't have to worry about the studio suddenly deciding you need to subscribe to THEIR bullshit too. If it's not available outside of streaming, well Gabe Newell said it best.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Yup. If I can get it legally to own, I will. If I can't, I'll find other methods...

I used Netflix because they had fantastic selection, a pretty decent UI, and good features on their apps. We recently went on a road trip, and both Disney+ and Netflix had "expired" our downloads (which we had downloaded like 2 weeks prior), so our kids couldn't watch most of what we had planned for during the trip. So their features are lacking, pricing sucks, and selection is more limited than when I signed up.

So yeah, if I'm going to have crappy selection anyway, I'll just buy what I want and save the monthly sub.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

What software are you using to self host and serve your library?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Jellyfin. I was previously just using minidlna, but Jellyfin has an app for our TV and looks much nicer than the basic interface dlna offers.

I'm running it on an old PC running Linux, and it was pretty easy to set up.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Excellent choice. My jellyfin server is great, there are buggy things but I'm committed to the foss lifestyle

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Jellyfin isn't perfect, but by god it's incredible! I've trued to contribute but the obly stuffeft is stuff I don't fully understand :(

Maybe one day...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What are you using as a firewall?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Just what comes with my Linux distribution: firewalld. It seems to work well.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Thanks

[–] meanmon13 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Don't know about OP, but Plex works great! Get a Synology NAS and run your Plex server on that

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Plex is pretty commercialized these days and I don't doubt they're likely selling your data.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Yeah, the server isn't FOSS, so I'm not bothering. Jellyfin is FOSS and gets the job done.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I've tried ripping my DVDs and can't get it to work. Can you share details on how you did that?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

I use Handbrake or MakeMKV depending on the disc. MakeMKV I mostly use for Bluray, Sometimes the odd DVD doesn't work correctly with Handbrake.

In Handbrake, I just select the Quality and keep original Audio source, I've not needed to change any of settings.

If you use MakeMKV, Its "raw" so large file size (Some Bluray files I've had are like 40GB), You can run that file through Handbrake to reduce it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

This may be more involved than most people are willing to go but just wanna add:

  • This can be painfully slow without a dedicated GPU. Even low-mid range dedicated is gonna be a huge upgrade over CPU or integrated GPU so get one of those (if you can) or prepare to leave it overnight.
  • I recommend playing with Handbrake settings a little. Use options with HEVC (x265) or AV1 for significantly smaller file sizes at the same level of quality. If you're leaning towards x265, an Nvidia card using the NVENC option is gonna be significantly faster.
  • Handbrake has a preview feature which outputs a 30 second segment at the given settings. Very useful if you wanna tune the quality/file size.

Bonus: Look into Jellyfin for a streaming service like interface

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I should try Handbrake. I've been using MakeMKV and Movavi. If you can rip and convert in Handbrake all at once, that would save me a bunch of time.