We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.

  • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    Streaming requires high-performance, high-bandwidth machines that cost anywhere from several dozen dollars to several hundred dollars a month. You build a resilient high-availability network, and you could easily be looking at several tens of thousands of dollars a month.

    Are you under the impression that Plex uploads the movie files to their servers and then transcodes them there, or something?

    And the hard work happens on your own hardware. All Plex’s servers are doing is acting as a signaling server, but no media or routed through Plex’s servers.

    • Kogasa@programming.dev
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      20 hours ago

      It depends on if you use the “relay” feature. If your server is accessible from the outside it shouldn’t be using this though.

      • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        But the blog post from Plex was specifically talking about charging for remotely accessing your own files. So your point is irrelevant to the discussion.

        • huskypenguin@sh.itjust.works
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          11 hours ago

          How is it irrelevant? Plex offers a bunch of services that cost them money that we don’t use, so they jacked up prices for streaming our own data.

          • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            It’s irrelevant because even Plex themselves made no mention of their in-house streaming stuff. The discussion is about being charged to view your videos, hosted on your own self-hosted server, viewed on your own device.

              • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world
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                8 hours ago

                Ok, so you’re implying people were using their videos for free instead of paying for the streaming services. Then Plex wanted more money so they’ve started to charge people for using their own stuff.

                That’s fine, and frankly I agree with that.

                But your initial reply to me is still irrelevant to the discussion.