What is the best TV/movie service I can set up for someone who is not tech savvy and wants something that just works?
Happy to buy hardware if needed. Just trying to avoid large streaming services abhorrent business practices.
Stremio and Cloudstream offer a way to stream movies, TV shows, and web series for free, they do so by aggregating pirated content, making them alternatives to mainstream paid streaming services.
Check out blog: You can get all your entertainment in one place, like Netflix.
You can share your plex library. So the person can stream from your files. Pretty easy to set up.
This is what I do. Plex server with storage at home and brother just connects via his app built into his TV. They just text if they want a certain movie or TV show and I add it.
I have them setup public watchlists in imdb and send me the Id and just explain that it checks the list every hour or so. It's hand off on my end that way.
Yup I did this when I had a server and my non tech savvy friends never had an issue. I even have them access to Radarr, Sonarr, etc do they could add things themselves.
I have a similar setup. The only strange thing is that one house always seems to have buffer issues while the rest don't (they'll start a show and it will buffer every few minutes). What would you recommend in that situation kind stranger?
I don't do this myself, but this community has made me aware of Stremio and a plugin for it called torrentio that connects to a (paid) downloader backend called Real Debrid. From the sounds of it, it seems to be a painless user experience for instantly streaming pretty much everything.
I use Jellyfin, Radarr/Sonarr/Bazarr/Jellyseerr/Torrents to play & acquire media. Building a library in advance works for me, but my SO is the "I just want to flick through a list, play something for a bit and if I don't like it flip to something else random" type. Advanced curation doesn't lend well to that user behavior, so I am going to explore making the switch.
I set something like this up for my dad but using kodi and some add-ons then connect it to real debrid. It's like $20 USD for like 6 months. I was able to get him to cancel his cable since he was paying like a hundred dollars + his subscription services a month.
And I have it running on a firestick 4k so really inexpensive.
I've been using stremio + torrentio for a while and it's been the best for me so far. Have tested kodi, jellyfin and others. I don't pay for a private tracker, but it's been good enough so far.
I do want to keep a local library instead of streaming, but I'd focus on getting the things I like the most, while this set up helps with discovering. My ADHD in particular may make me suddenly want to watch something that I haven't prepared.
I find roku to have the simplest interface for people to learn. Fill it with free channels like tubi and pluto. For your personal library I'd suggest jellyfin. Simple and free.
I use a Roku and the webcaster app to stream media from fmovies on my phone. Super easy to use, and tends to have everything.
Agreed. My elderly mother has no ability with technology at all and out of all the devices I tried she took to the Roku stick the easiest.
I connected it to Emby and she's more than happy.
For like my parents I use stremio + torrentio + premiumize (instead of real debrid). It's a set it and forget it thing, and I use premiumize because then I can just share my sub. That way they don't even worry about anything at all. I'm already paying for the sub and I'll keep it up to date on my own lol for myself though, I personally think using syncler is the easiest, but when syncler+ lapses, I'll have to do tech support every year for them.
As someone who currently has Real Debrid and was thinking of switching, what is different about Premiumize? I was also looking at All Debrid as an option.
They are essentially the same if you're just streaming and not taking advantage of the other features tbh. RD is cheaper, so I would stick with them. Biggest difference is that you could share your account (they don't promote it though). I do use their other features like the cloud storage, rss feeds, and automation so that downloads from premiumize automatically gets downloaded to my NAS.
What about Pluto?
It's installed automatically on my TV so I'll use it from time to time if I want background noise and a certain genre of movie or show I want to have on.
I watch Pluto TV once in a while. I think that's a good solution for people who don't have friends or family with a Plex-type media server.
Just buy them a subscription to a good Plex server.
This!
I do the same for my parents. $10 a month, no fuss, 5PB of media from all over the world (and growing!), all high quality Bluray Remuxes along with Dolby Vision content and what not. Can even put in requests for something specific using a discord bot.
It's just like the 2016 era Netflix never died.
The only investment is an Nvidia Shield Pro because it supports any darn format out there. Without it, you're only limited to 1080p content (or 4k if the device can direct play) since transcoding anything above 1080p is not allowed due to processing limitations.
But yeah, it's a set up and forget kind of service. Make sure to join a reputed server though. And never pay multi-month in a single go unless you're absolutely sure of their trustworthiness.
cloudstream with addons is a good choice on an android tv
Well if large streaming services are off the list, then you could act as one. For instance you could host a Jellyfin instance and make it available to your "someone who is not tech savvy". On the client side, Jellyfin is very much click and watch. But you take on the burden of being the service host and provider of content.
I am not sure you can find "something that just works" reliably over time without ensuring that yourself.
actvid dot com works really well these days
Probably gonna head out with my boy Rick and shoot some h🏀🏀ps
I have the *arr apps running on my homeserver, i manage the backend but everything gets neatly dropped in jellyfin.
Gf is not tech savvy, is very happy about our "homemade netflix", reverse proxied it so she can watch at work too.
You can even give the link for the *arr apps so your SO can add all the movies, tv shows and music they want. I saved them on her phone, in Firefox it's add to home screen. Chrome should be similar. Probably best to make it only accessible via LAN unless you have a good reason to need it outside of your home.
Do you include Jellyseerr in your definition of *arr apps, because it's more of an *err or even *rr.
But Jellyseerr/Overseerr are the main apps I would give someone non tech savvy to be able to add their own media.
I find a key part is setting up notifications so that they know when a request is available.
I use the nzb360 app for android which makes it very user friendly. She wouldn’t dabble with the ui’s and is the kind of person to use her phone for everything and doesn’t want to use pc’s.
Even better, run overseerr and put it behind a reverse proxy.
For my less tech savvy friends/family I just have a bot in Discord that can do requests to sonarr/radarr https://github.com/kiranshila/Doplarr
Other options can be using something like tailscale and giving them the web access to sonarr/radarr
Been using Plex for years as bought the Plex lifetime deal when it was on offer many many moons ago. Is jellyfin any better? (My biggest concern with Plex is that they have a list of all my content I believe so not happy about that).
Should add use a nvidia shield with an external hard drive with all the content on it and stream to other android devices (fire sticks).
Been using Plex for years as bought the Plex lifetime deal when it was on offer many many moons ago. Is jellyfin any better? (My biggest concern with Plex is that they have a list of all my content I believe so not happy about that).
Should add use a nvidia shield with an external hard drive with all the content on it and stream to other android devices (fire sticks).
I chose jellyfin because it was opensource, looked better imho and was free.
I’d say stick to whatever works the best, plex with lifetime is a solid option that does it all.
Jellyfin is not as good as basic Plex.