So the difference between this and just uploading your videos to Amazon Drive is the UI and the fact that you are streaming via Plex instead? Curious how well it would work if I just uploaded all my movies to Amazon Drive.
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Plex Debuts New 'Plex Cloud' Beta Service for Accessing Media Anywhere
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I read a review of amazon drive that said you can't stream video files in the browser that are longer than 20 minutes. Maybe they have/will update it.
Although ditching my hard drives and uploading all my data to Amazon feels tempting cost-wise, it feels rather frightening to put all my eggs in one basket like that. What if the terms change (for the worse) in the future? What if the pricing changes? What if a competitor suddenly becomes a much better option? It means I'll have to download terabytes of data back and perhaps upload it to a different provider.
I'm not saying I'll never do it, but I'm very happy having my data locally, so I'll patiently sit back and see how this plays out.
I'm not saying I'll never do it, but I'm very happy having my data locally, so I'll patiently sit back and see how this plays out.
I doubt that. Amazon Cloud is not free, it costs $60 per yer + you need Plex Pass. So, I'm pretty sure, that audience will ignore this service.Be interesting to see how Amazon react when people start putting TB's of pirated media into their Cloud services, and then using Plex to share them with family and friends
Actually spat my coffee out.
Be interesting to see how Amazon react when people start putting TB's of pirated media into their Cloud services, and then using Plex to share them with family and friends
I have over 14tb of pirated video on my Amazon cloud account. Well about 9 tb of pirated stuff and about 5tb of iTunes videos that I used requiem to remove the drm
Plex isn't just for pirates, but they do have some great features for parrots and peg legs... arghhh!
Amazon Drives really a backup/remote storage solution. It has some sharing capabilities, but I don't think it's accurate to call it a file sharing service which would imply thats the primary purpose of the tool. It'd be like calling iCloud a file sharing service because it has the ability to do some degree of sharing.
Other than the new DVR features, I'm not sure there is much to pin them for. Plex doesn't break any encryption which is what the media companies are more likely to chase. Other than that, it's playback software with some sharing capabilities but it's not really suited to mass piracy in itself and there's far better options out there if you want to distribute movies. It can store home movies, photos etc too.
Ripping your bought DVDs for convenience is a serious crime against humanity. When I hear people doing it, instead of buying multiple DVDs of the same movie again and again for every compatible device/place AND subscribing to a streaming service that includes the same movies on top of it so that they can access the content from their post-pc gadgets, I imagine the poor lawyers and Hollywood companies' GMs starving to death while their children are left uneducated selling matches in the street.
On the other hand, putting your personal videos on the cloud is both advisable and patriotic.
On the other hand, putting your personal videos on the cloud is both advisable and patriotic.
I've tried using ExpanDrive to mount my Amazon Cloud drive as a normal shared volume, then pointing Plex there for media. Kinda worked, but needed optimization. Hopefully this solves the issue.
As a customer of cloud drive I'm questioning how they expect people to get the content in there... you can't upload files bigger then 2 gigs in size.
I doubt anyone will notice/care because the files you upload aren't public. I'm not saying that Amazon can't tell what's in your "drive" but unless you tweet "Hey, here's a username/password for everyone to access my Plex server and I just posted a copy of Star Wars: Episode 8" where suddenly 500 people are all streaming from the same account, it will go unnoticed.
Of course, there's the initial upload of your library where you're going to have to (probably slowly) upload your movies/shows over the course of weeks.
The biggest concern, I think, is that in today's world, "unlimited" rarely means unlimited. When a large group of people suddenly jump from 1-2 GB on average to 10 TB of storage, one might think they'll go the route of tagging them as "abusers" and either warn them or update their usage policy/limits accordingly.
Of course, there's the initial upload of your library where you're going to have to (probably slowly) upload your movies/shows over the course of weeks.
The biggest concern, I think, is that in today's world, "unlimited" rarely means unlimited. When a large group of people suddenly jump from 1-2 GB on average to 10 TB of storage, one might think they'll go the route of tagging them as "abusers" and either warn them or update their usage policy/limits accordingly.
Files larger than 2gb are apparently supported via the desktop upload tools. - https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201376710
but now you are comparing "a few TB" with unlimited storage
nothing wrong with that, if you don't need more space. just needs to be considered.
This is the exact setup i'm currently running myself. But had to switch from 2x2TB to 2x4TB and upgrading disks is not cheap. Could have paid for like 5 years of amazon storage for the price of the disks alone
And because of the mirroring i'm only getting 4TB out of it.I can understand why they want to make the interface web based. This reduces that amount to development for each and every platform that uses Plex - hit the web interface - simple
I have three people in the house using Plex all the time, linked to devices and TVs. If Plex Cloud was to be the way to go, and have the media stored in the cloud, my internet connection would be saturated with multiple streams - and would not cope.
Thats the crux of it for me - it's a non-starter.
What if our internet connection goes down too, I'd have the family screaming at me because they cannot watch a movie, which they could do if they are locally stored.
I have three people in the house using Plex all the time, linked to devices and TVs. If Plex Cloud was to be the way to go, and have the media stored in the cloud, my internet connection would be saturated with multiple streams - and would not cope.
Thats the crux of it for me - it's a non-starter.
What if our internet connection goes down too, I'd have the family screaming at me because they cannot watch a movie, which they could do if they are locally stored.
You should be aware that cloud services often use de-duplication, so if you and a friend both upload StarWarsEpisode8.mkv, the cloud service would only store one copy and only the first person to attempt the upload will need to actually upload it. All subsequent uploaders will just get that file 'credited to their account'. This is what happens with Dropbox. It's how they keep their storage costs below the rates their suppliers charge (e.g. AWS).
So if you're uploading a lot of pirated content, there's a chance you wouldn't have to upload anything at all, but on the other hand the service operator has it within their power to immediately identify who is storing any particular file - so long as they have a copy of the offending file themselves to match it against.
So, for example, Disney could open an account, and attempt to upload the same .mkv file. If they notice the file uploads suspiciously quickly, they know at least one customer has the exact same file in their account, and they could get a court order to have the file purged from every account on the system. By storing the file the cloud service operator would be in violation of copyright every time they make a back-up or transmit the file back to the account owner.
I suspect this mechanism is how Amazon might protect themselves from some high-usage customers. Many of those account holders will just be storing purchased or pirated content, which would barely register once de-duplicated. You might even see T&C prohibiting odd things, like CCTV recording, which can't be de-duplicated.
I have been running my own version of this for a while.
I have a 4$/month VPS that mounts my Amazon Cloud Drive using acd-cli. A Plex server is running on the VPS. It works just fine with about 4 TB of movies. I have a lot more to upload and just started doing it after the announcement.
I registered for the beta. This would be a fantastic service! And I would stop paying for the VPS.
I have a 4$/month VPS that mounts my Amazon Cloud Drive using acd-cli. A Plex server is running on the VPS. It works just fine with about 4 TB of movies. I have a lot more to upload and just started doing it after the announcement.
I registered for the beta. This would be a fantastic service! And I would stop paying for the VPS.
I don't think saving on hard drive space is the point (hard drives are cheap) - you'd presumably keep a local copy.
The point is (a) you don't have to keep a Plex server machine (with enough grunt for transcoding if you want to stream to phones etc.) running 24/7 in your house and (b) you can access your media from anywhere without running a server over your home broadband connection: apart from being prohibited by some ISPs, that has practical problems: it requires a fixed IP or dynamic DNS service and many (most?) home broadband connections are "asymmetrical" (ADSL etc) meaning that they are optimised for downloading and have fairly low upload rates.
Signed up for beta.
Signed up for Amazon Drive unlimited - and got 3 months free!
Amazon Drive desktop app installed and started to upload content under a Plex folder which matches current library naming standard. These vary from 800mb to 10gb in size.
My understanding is you will have a separate library to your current "local" library.
Can't wait!
Signed up for Amazon Drive unlimited - and got 3 months free!
Amazon Drive desktop app installed and started to upload content under a Plex folder which matches current library naming standard. These vary from 800mb to 10gb in size.
My understanding is you will have a separate library to your current "local" library.
Can't wait!
I stream from my Plex server mostly when I'm in the house, and only occasionally when I'm out of the house. So to switch over to 100% internet streaming would make no sense. I also own my storage space (NAS), I'm not going be renting it from Amazon.
I can see where this might work for some people, but its certainly not going to sway anyone who already has a working Plex server setup.
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I can see where this might work for some people, but its certainly not going to sway anyone who already has a working Plex server setup.
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Can you source the legitimacy of this? I'm aware of such ability on file servers and even work with it in my company, but this is the first I'm hearing that Dropbox and others do this as well. I don't find that to be the least bit appropriate for a service you're paying for. It may be technically efficient, but seems to be a privacy issue in my opinion.
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Yep, but actually Dropbox may have turned it off these days. So maybe that was all typed for nothing but it would be safe to assume all cloud services use de-duplication unless you hear otherwise.
Here's a bit on how it works/worked with Dropbox...
http://blog.fosketts.net/2011/07/11/dropbox-data-format-deduplication/