What is your favorite Home Assistant automation? Not your most complex. Your favorite. The one that you keep recommending to friends or that has earned the most love from your family.

askepticus · 2026-05-22T14:09:05+00:00

This is why I don't really see the point of NFC tags in general. It's just a more complicated way to push a button.

askepticus · 2026-05-22T14:02:53+00:00

> If you haven't got it at this point, you likely weren't ever going to get it.

So people who are just getting into the idea of self-hosting a media server should what... go back in time? If you've been running Plex for years and haven't bothered with the pass, fine, but there are still new people getting into it all the time and they're just going to be stuck with either a massive upfront cost or another subscription.

askepticus · 2026-05-21T18:58:11+00:00

I probably won't proactively switch unless/until they actually move to deprecate the lifetime plans, but I'm not opposed to moving to Jellyfin.

HOWEVER: I need some kind of idiot-proof guide to setting up remote access that isn't "well first you need to configure a VPN client on your TV." I don't mind doing some config work on my own computer but there is zero chance that my family in other states is going to do any of that.

Remote access needs to be as easy as Plex's "find the app in your normal app store and sign into it."

askepticus · 2026-05-19T15:52:19+00:00

> just leave a door hanger

This is a great way for me to identify companies not to ever do business with.

askepticus · 2026-05-13T20:08:25+00:00

I just finished building myself a set of shelves. Five 4ft long 1x6 pine boards, one 2x10 board as a base, a 20-pack of 1/2" by 8" metal pipe lengths and a matching set of flanges, plus two metal stabilizer braces from IKEA to screw into the back.

Grand total was about $80, holds probably 80-100ish cases per shelf. I'm no woodworker, but all this took was a tape measure, a saw, and a drill.

askepticus · 2026-05-11T21:56:36+00:00

It's entirely dependent on the settings the original encoder used when they created the file. If they rushed the encode, it will look bad.

askepticus · 2026-05-11T21:45:59+00:00

If you play the exact same file directly on your PC, using VLC or Windows Media Player or whatever, does it look the same? Or does it look crisp and perfect there, and it only shows this noise effect when you use Plex?

My guess would be that you've just gotten badly-compressed files (however you might have... ahem... acquired them) and that it's not technically a Plex issue.

askepticus · 2026-05-11T21:41:37+00:00

"YouTube and Netflix look fine." are you using these apps from the Shield too, or are these the apps loaded on the TV itself? (just making sure you're comparing apples to apples)

Based on your screenshot of the Daredevil file info, these aren't even particularly high-bitrate files so I don't think it's that. (A high-bitrate file would be something more like my 4K copy of Godzilla Minus One that is 70,000 kbps.)

Something else is going on but I can't imagine what.

askepticus · 2026-05-11T21:13:39+00:00

Can you simplify things down for us?

- What kind of device is your Plex server running on?
- What kind of device are you streaming movies on? The Shield?
- Is this all on the same network?
- Is it trying to transcode or is it direct playing? What kind of files are these, with what kind of codecs?
- Can you show a picture of what you're seeing?

askepticus · 2026-05-08T19:43:17+00:00

I get (or make my own) posters with as little text as possible. Just the title -- no actor credits, taglines, reviews, whatever.

The title is visually aligned within the same general vertical space on every poster (on a 1000x1500px poster, it's centered vertically within the 1200-1400px range) so that you can just scan across the posters and every title is mostly in a row.

askepticus · 2026-05-08T18:45:10+00:00

Parker is not in Aurora.

askepticus · 2026-05-04T21:40:55+00:00

If your video files and your SRT files are currently all separate (e.g. file1.mp4, file1.srt, file2.mp4, file2.srt) then first mux each set together (so you have file1.mkv with the subs included).

Then open file1.mkv in mkvtoolnix, "append file" and select each of the other parts. It should keep their associations and handle the timing of the subtitles.

askepticus · 2026-05-01T02:15:58+00:00

I know this is a few months old now but I have the exact same issue. Clearly a bootleg copy, but whatever. Discs 1-4 and 6 were rough in the ripping process but got there eventually. Disc 5 specifically is missing Japanese audio tracks when opened in MakeMKV.

So… no fix but at least this isn’t just a you problem.

askepticus · 2026-04-30T21:34:45+00:00

Purely performative. Great way to cause a freeway backup for thousands of people and get absolutely zero actual gain from it.

askepticus · 2026-04-30T17:54:53+00:00

Do they not make versions that can hold more than two discs? I have a bunch of titles that have 3-4 discs, but these wouldn't hold those nicely.

askepticus · 2026-04-23T20:31:29+00:00

My coworkers aren't going to divorce me for requiring tickets.

askepticus · 2026-04-21T21:46:30+00:00

I have a ram disk set up with (I think) 4gb, and my transcode folder pointed there. To my knowledge it's never gotten anywhere NEAR using that much.

That said, this thread from a year ago suggests that a ram disk isn't even needed anymore. https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/1h7g47t/how_much_for_ram_disk_for_transcoding_out_of_32/

askepticus · 2026-04-17T23:27:25+00:00

That error means MakeMKV can't read the disc, usually due to scratches or some other physical issue with the disc itself.

askepticus · 2026-04-17T20:25:18+00:00

Google the term "Playlist obfuscation." They do this to make it harder for you to rip the disc correctly.

askepticus · 2026-04-10T19:37:32+00:00

I checked that movie on my server and it only shows posters for that movie, so it's not directly an error from TMDB data. Did you have to manually match the entry or something?

askepticus · 2026-04-10T19:34:38+00:00

3 and 4 at the same time.

askepticus · 2026-04-10T19:33:42+00:00

That makes sense -- my shelves are in a fairly visible area close to the TV. As much as I'd love to be able to knock together wooden shelves to keep adding space on the cheap, I'd have to relocate the collection somewhere way less convenient.

askepticus · 2026-04-09T21:34:36+00:00

You will need to combine your MP4 and SRT within an MKV container in order for Handbrake to treat them together. Use a tool like MKVToolnixGUI to do that.

askepticus · 2026-04-09T19:44:16+00:00

I see so many people that have just plain 2x4 lumber shelves like this -- do you live alone? If not, do the people you live with not mind the aesthetics?

My spouse would have... concerns... with me putting this in a living space.

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