Plex Warns of Potential Data Breach, Urges Users to Change Their Passwords

I'm glad that Plex exists but the days of me using any kind of home server for video media are fading due to the sheer abundance of content easily available from the 3-4 streaming services we use, not to mention all the 4K/DV/Atmos stuff that is now supported. I really hate to say it but I have somewhat caved into streaming as time goes by. I used to rip all my physical media to a Kodi server in the house and at this point it's almost more work than it's worth.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
I'm glad that Plex exists but the days of me using any kind of home server for video media are fading due to the sheer abundance of content easily available from the 3-4 streaming services we use, not to mention all the 4K/DV/Atmos stuff that is now supported. I really hate to say it but I have somewhat caved into streaming as time goes by. I used to rip all my physical media to a Kodi server in the house and at this point it's almost more work than it's worth.
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I still use it for movies and TV shows I can't get on streaming services. I refuse to sign up for 10 different streaming services because they all have 1 show each I want to watch. For that reason I'll continue getting linux distro's.

But even that is slowly changing as I use IPTV service more.

I still like high bit rate 4K HDR rips for movies. Better than any streaming service provides.
 
Riccochet said:
I still like high bit rate 4K HDR rips for movies. Better than any streaming service provides.
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I never invested in more hardware or software for doing my 4K rips. I do still buy physical versions of these for the majority of things I like but the sad part is just being too tired to sit down and enjoy them like I used to. I hear ya though about all the services. We've got 4 paid (including the Disney bundle that I just upped for ad-free Hulu).
 
I've never used Plex, instead my philosophy has been that simple is better, and just having a file server with shared folders frontends can play back from is better.

I guess I mention this because I don't understand to what extent Plex users are actually exposed here. Is this just a "forums, etc'" type of account, or is it somehow integrated into the Plex server using some sort of cloud services?
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
I'm glad that Plex exists but the days of me using any kind of home server for video media are fading due to the sheer abundance of content easily available from the 3-4 streaming services we use, not to mention all the 4K/DV/Atmos stuff that is now supported. I really hate to say it but I have somewhat caved into streaming as time goes by. I used to rip all my physical media to a Kodi server in the house and at this point it's almost more work than it's worth.
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I prefer to keep all content local. I canceled my Netflix subscription many years ago. I can't even remember when, but a brief search of old emails suggest it must have been early 2017. It coincided with me building my home theater system, and the better equipment exposing the lesser quality of streamed content.

Part of my reasoning is probably historical. Years ago it was common for streaming services to plop out of high quality mode and into a lower quality seemingly at random. I had a high speed internet connection, there was plenty of bandwidth, but still for some reason, it just wasn't keeping up. I want to make sure I get max bit rate 100% of the time and am not dependent on the WAN at playback time.

That, and about the same time is when Netflix really started losing lots of 3rd party content, and it just wasn't worth keeping it anymore.

I have access to Amazon Prime's streaming services, but that is just a side-effect of having prime for the shipping.

Streaming is great, if you want to just plop down and "find something to watch" in the moment. That's not how I do TV or movies though. I plan my viewing ahead, finding movies or TV series I want to watch. I can't remember the last time I just sat down to arbitrarily watch something, and started browsing what was available. That's just not how I do things.

Because of this, and because of the quality gap, I prefer having all of my video content stored locally.

I have an ~25TB Media library share on my NAS that just keeps growing. Playback happens via NFS on my KODI frontends.

I prefer to legally pay for the content, but unfortunately lots of it just isn't available in high quality downloads or physical media these days, so a good chunk of it winds up being "community editions".

I'm not exactly proud of it. I want everyone to get paid for their work, but at the same time I am unwilling to compromise on my requirements, so it is what it is.
 
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Zarathustra said:
I've never used Plex, instead my philosophy has been that simple is better, and just having a file server with shared folders frontends can play back from is better.

I guess I mention this because I don't understand to what extent Plex users are actually exposed here. Is this just a "forums, etc'" type of account, or is it somehow integrated into the Plex server using some sort of cloud services?
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That is basically Plex - it has some other neat tricks, like supporting on-the-fly transcoding and automatic thumbnail and description metadata. But mostly it just acts as a bridge / player between your file server and whatever device you want to watch your content on.

It does have some streaming bloat but isn’t too bad. If you have a lot of different types of devices it’s awesome, or want a way to easily set up external-to-LAN streaming.

As far as the vulnerability — I wonder to. I have a Plex account but it’s linked to google, so I don’t think that would get exposed in a manner that could be exploited; but I can’t say for certain.
 
Brian_B said:
That is basically Plex - it has some other neat tricks, like supporting on-the-fly transcoding and automatic thumbnail and description metadata. But mostly it just acts as a bridge / player between your file server and whatever device you want to watch your content on.

It does have some streaming bloat but isn’t too bad. If you have a lot of different types of devices it’s awesome, or want a way to easily set up external-to-LAN streaming.

As far as the vulnerability — I wonder to. I have a Plex account but it’s linked to google, so I don’t think that would get exposed in a manner that could be exploited; but I can’t say for certain.
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Yeah, I mean, I've seen Plex be very popular over the years, but I've never understood why.
Unless you want on the fly transcoding (which I don't) why would you install an extra layer of software when network file systems like SMB/CIFS and NFS exist and are built in to their respective operating systems by default?
 
I changed my password recently due to it. I use Plex exclusively and share it with a few friends and family members.

@Zarathustra it's no point in explaining it to you. You're gonna do you regardless.
 
LeRoy_Blanchard said:
I changed my password recently due to it. I use Plex exclusively and share it with a few friends and family members.

@Zarathustra it's no point in explaining it to you. You're gonna do you regardless.
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That is true. I'm not likely to change my setup, but I would like to try to understand the appeal :p
 
Zarathustra said:
I would like to try to understand the appeal
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I get it. I tinkered with it a little a few years back. I think to some extent, that some of the appeal is that you get a portal/web access that helps streamline the whole process and it even makes it easy to share your content with others. I'm oversimplifying but it's like most things these days, you have an app or portal to do the nitty-gritty work, plus some decent cosmetic stuff on top of it.
 
Zarathustra said:
That is true. I'm not likely to change my setup, but I would like to try to understand the appeal :p
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I'll bite.

I'm assuming you've never used Plex? Unlike just adding movies/shows to your computers hard drive to navigate them through scrolling, or whatever it is that you need to do to search through a directory tree to find what you want to watch. Plex will catalog everything automatically for you. You get a nice UI that can be easily navigated via nearly any remote and search based on name, actors, genre, etc... for whatever you want to watch. Best way I can describe it to people who don't know what it is. It's Netflix, but you put your own content on it. When I add content, I just place it in the correct directory as is. Say I download a show, I download it directly to the directory called "shows" I made and Plex does the rest.

It can keep track of what you watched. So if you are watching a long show with many episodes, just click the show and it'll pick up where you left off.

I can watch my content anywhere in the World as long as I have Internet. It supports many, many devices from consoles, TVs, phones, tablets, streaming boxes, etc... No need to make sure the source file is compatible with my device. Plex will transcode it (if needed) so the device can play it.

Going out in the woods or off on a boat with no Internet? I can go through my vast library, select stuff I want to watch and download it directly to the device. Plex will even transcode it if the device wont play the file directly. Then watch it without Internet anywhere in the world as long as it has power.

Got a friend or family who wants to use it?

Tell them to sign up for a free Plex account, give you their email, you send an invite to your library and once they accept they can do all of the above on any of their devices as well.

Kids? You can set parental controls for kids so they can only watch stuff you allow them. (such as only shows/movies with a PG rating or below)

I used to do what you did, years ago. Just tossed everything on an external hard drive or thumbdrive and connected it directly to the device I wanted to watch on. Then I had to navigate through the directory tree to find what I wanted. If I didn't bring the physical media storage with me, I was SOL.

I even used KODI (XBMC) years ago which was a nice step up from just direct playing everything, but Plex took it beyond that by allowing me to literally watch what I have anywhere in the world. Just need a compatible device and Internet access. Though I think KODI has come a long way since I last used it.
 
What LeRoy says. The auto metadata is great, and it does it for music too. I cannot tell you how many hundreds of man hours I have wasted fixing mp3 tags and cover art. Plex does it automatically (it's not perfect but I give it 95%). While I don't share my content out, you easily can, I just don't feel like explaining it to my mother. And also having to leave my server on 24x7.

To be honest though I haven't looked at Plex for a couple months. New stuff out on streaming, new streaming services etc. And I still use physical media for 4K that I really like (ie - Dune)
 
LeRoy_Blanchard said:
I'll bite.

I'm assuming you've never used Plex? Unlike just adding movies/shows to your computers hard drive to navigate them through scrolling, or whatever it is that you need to do to search through a directory tree to find what you want to watch. Plex will catalog everything automatically for you. You get a nice UI that can be easily navigated via nearly any remote and search based on name, actors, genre, etc... for whatever you want to watch. Best way I can describe it to people who don't know what it is. It's Netflix, but you put your own content on it. When I add content, I just place it in the correct directory as is. Say I download a show, I download it directly to the directory called "shows" I made and Plex does the rest.

It can keep track of what you watched. So if you are watching a long show with many episodes, just click the show and it'll pick up where you left off.
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Ah, that makes sense. Kodi does this for me, but it does it on the frontend and stores its databse locally there, rather than on a server. This of course means, that you can oonly keep track of what you've watched on the same frontend, but that hasnt been an issue thus far.

LeRoy_Blanchard said:
I can watch my content anywhere in the World as long as I have Internet. It supports many, many devices from consoles, TVs, phones, tablets, streaming boxes, etc... No need to make sure the source file is compatible with my device. Plex will transcode it (if needed) so the device can play it.

Going out in the woods or off on a boat with no Internet? I can go through my vast library, select stuff I want to watch and download it directly to the device. Plex will even transcode it if the device wont play the file directly. Then watch it without Internet anywhere in the world as long as it has power.

Got a friend or family who wants to use it?

Tell them to sign up for a free Plex account, give you their email, you send an invite to your library and once they accept they can do all of the above on any of their devices as well.

Kids? You can set parental controls for kids so they can only watch stuff you allow them. (such as only shows/movies with a PG rating or below)

I used to do what you did, years ago. Just tossed everything on an external hard drive or thumbdrive and connected it directly to the device I wanted to watch on. Then I had to navigate through the directory tree to find what I wanted. If I didn't bring the physical media storage with me, I was SOL.

I even used KODI (XBMC) years ago which was a nice step up from just direct playing everything, but Plex took it beyond that by allowing me to literally watch what I have anywhere in the world. Just need a compatible device and Internet access. Though I think KODI has come a long way since I last used it.
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I'm not much into sharing my content with others, or watching it on the go. I do 99.9% of my watching of any content at my home theater.

I have another front end in the bedroom, but pretty much only my better half uses that. There is also one in the guest room, but it rarely gets used.

I can see it being useful if that's how you consume your media though, but it's not for me. I've never once been tempted to watch a show on my phone or anything like that.
 
Zarathustra said:
I can see it being useful if that's how you consume your media though, but it's not for me. I've never once been tempted to watch a show on my phone or anything like that.
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I don't really either, but I get it. Some people spend hours every day on planes, trains, and automobiles. Or during lunch break.
 
Zarathustra said:
Ah, that makes sense. Kodi does this for me, but it does it on the frontend and stores its databse locally there, rather than on a server. This of course means, that you can oonly keep track of what you've watched on the same frontend, but that hasnt been an issue thus far.
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Yeah that's how it was when I used it. Keep in mind though the Plex server you host it yourself. So it's on hardware you either rent in a datacenter or you own at home. Hardware requirements range vastly depending on your needs. If you need to do a lot of transcoding then you'll obviously need something pretty beefy, buf if a lot of it is direct play media then it opens up potential for a lot of devices. I've seen where people how the Plex Media Server on their Nvidia Shields.

Zarathustra said:
I'm not much into sharing my content with others, or watching it on the go. I do 99.9% of my watching of any content at my home theater.

I have another front end in the bedroom, but pretty much only my better half uses that. There is also one in the guest room, but it rarely gets used.

I can see it being useful if that's how you consume your media though, but it's not for me. I've never once been tempted to watch a show on my phone or anything like that.
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Well with KODI or direct play from your media makes sharing it a little more difficult. I'd venture to say if it wasn't for Plex I wouldn't care about sharing mine either; but I know others who have Plex servers and we share our libraries between each other. So should something happen to my server/media like a power outage, server crash, hardware failure, I can still watch stuff on Plex through their libraries. Which is rare, but the option is there.

I dont watch things on my phone, tablet or anything portable either, but the option is there. I travel a lot for work and a couple months ago I was in Miami, FL for 3 weeks staying at an AirBNB. Nice place, but didn't really have much to watch there unless I had a streaming service and logged in. They had smart TVs all around the house, so I just installed the Plex app on their TVs, logged into my account and had content to watch while I was off.

Currently I am down in Wilmington, NC doing some work. Staying in a hotel and the TV service here sucks, too. So I just connect my laptop to their TVs and watch stuff from my Plex server.
 
@LeRoy_Blanchard

Have they updated it to where you can stream a full 4K rip with DV/Atmos yet? That was kind of what kept me from jumping on. I do have content not available on Streaming yet but it's stuff I wouldn't want to be transcoded down just so it could stream. Afaik it's got HD/BD stuff covered but when I checked around a year ago 4K was still in the works.
 
I don't have any 4K content so I've never looked into how Plex handles it. I stream 1080P or 720P all my content. True 4K requires a LOT of bandwidth and my 10Mbps upload connection just can't handle it outside of my LAN. So I don't bother with 4K, yet.
 
Most of my content for the past year is 4k HDR. Plex handles it and all audio just fine. So long as your end device is capable of supporting the format. Transcoding 4k on the fly you better have a beefy server handling that or it'll buffer.

I can't speak to Atmos or DV specifically, since I don't have either. But, I have downloaded Atmos releases, and it's transcoded the audio to DTS or DD with no issue, so obviously it supports it.
 
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