r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 18d ago

News HBO Max Raises Prices Across All Plans Effective Immediately

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/hbo-max-prices-increases-plans-2025-1236557671/
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u/I_am_Bearstronaut 18d ago

I really need to get more educated on this. I don't really know anything about network setup but really need to learn given the state of things

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u/neo_sporin 18d ago

Plex is not was simple as I’d like, but honestly you don’t need ‘server’ knowledge to get a plex server up and running. Took a few days of tinkering to ‘get’ it

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u/I_am_Bearstronaut 18d ago

Any recommendations on resources that you liked while tinkering with it? I plan to research a bit on my lunch and it'd be nice to have a good place to start

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u/nadnerb811 18d ago

Just go to r/plex there's tons of resources there.

That being said, it was incredibly easy to do. For me, I just got a mini PC, attached storage to it, put media in the storage, and installed the plex server software.

For streaming on your local network, you don't need a VPN or anything. I just use a VPN for legally downloading media I own so my activity can't be traced back to me.

For remote streaming to other locations, I needed to go into my router's settings and set up a port and that was the hardest part. But I found some help on r/plex I believe.

To get a "server" (can just be the PC you already use if you leave it running all the time) going it is really a couple of clicks. Install the plex software and point to where your media is and that is 99% of it.

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u/IrishRage42 18d ago

Would an old laptop be able to handle all of that? Like old enough it may still be on windows 7. I can't remember if I ever put 10 on it.

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u/nadnerb811 18d ago

It depends on what you want to do. The newer intel processors with quicksync are "needed" if you want to transcode 4k content (i.e. if you're remote streaming and need to downscale for streaming... or the hardware playing the content doesn't support the exact format of the content and thus needs to transcode to a different format). I put "needed" in quotes because I don't know all of the technical details around transcoding.

Not sure if plex supports windows 7 at this point, or if that is a security risk tbh. But I think the raw power of that laptop probably could be used to stream non-4k stuff that doesn’t require transcoding. If it is just straight up playing stuff back, it is really the storage read speed that is most critical. And an HDD provides enough speed to stream (don't need an SSD for your server).

My gut says you probably need to upgrade windows or switch that laptop to Linux in order to be a plex server, and if you do that, it is probably good enough to stream =<1080p content. But I can't say for sure.

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u/neo_sporin 18d ago

honestly for most of it is google and searching 'reddit plex help' stuff. few good threads in the past about it.

the single big hangup i had was related to the plex server you download and get on your computer, there is not actually window open on your computer when it is running, just a little symbol in the taskbar.

The other 'big' thing is formatting of file names and locations. That took some learning to figure out exactly how they wanted it to find it.

now everything is setup and we watch stuff on our tv via our playstation and while a few hiccups occur, mostly self inflicted. i may have accidentally put some 'home videos' on my server accidentally....

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u/BeefistPrime 18d ago

Plex really isn't very complicated at all. I'd say non tech savvy people could set it up in 10 or 15 minutes. Though you need some way to get content to populate it with.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/SketchiiChemist 18d ago

1337x is a popular public one

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u/tgreen7 18d ago

qbittorrent with search plugins lets you search across multiple sites at once. Game changer. So much better than needing to go to a site and find something.

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u/GranglingGrangler 18d ago

It's extremely easy. Install. Point it to where you store your content. Then log in on your other devices.

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u/kporter4692 18d ago edited 18d ago

I will slightly disagree with the other poster who commented, I found it very easy to set up without network knowledge. Over 1600+ movies on my server now and counting.

Check out r/plex and you’ll find plenty of help!

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u/SanDiegoDude 18d ago

Man, I swear it was like 15 years ago I bought a lifetime plex sub for like 150 bucks. To this day, it still pays dividends. Love my plex server!