Your Personal Streaming Service!
Odds are, you are currently subscribed to at least one streaming service. Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, Apple TV, and Hulu are all convenient to use with a lot of content, but you have to pay a monthly subscription fee to whichever ones you want to be able to access content from. If you subscribe to multiple services, your costs per month can easily become pretty hefty.
A great way to beat back some of that expense while actually improving the overall experience is to build a Home Media Server to store digital copies of content that you own on physical media and be able to access it whenever you want just like with the streaming services. Yes, there are some costs associated with getting started, but it is definitely something you can build as you go and add to over time. Let’s take a look at what you might need to get started.
Required Hardware
You need a few things for a starting point: Some sort of computer, at least one decent-sized hard drive to store content on, a device to play the content back on, and physical media to source your content from. Generally, the computer probably doesn’t need to be terribly powerful so an old one you aren’t currently using any more might be just the base starting point you need. For a hard drive, you’re going to need a decent amount of space overall, but there are ways to optimize and be efficient. Just about any device with a screen will work for playback – mobile phone, tablet, computer, television, etc.
For the computer, it’s mostly just going to be providing access to the media files, so things like loads of memory or a powerful CPU typically aren’t necessary. The one exception to this rule to be aware of has to do with what is known as transcoding. If the video is too high of quality for your device to play directly or the audio isn’t compatible with the device, the computer can re-write the information on the fly. If you’re trying to watch full quality 4K content on an older television that only supports ‘regular’ HD (720), re-writing that data is going to need a high powered CPU to do it on the fly.
As long as we’re on the topic of the quality of the source file, higher quality video takes up more space on disk. You can accomplish two things at once if you have very high quality content that you need to play on lower resolution devices by transcoding the content ahead of time with a program like Handbrake. You’ll save space on disc AND you can reduce the resolution if you need to.
The playback devices mostly function on their own, but televisions can also take advantage of a streaming device (Apple TV, Amazon Fire Stick, Google Chromecast, etc.). Even if you have a Smart TV that can run applications directly, external streaming devices are often better performing and hold up better with consistent software updates.
For content, any DVD or BluRay source material is completely fine to use whether it be television series, movies, concert footage, or whatever. And since a lot of people don’t want to keep their discs after watching things a few times, these can be found on the second-hand market for decent prices. Facebook Marketplace and local Goodwill stores are places to find discs locally while eBay is a decent source if you’re ok having it sent to you. There are two very important things to keep in mind with media (discs): You will need an appropriate DVD drive in your computer that can read whatever discs you’re buying (DVD vs. BluRay vs. UHD BluRay) and reading a disc in a computer to make a copy has higher “quality” requirements than just putting the disc into a player to watch. In other words, discs that seem to play just fine in a player may not be able to be copied via computer due to an error that the players are purposefully designed to be able to work around.
NOTE: As of this writing, UHD BluRay drives are next to impossible to find new any more at a price one is actually willing to pay. Even the “regular” BluRay drives are dwindling in supply and increasing in price. If you’re able to find a UHD drive, don’t use it to rip content from DVD or BluRay as you’ll end up at some point with a dead drive and no way to replace it while finding that you have new UHD discs that you want to rip.
Required Software
There are three basic pieces of software that will be required: A “client” that accesses content and plays it back, a “server” that organizes the content and provides access to the clients, and copy software to duplicate the content from optical disc to hard disk. This last piece is commonly referred to as “ripping” and there are a variety of different pieces of software out there that can do it.
Server and client software will need to be intended to work together. Plex and Emby are options that offer non-paid and paid versions and provide both server and client pieces that work together. Jellyfin is an open source option that has a server and a client as well, but there are other clients that work just fine with it, too. And then there are client software options like Infuse that work with a number of different server options. Finding the right combination for you might take some time, so consider starting with either Jellyfin or one of the non-paid variants from Plex or Emby until you get a better understanding of your actual needs.
There are a lot of different options for ripping software, but I personally like MakeMKV. While it will forever be in Beta, and it’s free to use as long as it remains in Beta, I did purchase a key for it to support the developer as it’s a really great product. It makes a perfect one-for-one copy of what’s on the disc whether that be DVD, BluRay, or UHD BluRay. I also have used Handbrake quite a bit over the years to reduce file sizes on disk. Many of the BluRay movies that I own were originally passed through Handbrake specifically to reduce the size (I was able to get Avatar down to around 8GB from an original size of over 40GB), but some of these I have re-ripped back to their original size and 100% original quality as my viewing environment has improved over time (and I have added more disk space).
Do You Own It?
There are a number of places that many people have “bought” (or could “buy”) TV Shows and Movies digitally. Amazon and Apple are two companies that will happily “sell” you a movie that you don’t ever actually own. Here’s an example: Search Amazon for a movie like Toy Story 5. Look at the options offered via Prime Video. There will be an option to “rent” it and an option to “buy” it. Be warned that you are not actually buying the movie but are actually buying a license to view it as many times as you want until such time as Amazon revokes your right to do so. That might be a very long time, or it might not. Amazon has signed a contract with Disney that allows them to offer viewing of that movie for years to come. But, that contract might not get renewed and that could mean that you could lose viewing access to it.
When you buy a disc, you own it. Watch it whenever you want. No one will ever show up at your door and require you to hand over the disc and never be able to watch it again. Any content that you actually own can be stored on your local media server legally and you can access and watch it any time you want.
How Much Disk Space do I Need?
Here is some data related to my content to help you plan for disk space.
DVD Movies: 750MB and up, maxing out around 4.5GB for a whole disc worth of content including special features
DVD Television Shows: Expect around 25GB per season if there are about 20-25 episodes
BluRay Movies as much as about 45GB for longer movies like Avatar
BluRay Television Shows: Expect around 65GB per season if there are about 20-25 episodes
Transcoded BluRay Movies: 600MB and up (Avatar comes in around 8GB)
UHD BluRay Movies can peak at 90GB – 100GB (The Dark Knight Rises is about 88GB)
DVD content is “small enough” that transcoding really shouldn’t be necessary. Additionally, the impact to visual quality could be significant since you’re already starting from a lower resolution to begin with. Transcoding BluRay content can save about three quarters of the space of the original content without any real noticeable loss of visual quality (at least on par with what you get from streaming). There is no point to transcoding UHD content… If you simply don’t have the space, play the UHD in a player and store the BluRay version on your media server.
On my server, the entire series of Friends takes about 640GB for the BluRay version. M.A.S.H. uses about 140GB for the DVD version. My transcoded copy of the BluRay version of Finding Dory is about 650MB while the unmodified Cars 3 BluRay file is about 4.25GB. You can absolutely leverage a product like Handbrake to reduce the file size without giving up “too much” quality while you’re getting started and re-rip later to the full quality as you add more disk space.
How do I Watch Everything?
Earlier, I mentioned that you’ll need to use a device that is able to install and run software that can work with the server side. You can go very bare-bones and use something like VLC or a similar player program directly accessing the files. It’s typically much easier and more flexible to use a client / server combination as you often have more options available including remotely accessing content.
If you opted for Jellyfin, Emby, or Plex for the server side, they each have clients designed to work specifically with them or you can use a more general client option like Infuse if you are running everything on Apple devices.
Wrapping Up
Yes, this is a “short” post. There are plenty of options and variables to consider and trying to cover everything here would simply be overwhelming. Instead, I opted to discuss only the general idea of a media server with the very high-level basic things to be thinking about. I would suggest your next step to be learning about the most common options out there – Jellyfin, Plex, and Emby.
Plex is VERY commonly talked about but Jellyfin actually has the much larger overall penetration of home server setups. Emby is pretty far down in terms of adoption level (it may not even be the third most-common product), but it has many good features. Jellyfin holds the top spot mostly due to being completely “free” (no license, no paywall, etc.) and being a very flexible / configurable option. Plex and Emby have features that don’t require licensing, but most of the useful stuff does need a license.
Be sure to watch for me comparison post discussing some of the functional differences among these three platforms. Until then, take a look for yourself: