Another Plex server

A while back I replaced my Plex server. Funny thing is that a family member also needed a Plex server replaced. I had actually begun working on hers, then some major things happened, I got sidetracked, and only recently went back to it.

Well, that didn't go well. The device was toast. I need to replace it. And spending another bit of funds for another computer didn't sound enticing. Then it hit me. I was experimenting with a Raspberry Pi as a streaming device. But what about as a Plex server?

I did some digging, and found that, sure enough, people have run Plex on Raspberry Pi. So, I had my second project to do.

I found instructions on setting up Plex on a Raspberry Pi running Raspberry Pi OS (formerly known as Raspbian). It's based on Debian Linux, and works pretty well. The instructions, however, didn't.

The other thing is that all sources I found indicated I should run Plex on a 4 GB device. Mine was a 2 GB device. So I ordered a 4 GB device. It came in, but wouldn't run. So back it went.

Now, I have to say that CanaKit, from whom I bought the Raspberry Pi, made the return and replacement really easy. I was not happy about having to replace it, but the actual replacement was easy, and I give them credit for making it right and doing it quickly.

So, installing Plex on the Raspberry Pi was quite aggravating. The instructions provided by several different sources all led to errors. And I blame myself for that. Well, them too.

It's been years, many many years, since I used Linux command line. I'm obviously forgetting something very basic about it, because the instructions simply don't work as is. They're assuming I'm doing something that I'm obviously not. Either they are assuming something they shouldn't assume, or I'm overlooking something basic that I shouldn't overlook. Maybe both.

Anyway, I decided to simplify the process. I installed Ubuntu Linux on the 4 GB Raspberry Pi. It does fine. And I was able to install Plex with little issue. So, I set it up, added some content to a USB flash drive, and whaddaya know? I had a Plex server running on a Raspberry Pi.

Now the plan is to change things over from my Plex account to hers, then add an external drive to the Raspberry Pi. The final step is to rebuild her library. I have a list of most of the content she owns. I have many of those same movies, shorts, and TV shows myself, so those will be easy to copy from mine to hers. She owns her own copy of them, so I can simply save some time by using a copy of mine. The other content, I'll have to burn from DVD or something, and add them to her library.

I've been running it for a couple of days now with some content, and it seems to work well. I'll run it for a week or two, just to make sure, but if all goes well, I'll have a working Plex server that costs a lot less than what I spent a few months ago.

I wish I had done this then. I would have saved a lot of money. A lot of money.

Now, I can't say with certainty that this will be a good, viable alternative long term. But things are looking well so far. This may be one of the best additions to my ... well, a family member's ... Streaming Life.

NBC leaving Hulu? Maybe.

There is a report that NBCUniversal will be pulling at least some of its content from Hulu this fall. Why would they do that? Well, there is that little streaming service that NBCU owns called Peacock. At least, that's the word from The Hollywood Reporter.

Starting this fall, new episodes of NBCU shows like Saturday Night Live, The Voice and American Auto will no longer be available to stream on Hulu the day after they air. Hulu will still have access to other NBCU shows like Law & Order: SVU, This Is Us, The Mindy Project, 30 Rock, Parenthood, Friday Night Lights and Will & Grace.

So, if the report is accurate, only some content is leaving. At least, initially. And it's stuff I don't watch anyway, so it really won't impact me, at least at first. But it will impact others.

I'm really not surprised to see this, but I understand why NBC hasn't pulled its content yet, and isn't pulling everything.

Hulu was originally a joint project by NBC, ABC, and Fox. They were separate companies then, and each owned a third of Hulu. Now, Disney owns both ABC and Fox, leaving NBC as a minority owner.

I've always liked Hulu. Well, kinda. When it started, it was a free service only available via a Web browser. They launched a pay service called Hulu Plus, and the library was split across the two services. If a show was on Hulu, it wasn't on Hulu Plus. And if a show was on Hulu Plus, it wasn't on Hulu.

After a while, that stopped being the case and Hulu Plus was rebranded as simply Hulu. Oh, and the free part of the free Web service went away. The entire service became a pay service.

They added live TV a few years ago, bringing back the "plus" name somewhat, calling the service Hulu+Live TV.

As I said, I'm not surprised by the move, and I really would rather they not do that, but I understand they want to promote their own service, and I'm glad they're not taking everything. And, it looks like they'll still have older content available.

I new the day was coming, and while the day is still in the future, I now know approximately when it will happen. This change is my Streaming Life won't be welcome, but I'll live.

Should you drop cable?

I've been streaming since ... well, I was initially going to say 2010, but I actually did some streaming before then. Streaming didn't become my primary way of watching TV until 2010 though. I mention this for a couple of reasons.

One reason is that you know that I'm not new to streaming. I've been doing it for a while. Sure, others have been streaming longer, but I have been at it a while.

The other reason is that you know that if I've been doing it this long, it's because I think it's the way to do it. I dropped cable and never looked back. (Okay, that's not true, but it kinda is true. It's complicated.)

What about someone who has cable today? Should they drop cable? And the answer is ... maybe. Or maybe not. It depends.

Now that's much of an answer is it? Well, it might not be the answer you want, but it's the answer that is true. What is the better way for me may not be the better way for you.

Thing thing is, streaming isn't perfect. Many of the things you don't like about cable are true about streaming as well, just to a lesser degree. But is that degree worth the change? Again, that depends.

If you want to save money, and that alone is your goal, then yes, drop cable. But that doesn't mean you need to start streaming. You can save money by not streaming. Drop cable and don't start streaming, and you save some money. But it doesn't get you what you want. You have to make some decisions, and some decisions are hard.

Some people simply avoid hard decisions. What they don't realize is that not making a decision is a decision. Maintaining the status quo is a choice. You don't have to do any math, you don't have to learn anything new, you can just sit and do nothing. Except pay high cable bills. But that's because you chose to continue to pay high cable bills. You did make a choice.

But is sticking with cable, and high cable bills a bad choice? Maybe not. Sure, my choice was to drop cable and lower my bills, but that was because I determined that the changes would be worthwhile to me in the end. And they were.

Someone else may not find it worth it. And if I were to say they were wrong, well I'd be wrong. I can't say what is right for them. What I can do is lay out as much information as possible so they have enough information to make an informed decision. But their decision is their decision.

Cable has one advantage over streaming for many people. They grew up with cable and understand it. I was completely unfamiliar with streaming when it first started, but picked up after a while. I found it fascinating, but wasn't about to change how I watched TV unless there was a benefit in cost. It took a couple of years of serious research, advances in technology, and wider streaming support before it became a better deal insofar as bottom line cost was involved.

However, what was the deciding factor, the real factor, for me isn't necessarily the factor for someone else. Some may think that learning a new way of using their TV isn't good enough to offset the savings from cable. And if it's not worth it to them, it's not worth it to them.

But it's worth it to me. That's why I have a Streaming Life, and I enjoy it. But if others don't, as long as they enjoy how they watch TV, that's okay too.

Russia Today

Russia Today is the topic. No, I'm not talking about the country. I'm talking about the news service. I'm not about to debate how much it is controlled by the Russian government. That's not the point. The point is I don't like censorship.

I'm not jumping on the "ban everything Russian" bandwagon because I learned a long time ago that the people driving the bandwagon may not be going where you want to end up.

Just so we're clear, I am not about to defend anything that the Russian government is doing now. So if you want to go down the path of saying that not loudly and consistently condemning them is the same as supporting them, then I'm about to say that anyone who says that needs to grow the heck up. Read some history. Read it from all sides. The more you read and hear the more you know.

I read the news from the USA every day. I read it from a variety of sources. There are news services that are definitely left wing. There are news services that are definitely right wing. I've yet to find one that's truth wing, so I have to put them all together and figure out what's really going on, rather than what spin they're trying.

RT (Russian Today) is one source that I've gone to on occasion over the years. I've always read it with a skeptical eye ... but I was able to read it. Wednesday was different.

Wednesday, the RT.com Website was taken down. It wasn't a Web host, apparently. Reading reports, it looks like hackers might have done it in. But it wasn't completely hackers that took RT off some platforms.

Roku, Apple, Google, and despite reports otherwise, Amazon have removed the RT app from their streaming platforms. A lot of people applaud that. I don't, but not because I support Russia (I don't). It's because I oppose censorship.

In the 1980s, I used to read news from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Not because I thought the USSR was something I admired. Quite the contrary. I wanted to know what they were saying about things. How they looked at things.

In the 1970s, I would occasionally listen to Radio Moscow English language broadcasts out of Cuba. Not because I liked the USSR or Cuba. I didn't. I listened to find out what they thought and said.

Today, I want to read and watch RT news. Not because I support Russia. I don't. I want to know what they think and say. I like being informed. And I don't like that Roku and others have censored RT. I really don't like censorship. You know, the thing Russia is famous for.

Pirates gonna pirate

I haven't talked about piracy very much. I didn't realize that. If you had asked me, I'd have said, "How did you get my number?" But if I answered you, I would have said that I had talked about piracy a few times, but I didn't go overboard. That's true, but I actually thought I had talked about it more than I did.

Searching the Website, I only found four times I talked about piracy. One of those was a follow up on an earlier post, so they could be considered one, meaning only three different topics were brought up that even touched on piracy.

One (well, two) were actually about IPTV, which is pretty much piracy services. One was about my not being a fan of Amazon Fire TV devices (I've since developed a better feeling about Fire TV Stick). One was about Roku's change to private/non-certified/beta apps, some of which were for piracy.

I am very opposed to piracy. Some people don't have an issue with it, but I do. I have a huge issue with it. I strongly believe that one is entitled to the fruits of his labors. And movies, TV shows, and the like, are the results of a lot of work by people who created and produced the content. They are entitled to benefit from that, and no one has the right to benefit without their permission.

It does not matter how much a person or company has. If they own the right to something, they own the right to that thing.

Isn't J. K. Rowling entitled to benefit from sales from her books and associated spinoffs? Yes she is. It doesn't matter how much she's made. Nobody should benefit from someone else's work without their permission.

It's that permission, I suppose, that people use as a loophole to justify their piracy. The fact that Warner Bros. has a lot of money does not make it okay to pirate Harry Potter films. Warner Bros. reached an agreement with J. K. Rowling to make the films based on her books, so WB is making money from her work, but with her permission. She's okay with it. They have a contract. Everything's fine.

A video pirate, however, is simply a thief. There's no other way to say it. Video pirates are thieves. And it amazes me that people with give them money to watch their IPTV services. I suppose they'd also buy stolen merchandise out of the trunk of a car. Thieves gonna thieve. Enablers gonna enable.

No one is entitled to someone else's property, whether physical or intellectual. I don't understand why anyone would think otherwise. This isn't a Streaming Life thing. It's a life thing.

Streaming the State of the Union address

Tonight is the State of the Union address. If you're a streamer, and you want to watch it, you have lots of options. The address is at 9:00 PM ET.

Antenna (Free)

If you have an antenna, you can watch the State of the Union address from one of the broadcast networks.

• ABC
• CBS
• Fox
• NBC
• PBS

Peacock ($5/month)

Coverage from NBC is available, since Peacock and NBC are owned by NBC/Universal

Sling TV ($35 Orange) ($35/Blue) ($50 Orange + Blue)

A variety of networks carried by Sling TV will offer the address, on either the Orange, Blue, or Orange+Blue package.

• CNBC (Blue+News Extra package) (+6/month)
• CNN (Orange, Blue)
• Fox News (Blue)
• MSNBC (Blue)

Vidgo ($55/month)

• ABC
• Fox
• Fox News
• MSNBC

YouTube TV ($65/month)

• ABC
• CBS
• Fox
• NBC
• PBS
• CNBC
• CNN
• Fox News
• MSNBC
• Telemundo
• Univision

Fubo ($65/month)

• ABC
• CBS
• Fox
• NBC
• CNBC
• Fox News
• MSNBC
• Telemundo
• Univision

Hulu+Live TV ($70/month)

• ABC
• CBS
• Fox
• NBC
• CNBC
• CNN
• Fox News
• MSNBC
• Telemundo

DirecTV Stream ($70/month)

• ABC
• CBS
• Fox
• NBC
• CNBC 
• CNN
• CSPAN
• Fox News
• MSNBC
• Telemundo
• Univision

Finally a standalone sports package, but is it enough?

For many sports fans that stream, a standalone sports package -- one that doesn't require other non-sports packages -- would be wonderful thing. Today, if you want to stream ESPN, you have to have a subscription to a service such as Sling TV, YouTube TV, Vidgo, Fubo, or DirecTV Stream. The cheapest of those includes a lot of non-sports. In fact, all of those simply streaming cable-like packages. The difference is that you use the Internet to get them, and subscriptions are one month at a time, not years at a time.

You can get packages without sports, the most popular of those are Philo and Frndly.TV, but you can't get one that's only sports. Fubo started as a mostly-soccer channel. Fubo, futbol. See? But it became simply another streaming-cable package. Well, mostly. It's still pretty sports heavy, and not just soccer.

Over the last few year, many of these live-streaming/streaming-cable packages dropped the regional sports networks. Fox Sports Net channels disappeared from the live streaming services after Fox sold them. They finally became Bally Sports networks. And guess who is launching a steaming sports package? Bally.

In a meeting recently, Chris Ripley, the CEO of Sinclair, which owns Bally Sports, said they would offer live streaming packages this year.

Our current expectations are for the launch of streaming services with content currently available on our RSNs for 5 Bally Sports RSNs with MLB teams in the first half of 2022. We expect to launch our remaining Bally Sports RSNs in the second half of the year, as well as features only subscription.

This isn't what I particularly want, as my primary interest is college football, which currently means ESPN. But, it's a start. And it does give lots of sports fans an option they didn't have before.

Sinclair, to my understanding, hasn't been thrilled with how their purchase of the Fox regional sports networks has worked out. I don't know how this will work out. But if it is a success, and it entices other companies to offer standalone sports packages that include major sports, this would be what sports fans want.

If that does come, I certainly don't want these smaller audience packages to go away. I don't want the lesser watched sports offerings to go away. The content you find on the regional sports networks do not have widespread audiences. Regional is a part of the name for a reason. And the lesser watched sports, such as what you find on ESPN+ has an audience. I don't want that to go away. I want ESPN to expand its coverage, not necessarily into ESPN+ -- how it happens isn't as important as that it happens.

This year's launch by Bally is a good thing. I hope it succeeds. That would be good news for many sports fans. I would really like to have options for standalone sports packages in my Streaming Life.