Screens from Edovia. It seems to be updated frequently enough and serves our needs.
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I use Screens and have found it really reliable and intuitive.
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Iām using Jump Desktop. For some reason Screens was unable to allow me access from outside my network (even moving countries and changing ISP didnāt help!), but Jump Desktop doesnāt have a problem. I did troubleshoot when I first encountered the issue, but when I needed a solution recently I just went with Jump Desktop.
I used Screens for years until I found Jump Desktop. Like Rosemary, I found that there were situations where Screens (or Screens Connect) could not connect for some reason, but Jump Desktop/Jump Desktop Connect could.
Jump Desktop even has a feature now where it can route audio from your remote Mac, and a recent update made the feature completely built-in to Jump Desktop, so you no longer need a 3rd party audio driver.
I also use Jump Desktop. I tried Screens, but getting the Macās resolution to look decent on my iPad was fiddly.
Jump Desktop just handled it.
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now you guys have me doubting myself, I will have to look into Jump Desktop
Just a quick update, I managed to connect my Philips Hue Meeting Indicator spotlight with my Google calendar through IFTTT. So now when I have a meeting scheduled the light automatically turn on Red and then turns off after the meeting is over. So chuffed with this (silly I know).
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It was a great episode! Thanks to @RosemaryOrchard 
For quite some time I am looking for 34LG ultrawide-flat. My neck strains are my āexcuseā to justify my need for this monitorš .I am not that tall(178cm). Is the height of the monitor enough for someone like me? Is it adjustable?
Iāve just started listening to this episode, and Iām happy to hear that there is some coverage about Plex. I too am interested in setting up a Plex server, Iāll be using my new M1Macmini. Iāll probably be the only user, there a possibility of one other. I donāt expect it to get heavy usage though.
Iāve saved all of the Plex/ripping links from the show notes, but am also interested if you have a blog post that does a start-finish walkthrough of setting up a Plex sever.
Iām mainly interested in watching movies and my pictures, it if thereās a way to get my iTunes music library playable in Plex, that would be great too.
Do you think the lifetime Plexpass is worth the money?
Thanks
@RosemaryOrchard Iād be really interested to see a breakdown of your complete workflow to get DVDs into Plex and which tool does which job 
Iāve got a stack of DVDs and never play them - but Iād love to be able to get them all into a Plex system on a spare Mac Mini that I have so that we can play them elsewhere in the house.
Thereās really not much to Plex, and tons of how-to articles and videos. You basically rip all your movies and TV shows into folders (using their naming/folder structure), point Plex to those folders, and Plex will populate with metadata and artwork. The key is having everything named properly, but if you follow their guide you should have few problems.
MakeMKV and Handbrake are 2 free apps youāll hear a lot of. MakeMKV bypasses encryption and rips the data (does not compress), where Handbrake will handle the compression (it can do the ripping too, if set up correctly). You can set up queues in Handbrake, so you could rip all the discs first, then process with Handbrake 2nd. There are apps that help with naming, but I always did it by hand with no issue.
Tip: Have separate folders for ripping/compressing and only when the file is finished put it in your media folders. Sometimes funny things happen when Plex tries to ID the file but it isnāt finished processing yet.
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Iāll add a note about something that Iāve learned in the past week, as Iām having to re-encode the files I ripped earlier: a Raspberry Pi 4 makes a good Plex Server. It can serve files with no problem.
It doesnāt have the power to transcode well, though. So if youāre using a Pi as a server, be sure you rip your media to a file format that your devices can handle natively (Iām finding that Handbrakeās preset for Roku at 1080p doesnāt work well, but the Roku 720p preset seems to be ok).
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Meaning Plexā or the rippers? This seams to be the biggest problem with getting Plex to work, from what Iāve read.
I mustāve missed that line. Oops. 
Thereās not a whole lot to it! Iām using these tools in this order:
- MakeMKV to rip the DVD to my internal drive.
-
Don Meltonās video transcoding with
transcode-video --quick --no-log [file_path_and_name] - Sonarr to organise TV shows, and Radarr to organise films.
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I think people who have problems getting Plex to work are people who have acquired many media files that they donāt own and just expect it to work without reading the guidelines. MakeMKV will just use Title(1).mkv, and itās a little hard to find, but you can change it in MakeMKV before the rip or in finder after. I grab the Movie(year) from imdb every rip and never had a problem.
You had asked if the lifetime pass is worth it. It depends how deep you want to go. I use many of the features, so Iām happy with it but itās easy to start out to just stream your media locally for free. I use parental controls, DVR+commercial skipping. The Plexamp audio player is awesome! If you were using iTunes to organize your music and itās DRM free, youāll have no trouble pointing Plex to your music folder. Iām happy every time I can hit Skip Intro, since Plex added that feature for pass holders.
That said, the company has its issues. Theyāre extremely tight lipped about any future development. For some things thatās fine, but they should tell users in the forum if theyāre planning on fixing Camera Upload (basically broken for many in iOS). They just released Plex Arcade, which sounds cool, but itās an extra monthly paid sub Plex Pass or not. And itās basically in beta.
Overall, Iām still happy with my investment. Development continues to fix bugs and add new features, though they arenāt always the bugs fixes or features I want.
Thanks 
I guess Iām a bit confused over what Sonarr and Radarr actually do!
Do you bother with chapter markers or anything like that? Does Plex find the correct cover art and descriptions etc?
Sorry for all the questionsā¦ Iām just trying to plan out the same kind of setup and itās nice to ask someone who has done it!
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Sonarr and Radarr rename and organise the files for me. For example, I recently ripped The Brokenwood Mysteries. All I had to do was approximately name them and then add them from inside Sonarr and it automatically put each season in a folder and named them properly. In my case, I also have it download metadata locally (though this isnāt strictly necessary). Then Plex is watching the folders and when it sees the files it will definitely get the series right. Itās perhaps a little less important in this case than something like House of Cards where thereās an older British version and getting the wrong series could be annoying. Sonarr and Radarr also allow you to have want lists, easily upgrade media (I have lots of older rips that I aggressively re-encoded and the quality is rubbish), and can generate a calendar of when things become should be released, as well as making recommendations for you based on whatās in your library.
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DVR a commercial skipping? Why would there be commercials in ripped videos?