this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2025
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Background: I've been writing a new media server like Jellyfin or Plex, and I'm thinking about releasing it as an OSS project. It's working really well for me already, so I've started polishing up the install process, writing getting started docs, stuff like that.

I'm interested in how other folks have set up their media libraries. Especially the technical details around how files are encoded and organized.

My media library currently has about 1,100 movies and just shy of 200 TV shows. I've encoded everything as high quality AV1 video with Opus audio, in a WebM container. Subtitles and chapters are in a separate WebVTT file alongside the video. The whole thing is currently about 9TB. With few exceptions, I sourced everything directly from Blu-ray or DVD using MakeMKV. It's organized pretty close to how Jellyfin wants it.

What about you?

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[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 6 points 23 hours ago

~70TB, ~2500 movies, and ~250 series with , varying quality, I'm still trying to replace lower quality stuff with better versions

[–] keyez@lemmy.world 4 points 23 hours ago

My library is almost cracking 18TB. Backing up all documents, pictures, videos and profile/settings dumps for apps and laptops. Also have plenty of moving Linux ISOs, 1359 longer isos and 269 smaller iso series.

[–] ISolox@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

My Linux ISO collection take up around 12TB, 268 of smaller ISOs, and 751 big boi ISOs.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 1 points 19 hours ago

150 shows, 4000 movies. 25k songs. Tightly curated, playlists, mostly 1080p with truly important stuff 4k.

[–] moseschrute@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago
[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Nowhere near as big as yours. I haven't bothered checking, but probably something like 100 movies and about the same number of TV shows (only a handful of series). It consists pretty much only of what I've ripped from physical media, plus a handful of things my SO uploaded. Total storage is about 2TB, and mostly DVDs w/ a handful of Blurays. Rips are full quality, and mostly ripped from MakeMKV, with a handful ripped w/ Handbrake.

We don't watch a ton, but I do order new stuff periodically, so it slowly grows (most recent addition is Adventure Time).

[–] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

About 18 TB.

[–] fountainpenink@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Mine is sitting around 10TB, mostly podcasts and a few videos like graduations.

[–] Dumbkid@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

650 shows, 1400 movies, 1450 anime. Take up like 130TB or something

[–] remon@ani.social 3 points 1 day ago

1450 anime

Since you listed them separately from shows does the count also include anime movies?

Still, if I add up both my shows and movie I'm at 1447. Damn you!

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Why start anew instead of forking or contributing to Jellyfin?

[–] SpookyMulder@lemmy.4d2.org 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The short answer is because it's a fun project, and I wanted to see if I had it in me to make exactly the media server I want.

The longer answer is that I wanted something dramatically and fundamentally different from what either Jellyfin or Plex have to offer.

  • Can run without breaking a sweat on junk/old/cheap hardware like a Raspberry Pi or old laptop.
  • Can be safely Internet-facing -- no anonymous access, and no web-based admin features or API.
  • Hyper-lean and minimal. All-in, I wanted something on the order of 1MB for client app, server, all dependencies, everything.

I don't see either of those goals happening with a contribution or fork, because achieving them would require some dramatic feature deprecation.

[–] dutchkimble@lemy.lol 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Does it not need to transcode then if it runs on cheap hardware?

[–] SpookyMulder@lemmy.4d2.org 1 points 3 hours ago

Yep, transcoding is the main reason I had to buy any new hardware when getting my library going with Jellyfin.

For me, the main draw of Jellyfin wasn't the transcoding. It was being able to browse and stream my library from anywhere. My partner and I would alternate weekends hanging out at each other's places, and we just wanted access to the library from wherever we were and whatever device we were using.

I was willing to put up with weeks of encoding to get everything into a web-compatible format. But that's just me and I know it's not for everyone. I'm curious where the palatibility for that is on the spectrum more broadly.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago

All-in, I wanted something on the order of 1MB for client app, server, all dependencies, everything.

Okay that's gotta be radically different!

[–] LilB0kChoy@midwest.social 8 points 1 day ago

2.71Tb/515 series for TV, 6.28Tb/1176 titles in Movies.

Almost everything in MKV because that's what I prefer.

I use Plex so it's organized according to their requirements.

Everything is stored with a redundant backup on a Synology NAS with 6/9 HDD bays filled, totaling 48Tb in total storage space.

I run two servers (one on the Synology, one on a NUC-type Asus box) along with all my other systems.

Oh, and I have dual antenna tuners connected as well for live TV, DVR and playback.

[–] brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

13200 movies 1200 shows

Over a 1/4 PB of data.

[–] jjlinux@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

OK Netflix, you don't count 🤣

[–] brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Haha. Thanks. I really didn't want to pay Netflix or any other streaming service. But it might have been cheaper than hdds and electricity.

This is something I've been building for over 10 years at this point. I've gone through so many iterations of servers and storage architecture. I've lost my entire TV and movie library multiple times. (I don't back it up because a. It's expensive at this scale and b. this data is easy to rebuild over time.)

It's been a part of learning about hosting and data management that I've brought to/from my work.

[–] jjlinux@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

I'm in a similar place with books and comics. Of course, nowhere near the Jupiter size collection of media you have, but easily 2.5TB+ of just books and comics.

My wife, my kids and I are all avid readers, so we are always sharing some book or comic arc. We're all rerunning all of Lobo's arcs, it was Deadpool a couple of weeks ago (that should tell you all anyone needs to know about our family 😜)

[–] tuckerm@feddit.online 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Sometimes I hear about other people's storage setups and I think, "that is overkill, no one really needs that." According to this thread, I am quite mistaken about that. 😳

I have 2,057 songs, taking up a measly 51 GB, on a Funkwhale server. No movies or TV shows.

That should get a little larger soon. I have about 100 vinyl records that I want to make digital rips of.

[–] rezifon@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I have single movies that are larger than your entire song library.

[–] borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

The Lawrence of Arabia 4K remux is so fucking crispy.

[–] tuckerm@feddit.online 4 points 1 day ago

I'm kind of surprised that it's only 51 GB. They're all FLAC files ripped from CDs -- I was expecting like 300 GB at least.

So apparently this 1TB SSD is going to last me a while. :P

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 2 days ago

12.8TB. Mostly uncompressed rips from Blu-rays, some DVDs, some from iTunes Store. Some from the high seas, but not in a long time because the market solved that problem with streaming.

[–] batmaniam@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Nice try FBI Agent.

[–] SirMaple__@lemmy.ca 39 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (14 children)

My Jellyfin library:

1,152 - Movies

552 - Shows

37, 062 - Episodes

491 - Albums

6,558 - Songs

362 - Music Videos

14 - Concert Films

Files are a mix of 1080p and 4K. 264 and 265. Standard and REMUX.

Total space used is currently 149.90TiB

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[–] Greg@lemmy.ca 31 points 2 days ago

Nice try Universal Studios!

[–] Lemmyrick@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 days ago

4TB mostly TV, then movies, then a distant third is music. Novice at all, tried remuxing a few things that didn't work. Everything works on jellyfin android and PC. Android TV jellyfin is frustrating, some things don't play so well

[–] culpable@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

I use Tdarr to transcode everything in VP9 (can play in a browser and doesn't need transcoding from Jellyfin).

Audio is AAC 2 channel (I keep the original audio track and add the new AAC). Subs are in SRT.

Everything is made for play from a browser without issue. I use Infuse on my Apple TV and ether never the web player but when my family watch something form Jellyfin wathever the device no trancode needed.

TV Shows : 172 | Movies : 394 | 7.2 Tib

Actually, not all files are transcoded the process is very slow. All files are stored on my NAS (Synology DS918+) with SHR-1 (hybrid RAID with 1 drive fault).

I use Janitorr, he removes old files when I run low on space. This is why my library is not big.

Feel free to ask if you have questions.

Sorry for my English.

[–] dethmetaljeff@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Could you share your plugin setup/flow? I'd like to have tdarr do exactly what you have it doing.

[–] alexcleac@szmer.info 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Wow, thanks for suggestion of Tdarr — that project indeed looks very nice. What is. your experience using it? Any quirks?

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[–] SpookyMulder@lemmy.4d2.org 2 points 2 days ago

Playing files directly in the browser and avoiding the need for transcoding is exactly what the system I've built is designed around, so I get the appeal!

[–] HiTekRedNek@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

I tried tdarr, but have issues using more than one node. I may just wind up installing docker on my more powerful desktop specifically for tdarr, instead of on the proxmox server I have without a real gpu. (It's a Xeon Supermicro board with their onboard VGA)

[–] HiTekRedNek@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

cries in broke

I have 4x3TiB drives in a currently-degraded RAIDZ1 due to a hard drive failure. I have a replacement coming, and my fingers are crossed that I don't lose another drive beforehand.

[–] remon@ani.social 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

1911 TV shows (65728 episodes)

2294 Movies

5051 Albums (66644 songs)

65.37 TB total.

[–] sonalder@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago

Movies 1127 TV Shows 96

[–] thatradomguy@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

My ~~porn~~ media library is roughly ~500GB right now.

[–] ThePantser@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Emby Server

382 Shows

30130 Episodes

1703 Movies

24740 Music Albums

Most are downloaded with *arr apps and are random quality. I shoot for 1080 for shows and movies but for the really good stuff that I personally like I will get the 4K version.

[–] makeshiftreaper@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Just started with YAMS using Plex 2 months ago:

Movies: 241 TV Shows: 30

About 3.5 TB on an 8 TB drive

[–] DrunkAnRoot@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

4 direct tv boxes worth

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 days ago
[–] lemmylommy@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (5 children)

~2000 movies ~200 tv shows

Many English only, many German and English, some German only. A few in different languages, if it’s the original language.

~50TB

Mostly 1080p h264. Lately, due to free space running out, I have started prioritizing and redownloading accordingly. Low bitrate h265 1080p for less important stuff, 4K h265 for important things and normal bitrate h264/265 (preferably the latter) 1080p for everything else.

[–] zerodawn@leaf.dance 1 points 23 hours ago

Save yourself time on downloading and look into tdarr

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