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I feel like you're intentionally missing the point. Your "dump all your videos into a big directory and Ctrl-F the Apache directory index" workflow will necessarily limit you to watching on devices that can navigate to arbitrary URLs and play videos from them. This will, in most cases, limit you to a computer (built-in browsers in "smart" devices, be they TVs, consoles, or purpose-built streaming boxes, will often play videos only grudgingly), and I don't know about you, but I don't want to sit and watch TV episodes or an entire movie at my computer desk with its relatively tiny monitor and relatively shitty speakers. I want to watch them on my big TV with the fancy sound system in the living room. So what would you suggest for this use case? Connect my computer to the TV? OK, great, but the video card won't output surround sound over HDMI, so now I have to futz with a bunch of other connections if I want more than just stereo sound. And once that that's sorted, how am I supposed to pause the movie when I have to get up to piss, because the TV remote can't control my computer? > Apache will stream your stupid 75GB BluRay files without any need to re-encode, so long as the client device can decode it, even across a 10kbit connection, so you go ahead and enjoy your wasted processor cycles and higher electric bill. Again, missing the point. Yes, Apache will happily squirt those bytes at whatever requests them, but that will not produce an enjoyable user experience (i.e., one where I can WATCH THE FUCKING MOVIE) over a sufficiently slow connection, and I'm not going to re-encode every file I have at a low bitrate on the off chance I want to watch it away from home. > Meanwhile, whatever thing you bought will be abandonware in less than 2 years. And chances are about equal your thing is just running a crappy wrapper and gui for Apache anyway. My Apple TV HD in my bedroom is still receiving updates seven years after it was originally released. The Apple TV 4K in the living room is still receiving updates five years after it was originally released. I run Plex to stream my local media to local (and my own remote) clients, and it is still actively maintained after 14 years--and if if Plex, Inc. should go under, there are plenty of alternatives that won't necessitate me regressing back to a computer connected to the TV. |