Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

For me, that would have been over 15 years ago. Even my NAS from 2014 was pushing 16T or so.

I've had to start trimming things, but I can't get rid of hard-to-finds. It's mostly new shows, I'll only keep recent seasons.

I can't lose shows like Captain Star or Duckman, but I probably don't need every season of Westworld.

Unsure if your asking seriously (if not, whooosh to me), but it’s an open source alternative to Plex.

Plex is a media server that you run to host your TV shows and movies. Think of a self-hosted Netflix.

What you're describing is something I've been on the lookout for, still looking!

Have you seen the recent remakes of disney Films?

Let's just say, they won't become timeless classics like the original animated movies.

A slick interface with nice title cards and pictures, feels like your own personal streaming service with no drawback

The files are still stored on a NAS.

But, Jellyfin/Plex has the advantage you get a nice pretty "app" that works on your TV/Roku/AndroidTV/etc. It handles transcoding if needed, keeps track of what you have watched, and lets you know when new things pop up.

It keeps track of which files you've played (e.g. to automatically pick the next episode in a series), it automatically downloads metadata and cover art so you have a nice browsing interface, it manages multiple profiles so that e.g. you can limit your kids' access to only G and TV-Y or filter out genres a user doesn't like, it lets you set parental controls to limit the amount of time watched in a day (or disable it at certain times of day), etc.

Jellyfin and plex are basically just GUIs to make playing videos from your NAS feel like you're using a streaming service. They do a bunch more stuff, but in general that's what they're for.

Like, you don't need a GUI for Linux, but it can certainly make the experience better.

I use both plex and jellyfin and my files are on a nas. Previously truenas but now synology. I just mount my collection over smb to my Intel nuc with quick sync so that Plex/jellyfin can provide me and my friends a slick UI as well as transcoding (can store stuff in hevc, flac, 5.1 or 7.1 dts hd ma and not worry about codec support on each device), a nice web player with subtitles /audio track selection, and nice apps on every device to access the collection.

But yeah NAS and jellyfin aren't mutually exclusive, many people use them together.

Jellyfin/Plex/Emby turn your media collection into your own personal Netflix. They have apps for multiple platforms, you can setup user access controls, parental controls based off age ratings, track progress through shows and movies, search and organize based off genre and tags, and much more. Also, they can handle on the fly transcoding of the media, so if a device doesn't support a specific codec or container it can be converted into another, or if the user is on a poor Internet connection which can't handle a 4K video, it can downgrade the quality to make it easier to stream on the poor connection.

Overall, they just provide a better experience when consuming media.

What about that encrypted from file named jdhshjxjjxjd

How does one get a NAS without spending an arm and leg these days? I started pirating because I was broke, I don’t have triple digits to spend on hardware.

An old PC with a bunch of hard drives (they shouldn't be NAS drives necessarily) + TrueNas. The main cost will be the hard drives which is about 20$/TB

You can even start with an old laptop and external drives. Plenty of people shuck them anyway, so you're not exactly overpaying. They'll just be a bit slow. But if you're mostly planning on streaming video that doesn't matter too much.

If you do have a little to spend, you can do a 'naskiller' build. Just search for it and pick one. Basically some people put together lists of cheap, reliable used hardware you can get to build a pretty great nas, with different flavors. 'Quiet' 'fast' 'compact'. I built one and went all out. I think it was about 600 bucks without the drives. Build up from there.

Why not use the best of both worlds? https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/clients/kodi/

I use Kodi on my HTPC and the Jellyfin client on my phone and PC.