We’ve had two internet outages in the past week, one for most of Tuesday, the second for 36 hours from 2 a.m. Saturday to 2 p.m. Sunday.
During the Tuesday outage, I realized (once again) that Plex, home media server software that allows you to stream media over your home network, doesn’t do that if there isn’t an active internet connection. Having home media server software that doesn’t work as a home media server in a situation where you’re quite likely to want to use it because you can’t stream from external sources is more than a little frustrating, and finally pushed me over the edge into looking into alternatives.
So, I started getting Jellyfin set up as my media server, and when the internet went out again, it quite happily and easily let us watch a couple movies over the weekend. I’m still figuring out some of the ins and outs (Jellyfin doesn’t have its own native macOS or tvOS app, and the Infuse app that I’m using isn’t showing movie special features, but I don’t yet know if that’s a limitation or user error), but it was easy to set up, read my existing media files as originally set up for Plex just fine, and is doing what I wanted it to, which Plex doesn’t seem to be prioritizing anymore as they pivot more towards building their own streaming service.
All that said: Even when Plex was being a snit, we still have a DVD player, so between that and getting Jellyfin set up, we did manage to get three spooky-season movies watched:
Sleepy Hollow (1999): ⭐️⭐️⭐️: Tim Burton during his peak years still holds up. I’d forgotten just how strong the cast was in this one. Still a lot of fun.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992): ⭐️⭐️⭐️: This one doesn’t hold up so well. I still mostly enjoy it, but between the constantly varying stylization and Reeves’ and Ryder’s flatness, it drags on more than I remembered. Also, I’d totally forgotten just how horny this film is (not necessarily a bad thing, just didn’t remember that).
Young Frankenstein (1974): ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Still and always a classic.