ELB-REV4 iSCADA media Server is a powerful media server which makes your videos, music, and photos accessible on all devices; Web, Android, iOS, Windows, Xbox, Chromecast, Smart TVs and more. People want to have a centralized location where they can store their files. These could be videos, photos or any type of documents. Some (including this article’s author) even dedicate a computer specifically to that purpose. Plex is primarily a media server runs on a computer where your media collection resides.

Step 1: Introduction

This media server ELB-REV4 is a device that stores and shares media. It is responsible for hardware as well as software aspects of successful storing and retrieval as well as the sharing of media files and data. A media server can be any device having network access and adequate bandwidth for sharing and saving of media. A server, PC, network-attached storage (NAS) or any other device with such storage capability can be used as a media server. Commercial media servers act as aggregators of information: video, audio, photos and books, and other types of media can all be accessed via a network.

Plex indexes all Movies, TV shows and Music, gathers beautiful posters and artwork, cast and crew info, Rotten Tomatoes ratings, and provides a nice clean interface where all media can live and come alive.

Step 2: Methodology

Media is usually streamed from prerecorded files but can also be distributed as part of a live broadcast feed. In a live broadcast, the video signal is converted into a compressed digital signal and transmitted from a Web server as multicast, sending a single file to multiple users at the same time.

Streaming media is transmitted by a server application and received and displayed in real-time by a client application called a media player. A media player can be either an integral part of a browser, a plug-in, a separate program, or a dedicated device. Frequently, video files come with embedded players.

Streaming media technologies have improved significantly since the 1990s, when delivery was typically uneven. However, the quality of streamed content is still dependent upon the user's connection speed.

Step 3: Hardware for Media Server

1. ELB-REV4 iSCADA

2. 16GB (or greater) micro SD Card class 10 (or faster) (and a card reader, duh)

3. Power bank (5.0 volt)

4. External USB Hard Drive (the bigger the better) with external power.

Step 4: Software Configuration and Testing

Step1:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

With this done, reboot the pi using;

sudo reboot

Step 2: Static IP Address

sudo hostname -I

This will display the current IP address. Copy and keep safe.

sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt

Add the below line at the end of the file, replace "IP_ADDRESS" with your IP address"

ip=IP_ADDRESS

Reboot the raspberry pi to effect changes.

sudo reboot.

step 3: Install HTTPS transport package

Install (or confirm that it already installed) the HTTPS transport. This though comes with newer version of the raspbian and its needed to be able to access the https packages via apt-get.

sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https

Step 4: Get the dev2day repository

The next thing need to do is get the dev2day repository (A project documentation on plex) which contains Plex but to do this we need a crypt O key for the dev2day website.

To get the crypt O key;

wget -O – https://dev2day.de/pms/dev2day-pms.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -echo “deb https://dev2day.de/pms/dev2day-pms.gpg.key jessie main ” | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pms.list

It will just return a line with the echoed input.

Finally, update the package list using;

sudo apt-get update

Reboot the pi and move on to the next step when it comes back on.

sudo reboot

Step 5: Install Plex Media Server

sudo apt-get install -t jessie plexmediaserver

Step 6: Setup Plex to run on the ‘Pi’ user

Setup Plex to run on the ‘Pi’ user with which we are logged in. To do this edit the plexmediaserver.prev file and change the user from plex to pi. To do this we use

sudo nano /etc/default/plexmediaserver.prev

This will open up a text file.

PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_USER=plex

Change it so it becomes;

PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_USER=pi.

Save the text file as usual and exit using CTRL+X and then y.

Restart plex server to effect changes using;

sudo service plexmediaserver restart

with this done, reboot pi once again that effect the final changes.

sudo reboot

Step 7: Upload the files on Plex Server

The first thing is to connect a usb drive or an external hard storage device containing the media files with which we want to populate the server to Pi.

With this done, open a web browser and go to;

(PiIPAdress: port number) 192.168.0.45:32400/web/

ELB-REV4 iSCADA.mshome.net:32400/web/

This will bring the plex web app, sign in or create an account.

Plex will show you how things work and you will see how to add library. Navigate through your folder, select the right type of file and add them to your Plex library.

That’s all easily connect any client device on the same network, and Plex will connect it to your server.

Step 8: Access the files from Plex Client

Install and open the Plex app from a client device and if they are on the same network, it will work like a charm. As mentioned already Plex Client can be anything like your Mobile Phone, Computer, Smart TV, PlayStation etc.

Step 5: Objective

Streaming media is video or audio content sent in compressed form over the Internet and played immediately, rather than being saved to the hard drive.

With streaming media, a user does not have to wait to download a file to play it. Because the media is sent in a continuous stream of data it can play as it arrives. Users can pause, rewind or fast-forward, just as they could with a downloaded file, unless the content is being streamed live.