As much as I love physical media, the convenience of streaming is hard to beat. Even after we bought the Bluey Blu-ray box set, we still relied on Disney+ for our nightly episode before bed. Occasionally, we’d experience connection issues and the episodes wouldn’t load. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to explain cloud-based services, ISPs, and five-nines reliability to a toddler when they can’t watch their favorite show, but it goes about as well as you’d expect. I’ve since setup a Jellyfin server so I can stream my DVD collection to my phone and TV, even when the internet is down.

Data Storage

In my previous post about Nextcloud, I touched on having a different drive for data and application space. The same principle applies here. My media library lives on the same data drive as my Nextcloud data. In fact, it’s mounted as an external drive in Nextcloud. This lets me upload files to the media library through Nextcloud while ensuring proper file ownership between Nextcloud and Jellyfin.

Installation

Like the rest of my services, I run a containerized version of Jellyfin on an Ubuntu Server VM. I also have a reverse proxy setup on my network, allowing me to access Jellyfin by URL instead of IP (e.g., https://jellyfin.example.com). If you use a root domain that you own, you can setup SSL encryption for your local services without any browser warnings.

Uploading your collection

In order to stream your DVD collection, you first need to upload it to your server. To upload it to your server, you need to remux your discs into MKV files using a tool like MakeMKV. This process is also called ripping. Once the file is saved to your computer, you will want to compress it using a tool like Handbrake. This process will reduce the file size but also takes the most time because compression re-encodes the entire file.

Automating the process

In the next post, I’ll discuss automating the process of ripping and compressing files. At the end, you’ll have everything you need to be able to insert a disc into your drive, have it automatically rip to your computer, and then place it in a queue to be compressed.