Close Menu
    Subscribe Login

    How to turn your physical media into your own personal streaming service

    WoozadBy Updated:08 Mins Read Home Entertainment
    How to turn your physical media into your own personal streaming service
    In the past, physical media such as VHS tapes, DVDs, and Blu-ray Discs were the primary means of watching a movie or show at home on demand. These days, however, streaming services have completely taken over home entertainment. They are, after all, more convenient because they only require your TV and an Internet connection: no discs, no disk drives, and no messy wires.

    But the problem is that there is usually no single streaming service that offers all the movies and shows you want to watch. You will almost always need to subscribe to multiple services. This isn’t really practical, especially with services that are constantly raising prices. In fact, Netflix just increased its prices in March 2026 after announcing a price hike in January 2025.

    The good news is that if you have a large physical media collection at home, you can skip subscribing to Netflix and simply convert your VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray to your own streaming service. Yes, those stacks of old records still serve a purpose other than a paperweight. As long as the disk works, you can continue. We’ll walk you through the steps to digitizing your physical media to become your personal (and completely free) streaming service.

     

    Step 1: Prepare your materials

    To get started, you need three things. Of course, first on the list are your records or tapes. Just choose two or three of your favorites so the process doesn’t become overwhelming. You can check out the other media another day while you build your library. Next, get a USB drive to play your records. There are some very well rated ones on Amazon, like the Rioddas external CD/DVD player with 4.3 stars and over 40,000 reviews. If you’re working with VHS tapes, it’s less straightforward because they require a VCR and a VHS to digital converter.

    Finally, prepare a computer to which you will connect your disc player or VHS to digital converter. This will also serve as storage for your scanned files. It doesn’t have to be brand new: you can try running this project on an old PC or Mac, making it one of the productive uses of your old computer. The internal storage doesn’t need to be massive either since it’s best to start with just a few drives. You can always use an external drive once your library expands beyond internal storage.

    From there, you need to install some applications on the computer: MakeMKV to play the discs (for VHS tapes, check the recommended software for your VHS to digital converter), VLC Player to play the videos, and Jellyfin to organize your files into a streaming service lookalike. Some users also recommend Plex, but it is not completely free unlike Jellyfin.

     

    Step 2: Set up your file folders for Jellyfin

    The problem with Jellyfin is that it can be quite particular about how its files are organized. So, before you start ripping your disks, make sure you set up the folders first. Otherwise, Jellyfin may not be able to locate and display files correctly. Here’s an overview of how to achieve this:

    1. Navigate to the drive on your computer where you want to save all your videos.
    2. Create a new folder.
    3. Name the folder Jellyfin.
    4. Inside the Jellyfin folder, create two new folders.
    5. Name one of the folders Movies and the other Shows.

    From here, you need to create separate folders within the Movies and Shows folders for each of the movies or shows you will be watching. Follow these steps for the Movies folder:

    1. Open the Movies folder.
    2. Create a folder for a movie.
    3. Name the folder in Title (YYYY) format, with YYYY as the year of release. For example, the folder for your “The Little Mermaid” DVD should be “The Little Mermaid (1989).”

    If your disc contains bonus features like behind-the-scenes or deleted scenes, open the movie’s specific folder (for example, The Little Mermaid folder) and create a new folder named extras.

    For the Shows folder, follow this guide:

    1. In the Shows folder, create a folder for a series.
    2. Follow the same naming format as movie folders. For example, you can have Friends (1994).
    3. Go to the folder of the series you just created.
    4. Create individual folders for each season.
    5. Name the folders Season 01, Season 02, etc.

    If you have additional episodes that do not belong to any of the season folders, you can add a Season 00 folder.

     

    Step 3: Start ripping your disks

    With your hardware and computer ready to go, you can now rip your discs. It’s actually quite simple. Simply place it in your disk drive and launch MakeMKV. This scans the contents of your disc and creates MKV files from them. Once your files are saved, locate the output folder and rename the files according to Jellyfin’s appropriate naming architecture.

    However, files generated by MakeMKV usually have non-descriptive names. You can’t know what they actually are just by looking through them. To identify the ripped files, play them on VLC Player first. Go through the video to check whether it is the main movie or not. If so, name the file title (YYYY) with YYYY as the year of release. If there are multiple output files, play the rest via VLC player to check whether you want to keep these other videos or not. Then you can move the video file to Jellyfin > Movies > the specific movie folder.

    For television series, each episode must follow the naming convention Show Name s01e01 for season 1, episode 1; Show name s01e02 for season 1, episode 2; and so on. So for the first episode of the first season of Friends, its title should be Friends s01e01 and the following episode Friends s01e02. The files should then be moved to Jellyfin > Shows > Friends (1994) > Season 01. Rinse and repeat for any movies and shows you rip in the future.

     

    Step 4: Upload your files to Jellyfin

    After recovering your MKV files, it’s time to add them to Jellyfin. Make sure Jellyfin is set up first though. This usually involves choosing a preferred language and creating a username and password. From there, follow these next steps:

    1. When prompted to add a media library, set the content type to Movies.
    2. Select Jellyfin > Movies for the folder.
    3. Set a language and region for the metadata. The region must be where you currently live.
    4. Follow the rest of the setup process (leaving the default settings as is) until you reach the Jellyfin login page.
    5. Log in with your credentials.
    6. On the Jellyfin home page, click the hamburger icon at the top left.
    7. Go to the dashboard.
    8. Select Libraries.
    9. Tap Add Media Library.
    10. This time, choose Shows as your content type.
    11. Choose Jellyfin > Shows as the folder.
    12. Tap Scan All Libraries to load your files.
    13. Return to the Jellyfin home page by clicking on the Jellyfin logo in the upper left corner.

    As you browse your library, you’ll notice that Jellyfin automatically populates the details page with the movie/show logo, its total runtime, a brief description, and even cast members. But Jellyfin’s homepage won’t really look like your typical streaming platforms. Jellyfin’s is much simpler with just your Movies and Shows folders and their contents in alphabetical order.

    While this works perfectly, you may want the typical look and feel of a streaming platform. You can start by applying a Jellyfin theme. There is a collection on GitHub, each with instructions. Besides a theme, you may also want to add the Media Bar, which is a plugin. Just note that customizing Jellyfin can take a little work, so be prepared to spend some time on this step.

     

    Step 5: Access Jellyfin locally on your home TV and remotely on other devices

    With this system set up, the default method is to watch your movies and shows directly from your computer that has Jellyfin installed. But you actually have the option to watch on your home TV and also remotely. To access Jellyfin on your TV, here’s what you need to do:

    1. Turn on your Jellyfin computer. It should be on while you access it from your TV.
    2. Install the Jellyfin app on your TV. It’s officially supported on Android TV, Roku, Fire TV, and WebOS, and is actually one of the best free apps to install on your smart TV.
    3. Connect your TV to the same Wi-Fi as your Jellyfin computer.
    4. Get the local IP address of your Jellyfin computer, which might look like 192.168.1.10:
      1. On Mac, simply go to System Settings and navigate to Network. Find the local IP address value.
      2. On Windows, launch Command Prompt, type ipconfig and press Enter. Your local IP address will be the value next to the IPv4 address.
    5. Launch Jellyfin on your TV.
    6. When prompted for your server, type where 000.000.000.000 is the IP address of your Jellyfin computer.
    7. Enter your Jellyfin username and password.

    Once finished, your TV should be able to load your Jellyfin media files. If you want to access Jellyfin remotely, there are a few different ways. You can either use Tailscale, which users say is one of the most novice-friendly methods. You can also try Meshnet.

     

    Recommended

    error: Content is protected !!