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From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

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Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#11

Post by runnerup »

matsimitsu wrote: post #10

The only reason I still use Plex is that they have (native) apps on nearly every device me and my friends have (tv's, playstation etc.). I remember starting with XBMC, which had the most beautiful theme's/skins that were really well optimised for the console experience, and there were many of them, all for free. And now I'm paying for a Plex pass and everything is becoming more clunky and less usable each year, such…

Jellyfin has it for my devices, which are cheap Roku TV's. but yes this is pretty critical that it be compatible with your devices for QOL.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#12

Post by rektide »

This all feels like it should be 800x less of an issue because phones & tablets should just be able to connect over SMB & you should use whatever media player you want on your device.

Telling your home router to forward 445 is not that hard. Usinf minupnpc or just building in auto-port forwarding would be better. Alas I've seen some isp's block users from connecting to 445, which seems insane (my ispets me host there, but my parents isp blocks me from dialing home?!). So I often forward on another port (ex: 4445) and then everything works fine.

The main problem why the obvious "just use computers" problems doesnt work is... Android. Phones. These incressingly user-hostile anti-general-purpose-computing systems. Some of my media players still work with the 2017 code drom of the Android Samba Provider, but it uses old Android APIs so many media players wont work with it. I have no idea if Android still makes filesystem providers possible at all, but we havent seen any, and this one old one-time-drop artifact remains the only example I know of it ever having beem done ever on Android. But then again I really have had no interest in Box/Azure Drives/whatever... it'd be interesting/great to know if anyone does remote drives on android today. It feels wild that we have so much bespoke special software for remote media serving... when we have seemingly so little that does the general job.

https://github.com/google/samba-documents-provider

Ideally upnp/dlna should also somehow be an option too, but it assumes secure private networks I think? I'd love if it could be exposed publicly but locked down but it does all use mdns. And Tailscale's the only company on the planet who seemingly has the sense to extend our homenet's reach quickly/easily.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#13

Post by codewench »

RockRobotRock wrote: post #4

Emby has a native Samsung Tizen app and Jellyfin doesn't. That's a bit of a dealbreaker for me.

Jellyfin doesn't have an official native app, but there's a quasi-official version [1] you can run. That said, it does require putting the TV into dev mode so you can sideload the app.

I've been running it for a while now and it's actually pretty good, I haven't had any major issues except one freeze when searching, but I'm pretty sure that was the fault of the raspberry pi running jellyfin

[1] https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-tizen

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#14

Post by thejman5200 »

I have actually been happy with Plex's direction over time. The free ad-supported section of Plex is easy enough to ignore but adds legitimacy to the service and gives revenue to the devs. The last thing I want is for Plex to become Kodi and then get removed from app stores and tvs because it is synonymous with easy and accessible piracy.

Especially since it seems like everybody who wants plex pass already has it and just buy it once from their secret sale emails and then never give them a cent again.

I'm still waiting for the Plex Original Series to start being produced. (ok not that)

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#15

Post by digitalnomad91 »

I actually run Plex, Emby, and Jellyfin. I would like to only run Jellyfin, but unfortunately some devices will not have jellyfin, but will have plex and/or emby. The main reason I personally still use Plex (or sometimes Emby) even though I am running Jellyfin with all the exact same stuff -- is because Jellyfin sucks at live TV / iptv. It's interface is complete trash and I can't seem to get a good "guide" going like I can with Plex or Emby. If that can be resolved then I'd definitely only ever use Jellyfin.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#16

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

thejman5200 wrote: post #14

I have actually been happy with Plex's direction over time. The free ad-supported section of Plex is easy enough to ignore but adds legitimacy to the service and gives revenue to the devs. The last thing I want is for Plex to become Kodi and then get removed from app stores and tvs because it is synonymous with easy and accessible piracy. Especially since it seems like everybody who wants plex pass already has it and…

Don't need secret sale emails, the lifetime Plex Pass is right there on their page: https://www.plex.tv/plex-pass/

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#17

Post by srcreigh »

imran-iq wrote: post #8
hatware wrote: post #2

Plex lost their best users by missing the point of self hosting entirely. Nobody wants to deal with third party downtime, even if it is rare and intermittent. I think most products go through phases like this. Plex has some diehards that have stuck around (I think it's just buyers remorse for the Plex pass) but I think they are at a 5th or 6th tier of "customer" at this point, seeing the continuous churn spiral they…

> Nobody wants to deal with third party downtime Not only that, I don't want my adblocker to have to block services running on my local network (they have some analytics + sentry).

Does this require any special set up?

I’m asking out of laziness.. my local server has pi hole set up, and the other devices use that for DNS thru Tailscale, but I’m not sure what gets blocked for stuff running on the server. I recall some Tailscale setup involved a flag to disable some DNS thing. Hmmm

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#19

Post by GranPC »

rektide wrote: post #12

This all feels like it should be 800x less of an issue because phones & tablets should just be able to connect over SMB & you should use whatever media player you want on your device. Telling your home router to forward 445 is not that hard. Usinf minupnpc or just building in auto-port forwarding would be better. Alas I've seen some isp's block users from connecting to 445, which seems insane (my ispets me host there…

> phones & tablets should just be able to connect over SMB & you should use whatever media player you want on your device.

This does not provide the same feature set as Jellyfin and others like it provide. An important omission is server-side transcoding; if I upload 4K content to my instance I might want to be able to watch it from an Airbnb with a subpar connection.

Keeping track of things I've watched (regardless of which device), auto playing the next episode, automatically fetching metadata and subtitles, being able to share collections with friends are some other features I enjoy from Jellyfin that most players don't do out of the box.

Sure, you could rig up a bunch of different programs to do something more or less comparable, but that would be a bunch of extra work for the server operator and would ultimately provide a worse experience.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#20

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

dualboot wrote: post #6

Plex lost me when they became obsessed with trying to put advertisements in front of my grandparents when all they want to do is watch Mash on my plex server.

I've only seen ads in Plex when watching the streaming services they have integrated, which is expected. Those services need to pay for their content somehow.

My media is completely ad-free.

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