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From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

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141–150 of 348 posts

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a GPU to get smooth 4k sources streaming to my devices.

Why are you having to do realtime transcoding for streaming to devices? Why not just have a streaming version? Transcode one time at whatever speed, then it's ready for you whenever you want it anytime after that? Not that you can't do whatever you want to do with your own gear or anything. I've just never understood the desire for realtime encoding for everything

It's simpler and more space efficient to just transcode according to the desired quality setting and device profile of the viewer. Unless you're a large streaming service or have an extremely uniform profile of users it's not practical to store all the possible variants you might need to cover the full range of devices and stream qualities.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you are trolling. Hardware transcoding is available with modern GPU:s.

not trolling at all. i just don't think of the GPU as that. probably silly on my part, but as stated, i come from the world of expensive dedicated encoding devices vs generic parts of a computer you already have.

EDIT: Looks like QSV is the new transcoding api for Intel CPUs. My info was out of date.

VAAPI is in Intel chips: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/t...

It represents parts of the CPU optimized to transcode video. The newer CPUs support HEVC/h265 which would otherwise introduce a huge load on a machine when done in a normal CPU.

Having the "hardware transcoder" as part of the chip means you can transcode huge videos without consuming huge amounts of system resources.

Jellyfin includes this, or more accurately exposes the ffmpeg implementation of this, whereas Plex charges for it.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#143
post #43

Plex is one of the reasons I now always choose open source over closed source but free as in beer. They start out great but as financial constraints creep in the compromises are made that create a very unpleasant experience. For example, I'd love to use Obsidian, which is an amazing app, but who knows what will happen to it in the future.

With Obsidian the thing that made me ok with this was it's all just markdown. I have all my data stored locally in an ubiquitous file format

I don’t use Obsidian, but their bustiness model seems simple and honest. Hopefully, I think the worst that can happen is that they will get acquired by a larger company to be sunset.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#144
post #113

I suppose I understand the reasons people prefer Jellyfin. But on the small chance of liking a commercial product, Plex is truly dead simple for my parents. They have an AppleTV. They signed up. I share it with them via their registered email address. And they’re in. It was as simple a process as I could hope for. That being said, do I like everything they’re pushing for? No. But they at least allow users to opt out.…

It'll get worse and worse until you wish you left sooner. Hang in there. They'll cross your line eventually

I’ll take that bet.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#145

Also recently made the switch. I don't like that there isn't a Jellyfin app for my Samsung TV. Everything else about Jellyfin is 100% superior. Hands down.

It is actually possible, if complicated to get Jellyfin running in Tizen (Samsung TV OS): https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-tizen

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#146

> "My media content had been pushed aside into a submenu while the app promotes its own streaming media and premium services instead." This is my biggest pet-peeve coming from Linux world. In Linux the music players you find bundled with different distros are simple, but they just work. However since moving to MacOS, I have to either use iTunes or Music, and in Android the default music player and the latest updates…

I recommend VLC - works well on windows, ios, macos, and android and frankly improves over the native players in each without unnecessary frills.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#147
post #113

I suppose I understand the reasons people prefer Jellyfin. But on the small chance of liking a commercial product, Plex is truly dead simple for my parents. They have an AppleTV. They signed up. I share it with them via their registered email address. And they’re in. It was as simple a process as I could hope for. That being said, do I like everything they’re pushing for? No. But they at least allow users to opt out.…

It'll get worse and worse until you wish you left sooner. Hang in there. They'll cross your line eventually

Oh, I hope not. Still, at best let's hope it happens really slowly.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a GPU to get smooth 4k sources streaming to my devices.

Why are you having to do realtime transcoding for streaming to devices? Why not just have a streaming version? Transcode one time at whatever speed, then it's ready for you whenever you want it anytime after that? Not that you can't do whatever you want to do with your own gear or anything. I've just never understood the desire for realtime encoding for everything

Are you talking about manually pre-transcoding to a more streaming-friendly format? Since anyone taking about issues with transcoding is almost certainly talking about 4K formats (anything else is almost no load even on 10 year old hardware), I'd be interested to know what format you're picking that retains 4K Dolby Vision and/or HDR10 with the Atmos audio and is supported for more efficient non-transcoded transfer by the Plex client and server software. Certainly some are better but only work on specific clients, I haven't heard of a good efficient format that works on the majority of client devices.
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