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From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

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Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#191

Post by KyeRussell »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #159
abawany wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think GP's issue is not lack of technical solutions but that most OSs and BigTech are increasingly user hostile to extract more revenue. I alsobfind it concerning that they are succeding. We now have whole chunks of the world's demographic that don't even know it doesn't have to be that way.

Expecting that the typical user wants to use a streaming service, and deprioritising development of tools/components that target other workflows, is not user-hostile. It is clearly the way things are, and the nerds are being dragged kicking and screaming.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#192

Post by KyeRussell »

libraryatnight wrote: post #123
ulkesh wrote: 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

Plex crossing some “line” doesn’t suddenly invalidate all the previous value one has gotten from it.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#193

Post by mvanbaak »

dylan604 wrote: post #89
russelg wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't want to pay for Plex then you don't have hardware transcoding. This is of course free in Jellyfin.

Who has hardware for transcoding any more, and what hardware is modern for that? Last dedicated hardware encoder I used was bad old days of MPEG2 for DVDs, but that went the way of the dodo when MPEG2 went native to the CPU. Never used hardware for h.264/5. I guess there was a board for J2k doing realtime lossless, but that was 2010ish. So I'm legit curious what hardware transcoding looks like today, and that Plex ch…

Most intel CPU's have an integrated GPU that is capable of transcoding.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#194

Post by LASR »

steeve wrote: post #170

I just switched to InFuse on my Apple TV, it provides a better experience than Plex, with just a SMB share. Everything is done locally and synced over iCloud. Not going back.

I also tried this. But I could never figure out why my windows 10 box couldn’t do a proper samba share.

Still use infuse, but through Plex server only.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#195

Post by causality0 »

TheSecondMouse wrote: post #165
causality0 wrote: post #156

I need to make this jump at some point. I can cope with the money-grubbing UI changes but the Plex App for smart TVs and consoles is by far the worst piece of trash software I've ever used and certainly the worst I still use. It crashes constantly, it displays my progress in a video yet still restarts it from the beginning when I hit Resume, and it has absolutely no idea how to regulate its own performance. It will h…

Is that an Android smart TV, Tizen, WebOS? I have mine setup through an Nvidia Shield (Android), and it's worked flawlessly for years.

I've used it on a Roku TV, a Roku stick, a Fire stick, a Samsung smart TV, a Hisense android smart TV, and a Sony smart TV. All miserable experiences. Perhaps the Shield has enough raw horsepower to make up for the app being garbage.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#196

Post by andybak »

> Recently, I opened up Plex and couldn’t find my own content. My media content had been pushed aside into a submenu while the app promotes its own streaming media and premium services instead.

It's an annoying (but understandable from a business persepctive) default - but a few minutes digging in the settings and I figured out how to configure Plex back to how it was.

My issues with Plex run deeper - the music metadata handling has some serious issues and that's 50% of my usage.

And if that's ever fixed I won't be able to use it because I'm stuck on an older Pleax version.

This is so I can it on an older Mac Mini. Surely Plex should be embracing running on older hardware?

(I would need to update MacOS which makes the box unusuable because of limited soldered-on RAM)

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#197

Post by causality0 »

irusensei wrote: post #174

I’ve stopped using Plex-like stuff. I don’t really need it because transcoding isn’t as relevant as it was before. Pretty much every device I own can play h265 without CPU overhead. What I’m doing is basically a Samba file share + Infuse/Kodi. Thats it. You pretty much get the same results. Infuse can sync between devices using cloud sync and trackt, which can be used through a hide-my-mail account. Kodi can sync wat…

So you're using four or five different things to replicate the functionality of one thing? This is sounding a lot like a certain Dropbox-related comment.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#198

Post by SyrupThinker »

franciscop wrote: post #115

> "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…

> However since moving to MacOS, I have to either use iTunes or Music, […]; they expect me to use their services and that's front and clear, while my local music is hidden away in a menu button.

I'm not sure what you are referring to here. Listening to your own music in the macOS Music app is as simple as dragging (importing) the music into Music.app and selecting any of the options ("Recently Added", "Songs", etc.) in the Library sidebar.

Most media players I've used work like that. The application reopens where you last left off, so it is not like the Apple Music "Explore" or "Listen Now" page is shown on every launch to push the service on you.

I think the complaint makes sense in relation to the Apple Music sidebar items, but considering that there are users who want to use Apple Music, how would you surface it without having an easily discoverable item in the sidebar? I think having the option to hide it would be enough to alleviate it, but apparently one cannot, so that's a point against Apple here.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#199

Post by aikinai »

KyeRussell wrote: post #191
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think GP's issue is not lack of technical solutions but that most OSs and BigTech are increasingly user hostile to extract more revenue. I alsobfind it concerning that they are succeding. We now have whole chunks of the world's demographic that don't even know it doesn't have to be that way.

Expecting that the typical user wants to use a streaming service, and deprioritising development of tools/components that target other workflows, is not user-hostile. It is clearly the way things are, and the nerds are being dragged kicking and screaming.

Amen. I'm 100% in the old-school, self-managed local media camp, but I'm well aware that I'm an extreme minority and can't expect mass-market companies to cater to my use case.

I'm probably one of the last 1,000 people still using Apple Home Sharing, but honestly I can't even believe it's still working. There must be someone on the inside that uses it at home and keeps fixing it whenever the architecture shifts around it.

Re: From Plex to Jellyfin Media Server

#200

Post by josteink »

andybak wrote: post #196

> Recently, I opened up Plex and couldn’t find my own content. My media content had been pushed aside into a submenu while the app promotes its own streaming media and premium services instead. It's an annoying (but understandable from a business persepctive) default - but a few minutes digging in the settings and I figured out how to configure Plex back to how it was. My issues with Plex run deeper - the music metad…

From a practical point of view, if you’re already “just” using it as a media-server, wouldn’t a more realistic approach be to just install Linux on it?

That way you can dedicate almost 100% of the limited RAM to Plex and it should keep running fine?

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