I use Kodi. I never used Plex or Jellyfin. I'm not even sure what they are. They look like media players, but... over the network? I don't really understand how that works. In a web browser? Why whould anyone run a media player in a browser? Can anyone explain?
The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin
61–70 of 110 posts
Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin
#62As someone who was late to the game, I never even considered Plex and have been totally satisfied with Jellyfin. Is there anything better about Plex?
These are the pain points I experienced moving from Plex to Jellyfin a while ago: - Jellyfin forced me to organize my files into Show/Season folders, whereas Plex just handled my original flat mess of scattered files. - When playing video on Plex, I generally have to wait some time before subtitles show up, whereas the subtitles in Plex just show up immediately - Plex has built in search for openly available subtitle…
> Jellyfin forced me to organize my files into Show/Season folders, whereas Plex just handled my original flat mess of scattered files.
You keep all your shows in a single directory? or just sorted into folders per show?
I haven't had any issues with files just sorted into show folders for shorter series, but even in general it's very un-particular about filenames as long as you have ` () SE` (and it accepts a decent number of formats for season/episode number, and year is usually only needed if you need to differentiate shows with the same name).
Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin
#63I use Kodi. I never used Plex or Jellyfin. I'm not even sure what they are. They look like media players, but... over the network? I don't really understand how that works. In a web browser? Why whould anyone run a media player in a browser? Can anyone explain?
Essentially, think of it as Netflix for which you provide the media yourself. A browser is one possible way to connect, but clients exist too (e.g. a Roku app and so on). Having the ability to connect with a client running on something connected to your TV is nice, as is the ability to connect remotely (if you open up the ports on your firewall of course). It also gives you things like remembering what shows you were watching and giving a shortcut to the next episode, intro skipping, transcoding, and so on.
Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assume they mean how easy Plex makes it to share content across the internet. I setup a server, you download a client. No port forwarding, VPN shenanigans, etc
yes I agree, it does need some tech literacy to setup properly.
It’s not about tech literacy to setup, it’s about sharing my content with friends and family - there is no easy way to do it, even if everybody is tech savvy it’s still high friction.
The dream would be: anybody with a jellyfin install can add your library to theirs, anybody with the jellyfin client can be invited to browse your library.
Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin
#65Weird article. Not only does it acknowledges that Plex is still far better than Jellyfin with its whole ecosystem, but it also depict pretty nicely the entitlement of the users overall. On one side, they paid $75 more than five years ago for a piece of software for which they still receive weekly updates. On the other, they talk about how leadership at Jellyfin decided to throw the blanket after a burning themselves…
OP here. Thank you for reading and it was something that's been brewing in my mind for a while. I agree with you and didn't really know how to approach it becuase I've got a lot of really good things to say about Plex and sure as hell have benefitted from the lifetime license.
Recently, I've been asked more and more by friends and family to set up Plex for them as it's "free" and "easy". I do the basic setup or walk them through it. Then they want to share to their libraries to others or just watch off their connection and hit the wall of having to have a subscription.
Then they bring me Jellyfin as the alternative from something they saw on XDA. I'm not too quick to help them set that up just because of the current state of it and having to find them players on their various devices. As you mentioned, I've been spending pretty much be spending all my free time helping them set it up but I think Plex being so cost prohibitive now so Jellyfin will start to become the defacto option as what we'll be tweaking for those of us that act as IT support.
Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin
#66As someone who was late to the game, I never even considered Plex and have been totally satisfied with Jellyfin. Is there anything better about Plex?
Not really. Plex was the jellyfin of the 2010’s. Pirate-centric (or at least agnostic), hobbyist focused, a bit hard to use and ugly but super valuable. Then they went corporate and yeah it’s weird and in decline.
I think that's put it maybe a bit better than I did. I moved from running XBMC then a bit of Kodi to Plex but was really stubborn about it. Once I made the move over because my new Smart TV had the Plex app I was sold. Jellyfin hits that sweet spot of being what Plex was but I hope they manage to weather the storm of losing a lot of their core team from the beginning.
Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin
#67For those curious to see Jellyfin in action https://demo.jellyfin.org/stable/web/#/home Username is demo, PW is blank Also, I've been running jellyfin for many years, I've had no issues
OP here. Thank you for posting this I didn't really think about that for the article. This looks like a great way to see it for those on the fence.
If you don't mind me asking what client are you using and server setup are you using. Any tips from someone who has been using it for a decent chunk of time?
Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have found Emby to be a nice middle ground between Plex and Jellyfin. It has more polish and refinement than Jellyfin but doesn't have the obtrusive ads and whatnot that Plex offers. Client support is also great. Jellyfin is still quickly gaining ground but Emby is still my media server of choice for now.
> Jellyfin but doesn't have the obtrusive ads and whatnot that Plex offers I'm a Plex user who's been thinking about trying Jellyfin out, largely in response to some recent UI changes I dislike but... what Plex ads? I don't have any on my android apps, on Roku installs, or on my parent's SmartTV, and none of my other users have ever mentioned any ads to me. (If I was seeing ads, Jellyfin would become "take some time…
The homescreen on the Xbox app is now full of "Apple TV", Trailers, free TV and the like. Enough of it that you can't see you own stuff on the homescreen.
Last time I searched I couldn't turn it off. But maybe I missed that setting.
Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin
#69I would absolutely love to cut to jellyfin, but for the TV integration. Last time i looked samsung TV's (which most of my fam use) dont have a decent client. Has that changed?
Yeah, unfortunately the TV app (Xbox for me) offering is really poor.
I've been playing with Kodi with the Jellyfin plug-in but it requires such brittle tower of themes and plug-ins to look like Plex that I've yet to make the switch.
Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin
#70I've been a paying Emby user for close to ten years, ever since plex tried to launch a VR player or some shit, while there were still critical bugs in the player for web and other devices. Emby just works, it's players are great, and issues actually get fixed. I know it's a closed source fork of XBMC, I know that's controversial, but the product itself is just so good.
I'm definitely curious about those that moved over to Emby from the XBMC days.
Did you try anything else before hand or just go straight to Emby? I have to say I never really gave it a proper chance