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The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

reprodev.com

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Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#101

Post by nickthegreek »

wiether wrote: post #95
gorbachev wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll understand when/if your Plex media library grows so large that every rescan takes a week.

I currently have 10Tb of 1080p content and rescans takes a few seconds. The only thing that actually takes time is the intro detection on new content, but it's because I don't have a lot of compute power on the server hosting my Plex instance. I just checked: my "com.plexapp.plugins.library.db" is 24Mb. Meanwhile, I have some custom apps with SQLite db's that are >10Gb and I don't have performance issues. So I don't…

That would be considered a small library compared to what silo is designed for.

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#102

Post by nickthegreek »

zparky wrote: post #94
gorbachev wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll understand when/if your Plex media library grows so large that every rescan takes a week.

dear lord, what kinda size are you talking about? in terms of TB/# of shows/files?

PB.

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#103

Post by QuiEgo »

xnx wrote: post #7

As 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?

Last I looked (perhaps some have changed?)

- plex has some fancy remote access thing so it can figure out your home network IP without DNS. You need to use VPN/Tailscale or self host something that advertises your IP if you want remote access with Jellyfin.

This is lame if your use case is “my parents remote play from my server from their smart TV” - getting VPN working on a smart TV can be a lot of hassle.

- Jellyfin iOS did not support continuing to play on app switch last I looked (it must have focus or playback stops). Plex app does not have this issue.

I will also say the new pricing structure is a non starter to me, if I wasn’t grandfathered into a lifetime pass from when it was cheaper I would not use Plex anymore. But I do have the pass so I’m not super motivated to change (for now)

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#104

Post by pjjpo »

I think anyone grandfathered in to a lifetime license is getting a pretty good deal on this. Mine was $119 in 2017. The only other lifetime license I have bought is Adguard, also excellent. Software that gets unlimited updates for a low price is _very rare_ right? If there are other good examples, happy to hear them!

I get that things are changing with Plex, naturally given it was a steal. But somehow it feels in bad faith when the author got that great deal but puts out this hit piece.

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#105

Post by reprodev »

pjjpo wrote: post #104

I think anyone grandfathered in to a lifetime license is getting a pretty good deal on this. Mine was $119 in 2017. The only other lifetime license I have bought is Adguard, also excellent. Software that gets unlimited updates for a low price is _very rare_ right? If there are other good examples, happy to hear them! I get that things are changing with Plex, naturally given it was a steal. But somehow it feels in bad…

Hi OP here, thanks for reading this and really I'm really glad for your take on this. I get the whole "you need a time machine" to get a good deal and I've definitely missed out on some great ones over the years. I guess this is more for people who already have the deal and for those coming into it fresh today as the information especially from LLMs is so all over the place when I've had folks tell them that ChatGPT said this and not that.

I tried to balance it as best I can with me already having that lifetime licence and it's kind of unfair to those who never got it. Maybe it's just a precursor of things to come within tech as people try to monetise things monthly on roadmaps which promise massive potential rather than having faith in their original products.

I still think it's a great deal and I hope that came across but $750 now vs $119 when you got it is definitely the point where you have to think about the alternatives out there.

I'm lucky to have the years of XP and watched it go from a great alternative to also being something that has suffered from feature creep as it tries to be everything to everyone. This doesn't mean my opinion is any better or even more right than anyone else, it's just my opinion having been through some major touch points in tech history. Even trying to explain the price changes and things that you don't get for the monthly fee to others sends me in circles as it changes so frequently.

That unlimited updates thing for a low price is the main reason why it's such a great deal and as time goes on I truly hope it keep innovating as best it can maybe leveraging those brand deals it has which were built on the initial consumer trust it built so well.

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#106

Post by reprodev »

wiether wrote: post #96
reprodev wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No problem at all and thanks for giving me your point of view on it. The 5 year plan seems a bit strange, again I understand that Plex and it's not too bad of a deal but I think the changes being so quick have really taken a lot of folks by surprise me included. The Remote Watch Pass explanation was just a bit confusing when it first got announced. I was helping someone build their first one and they are now having t…

Thanks for the explanations around the Remote Watch Pass thing! It was nice having a chat here because you felt more nuanced than in the article and we basically agree overall!

Thanks I'm glad it made sense as the Remote Watch Pass and the Jellyfin founder exit was the thing that really formed this article in my head to begin with.

I really appreciate the friendly chinwag too I've enjoyed it. I didn't want to overload the article too much but I think going forward with the other ones I've already planned I'll have to bear that in mind to try and capture more of that nuance as a lot of these truly aren't. I've also really enjoyed the different viewpoints on here and I've learnt a lot more about to be challenged in a good way about how other people are using Plex in the real world and not just my sometimes echo chamber of a circle.

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#107

Post by reprodev »

beAbU wrote: post #93
reprodev wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I started with XBMC, with the media library on the same machine as XBMC. Then I developed a need to have acces to my library on different devices. After faffing about with samba shares and whatnot I discovered Plex. I started using that as a free user, and was very impressed and happy. 3-4 years into that journey I was considering buying a lifetime pass. At some point their web client felt like it was abandoned, beca…

Thanks for this as I really don't have a lot of knowledge of Emby related things other than bits here and there but nothing about real people's experience on it.

I think we may have had a similar path I did the Samba share thing from my Xbox from XBMP the XBMC as they started to become more of a Dashboard replacement with a crossover cable to begin with way back when.

Really glad that you found your flavour of media player when you did as I've seen Emby as a Smart TV app as much as Plex but never really had a full idea of how it fared.

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#108

Post by reprodev »

dostick wrote: post #33

The corporate creep was already felt when years ago they released the PlexAmp audio player. Good player but to display lyrics you have to open the menu and select “Show Lyrics”, two clicks every time. Every time, for every track. When the next track is playing lyrics display is automatically turned off. It is not remembered either, you go back to previous track and have to click click them menu gain. This is because…

Thanks for adding to this discussion especially around PlexAmp as there really isn't too much out there. I've been using PlexAmp for about a year now as a daily music player and someone else in tech who uses it all the time was telling me something similar about this whole lyrics situation which is why they just got Spotify to save the clicks.

I really miss this feature from when I was using Amazon Music before but I could never really figure it out so just learnt to live without but TIL that it's not just me and them setting it up wrong to begin with. I use the Android Player and Desktop app on my MacBook and as part of the Plex Pass I'm happy enough.

Can I ask if you or anyone else have tried any other players for it as my buddy who uses the Jellyfin (FinAmp) version of this for iPhone seems to have a lot more of a feature set than me?

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#109

Post by dostick »

reprodev wrote: post #108
dostick wrote: post #33

The corporate creep was already felt when years ago they released the PlexAmp audio player. Good player but to display lyrics you have to open the menu and select “Show Lyrics”, two clicks every time. Every time, for every track. When the next track is playing lyrics display is automatically turned off. It is not remembered either, you go back to previous track and have to click click them menu gain. This is because…

Thanks for adding to this discussion especially around PlexAmp as there really isn't too much out there. I've been using PlexAmp for about a year now as a daily music player and someone else in tech who uses it all the time was telling me something similar about this whole lyrics situation which is why they just got Spotify to save the clicks. I really miss this feature from when I was using Amazon Music before but I…

FinAmp is pretty bad, the UI is an example of design by committee of developers. There’s a “new UI” beta version that’s been going on since 2022, you can get it via TestFlight. But that new version is even worse.

Re: The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin

#110

Post by reprodev »

dostick wrote: post #109
reprodev wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for adding to this discussion especially around PlexAmp as there really isn't too much out there. I've been using PlexAmp for about a year now as a daily music player and someone else in tech who uses it all the time was telling me something similar about this whole lyrics situation which is why they just got Spotify to save the clicks. I really miss this feature from when I was using Amazon Music before but I…

FinAmp is pretty bad, the UI is an example of design by committee of developers. There’s a “new UI” beta version that’s been going on since 2022, you can get it via TestFlight. But that new version is even worse.

That's for the explanation from a Jellyfin user. It's really appreciated. I'll pass that on and let them know as they are still playing around with different apps but that has been their daily driver for about 6 months now I think
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