Have they made watching OTA broadcasts, with EPG and DVR work as well as Plex? It's what keeps me on Plex.
Jellyfin: The Free Software Media System
151–160 of 292 posts
Re: Jellyfin: The Free Software Media System
#152Jellyfin is pretty good, and I've been using it in place of Plex for the last few years. However, I feel like there are some underlying limitations that I just can't get past: 1. the UI jank. The thumbnail tiles are slow to load, even on a local network. Searches and filters flicker as you type and take a while to return. Scrolling fast in the web UI gets choppy/laggy. 2. The native app (at least in the case of Apple…
As a jellyfin fan myself, I'd like to address a couple of your points. For 1, 2, 3(?), 4, you appear to be referring to the Apple TV client, which is written in an entirely different language and frameworks, and entirely different authors. (This is due to the excessive limitations on languages put in place by apple in their ecosystem). Jellyfin has dozens of other platforms. In regard to #3, Jellyfin does use file wa…
It's not really fair to blame Apple for those dev's poor product, nor for Jellyfin's choice not to support an iOS client of their own. Plex has a fantastic iOS app, the Plex Music app is one of the prettiest music players ever produced. VLC has a fully-functional iOS app. Home Assistant's iOS client is indistinguishable from its Android client. The list of self-hosted apps that have great iOS companion apps is long and diverse.
This myth that Apple's ecosystem is so stifling isn't shared by the expansive developer community who work on Apple devices. It's far from perfect, to be sure, and they may overreach with some of their more stringent security and privacy controls (but none to my knowledge outright prevent apps like Jellyfin from being competitive). If Jellyfin wanted to release a high-quality app for Apple devices, there's nothing really stopping them.
I don't mean to suggest that your primary motivation for your opinions re: Jellyfin on iOS are the result of blind fanaticism, I'm certainly not saying any of this out of some tribal loyalty for Apple, either. The frequent partisanship surrounding Apple and Microsoft/Android has always been strange to me. Among the devices I use every day are a custom-built Windows 11 box, an M2 Mac Mini, an older PC running PopOS (Ubuntu-based), an iPad, and a Google Pixel. They're all tools, and they excel in their own areas. I like some things that aren't available to all platforms, and attempts to find reasonable alternatives don't always prevail. I like my Windows box for MS Flight Simulator, Remote Desktop Manager, and Visual Studio. I like my Mac Mini for Logic Pro, native Bash terminal, and DEVONthink. I like Linux for its infinite versatility and freedom. I like Android's customization, and Apple's unbeatable device/OS integrations and sync.
Re: Jellyfin: The Free Software Media System
#153Jellyfin is pretty good, and I've been using it in place of Plex for the last few years. However, I feel like there are some underlying limitations that I just can't get past: 1. the UI jank. The thumbnail tiles are slow to load, even on a local network. Searches and filters flicker as you type and take a while to return. Scrolling fast in the web UI gets choppy/laggy. 2. The native app (at least in the case of Apple…
Hm, that sounds vastly jankier than Plex per your description. I have never had to wait for any UI element to load in plex, local or remote, including thumbnails. Everything is almost always instantaneous. I've tried the demo instance of Jellyfin a few times to see if it has improved and my impression was that it's a complete joke, not a serious plex alternative.
I have Jellyfin on my local network and it works like a dream. I used to use Plex and, at least for my needs, one was a straightforward replacement for the other. The web UI is clean and snappy and just works.
Re: Jellyfin: The Free Software Media System
#154Jellyfin is pretty good, and I've been using it in place of Plex for the last few years. However, I feel like there are some underlying limitations that I just can't get past: 1. the UI jank. The thumbnail tiles are slow to load, even on a local network. Searches and filters flicker as you type and take a while to return. Scrolling fast in the web UI gets choppy/laggy. 2. The native app (at least in the case of Apple…
Side question, something I've sometimes wondered - why do people want trailers? I only have things in my collection that I chose to put there, so I already know what they are. Not trying to be snarky, I'm honestly curious.
Re: Jellyfin: The Free Software Media System
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plex uses cloud-based authentication, which means Plex Inc. is holding the keys to your library. I switched to JellyFin because I was not comfortable with that arrangement.
>holding the keys to your library but it's still on my hard drive. if i can't log in to plex for some reason, i'll install jellyfin. or mount it as a network drive and play the files with VLC. it's not like they're locking away my content behind their authentication, all they're locking away behind that auth is my ability to access my media through plex .
Are they not also injecting ad-supported streaming content into your library by default? Yes, there is an option to disable this, but it is the default and needs to be disabled at the user level (afaik).
Re: Jellyfin: The Free Software Media System
#156Bemused by the number of people complaining about a free and open source project. A quick review of the git history tells me that it’s maintained by a very small group of people who generously work on this in their free time. Luckily jellyfin does accept PRs, so if you think the project needs improvements, then perhaps folks, you can do something about it
It’s an excellent OSS project. One of the few I have donated to. In my experience, the majority of people who complain loudly about Jellyfin are tied up in the Plex ecosystem and cannot fathom leaving it for some reason. I mean, imagine living with ad-supported streaming content being injected into your private instance by default and having to tell your users to opt-out of that. Admittedly, it is hard to leave such…
Are there a lot of people complaining loudly about Jellyfin?
Re: Jellyfin: The Free Software Media System
#157Have they made watching OTA broadcasts, with EPG and DVR work as well as Plex? It's what keeps me on Plex.
I use Silicon Dusts HD home run and it works great. Live TV from home while I'm travelling is one of my primary use cases. I subscribe to a TV listing service. The DVR function is good too. My biggest issue was that I had to get a graphics card that could transcode on the fly then TV worked perfectly.
Re: Jellyfin: The Free Software Media System
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s an excellent OSS project. One of the few I have donated to. In my experience, the majority of people who complain loudly about Jellyfin are tied up in the Plex ecosystem and cannot fathom leaving it for some reason. I mean, imagine living with ad-supported streaming content being injected into your private instance by default and having to tell your users to opt-out of that. Admittedly, it is hard to leave such…
Are there a lot of people complaining loudly about Jellyfin?
Yes, I see this quite frequently on r/selfhosted and r/plex.
Re: Jellyfin: The Free Software Media System
#159I've been impressed at the performance of the live re-encoding, but at the same time annoyed that it happens rather than streaming the original media (I think it always transcodes?). The upside is that it will play anything on anything.
My main gripe is with how hard it is to actually get it to find the files - you can't just feed it a folder full of media and expect it to play it, it needs to be some carefully crafted structure that I haven't yet fully figured out. So instead of dropping a file then watching it on the TV, I drop it, try to watch it, then have to go back to the PC to fiddle.
Re: Jellyfin: The Free Software Media System
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then I could not figure how to make it work. Plex did that without any effort from my side though
First hit on google: https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/media/shows/
Actually after reading it more carefully I probably see why it didn't work for me, but the notes in the page are bizarre:
* Avoid special characters such as * in M*A*S*H, use MASH instead.
Since when a common ASCII character is a special one? What about more common unicode characters I use?
* Do not abbreviate the Season folder with S01 or SE01 or alike.
I.e. if I put anything not in the folder named "Season XX" it won't work? Ugh... really?
* Season folders shouldn't contain the series name, otherwise Jellyfin can in certain cases (Stargate SG-1 due to the dash and one, for instance) misdetect your episodes and put them all under the same season.
Well, how about to fix it?
* Episode numbering for specials may vary from metadata provider to metadata provider.
Very helpful, so the "Series XX" required above won't always work.
And even if everything above fails why not to sort by name? It should not be hard for any engineer, right?