Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team

forum.jellyfin.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 348 posts

Re: Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team

#231

Post by jdboyd »

bambax wrote: post #149
bob1029 wrote: post #132

There's never been a better time to consider writing your own media server solution from scratch. I really don't like the idea of transcoding on demand. It has always created a janky experience on the client. I've been using a custom solution that runs everything through ffmpeg normalization as part of the media upload phase. Whenever a client wants to stream something we give them raw byte ranges directly from the b…

Transcoding on demand is just trading compute for storage. If you have infinite storage you can store all definitions in advance for any possible client (I think that's what Netflix does); but if you don't, transcoding on demand is fine and isn't that much slower (a bit janky, yes, but only a bit).

I think most people would find that two or three definition is all they really need. 1080p h264 at high bit rate for compatibility on the local network and low bit rate 1080p for streaming remotely or to save space in local downloads for a trip.

Re: Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team

#232

Post by Hikikomori »

internet101010 wrote: post #83
NichoPaolucci wrote: post #38

I’m surprised people reach for plex, not sure what I’m missing - but a Jellyfin container set up has been fantastic for strictly at home usage (running on an old gaming PC). It’s fantastic software - the cross platform applications are pretty useable. Don’t think we’ve even had any major issues over the last 4 years using it. Many thanks to the builders and maintainers, hopefully Andrew can take some rest and know th…

The Apple TV solutions for Jellyfin are inadequate last I checked. Basically you are stuck with Plex and Infuse. I already have lifetime Plex Pass so no reason to care... for now.

What about moonfin? I use it on shield and it works great.

Re: Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team

#233

Post by b3lvedere »

stasomatic wrote: post #220
b3lvedere wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a rant or an attack on you. I get the point of easyness that Plex and/or Jellyfin offer. I merely would like to explain why i do not need it. I tried both Jellyfin and Plex, but i could not find a huge benefit in using them in our household. Again, not a rant. I think it's an extra layer on top of things i do not need. I do not need cover art, descriptions or trailers. The smb shares have a folder hierarc…

I can't watch anything without subtitles. Plex and Jellyfin support them, in many languages, because of the mumbled dialogues. Yes, I know you burn subs in. Plus the whole *arr stack.

Usually subtitles are not that hard to find.

Re: Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team

#234

Post by roygbiv2 »

aynyc wrote: post #226

Please execute my ignorance. And this isn't an attack on anyone, just my own stupid limited understanding. Aren't JellyFin & Plex essentially just a catalog for your local data (most likely torrented movies, etc.) in a web app? If so, what's the big deal? edit: ah, i missed the BIG transcoding part.

I can browse to jellyfin on my phone, ipad, laptop, TV etc watch any format (since it will transcode on the fly) and watch whatever I was watching from wherever I left it. It will also obviously know where I'm up to in any series so if I start watching something else I can go back to it at a later date.

Re: Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team

#235

Post by danpalmer »

aynyc wrote: post #226

Please execute my ignorance. And this isn't an attack on anyone, just my own stupid limited understanding. Aren't JellyFin & Plex essentially just a catalog for your local data (most likely torrented movies, etc.) in a web app? If so, what's the big deal? edit: ah, i missed the BIG transcoding part.

They do a bit more than this. They do streaming and transcoding for a start, that's fairly essential for a functioning video platform. They also have native apps for a range of platforms. Support subtitles, multiple audio tracks, all sorts of codecs. And then there's all the metadata stuff as well, getting blurbs, posters, ratings, categorisations, episode naming (which has so many awkward edge cases) etc all from various metadata services. Oh and they do this all with multiple users and ACLs.

Plex also then adds social features and curation. The value of that to its users is debatable, but it's additional complexity regardless.

These are pretty big projects. A founder moving on is a fairly big deal.

Re: Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team

#236

Post by GolfPopper »

aynyc wrote: post #226

Please execute my ignorance. And this isn't an attack on anyone, just my own stupid limited understanding. Aren't JellyFin & Plex essentially just a catalog for your local data (most likely torrented movies, etc.) in a web app? If so, what's the big deal? edit: ah, i missed the BIG transcoding part.

A friend or relative can stream the content over the internet via Plex or Jellyfin (through a Roku, or other streaming device) via a UI that is very, very easy to use. Plex is a way for my non-technical aunt to easily interact with my media server from her home three states away.

Re: Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team

#237

Post by Hikikomori »

cr125rider wrote: post #47

Small plug to ask for help with the Apple TV App? Swiftfin is really rough but the best option. It’s quite terrible, never refreshes, overlapping text constantly. It could use some love.

I use moonfin on my shield, seems to exist for apple tv?

Re: Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team

#238

Post by al_borland »

b3lvedere wrote: post #160
al_borland wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It lets the user browser with cover art, descriptions, trailers, sorting by release date, rating, etc. It keeps track of watched and unwatched movies. Shows what’s recently be added, recently released. Keeps track of where you’re at in a TV series, to always play the next episode. It can transcode as needed, to something like a mobile device or TV that might be more picky than VLC. Lots of quality of life improvement…

This is not a rant or an attack on you. I get the point of easyness that Plex and/or Jellyfin offer. I merely would like to explain why i do not need it. I tried both Jellyfin and Plex, but i could not find a huge benefit in using them in our household. Again, not a rant. I think it's an extra layer on top of things i do not need. I do not need cover art, descriptions or trailers. The smb shares have a folder hierarc…

If you’re using Kodi, that’s effectively the same thing. Kodi is XBMC. Plex started as a fork of XBMC for OS X. At some point they broke it out into a client/server architecture, which Jellyfin emulated.

If you have one primary client, Kodi is fine. Moving to Plex, Jellyfin, or Emby is more about serving multiple clients while maintaining continuity.

Re: Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team

#239

Post by Thev00d00 »

aynyc wrote: post #226

Please execute my ignorance. And this isn't an attack on anyone, just my own stupid limited understanding. Aren't JellyFin & Plex essentially just a catalog for your local data (most likely torrented movies, etc.) in a web app? If so, what's the big deal? edit: ah, i missed the BIG transcoding part.

Sure its a catalog of your local media served via an API, with metadata enrichment, built in transcoding (hardware support too) and multiple user support (watch history, recommendations etc).

Its not just a web app, I would say most dont use the web app directly, instead they provide clients (Android/iOS/Roku/AndroidTV/WebOS/Tizen) that are in official app stores. This is the big thing for me, being able to just install the client on your TV and not worry about it is great.

Often the clients are just wrappers of the web client with native integrations, but they work well.

Plus there are loads of 3rd party plugins to extend it, and alternate clients, Im a fan of https://github.com/jeffvli/feishin for music duties personally.

Re: Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team

#240

Post by baggachipz »

jorvi wrote: post #201
freetime2 wrote: post #9

Recently Plex increased the cost of a new Lifetime Plex Pass to $750 [1]. It seems like they really want to get most users paying recurring monthly or annual fees. But to me at least that kind of goes against the whole purpose of hosting my own media library. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to Jellyfin for offering an alternative! [1] https://www.plex.tv/blog/new-lifetime-plex-pass-pricing/

My biggest beef with Plex is that they've pivoted away from being a media server first and are trying to change into a streaming platform first, and because managers inside the company have to show KPI, they're stuffing the streaming buttons and sections and recommendations in everywhere. Really frustrating because the media server experience is still by far the best. It really needs to have a "classic" toggle where…

> It really needs to have a "classic" toggle where all the [enshittified] crap is disabled.

This can apply to almost any modern application.

Post reply on HN