Jellyfin used to run on my desktop which has a beefy CPU/GPU, but runs fine on my puny Synology NAS.
I check out Jellyfin periodically, but the last time I checked it isn't quite ready to replace Plex for me. All the apps (ios, Android, Android TV) aren't great, crash, and I don't think the codec support or audio passthrough support was that good. Hopefully in the future.
Look at the marketing materials and features from the last few years: Specifically trying to avoid any thought of pirated content.
The core problem is that Plex is a business, with investors. Depending on pirated content is not a good model for business success, so they’re trying to pivot. IMO Jellyfin has it right: a non profit, open source solution.
If they are low on income due to non-recurring life-time purchases (which I have made myself), and the streaming thingies offered is a income-driver...
I say it's both.
> Look at the marketing materials and features from the last few years: Specifically trying to avoid any thought of pirated content.
I realize this may not reflect the majority use-case, but using Plex for non-pirated content it's still absolutely something people do.
Personally on my Plex-server, I host Photos from all the family, music I've purchased either digitally, or ripped from CDs I own, more accessible copies of DVDs/Bluerays I've also bought and owned, not to mention other DRM-free movies, media and various courses I've bought online.
In my jurisdiction none of this is illegal, and using Plex to manage that media makes managing that media-collection so much better. Why everyone assumes Plex can only be used for pirated contents beats me.
Plex just works(tm), everywhere, no matter what I feed it, and I remember with great dismay how things used to be before I had Plex.
The day Jellyfin gets good enough, I might switch, because it's FOSS and I like FOSS, but for the time being, the simplicity and just-works-ness of Plex means I'll stick around.
This is a great point, and part of what I feel has been the core of the issue with Plex. Back when it started, they argued publicly that serving your own purchased content for personal use was morally (and should be legally) right. Yes, there were always people who shared things illegally using Plex (and sometimes on a large scale), but Plex themselves continued to work with the goal of letting people consume their own format-shifted content. Absolutely people still do it, but it's clear that Plex is no longer working for those people or working with that ability as a goal.
Ugly though, if you ask me ;)
and auto-metadata from IMDB and other API is bad if you have niche videos (me: documentaires for anarchism, feminism, anti-colonialism). so bad it can replace good data with bad data (example sub.media/c/trouble documentary series becomes "good trouble" series)
If you have say "movie.mp4" then make two copies of a jpeg named "movie.jpg" and "movie-fanart.jpg" alongside the movie file. Plex will then show this.
You could generate the jpeg using ImageMagick or similar from a base image (per show say) and with text overlay.
I have some scripts that does this and it's better than nothing.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/200392126-using-the-library...
> The Folders option is available for all media types, and lets you browse the media folder structure directly based on the folder hierarchy on disk. Browse By Folder is a sticky setting, letting you use Grid, List, or Summary view to browse your drive’s directory structure.
I've accidentally put TV shows in the movies category and had them not show like you describe.
At least my movies are reasonably well-catalogued. My TV shows are still a mess because of how inflexible their naming policy is.
Also what's the fuzzy feeling you get running FOSS? Do you contribute to the project?
Granted, FOSS developers don't live off user feedback alone, but if you depend on 1% of your user base becoming faithful financial backers, the more users you have, the better it is.
If someone asks them "what are you using to solve problem X" and the answer involves my product, it's my product that gets exposed to another user, who might be interested in contributing...
Or perhaps I should also add "reasonable" to the list of qualifiers? I can see that a larger project might be overflowing with well-meaning but mostly clueless people with unreasonable requests.
- no offline download in iOS app. Can use browser UI and download mkv to device.
overall, not quite ready, but on it's way
You obviously need to setup a some new software, optionally on a new server/container, and need to reconfigure all your libraries.
Not a big deal IMO.
> do you lose any capabilities?
I had issues with HDR-output to my TV (on my AppleTV 4K), and that for me was a show-stopper. Also the application is generally not as smooth or polished.
It might improve though, so I'm sure I'll check it out again some time later.
> Also what's the fuzzy feeling you get running FOSS?
You know that the people making it want to solve the same problems you do. That they are not desperately seeking a way to make money, because that can often severely affect the direction the software is taking.
I'm auditioning Subsonic at the moment, but I might give Ampache a go soon (it's apparently having a bit of a revival at the moment).
bonob acts as a media libary bridge so sonos can use navidrome as a media library (instead of having to use a janky old version of smb auth that sonos requires)
it supports browsing by folder
Disclaimer: I run this service: https://asti.ga/
I've written up some alternatives at https://www.blisshq.com/music-library-management-blog/2021/0...
I'd love to know any feedback you have.
If you aren't streaming over the internet, disable transcoding and you're more or less only limited by bandwidth.
Perhaps it'll use much more RAM transcoding, but I'd still expect a dedicated 2GiB to be plenty for Jellyfin even in extreme cases. I doubt you'll get any decent transcoding speed out of ffmpeg if you need a buffer that size anyway.
It's certainly not as quick as on my desktop, but it's rare if 2 people in my household stream video from it so no trouble so far.
I have only recently switched from desktop to NAS though, so perhaps I'll notice the performance later on.
I have no problem with Plex doing this. They're trying to show value for a service rather than just gatekeeping premium convenience features.
My problem with Plex is the utter distain they show for users by not having any sort proper bug triage. Users throw themselves at a forum that staff members rarely interact with. It's desperate.
A bug that also affected me was reported at least twice (March 2019 and April 2019[1]).
After 5 months of wait, the OP posted a script he wrote to work around the issue.
A simple path building issue took 8-9 months to get pushed in the BETA channel.
[1] : https://forums.plex.tv/t/dvr-moving-files-from-grab-bug/3967...
For example: the long-term threads asking for a “TV” mode that will automatically play your library in channel format so that you can go channel surfing.
Even the very very basic version of this (the ability to automatically update playlists) is essentially a dead thread.
e.g. the auto updating playlist idea would be done reality easily with the python Plex api above.
The UI is great, transcoding and playback on a myriad of devices just works, sharing with other people is a few clicks. To me Plex is the perfect example of the Jim Gaffigan joke; everything is amazing and everyone is miserable.
But there are so many widespread issues that appear ignored. Things like AMD VCN support, Android clients forcing transcoding on some streams. The problem get acknowledged but there's no easy way to track progress. You don't have to dig far to find others users in there who feel habitually ignore, usually as replies ~"I reported the same thing 7 months ago, good luck getting an answer!", eg https://forums.plex.tv/t/is-anybody-working-at-plex-going-to...
It's a shame because it's not a bad product.