We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.

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[–] EarlGrey@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 4 hours ago

Was a little worried from the headline that it was being moved to another subscription tier.

I've owned a Plex Pass Lifetime subscription since it's basically been available. I've honestly forgotten Remote Streaming was a free service at this point.

[–] Zebra@lemmy.nz 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

So I've currently got a yearly Plex Pass, because I didn't want to get locked into Plex or feel any pressure to stay if they went down the dunny, but have been putting off migrating to JellyFin. For anybody who has, how did you find the process?

My media isn't named the most sensibly. I just keep whatever name it came with for the most part. I also liked how Plex just handled the authentication and remote streaming for me - at no stage did I have to open up a port on my router, setup a reverse proxy, etc. Can I migrate my watch history?

I'm fairly new to this. Any migration advice or thoughts would be appreciated!

E: only me, though I stream things externally while out of the house fairly regularly. I'm tech literate enough to follow a readme and read docs, but that's about it. I don't need to worry about other, less tech savvy, users streaming my library

[–] rustyricotta@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 hour ago

I switched to jellyfish last year. Though I didn't try to get watch history over. Jellyfin should handle your file structure very similarly to Plex, so if what you have now works, it should work on jellyfin.

If it's only you and you're only using phones and laptops outside, then you can just skip reverse proxy and all that and just VPN into your system. Wireguard, tailscale, or zerotier are good options with simple easy setups.

I think you should just give jellyfin a try. You can run it at the same time as Plex, so you can just play around with it and see how you like it.

[–] randomaside@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Does anyone have any helpful guides on setting up jellyfin with a certificate so they can privately host it while also keeping it secure and up to date? I think if using docker it would make sense to use compose and configure traeffic proxy and use let's encrypt for certificates.

Plex takes care of this for you with their cert and authentication systems. I feel like if user management and secure authentication is easy to set up then that is the primary reason to leave Plex. If I can just hand out accounts to anyone whom I would like to access my instance with ease then my family members could easily access it.

If one was to host from the home, using something like tailscale to host it online with forwarding a port would also be ideal.

[–] crazyminner@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 hours ago

Look into a thing called Caddy. It can do a few things but it makes certificates super easy. You will likely need to buy a domain tho. They can be cheap if you don't care what its called.

[–] Syun@retrolemmy.com 12 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

It's pleasantly surprising that they aren't deep sixing the lifetime pass.

Yet.

[–] ilega_dh@feddit.nl 2 points 4 hours ago

Yeah this is definitely coming at some point. What are we gonna do? Stop paying?

[–] k0e3@lemmy.ca 14 points 15 hours ago (4 children)

I'm probably gonna set up Jellyfin this weekend. Any tips for a first timer?

[–] nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

If setting up official docker container looks hard, check out linuxserver.io's docker container for Jellyfin. Even HWA is very easy.

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[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 14 hours ago

Take it slow.
Don't ditch Plex just yet but slowly transition the move.
Test it with your usual browser. If playback doesnt work, test with another browser or the phone app.

[–] Robust_Mirror@aussie.zone 3 points 11 hours ago

I set up tail scale with mine so I can easily access it anywhere.

[–] 007ace@lemm.ee 7 points 15 hours ago (6 children)

Set up docker. I ran an installation on Linux and on Windows for a few years but having it running from docker using external drives for library is a game changer. Always up to date. User files and settings Safed on a seperate folder so you can transfer it to a different os any time. Fantastic.

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[–] taiidan@slrpnk.net 26 points 18 hours ago

Fuck around with proprietary software and find out.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 58 points 21 hours ago (17 children)

The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature.

What "resources" do you need, exactly, to allow my friends to stream from my server?

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 19 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

mr crabs money meme with mr crabs and an announcer outside of the krusty crab

for real though, such a dumb decision on plex's part lol

[–] Carrot@lemmy.today 16 points 19 hours ago

Developers to keep things up to date and secure. Which I wouldn't mind paying for, but instead they spend it all on making Plex a social media that emails your friends a list of shows you watch? I can tell you right now that other than "watch together" no one is using the Plex social features on purpose

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[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 21 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I really don't see how anyone in their hierarchy thought this was a good idea.

There are at least 3 other competitors that moreorless work better than plex already does, without even having a subscription.

I'm amazed they decided to go this route, especially when migrating is as simple as uninstall plex, install competitor of choice(like jellyfin), and then just specify media locations.

the only real annoying part is remaking user accounts and losing watch progress/history, but there is usually a migration tool for that

[–] deeply_moving_queef@lemmy.ml 20 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

The key difference is client app support for various platforms. Jellyfin is far behind Plex on that front, and I say this as a user and advocate for Jellyfin. That’s a huge hurdle for migrating even just family and friends users.

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[–] Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 83 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

Yet again, FOSS showing why it's always the way to go vs proprietary tech. So glad I started my self-hosting journey with Jellyfin!

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[–] cujo@sh.itjust.works 96 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Just gonna... Drop this here...

[–] im_not_here@lemmynsfw.com 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

In my experience Jellyfin doesn't find or handle subtitles nearly as well, and I can't watch modern movies without subtitles.

[–] cujo@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 hours ago

I have never had an issue with subtitles on Jellyfin, and my wife has turned our household into an always-on subtitles household. Are you making use of the Open Subtitles plugin?

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