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Well I already have jellyfin running in a container, just have to figure out how to get mum's TV to work with it I guess
log in on a local IP and not the network name and it's working again. but I'll be moving to jellyfin from now
This is why I use emby.
I tried hitting the X thinking it was an ad XD
I agree, streaming on local network should be free, what is.
I had other reasons too, so a while back I tried other self hosted solutions and I got back to Plex, it is more polished and a cleaner user experience. I'm happy to pay for a well written software as long as it is reasonable and not too greedy.
You can stream from a jellyfin server to Kodi
I been rocking minidlna -> Kodi for 10+ years 😂
Something that's getting glossed over in these comments is the ability to easily watch or listen to friends' media.
I have my own library with about 1k movies, a bunch of anime and TV, and 10k albums. But I have like 6 or 7 friends with libraries even larger. My one friend has 37k albums, they all have thousands of movies I never even heard of, etc. It really makes it like my own mini streaming service, and I love throwing on a huge music library on shuffle via plexamp while driving to/from work.
I paid like $70 for a lifetime pass years ago, so I'm along for the ride I guess. I really rely on the music aspect of it, I haven't had a spotify subscription in like 7 years.
I know they changed a lot lately, and particularly what pisses me off is how vague and how they intentionally obfuscate how their model works now. I have friends that for years used my library, and recently have been like "I saw Plex started charging now so I stopped using it" and I have to be like "no it's still free because I have a lifetime pass". It's definitely just to trick people into getting monthly subscriptions.
the ability to easily watch or listen to friends’ media
Why do you think this can't be done with Jellyfin?
You have to port forward a port and setup dynamic dns, for 99% this is a insurmountable difficulty.
You do not have to port forward. In fact, I would suggest against port forwarding. There are other options to access remotely
Are these options going to require installation of specialist software and then entering of special configuration parameters on the client computer as rather than just using any standard browser on any internet connected computer and typing yourjellyfindomainname.com ?
My friends don't have it set up. Some of them are friends of friends, and people I don't talk to regularly. I'm not going to try and convert them. It's also a bit more complicated via tailscale or VPN reverse proxies and Plex "just werks". If there's anything beyond just installing an app and clicking an invite, a bunch of people who use my library are going to have a hard time. Like my dad, he's pushing 70. My friends would also have to do the goofy networking setup for it to work for me.
I'm also not even sure if people I share with have means of installing. My one friend who uses my library a lot does it through a Samsung TV. That involves sideloading the app to install jellyfin.
Lastly, like I said, music. Plexamp is one of my #1 used apps. There's a lot that goes into that beyond just being able to play media. It curates playlists depending on what you just listened to or gives you similar artists, similar to how Spotify makes a "radio" after playing something.
the thing that everyone always glosses over is that jellyfin should not be run on a public network. it has known security vulnerabilities… that includes VPN remote proxy, so now you have to have external users on your actual VPN, and if that’s the case then plex will work fine because it’s “local”, and has a lot more features
(and my main issue: media segments don’t work on swiftfin)
Just use wireguard between the two devices
i’m not likely to wrangle installing and maintaining wireguard on my mums cheap smart tv
and if that’s the solution, as i said you get plex local playback so that’s free still anyway
Yeah, Plex makes it easy...other than dealing with their cloud data breach.
which they handled about as well as you can: prompt and clear notification without trying to pass the buck
the potential of a data breach is just a fact of life with any SAAS product - bugs happen… and it’s exactly the SAAS part of the product that makes the invites/login/aggregation of servers so smooth
I got the Plex lifetime pass over 10 years ago for pretty cheap and Plex has served me well over the years. But it's just so damn bloated now and the biggest recent change to their android app is atrocious. The app is so laggy and slow now. And downloading movies to watch locally on a tablet is just painful.
So I decided to start experimenting with Jellyfin this month and I am blown away at how fast and snappy everything is. It still isn't as refined as Plex but there's something to be said about privacy and using FOSS apps.
I'll be using Jellyfin going forward now.
Just as an FYI, Jellyfin doesn't charge money for.... well, anything.
I jumped ship early on. They didn't include skipping intros (or removed the plugin or the capability to use plugins, I don't remember).
Went to Jellyfin, took like 2 hours to figure out what's different. I don't even remember, are there any features worth it staying on Plex? At least I'm not missing anything.
Also for watch together you start a watch group and can watch a show episode for episode. Instead of having to open each episode separately and having everyone join again (but maybe Plex fixed this already, I wouldn't know).
my main issues
What are the vulnerabilities?
there are some admin endpoints that are authenticated using any local IP, but the method they use allows spoofing the IP so those endpoints become accessible essentially without authentication
there were some other issues to do with unauthenticated enumeration and playback of content i believe too
Longtime lifetime Plex Pass holder here.
FOSS is important. Having control over how you use your own hardware and files is important.
But even if none of that mattered, once I actually used Jellyfin for a few days the snappy bloat-free feel of it won me over. Switching between Plex and Jellyfin felt like switching between windows and linux.
what is FOSS
I've also got lifetime plex pass. I might take more of an interest in Jellyfin if there was an easy way to transfer all of my server settings, playlists, metadata, etc. over. But it just seems like such a hastle to make the switch and I really don't have any big issues with plex aside from needing to change the settings so they don't sell my data.
FOSS is free and open source software. And the word "free" does a lot of heavy lifting there because it refers to much more than it typically not costing anything. It means that you have the freedom to do what you want with your stuff, basically. You (or others on your behalf) can see the source code for what the software is doing, and you can even change and improve it.
You'll see the word "libre" thrown around in this context too, for that reason. For many people the liberty side of free matters a lot more than the no-cost side. But they do go hand in hand, because not needing to protect a revenue stream makes it a lot easier to not enshittify software. You'll see names like LibreOffice and FLOSS instead of FOSS.
So it's basically the whole Linux world that is very well represented on Lemmy and the fediverse. :)
Sent using FOSS Voyager web client ...in FOSS browser LibreWolf (a fork of FireFox) ...on FOSS operating system Linux.
I use Mint btw.
(This is an inside joke for the other Linux people -- a play off of "I use Arch btw" where Arch Linux is a hardcore distro where you kind of build your operating system piece by piece, but with excellent documentation. Valve switched SteamOS to be based on Arch a while back)
Be prepared for a barrage of "Jellyfin" in your comments.
But yea seriously, use Jellyfin.
Remember when Plex tried to sell you a subscription to use outdated versions of open source game console emulators?
Plex wants to be a profit-driven company, but their business model is piracy. They'll squeeze you for subscriptions, while making your experience worse to try and broker a peace deal with content owners.
So glad I installed jellyfin years ago and never bothered to set up Plex.
