Jellyfin is not just good... but *better* than Plex now?!
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OK I've installed Jellyfin server. However when setting up my media directories via the web front end, Jellyfin keeps telling me they're not valid paths. Don't know why that would be as they're directly on the server and valid. Checked permissions too, and restarted the server. Any ideas? I haven't rebooted the server, that's shouldn't be required.
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The TV/mobile apps vary wildly in their capabilities and performance. Swiftfin is better for iOS devices, but not sure about AppleTV. That's my main gripe with Jellyfin overall.
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When I set my server up years ago all I did was log in on the web interface. Literally as simple as any other service.
They make you register with their own website to login to your local instance... That's you jumping through hoops to accommodate their cloud bullshit;
It’s important to understand that Plex Media Server does not have its own graphical user interface. When you run the server on your computer, NAS, or other device, you won’t see a window open with a “server UI” or similar. Instead, you use our web app to manage your server.
It's so fucking unnecessary.
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The separate management of metadata does sound like a pain to me
It's really not, but I guess it depends on how you do it. You can even automate it.
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Yep
Welcome to the future
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If you enable the "remote access" in Plex you are essentially port forwarding you server to the internet using UPnP (by default. You can also port forward manually if you'd like).
It's indeed a point to point connection but a point to point connection the same way your connection to normal websites are point to point.
If you knew the public IP of anyone that's using Plex you can likely go to [IP]:[Random PORT] and access their server. You still need to login though.
Source: My own tests and https://support.plex.tv/articles/200931138-troubleshooting-remote-access/
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Weird.
It has always worked perfectly fine for me.
You must have something interesting going in in your setup. -
Hmm sorry not sure why it would be complaining about an invalid path. Is it all paths that are invalid, or just the ones to your media?
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I just sucked it up and paid for Infuse Pro and now my Apple TV experience with Jellyfin is great
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Been using jellyfin for a few years now, never had a problem vs constant problems with plex
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I'm a bit biased as I started with Jellyfin, but the Roku Jellyfin app works flawlessly on the family TV.
I'd advise at least becoming mildly familiar with how you'd go about it, since corpos suddenly rug-pulling existing users and forcing subscriptions is pretty common, basically expected, behavior of American business now.
That way you have an "out" and your service can have minimal downtime.
On the other hand, you might just find you like how sleek and functional Jellyfin is. I can only see wins for you here.
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Jellyfin seems solid.
The only issues I've had are with dodgy media files. Obviously better player hardware gets you better performance, but transcoding eliminates some of those issues.
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Doesn't seem to work, maybe I'm doing something wrong.
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I've been running plex since 2016 and jellyfin since 2019. I'm slowly moving users over to jellyfin with the plan to cut off plex at somepoint in the next couple years. Jellyfin is missing some quality of life features but nothing super crazy
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I mean, just like everything else there's an optimal setup. I have a NAS with an extensive media library and running Jellyfin on it was a terrible experience. The NAS simply isn't powerful enough to make Jellyfin usable.
I fixed that issue by running the server on my PC, and the libraries point to my NAS library locations. It's the perfect setup. I get access to my GPU for HD video transcoding, and an overpowered CPU with the advantage of not having to worry about storage.
I feel like it's the perfect setup for me.
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I've never used Findroid, but they work on my regular Jellyfin app. I think on Roku transcoding is required, but afaik that's on Roku not supporting the subtitle format.
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I just made the switch for a few reasons.
For background, I was a Lifetime Plex Pass user since it launched, created the POC exploit for token theft (a couple of months before they implemented SSL), and built a clustering/sync application (a few months before they released sync, patterns much?).
I did not think Jellyfin was up to task a few years ago. It is now. All the missing features like themed visuals and audio, chapters, thumbnails on seek, all exist now.
Why I switched:
- API: I have scripts that do different things with different media and they were super easy to recreate with the API. An example would be moving
ytdlp
videos from my Youtube Watch Later folder to a deletion folder if they've been watched. - LDAP: I now have user control via my Samba AD.
- Privacy: I never wanted my media list stored with a third party to begin with.
- Plugins: I have a library I tag with filenames, like
==Tag--Tag==filename.ext
. It took me a half day to make a Jellyfin plugin that converts these to Genres. It was a nightmare of DB hacking to do it in Plex. Not to mention there are waaaay more existing plugins that are supported. Jellyfin is where this happens now, not Plex. - Fine grain control: Transcoding settings, bandwidth settings, etc are are open and transparent.
- API: I have scripts that do different things with different media and they were super easy to recreate with the API. An example would be moving
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Depends on how you're viewing Jellyfin. I use Chromecast and Chromecast doesn't support embedded subtitles well with Jellyfin. So I usually just use ffmpeg to extract the subtitles to an srt file, and then they run fine;
pushd "\\nas\Media\Movies\" fd -e mkv | each {|x| ffmpeg -i $x -map 0:s:0 $x.srt }
Temporarily maps my UNC network location to a usable drive, then using
fd
and anelvish
each loop, iterate over all the mkv files, and use ffmpeg to extract the subtitles.Ez-pz.
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I've been using both for ages.
For remote access to friends plex is easier and cleaner.
For offline viewing in Android plex is cleaner
I'm running tailscale with jellyfin for personal use and it's wonderful, But I wouldn't ask my relatives to do that and I don't trust to surface the port. Plex has a dedicated security team and 2FA.
The Roku client for jellyfin is also a futureless husk of a client.
I have lifetime Plex so I'm in no hurry to do a full conversion. I would love to drop plex all together though
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I've had Infuse Pro for about 6 years and it has been an absolutely perfect app for me. I've used it across many different iterations of home media servers (Emby, Jellyfin, NFS, SMB, etc...)
If you use Apple devices it's the best way to go.