I love jellyfin! I've been using it for a few years and it has definitely gotten better. Every once in a while, it will incorrectly detect a show and I'll have to manually add it. Usually on obscure or older shows and movies.
Also the Android TV app is AWESOME!
I dunno....
There's a transcoding bug in the Android TV version of the Jellyfin client where transcoding a video with 7.1 audio breaks playback. Even with a Pull Request out there that fixes it (by matching the behavior of other Jellyfin clients), the issue got closed as "not planned". The continued suggestion continues to be "just force everything to play in stereo".
I don't have unlimited bandwidth, so plenty of my stuff gets transcoded in Plex. I can't, in good, conscience, switch my friends & family (most of who use Android TV) over to Jellyfin.
Maybe I need it give it another chance, but 3 months ago it was still hot garbage compared to plex
I've noticed it definitely varies depending on how you access it. The web version is flawless as long as the software has the resources it needs to run (my server is slightly very over-provisioned and gets crazy IO delay pretty frequently from running too much on too little).
The official Android and IOS apps are pretty good but do glitch and hitch from time to time, but apps on other platforms are less perfect. Also the third party Streamyfin and Swiftfin apps both seem to work a bit better than the official one but have their own quirks to be aware of.
The Roku app only just got consistently usable around 3-6 months ago, and still prefers to crash without displaying an error when fed media it can't direct play, and for some reason some user profiles just don't work on it. I don't have anything else to try other apps on but that's my experience so far
I haven't really used Plex so I don't know how clean of an experience it provides, but Jellyfin is very usable and honestly at this point most of the problems I have are specific to my media or my setup and not so much problems with the software itself
Jellyfin is great but, to be fair, anything is better than Plex.
This thread is fucking blowing me away. It's half people who realize that Plex is hot goddamn garbage, and the other half that are sucking its pp so hard it's about to fall off.
Absolutely mindblowing to me that anyone would defend Plex and their proprietary garbage as "good."
Also the Android TV app is AWESOME!
What do you run Android TV on? Raspberry Pi? My cheapo solution has been to use an old Android phone that supports DP alt mode (USB-C to HDMI adapter) combined with a USB hub + generic air mouse/remote + customized launcher.
It actually works surprisingly well. I installed FCast on it, so it even works like a Chromecast. If I'm watching a video on my phone using Grayjay, I can just cast it to the phone and it will start playing automatically. The only thing stopping it from being perfect is that it can't turn the TV on automatically. As a plus, since the phone has a battery, it's always powered on so I don't have to wait for stuff to boot, and it uses relatively little power.
... but overall it's janky and finicky, and the OEM bloatware is probably spying on me, so I've been looking for alternatives that can match the good parts of this setup.
I don't like Raspberry Pis for this because they're overpriced. I have a couple that I could use for this, but I'm hoping to find a cheaper solution, and one that I can recommend to friends/family when they ask. (the Android phone I'm using cost me a total of $15 on ebay)
Android is inside my TV, nothing external
I don't have that restriction on Plex? I have 30+ remote users and 4 in home users not counting myself and there is no restrictions what so ever. All can strea 4k without issue. Could you explain more?
OP probably doesn't have a plex pass.
Wait - what restrictions on Plex?
Multiple home users, hardware transcoding, media downloads on mobile...
https://support.plex.tv/articles/202526943-plex-free-vs-paid/
I use Plex BTW , but lurking Jellyfin for some time, just not so easy to setup or comparability for my shared users.
That don't seem to apply to plex pass. Those limitations. I have a plex pass
The only thing about jellyfin is the damn subtitles. Subtitle sync is horrible. They added a subtitle offset feature last year which was a good workaround and then removed it a few months ago on androidtv and android. Now the subtitle offset on the web player doesn't do anything anymore either
Even Subgen generated subtitles, which are pretty perfectly in sync in reality, are sometimes played back at an incorrect speed so it will progressively get more and more out of sync, but there is no way to tell what speed the subtitles are being played at.
Also it just ignores themes a lot of times or only displays themes on the admin console and nowhere else.
That said, jellyfin is still amazing!
Subtitles are the biggest non-issue it's crazy... Some devices don't support internal subs, so you just extract them for your entire library using ffmpeg;
pushd "\\nas\Media\Movies\"
fd -e mkv | each {|x| ffmpeg -i $x -map 0:s:0 $x.srt }
Once it's done, it's done forever for the files you have. As you add them, just run it again.
subtitles offset works here even on latest version, both android tv, android and browser
if you don't have the option on android, check that the player used is the right one, you will find that in settings
Using the integrated player. That is the only player option on android TV. On android I am also using the integrated player. If I use the web player, the same UI as the web shows up WITHOUT the subtitle offset option that is in the web player in a web browser. Not sure what the difference could be. Always burning in subtitles isn't enabled either.
So weird, I guess I have it on my phone with webui
Recently I tried it again because of Plex restriction on more than one user.
What do you mean by this? I don’t recall seeing anything about a change like this.
Unless therer was some major update in the last 6 months I've missed, I'd say no ... not even close.
Plex is unbelievably slow to start and navigate through my huge library on my TV. Jellyfin flies.
The search is also much better on Jellyfin on my TV, because I can use the system keyboard which supports voice to text via the remote. Plex on the other hand has no debouncing, so pressing each key just makes a new search and it's slow as sh—.
I also had it outperform Plex when Plex couldn't play an audio language track where Jellyfin could.
However, it doesn't seem like Jellyfin is as good at figuring out duplicates/versions of the same media? It shows up as two identical posters of the same thing without any discernible info until you step into the media page of the thing (movie/episode).
All in all, a very good complement to, if not replacement for, Plex. 8/10. I'm proud of them!
Out of curiosity, which Plex client are you using?
I use the one for WebOS on my LG TV.
The web client and Android client are lighting fast compared to the TV. Like normal apps loading normal content.
The TV app on the other hand takes like 20 seconds just to get past the splash screen, and then another maybe 10 seconds to show first content. And navigation is laggy af. Just absolutely brutal.
Someone once said this is intentional to get you to buy new TVs. I don't know. Not all apps do this. Jellyfin e.g.
Unfortunately the preinstalled old clients suck and there is no way for Plex to update them (this is on the TV manufacturers). If you are otherwise happy with your TV, you can get a better client via a HTPC or streaming box (such as nvidia shield or apple tv). Jellyfin clients might work better on those as well, e.g. you would get less transcoding.
I think that is incorrect in my case. Plex did not come preinstalled on my TV – I installed it via the LG app store on the TV itself. Same with Jellyfin. I have both, and they both update when there are updates available. I have the latest versions.
My TV supports direct play, both in Jellyfin and Plex, so I am streaming 4K HDR with Dolby 7.1 over WiFi 6 without any buffering issues ever. Streaming is not the issue. The navigation lag and startup time for Plex only is the issue.
I might have to check out Jellyfin. Can you run both at the same time?
Yup.
Absolutely. They are not going to share metadata or things like played status, but I have been using both simultaneously since almost the first day I spun up my media server.
I definitely prefer Jellyfin overall, but Plex is more convenient for sharing with less techy family so I keep it spun up. Jellyfin also requires some finicky network configuration (so I have heard) to cast media to a Chromecast, so Plex wins out there.
I don't see any reason why you couldn't with default settings. Beware of enabling any setting that stores data next to the media like nfo metadata storage, as those could maybe cause conflicts.
Honestly ever since Plex started going the enshittification route and hocking their fucking bullshit instead of just being a home server it's been irritating the shit out of me. The only thing they aren't doing at this point is adverts live vids.
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