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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[–] 86 points 1 year ago (45 children)

Alright, so I have had Jellyfin installed for years now, but my primary issue is that most devices myself or my users use lack official, readily-available clients. For example, the Samsung TV app is a developer mode install. Last I looked, nobody has put a build into the store.

I really want to use Jellyfin, but I feel like my users simply can't. I'm interested in others' experiences here that could help.

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  • [–] 84 points 1 year ago (21 children)

    I mean, except for Tizen OS isn't most available? You can find the client for Android, Android TV, Windows, Linux (Flatpak), macos, apple ios, and more.
    https://jellyfin.org/downloads/clients/

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  • [–] 28 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I give all my friends the choice between Plex and jellyfin (I run both containers side by side pointed to the same media folders) and they all invariably choose Plex. I think it has a lot to do with the jellyfin UI, and I think an overhaul like jellyfin-vue or something that looks like findroid needs to happen in order for jellyfin to really appeal to regular people.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yeah, I've written some custom css to get some better wrapping of libraries and such.
    There's also the community themes worth looking into.
    https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/clients/css-customization/#community-themes

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Damn, all this time using JF and I never thought of theming it.

    While I use it on a SFF PC I have a couple of users that access my server via a couple of CCwGTV Chromecasts I handed them and so, unable to test since I don't have one to hand but can you / does it theme the UI on the Chromecast too?

    Cheers!

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  • [–] 46 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Don’t ever connect a “smart” tv to the internet. It’s only going to become shit and steal your data.

    Raspberry Pi, old pc or any kind of other external player will always be better for connectivity and control.

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    I agree, but having looked down this road, finding a quality external player that users will understand and is inexpensive is ... not easy.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Roku does it well enough. not perfectly but it's still not as shit as my Google tv

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    While I agree with you 100% and every tv in my home is under this mantra I get where the parent comment is coming from. Family members and friends visiting have asked about access to my Jellyfin library and they aren’t necessarily keen on buying additional hardware, aren’t willing to educate themselves on setting up options that would be objectively better for connectivity, privacy, control, etc.

    They just want an app in their TVs app store. It’s convenient and easy. I disagree with them but I don’t blame them. It’s human nature to go for the option that results in expending the least amount of effort. But then they don’t get my sweet Jellyfin library. If you cant run the client or kodi then I can’t help you, sorry.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago* (9 children)

    I had the same experience with my parents. They have a Samsung TV and the Jellyfin experience was awful.

    I ended up getting them a little N100 mini pc and installed Bazzite and the Jellyfin app from Flathub. You can configure it so it knows it’s on a TV, and responds to keyboard controls. I got them a remote from a company called Pepper Jobs that gives keyboard input and now they have a great experience with it. Even my mom, who’s a big technophobe, loves it.

    My dad also has an LG TV in his workshop that doesn’t have a working Jellyfin app (cause it’s ten years old), and he uses the Jellyfin app for his Xbox on that one.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago*

    I love Jellyfin, but I always find something that I have a problem with when trying it, for example it has weak searching, tagging, and TV show identification compared to Plex.

    I tried using it even as recent as yesterday for some searching and tagging, but it's searching, tagging, and even TV show identification has problems and is weak in comparison to Plex. I couldn't mass-tag certain videos which was annoying for me, I had to do it one-by-one and it ended up taking a long time, that was frustrating. Also, tags don't show up in searches anymore because it hurts performance apparently. With that said, maybe Plex has the same limitation, but it doesn't mean that Jellyfin has to. They are open-source, and they can be better than Plex, and in many ways they already are, but I keep running into pain points with how I want to use it, and it does feel a bit unfortunate. With that said, I'm a developer too, so I know it's not always that simple. It's just in some ways it feels less "complete" than Plex.

    I'm still really pleased with Jellyfin though, and especially the future potential of it.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I can speak from my experience with an Apple TV, the application "Infuse" works amazing with a jellyfin server. Though the application is essentially $1 month subscription, but works across all your apple devices, if you have any. I think it's worth it.

    Additionally, the official app for Android TV worked pretty well when I last tried it on an Nvidia Shield

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    I use Jellyfin client on my new Samsung TV via a Google TV dongle (ONN tv, $25 at Walmart). Seems to work well.

    My only complaint is the stream volume has been very low after a recent update. Downsampling helps but seems like it shouldn' t be necessary.

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