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.

  • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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    11 days ago

    I’m surprised by the resistance to Jellyfin in this thread. If you are using Plex, you’re already savvy enough to use bittorrent and probably the *arrs. If you can configure that stuff, Jellyfin is absolutely something you can handle. If you like Docker, there’s good projects out there. If you’re like me and you don’t understand Docker, use Swizzin community edition. If you can install Ubuntu or Debian, and run the Swizzin script, you’re in business.

    • waitmarks@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      The big thing for me with plex is user management. I am absolutely knowledgeable enough to set up jellyfin, but i dont want to deal with user management. Plex makes it easy, i tell them to make their own account and i just share my library. i dont have to reset passwords, they can do that themselves. However, it’s getting to the point where i will probably just switch to jellyfin and deal with it because of how bad plex is getting.

      • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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        10 days ago

        I’m only sharing access with a few friends and family, so I don’t find it cumbersome. Usually I make their account using the Jellyfin app on my phone. I do sympathize with not wanting to do support, which is the main reason I don’t even ask for help with the hosting costs. I don’t want to feel any obligation.

    • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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      10 days ago

      Plex is trivial to set up, most plex users I know actually don’t even use the arrs. They just host a drive someone gave them or they have an account already to access other people’s servers. Anyone can do it with a short list of instructions in minutes that mostly consist of “download app, make account, point to your media.”

      • Obelix@feddit.org
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        10 days ago

        I just setup jellyfin and it totally is the same. Install. Point it to a media folder. Setup port forwarding.

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          10 days ago

          You don’t need to manually setup port forwarding with plex and if you want access outside of your home or to let others in it gets way more complicated with Jellyfin. Plex is turnkey in comparison.

          • freebee@sh.itjust.works
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            10 days ago

            That ease of outside LAN access poses a big risk tho. Plex can and eventually probably will share, be forced to share, get hacked etc Those cloud accounts imply the possibility of very detailed reports about who’s streaming what, when, where, from which source…

            • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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              10 days ago

              If you are someone on this community or is just generally tech savvy enough to host Jellyfin you should. I don’t advocate for plex for people who don’t need it. But a lot of people are not knowledgeable enough for Jellyfin or are just nervous about it

          • Obelix@feddit.org
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            10 days ago

            But let’s be honest - it really is not complicated. That was a one minute configuration in my router.

            • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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              10 days ago

              I consider myself pretty tech savvy but after I got Jellyfin set up I accidentally broke it within weeks, I wasn’t even able to get it consistently playing outside of my home network to my devices. Some ISP’s also make it hard to tinker with their modems/routers, and let’s not forget that most people when they set up their Internet just use whatever the ISP provides for them.

              • Obelix@feddit.org
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                10 days ago

                Ok, that is a totally different use case than mine. I’m one of those guys browsing a selfhosting community on the fediverse and I only want to stream my own stuff to my mobile and provide my wife with audiobooks. If you’re providing a bigger group of people with streaming services, who are not tech savvy, another software might be the better solution. But that doesn’t mean that Jellyfin is bad - it’s just another use case with different requirements

            • poke@sh.itjust.works
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              10 days ago

              One minute for you and me, but that sort of thing just isn’t feasible for many even if they have someone walking them through it over the phone.

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      11 days ago

      Me too. Docker isn’t hard if you use a compose file. It’s easy to read syntax.

      Linux server.io has great documentation for their images.

      I have Jellyfin and Plex running from the same virtual machine pointing at the same media. If it wasn’t for the one crappy TV I have in my house with no Jellyfin client, Plex would be gone.

      • JasSmith@sh.itjust.works
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        10 days ago

        Docker isn’t hard if you use a compose file. It’s easy to read syntax.

        This is giving me “yaml isn’t hard to use if you use a compose file!” It is, actually. It’s easy for you because you understand the technology. The vast majority of people do not.

        • Swarfega@lemm.ee
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          10 days ago

          Of course. But if you managed to setup Plex then you’ve already shown you have willing to learn…

    • MrSelatcia@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      I think I represent a huge portion of Plex users; I am tech savvy enough to follow a simple walkthrough on YouTube to get my server setup. But the arrs, jellyfin, and docker both look like graduate level chemistry to me.

      Plex has been around for ages and they have put money into making things easier for users like me to understand with events such as Pro Week and directly paying content creators to dumb things down for me.

      • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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        10 days ago

        I’ve got to admit that I’ve never used Plex (I’m a cantankerous open software fanatic), but how do you get your media on there? You’re hosting your own server so presumably you’re downloading the media somehow. Are you doing it manually? If so, you can do the same with Jellyfin. Is it automated with some tool built into Plex?

      • freebee@sh.itjust.works
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        10 days ago

        It’s quite easy without docker to get lots of it running with a dietpi install. Runs on rpi and alike, but also on any “normal” old low end pc. Just select jellyfin, arrs, … It handles it all for you, no need to learn Docker (I know people will argue about the advantages of docker, which are valid points, but ease of installation is more important to many people). The only difficulty remains the streaming outside your own LAN (because it’s risky). VPN, tailscale, … there’s options but it always keeps on feeling risky to open up outside LAN. Local setup for jellyfin can be really really easy tho, if it’s just for yourself and you mostly watch at home anyway… And in some jellyfin compatible app like Finamp and Streamyfin you can just download a few music albums, episodes or movies to your phone before you travel…

    • dormedas@lemmy.dormedas.com
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      12 days ago

      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.

        • BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml
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          12 days ago

          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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            12 days ago

            No idea what Flatpak is, much? Jellyfin is open-source. If your distro isn’t providing you a .deb or tarball to your liking, that’s not on the Jellyfin project.

              • MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de
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                12 days ago

                Don’t ask me? I’ll ftp before I’ll WebUI like so, but for online viewing, I’ll take streaming please. My kids, wife, and mother-in-law find that a million times more convenient.

                Meanwhile, there’s a dude in these comments hating on the notion that Jellyfin’s app will download the Raw file for offline viewing purposes. Please, do not ask me to pretend to care what is going on in that person’s head. In my world, using VLC to play my files is a perk. Gimme that yummy 2x or slow-mo as I see fit, please.

                • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  10 days ago

                  WebUI is streaming though on desktops though and I assume they’re also using iOS/Android/TV which all have clients, so I’m trying to get at the difference there.

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                12 days ago

                Because that basically requires transcoding for modern codecs. H265? Transcode. Subtitles? Transcode. The JF client on the same hardware can usually direct play.

                • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  10 days ago

                  Oh fair enough, I’d highly recommend enabling transcoding anyway it just eliminates all sorts of issues like this.

      • Kekin@lemy.lol
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        12 days 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

      • hperrin@lemmy.ca
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        12 days ago

        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.

      • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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        12 days ago

        Yeah.

        Jellyfin is spectacular for LAN usage on two computers. Once you start using devices (because, you know, that is what people tend to plug into their TVs…) or going on travel, it rapidly becomes apparent that it just isn’t a competitor.

        Hell, a quick google suggests jellyfin STILL doesn’t have caching of media for offline viewing. Plex’s works maybe 40% of the time but… 40% is still higher than 0%.

        I have a lifetime pass for Plex and encourage anyone who even kind of cares to get one next time it is on sale (or shortly before the scheduled price hike). I have tried Jellyfin a few times over the years and… it is basically exactly what I hate with FOSS “alternatives”. It isn’t an alternative in the slightest but people insist on talking it up because they want it to be and that just makes people less willing to try genuinely good alternatives.


        To put it bluntly, Plex is an “offline netflix” as it were. Jellyfin is a much better version of smbstation and all the other stuff we used to stream porn to our playstations back in the day.

        • gdog05@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          Jellyfin allows you to download whatever you want to your local device. But in a world of streaming, it seems to be a much smaller usecase. I take my tablet camping with me all the time, download some shows via Jellyfin and watch via Jellyfin. Maybe you’re using the term “caching” differently from the use case, but if local files is what you’re after, it absolutely does it. Just click download in a couple of different locations.

          • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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            12 days ago

            Did they? Or is that still the old hack of “just download the raw file. Your tablet is just a computer”?

            Because I didn’t see it advertised on the main web page and a quick google got me to https://github.com/jellyfin/Swiftfin/discussions/364 which is open and abandoned tickets for the ios apps.


            https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-offline-downloads?pid=16373#pid16373 suggests it is also in the same boat for android. You can find workarounds but they aren’t using jellyfin.

            Which is “fine”. I watched WAY too many movies over the years with VLC on a laptop. But… why are we using a shim to treat a library as a streaming service in that case? Which gets back to Jellyfin just not actually being a Plex alternative for the majority of users.

            • MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de
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              12 days ago

              Oh no! Please GOD, anything but tHe rAw fIlE!!

              Seriously though, wtf did I just read? That can’t possibly be your real stance, can it?

              • MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
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                12 days ago

                This is a huge problem. The blueray remux might be 80 gigs. Most children’s devices will already be filled with other crap.

                • MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  12 days ago

                  I run ffmpeg on my phone. Alternately, I could shrink the file on my server and then download it without much trouble. You’re in a vanishingly small subset of users who know enough to care about file-size and know what can be done about it, but can’t be bothered to do it themselves.

                  I was avoiding suggesting getting more storage, but it sounds like in your case, keeping a 720p x265 version of each file(~1gb per movie) on-hand would cost you nothing.

              • BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml
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                12 days ago

                Half of my collection is DTS HD MA or TrueHD and many have HDR. Offline caching with transcoding is an essential feature if we want jellyfin to pull ahead. Berating people who are pointing out areas of improvement is not a winning strategy.

                • MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  12 days ago

                  I run ffmpeg on my phone. Alternately, I could shrink the file on my server and then download it without much trouble. You’re in a vanishingly small subset of users who know enough to care about file-size and know what can be done about it, but can’t be bothered to do it themselves.

        • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          12 days ago

          Huh? I used jellyfin just fine in the hospital on public WiFi on my ancient busted iPad air [some number].

          The only thing I did was install pivpn and upload my VPN profile file to Google drive so I can remote into my network. I legit never even had to set anything up it just worked, didn’t even need to know the IP of the server because my locally run DNS server (and failing that, the basic hostname based DNSMasq in the router) took care of everything.

          I don’t even have any reverse proxy or firewall because I still pretend to value my sanity and my time, nor did I expose it to the internet either, thanks to almighty NAT.

          Didn’t have to do any caching or anything crazy like that, no idea what you’re talking about, but I think there’s an option to download the files right through jellyfin.

          I watched star trek TAS while having fun with opioids and it was a great time.

          • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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            12 days ago

            That’s nice.

            That doesn’t work if you are on an airplane (unless you want to spend the entire flight downloading one episode). Or if you just don’t want to deal with hotel wifi. Or if you just don’t want to expose your internal home network at all.

            Which is the point and why this is one of those big features of plex that there are so many tickets and requests to get into jellyfin et al. Because yes, you can just copy files from your NAS to your phone’s internal storage (assuming you don’t care about transcoding and the like)… at which point there isn’t much use to a metadata oriented media server/service.

            Or you can just set up Plex to always download the next 10 episodes of whatever show you are watching when it has network access. I mean… that probably won’t work (see: 40%) but when it does, it is awesome. Which is the “it just works” functionality.

            Which gets back to the issue where, because it is FOSS, it is the greatest thing ever and anyone asking for anything else is wrong and stupid. Which is a shame because if the Jellyfin devs could actually get the “download the next N episodes” functionality to reliably work (even at 80-90%) it would be a killer app. And, for what it is worth, I have liked the devs a lot when I interacted with them in the past. But the users and evangelists are just… what we can see in this thread.

            • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              10 days ago

              You can just download the episodes though? Like right in Jellyfin:

              Because yes, you can just copy files from your NAS to your phone’s internal storage (assuming you don’t care about transcoding and the like)… at which point there isn’t much use to a metadata oriented media server/service.

              No you do not need to do any of that.

              Or you can just set up Plex to always download the next 10 episodes of whatever show you are watching when it has network access. I mean… that probably won’t work (see: 40%) but when it does, it is awesome. Which is the “it just works” functionality.

              You can download in Jellyfin also, like in the screenshot above.

              anyone asking for anything else is wrong and stupid.

              I mean, you are asking for things that are already in the app, you tell me if that’s stupid or not. I’m just trying to help.

              I’d never call anyone even trying to use these self-hosted alternatives stupid.

              Jellyfin devs could actually get the “download the next N episodes” functionality to reliably work (even at 80-90%) it would be a killer app

              Is there some reason you can’t do this manually? I actually can’t think of any app with this feature, not even Netflix way back not Spotify.

    • Obinice@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Alas my TV (LG WebOS 2) doesn’t have an application for Jellyfin, or I’d have switched years ago :-(

      • gdog05@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        Is there an emby app available or Kodi? The base of Jellyfin should work in either. Plug and play as far as I’m aware with maybe some issues for certain versions.

    • merthyr1831@lemmy.ml
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      12 days ago

      Before now I was on the sunk cost fallacy of not wanting to teach my extended family how to use Jellyfin instead of plex but after this I’m already mid-way through setting up a Jellyfin docker container on my server and I only found out an hour ago

    • keyez@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      I’ve been testing out jellyfin for the last couple months but it doesn’t really fill the void of this specific feature that’s being locked behind a pay wall. If anyone has good recommendations for securely and reliably hosting jellyfin behind SSL and auth with email password resets where I don’t have to worry about it as much as Plex.

      I use jellyfin locally but for a handful of remote clients I have I may well block off their access they’re not going to be able to figure out my hand spun services and wall of text.

        • deeferg@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          Dumb question but should there be VPNs operating on both ends, server and client? Or just the client because I’m guessing the server might change the connection address.

    • Limonene@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Jellyfin depends on proprietary Microsoft .NET, even on Linux.

      It’s still better than Plex and Emby, which are fully proprietary, and have no source code. But I will stick with sshfs with kodi, and nginx plus mpv for now.

  • yarr@feddit.nl
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    10 days ago

    I keep a Jellyfin instance running as a hedge. Here’s the thing with Plex (and actually a lot of companies set up similarly): those “lifetime” memberships are a trap. Think about it: Plex gets your money ONCE but they have ongoing expenses. Sooner or later, they’ll have spent every single cent made by a lifetime membership unless they either get more folks OR squeeze everyone a bit more.

    Once they started adding their own shows and making strange UI decisions, I could sense the end was coming. A move like this brings it up fast. Jellyfin is not nearly as good as Plex in a lot of ways, but it’s really Open Source.

    Anyway, a lot of rambling, but in short: when there is a “lifetime” subscription, watch out!

    • waitmarks@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      Yes, it’s one thing to offer a lifetime subscription early on to get a large cash infusion and reward early adopters, but it’s a big red flag if they don’t get rid of the lifetime subscription eventually. What will happen is one by one, the people that use the service the most will switch to lifetime and your cash flow will dwindle. Eventually the only people left on the month to month are the casual users who don’t use it very often and will leave as soon as a price increase happens.

      • Toribor@corndog.social
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        10 days ago

        This is my exact concern.

        If I pay for the lifetime pass now, what’s to stop them from restricting even more features behind new types of subscriptions and paywalls. “We’re adding back the ‘Watch Together’ feature but it requires a Platinum Plex subscription and will not be a part of Plex Lifetime Pass users.”

        Seems kind of inevitable honestly.

        • Ushmel@lemmy.world
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          10 days ago

          I’ve been waiting for this moment for like 8+ years though. I’ll just switch when it becomes more obvious.

      • yarr@feddit.nl
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        10 days ago

        I don’t think they necessarily have to get rid of it, it’s just that you can’t support a company ALONE from a one time infusion.

  • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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    10 days ago

    ITT: valid critiques of plex, understatements about how easy it is to set up and run Jellyfin for you and your friends/family, and a surprising number of people who don’t understand how plex works.

    • kieron115@startrek.website
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      10 days ago

      Ease of setup was how I just got one techie friend and two non-techie gamer friends to set up Plex servers and we had libraries shared to each other within 15-30 minutes. I don’t want to think about explaining VPNs and SSL to them for the alternatives.

  • secret300@lemmy.sdf.org
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    11 days ago

    I’ve said it for years that Plex is shit because of their license and the fact that you have no control everyone said no it’s fine it’s my media fucking look at it now

    • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today
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      11 days ago

      Yeah exactly. I tried to set it up once, installed it on a NAS box, and it starts talking about me making a cloud account. Why do I need a cloud account to log into my own hardware on my own network?

      I do not want the cloud
      I do not need the cloud
      I will say it very loud
      No cloud, no cloud, no cloud.

      But apparently it’s set up so the only way to log into your own locally hosted software on your own locally hosted hardware is with an external cloud account.

      To that I said no thank you and uninstalled it.

    • Quique@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      They do not have chromecast support. (Atleat the last time i checked) Thats a deal breaker for me, would love to use it.

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        8 days ago

        … I’m using Chromecast and Google TV, though Chromecast isn’t very good, really, and Google TV stared showing commercials every now and then since a while ago, so that too will be on its way out.

        But yeah, they’re supported

      • Bronzie@sh.itjust.works
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        10 days ago

        I run Jellyfin on Chromecast with Google TV every day, it works super well.

        Unless you mean casting from your phone, then I don’t know.

          • dantheclamman@lemmy.world
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            10 days ago

            Yes, it does introduce insecurity, so not for everyone. I have it behind a domain on cloudflare (let’s encrypt cert) with nginx reverse proxy

                • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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                  10 days ago

                  I really, really wish I could competently set up and maintain a Jellyfin server. But even if I could, I have to get my wife comfortable with interfacing with it too. She has really enjoyed using Plex because it basically slots right in any lineup of the major streaming services

          • dantheclamman@lemmy.world
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            10 days ago

            I just confirmed it has it. You need to be on the same subnet, which is why VPN won’t work. But then everything shows up as castable

    • GreyDawn@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      tailscale changed the computing experience for me in everything I do. Amazing networking solution. I also use zerotier but find myself on tailscale more due to how many devices they offer.

    • quaternaut@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      How do you set up HTTPS? I would like to encrypt the communication between my tailscale devices and my homeserver. Is it just a matter of using Let’s Encrypt with Nginx?

    • UnfairUtan@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      This might be a dumb question, but could I access my Jellyfin through an external VPN like Proton?

      I have it set up in my raspberry to download Linux ISOs and run Jellyfin

      • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        11 days ago

        Not in the way you’re probably thinking, no. The VPN (like Proton) will be isolating devices from each other. This is by design, so you don’t end up in situations like different customers seeing each other on the network.

        Your router might be able to act as a VPN host. This would allow you to connect to your home network from anywhere, and use it just like you would use a service like Proton. And if your home network is set to allow devices to see each other, then you could see your Jellyfin server. See if your router can run Tailscale or can act as a WireGuard (or OpenVPN) host. Tailscale will be the most straightforward approach, but not everything can run it. Worst case scenario, you could just run Tailscale directly on your Jellyfin server.

        The big issue with requiring a VPN is that it makes remote access on some devices difficult or damned near impossible. For instance, good luck getting a smart TV to run Tailscale. Tailscale will be fine for things like phones, laptops, or tablets. But if you have a smart TV you want to remote view things on, you may need to consider a reverse proxy instead. And a reverse proxy is such a rabbit hole that it would deserve its own post.

        • cortex7979@lemm.ee
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          11 days ago

          good luck getting a smart TV to run Tailscale

          My mom uses this approach to access my media files. It’s a Sony Android TV and works pretty good actually

        • cortex7979@lemm.ee
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          11 days ago

          Worst case scenario, you could just run Tailscale directly on your Jellyfin server.

          Why is that the worst case it’s goes literally like this: install on your server, install on the other decide (phone, laptop), connect to the same account and BOOM works

        • UnfairUtan@lemmy.world
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          I see thank you.

          But if I want to keep my Proton VPN connection active, I don’t think what you’re describing is doable.

          That would mean being connected to two vpns at once wouldn’t it?

          EDIT : i get it now, if I configure it on the router, I won’t have to connect to two vpns on the same device

      • Toribor@corndog.social
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        11 days ago

        If you mean that you are using Proton VPN on your Raspberry Pi to mask your downloading traffic, then no that same VPN will not help you access services like Jellyfin on your home network while you are remote.

        Instead you’ll want to use something like Tailscale (or Wireguard). You run it as a service on your home network and it then becomes your own VPN that you (or others) can use to connect to your home network when you are remote.

        You could run Wireguard on the same RaspberryPi that you use for downloading but I would recommend against it assuming that you’re running Proton VPN right on the host itself (and not inside a container).

  • spacemanspiffy@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    I used to use Plex, then one day my internet was down and since Plex couldn’t phone home, it wouldn’t let me log in to watch media ON MY LAN.

    So yeah it’s inherently broken. That’s before you even consider the licensing.

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      10 days ago

      i’m not sure why it would do this, i’ve never had any issues with watching plex while the internet is down (in fact that was one of my original uses for it, to have movies and tv in a building without internet). I don’t have it turned on but I do know you can go into server settings -> network and set a list of IPs/subnets that can access without any authorization at all. That lets you use plex without even having a plex account afaik.

      • Ushmel@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        It has to do with the app used. I think it will work with web player and maybe the windows app, but it won’t work on Android/iOS.

        • kieron115@startrek.website
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          10 days ago

          oh okay, interesting. well, you could always use the web browser on your phone/ipad i guess. not a great experience but i know for a fact that plex works on ios in chrome at the very least.

    • hedgehog@ttrpg.network
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      10 days ago

      Depending on setup this can be true with Jellyfin, too. I have a domain registered, use dynamic DNS, and have Traefik direct a subdomain to my Jellyfin server. My mobile clients are configured using that. My local clients use the local static IP.

      If my internet goes down, my mobile clients can’t connect, even on the LAN.

  • Xartle@lemmy.ml
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    11 days ago

    They seem to be getting a lot of hate for this, but Plex is not FOSS… They have the roots but they currently have like 100 paid employees and are trying to make a business out of it. They have to do something to make money to pay people every month. My $75 10 years ago isn’t going to do much for that… The fact that they’ve made it this far without folding is impressive.

    • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.uk
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      11 days ago

      Yep, it’s something that more people need to consider to keep their free (as in the source code is not a prisoner) software going

      It looks like jellyfin costs ~$500/MONTH just for their hosting fees: https://opencollective.com/jellyfin

      If everyone using jellyfin contributed $1/month, I bet that would be covered

      (No, I’m not affiliated with them)

  • Evotech@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    I’m not pirating a bunch of shows just to pay Plex for the privilege of watching it.

  • TedZanzibar@feddit.uk
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    11 days ago

    Judging by the rest of the thread I’m going to get downvoted for this, but what the hell:

    I’m sure I’ll switch to Jellyfin eventually but I tried it out a few weeks ago to see what all the hype was about and it just… wasn’t great. It was difficult to setup, with way too many overly-complicated settings, and then it refused to play one of the two test files I tried. Like it or not there’s a reason that Plex is the dominant player in the game, and a large part of that reason is that it verges on plug-and-play for simplicity of both setup and use.

    Yes, it sucks that they’re removing remote streaming for free users, but I imagine there’s a significant chunk of users who don’t know or care how to properly open their server up to the world and are relying on the Plex proxies for their streams (which happens entirely in the background), and those aren’t going to be cheap to run. Maybe putting them behind a paywall will provide the resources to make them faster.

    I did buy a lifetime pass last time they announced a price hike; it’s honestly paid for itself many times over, and I’ve been encouraging other users I know to do the same before this next one, because yes, it is a significant hike this time around. That said, while I wouldn’t pay monthly for it, I do still feel like the lifetime pass is tremendous value for such a polished product. It’s a shame they’ve had to do it at all, but I don’t begrudge them for it.

    • brot@feddit.org
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      11 days ago

      It was difficult to setup

      I’m not really sure here - I just did the setup and you literally paste one command into your terminal. There you’ll find the Jellyfin IP and port, visit it in a browser and you’ll get a simple wizard which guides you into setting up your libraries. Which also is not complicated, you just select a folder where your stuff is?

      • TedZanzibar@feddit.uk
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        11 days ago

        Libraries were simple enough, sure, but have you delved into the full settings? Trying to figure out the correct settings for QuickSync hardware acceleration was a mission in and of itself and there’s very little guidance on what any of the options mean or do. I don’t have the container running right now or I’d provide examples, but In Plex it’s a single checkbox.

        I’m sure Jellyfin will get there and it’s a cool project, but it’s fairly obvious that it’s written by hobbyists, for hobbyists. Meanwhile Plex excels at just working straight out of the box.

        • Bronzie@sh.itjust.works
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          10 days ago

          As a Jellyfin-fanboy: you are right. Plex is easier to deal with out of the box.
          Anything else would not make any sense for a paid service.

          I’d say though, if you dedicate the time to set it up correctly, it is an equally good solution and it’s free.
          If time is a factor in your life, then there is no shame in paying for something that just works. It’s why I have a Synology NAS and not a self-built Unraid or OMV server.

    • Revilo62@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      That’s how I’m feeling about all these “TImE FoR evErYoNE tO swITCh To JElLyfiN” comments. You mean the program that also doesn’t support this functionality out of the box?

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      I imagine there’s a significant chunk of users who don’t know or care how to properly open their server up to the world and are relying on the Plex proxies

      That seems like the obvious place to put a subscription that won’t get people upset. Or maybe it’s in the presentation.

      When HomeAssistant started a subscription, they renewed their commitment to opensource, added new remote features with obvious costs under subscription while still letting you do it yourself, plus made it clear this funded continued opensource development. I happily pay this and haven’t been disappointed. Did Plex fumble a similar opportunity?

    • LeFantome@programming.dev
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      11 days ago

      I have a lifetime Plex account but have not used it in two years. I use Jellyfin. Obviously opinions vary.

      At home, I have FireTV and Roku devices. I stream remotely to iPhones and tablets using Twingate.

    • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
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      11 days ago

      This is what people don’t realize. If you want something good, you have to pay people for their time and talent. Free products that are free because of ideology are just exploitation with extra steps.

      • chaospatterns@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        That’s a good reason for people to take the money they would have spent buying a proprietary solution and instead donate that money to an open source project. For me it’s not always about the cost, but what I get out of it. I’d rather the money go to the community and better it.

        • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
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          11 days ago

          The problem is people don’t put their money where their mouth is. Even less in the scale needed to produce a product of the quality te average person expects. You see this again and again. It’s very nice to think it works, but it doesn’t. A random guy saying “actchually I donated 1 Monero” doesn’t mean a project is financially sustainable.

  • yarr@feddit.nl
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    10 days ago

    A big part of the appeal with Plex is that you can run a server and friends can sign up for a FREE account and stream remotely. When you take this away, you’re going to just kneecap the whole offering. This is such an arrogant move from Plex: they are thinking that when this change goes live they will get a flood of subscriptions. The more likely outcome is they will get a few subscriptions and a lot more angry and frustrated people that walk away.

    • Zacpod@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Friends can still stream for free, as long as the server is paying for plex pass. That was my main concern, too, but they make a point of stating it directly in the release.

  • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    I gotta be honest, when I look at the problem pragmatically, it’ll be a lot easier to pay $20 a year than to switch to jellyfin and get all my users to figure out how to install clients and make it work for them.

    I’m already at the point in my life where my primary concern is making things work smoothly, and if I need to throw money at something to make it work smoothly, the choice is a no brainer. (At least for some values of “money”)

    • brot@feddit.org
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      11 days ago

      If you’re not selling access, why should you care? You are providing a service to your users and if they want to stream from you, they will figure out how to do this

      • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        Well my users are my family and close friends, so I just do care about them… Some of them use a smart TV app to access Plex, which is pretty convenient as it doesn’t even require additional devices or remote controls.

        The fact is, as the family tech guy I spend a lot of my effort trying to make tech as easy to use for everyone as possible. And more than anything else, making things intuitive and simple is what eliminates the most amount of hassle for me.

    • ByGourou@sh.itjust.works
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      11 days ago

      Jellyfin works in the browser just like Plex.

      And for now you can do that, but that’s not the first, and not the last update trying to prevent people selling access to their server.

        • SippyCup@feddit.nl
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          11 days ago

          I have fewer issues with the jellyfin app on my TV than I do with literally any of the streaming apps on the same television. My only gripe with jellyfin is there’s no PS5 app.

          • Estebiu@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            11 days ago

            The TV app for my LG is just a webview of the webpage and works great; but on my android devices FinDroid has problems with decoding the video, and the official app kinda sucks, and on my apple devices swiftfin works ok, but sometimes doesn’t load the videos and has to be manually relaunched. Dunno about other streaming apps since I never used them, but for me jellyfin’s clients are very unreliable.

      • lud@lemm.ee
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        11 days ago

        Browser apps are very annoying though. The support for some codecs (like HEVC) is usually worse in a browser.

      • MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        11 days ago

        It definitely has some issues for ease of use. For example Jellyfin for some reason will not find the server on my network in any of the client apps, and typing in a URL by hand with a TV remote is not fun.

  • quack@lemmy.zip
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    11 days ago

    Can’t say I have a huge issue with this - Plex isn’t FOSS and the infrastructure to make this happen isn’t free. Other options are available if you don’t want to pay the fee.

    • Tilgare@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      But what infrastructure does this feature require? I’m direct connecting to my own personal server with perhaps credential handling and a handshake handled by Plex servers to connect. None of the media is passing through their servers - or it shouldn’t be if it is.

      • Captain Janeway@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        In a nutshell, if your app isn’t able to make a direct connection to your Plex Media Server when you’re away from home, we can act as sort of a middle man and “relay” the stream from your server to your app. To accomplish this, your Plex Media Server establishes a secure connection to one of our Relay servers. Your app then also connects securely to the same Relay server and accesses the stream from your Plex Media Server. (In technical terms, the content is tunneled through.)

        So, your Plex Media Server basically “relays” the media stream through our server so that your app can access it since the app can’t connect with your server directly.

        Source: https://support.plex.tv/articles/216766168-accessing-a-server-through-relay/

        It’s not a requirement to stream and it’s sort of dumb they are lumping this relay service as a part of the remote streaming. Remote streaming should be allowed for free - if you are not a subscriber. The relay should just be a paid service, which makes sense. But if it’s a direct connection to my server, it should be free.

        That being said, I understand how Plex may have built some technical debt into this relay system. It might be hard for them to decouple the relay from the remote streaming. What they should have done is:

        We are removing the relay service as a free service, but you can still do remote streaming with a direct connection.

        And they should have built their architecture in a way that’s easy to decouple the two services.

        • Tilgare@lemmy.world
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          10 days ago

          Thanks for that - I wasn’t aware of the relay service, but completely agree that this is what they should be charging for and not the remote play feature in its entirety. I’ll probably drag it out for a while by refusing to update the app and server… Might be able to make it work with Tailscale as others have suggested.

          In the past I’ve paid for a month or two when I wanted to download to my devices remotely (and I think that’s the singular feature that I’ve ever cared about in the Plex pass). But to take features away and then try and charge me for them is a bridge too far, I can’t support that bad behavior.

          • Captain Janeway@lemmy.world
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            10 days ago

            I paid for the lifetime membership ~6 years ago so I’m going to stick with it. Plus I just use it for my own home. It’s not like I’m serving a bunch of other clients. But I’ll switch to Jellyfin if the lifetime membership ever gets taken away.

            • Tilgare@lemmy.world
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              10 days ago

              I considered it when they warned about the increase and offered it at $75, but I just didn’t have the money to spend back then. Felt pretty stupid for not doing it, but I don’t even know what paid features they offer, and I’m clearly not missing them.

              99% of my usage is at home as well, so this is unlikely to affect me - until that random 1% anyhow.