[loughnane]

This is why it's better to control your software. Firms change over time and your interests are likely to diverge from theirs. This is _especially_ true when we're talking about media-related software which is always contentious in terms of copyright.

Jellyfin isn't as feature-rich or polished as Plex, but I rest assured knowing that I'm the one who controls my installation.

[4ggr0]

I just wanted to write that I'm glad that I'm using Jellyfin at home :)

No unnecessary online accounts, just "my" media on my server.

[politelemon]

What's a good setup to run jellyfin on. I currently run it on a Linux desktop. I tried running it on a raspberry pi, but it felt like it was struggling. Did I expect too much?

[freedomben]

It depends on whether you are willing to trade storage space for compute. The raspberry pi struggles happen when real-time transcoding is taking place. If you change the settings or pre-transcode everything, then it will easily run on the pi.

If you would rather use compute than storage, then a desktop is a good plan. I run my jellyfin on my desktop and use cloudflare tunnel for making it available online as needed. That said, me and my family are the only users of my instance, so access through the internet is not the primary way. I only set that up for when we are traveling.

[happymellon]

I've found that a cheap Dell Wyse 5070 is more than sufficient at less than £50.

Pentium J5005, only quad core and no hyper threading, but it is Gemini Lake refresh so can do QuickSync without actually using the CPU. I believe it is something like 10 realtime 1080p re-encoding streams simultaneously. 2-4 4k re-encodes but I've not tested it that much.

Multiple USB 3.1 for hooking D4-400s to for ZFS, and two ram slots that claim a max of 8 GB but mines doing fine with 32GB.

[tentacleuno]

> Multiple USB 3.1 for hooking D4-400s to for ZFS, and two ram slots that claim a max of 8 GB but mines doing fine with 32GB.

FYI: running ZFS (or any server storage) on eHDDs isn't a recommended practice[0]. A lot of things can go wrong and, if mine are anything to go by, they don't pass SMART data back to the host.

[0]: https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/Performance%20and%20T...

If you're running multiple HDDs, a decent HBA may be a good investment. They slot into a PCiE slot, and allow you to connect HDDs to them. From memory, I believe the LSI cards are considered the most reliable.

[pdimitar]

I heard that a number of times but I am using a professional external HDD and my ZFS pool with it is quite stable for ~2.5 years now.

I'd wager much more people are doing ZFS + external drives than many people think -- it's very convenient and that trumps recommendations, it seems.

I am aiming to have a proper server OneDay™ and will make sure I get one with enough PCIe lanes so I can have several slots for 4-6 HDDs or SATA SSDs but in the meantime a simple thin client + a professional external HDD has been getting the job done amazingly well.

[happymellon]

I had "a proper server", and found that it ended up being a complete hassle. I'm much happier with the current setup and I've had less data incidents.

[happymellon]

D4-400's pass back Smart data.

I've gone through a lot of different units to find good ones.

[tentacleuno]

Ahh, in that case I'm very happy to be called out on that. I have a few Seagate ones from various generations, and none of them pass any SMART data. It's quite infuriating.

[RSHEPP]

I have a Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini running next to me that is great. Able to setup hardware acceleration on it for any transcoding needs too. It's nice and small which was the big selling point. You can probably go cheaper, but I got it around Black Friday with some nurse discounts that Lenovo gives (thanks wife).

[PokestarFan]

Jellyfin is fine if you direct stream only, but any form of transcoding will kill your server. It is a bit hard to get other people to download the desktop Jellyfin Media Player or Infuse on iOS, and I don't think Android has a version of the app with massive codec support.

[4ggr0]

What do you mean? My Jellyfin Server is transcoding movies and is not dying, at all.

[altiar]

Jellyfin does fine transcoding 4k on my decade old i7. And it'd probably be a hassle to install it on other people's phones, but the Android app can use MPV as it's media player

[snapplebobapple]

Their ffmpeg and/or container is very dlow to update to support new hardware too. They still don't supportthe newer amd onboard gpus for example

[pdimitar]

I have no detailed info for you but heard from people on Reddit that depending on what the host's CPU and GPU support, Jellyfin will do transcoding which yeah, it proves too much for a RPi.

[beart]

You can use something like "Acer Aspire XC - Desktop Intel Celeron J4125 2GHz 4GB RAM 256GB SSD W10H" which is sometimes on sale on ebay for $100-150. Then throw a few small upgrades in there (larger drive, maybe some memory) and you will have a very quiet, low power media center.

[4ggr0]

I'm running it in a docker container on a small server with a GTX 1050Ti and a AMD Ryzen 3 3200G with 16GB RAM.

Was more complicated than I thought to initially pass the GPU through to the Container, but it runs fine and lets me watch movies on any device I own.

[loughnane]

I had it running on a Synology DS218+ (Celeron J3355) with no problems for a long time. Now I've got it running on a framework mainboard (i7-1165G7) with a bunch of other things.

[sspiff]

I have 3 paid subscription services (Disney+, Prime and Netflix).

But most of the time we just use Jellyfin. It's just better UX, even if it lacks polish. Stuff is in predictable places, in one app. I don't need to scroll past 2 full screens of generated lists with suggested content to get to my personal hand made watch list.

I'm fully ready to drop subscription streaming and go back to buying DVD or Bluray box sets to rip at this point.

[loughnane]

I'm the same way. I want a digital shelf, not an ever-changing curation.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

> This is why it's better to control your software. Firms change over time and your interests are likely to diverge from theirs.

Agreed, but I think I signed up back in 2013 or so, when there were few (or zero? can't remember) alternatives.

[loughnane]

I started on plex too. Started switching around '21 and now I'm only on Jellyfin.

It stinks when a good piece of software goes bad, but if it does I start moving away. The thing that started me moving away was the first time my internet went out and I couldn't access my media stored in my living room because I couldn't reach Plex's login server.

[toomuchtodo]

How much would it cost to polish Jellyfin? $100k-$500k? Polish public goods, defends against corporate mechanics.

[tentacleuno]

I'm curious how you would define "polish" here: do you mean spending time on fixing current features as opposed to adding new ones? If so, I can see the argument there: a lot of software tends to prioritize new features over long-term stability.

On the other hand, I've had a fairly good experience with Jellyfin -- it's mostly been a set-and-forget solution.

[toomuchtodo]

Sure, by "polish" I mean to get it somewhat close to parity with Plex. If it's great as is, perhaps no additional polish is required. I prefer to invest in open source tools that will remain open, whenever possible. It is a component of defending against enshittification, because that which has been built cannot then be revoked or gated.

At the end of the day, it’s always about control.

[safety1st]

Whatever's going on at Plex HQ is very weird. I've used it for years and when I first set it up, it WAS software I controlled (or so I thought). I mean it was open source, you installed it locally, and there was no such thing as a Plex account or paid services at the time. Eventually they added the account, the upsells and the nags and scary messages which all led you towards getting an account, but I avoided doing so until last year.

When I finally relented and registered an account all kinds of bugs cropped up, like my local media started streaming through their server and became unplayable as a result. There was no clear way to reverse it. Around the same time their Android app started requiring a Plex account to function (not sure if that was just an update they pushed, or some flag that got flipped by me using an account once).

I think I ultimately just nuked my Plex install, reinstalled, and never attempted to log into a Plex account again. I live in perpetual certainty now that one day an auto-update will make Plex simply melt down and stop working one way or another for me. It's not really a big deal, I will just have to set up Jellyfin and live with it when that day arrives because it can't possibly be worse than this experience, right? Needless to say I will never give Plex Inc. a single penny after watching this enshittification.

[shepherdjerred]

Plex will only stream through their servers if there is not a direct connection to your server. You need port 32400 open on your network.

I thought there was a way to disable this, but the docs don't mention it: https://support.plex.tv/articles/216766168-accessing-a-serve...

[Someone1234]

Unfortunately I've had nothing but headaches with Jellyfin's media streamer. I'm doing a local Jellyfin to their AppleTV client, and it is just glitchy as heck.

Plex is almost as good as Netflix's player, meaning completely reliable. Jellyfin's server maybe good, but their clients leave a lot to be desired.

The main problem with Jellyfin is that there isn't much money to pay for development. Open Source is great, but developing a half dozen or more clients to unfun work.

[Machado117]

Use Infuse instead of the Jellyfin client that way you avoid having to transcode media. I'm running jellyfin on a raspberry pi and I have no problems whatsoever.

[loughnane]

I've had very few problems (though I'm using an NVIDIA shield), but yeah that polish is what made Plex appealing at first.

[pdimitar]

Hm? Can you share what's your problem with Jellyfin? I am actually working on hosting my own media library through it lately.

[sneedbro14]

Try Infuse Pro, it works perfectly with a Jellyfin server.

[sumtechguy]

If you do not need the 'streaming' bit and are ok running locally KODI is what Plex originally branched from.

[thiht]

Kodi is trash on Android TV though, it’s easily the worst UI I’ve ever had the misfortune to use in my whole life.

It might work better on other platforms, I hope.

[crtasm]

Works great on RPi and Windows.