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If true, then this will probably reignite discussions around Plex requiring that you authenticate with their servers when using the service to view content that

If true, then this will probably reignite discussions around Plex requiring that you authenticate with their servers when using the service to view content that you're hosting on your own hardware. If anyone is curious, then alternatives like Jellyfin exist. It's a bit different and may not have all the features you need, but it works quite well in my experience.

zexodus 4y ago
Perhaps the most important thing about Jellyfin is that it's open source. I really wish the project received a little bit more love.
- gadders 4y ago
  I like Jellyfin, but I need the Samsung client to be finished first. At least it looks like it has been started: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-tizen https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-tizen
  - seanw444 4y ago
    The build steps were a nightmare. That's mostly the fault of Samsung, but it was still very off-putting. Unless I was doing something wrong. It took me a couple full nights after work to finally get it done and on the TV, trying to set up Samsung's developer tools on multiple different machines. I dread having to do it again.
    - gadders 4y ago
      Does it work OK? Was it worth the effort?
      - seanw444 4y ago
        Yeah it's been working perfectly for me ever since I set it up last fall (maybe it was winter, can't remember). At least half a year. I'd say it's worth the effort, but the process still sucks. One of the things I remember making it real difficult was that the UI of Samsung's dev tools app assumes you have the default light theme in GTK (or whatever widget toolkit they're using), and since I had a different dark theme, I couldn't see any of the icons. So then I switched to one of my devices that were running Ubuntu 20.04 with Gnome, where the app would not launch due to something about "pixbuf". Side note - I'd had that particular error so many times in Ubuntu with various apps that it's the sole reason I eventually learned Arch (and tiling window managers), and haven't looked back since. I finally managed to get it to launch and work correctly on Xubuntu running on my girlfriend's very, very old laptop that takes about 8 minutes to boot to full speed. So save yourself the headache, and run the Samsung dev tools app on an unmolested Linux installation, with no special theming, that is not vanilla Ubuntu.
        gadders 4y ago
        I would if I had one. I'm windows-only currently. I guess I could spin up a VM but then I have networking issues... Thanks for the feedback.
        seanw444 4y ago
        Oh, in that case, I'm sure Samsung has it available for Windows, and it will probably work even better than the Linux version does (considering there aren't dozens of Windows distributions, and dozens of window managers, and a half-dozen popular GUI toolkits to account for).
- shaunpud 4y ago
  Has an app for the fire stick too which works really well
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  They have done a great job, but ultimately I believe a tool like Go or Rust would work much better and the XML metadata format while standard is not very good. Would be nice to see YAML or even JSON. Kodi is my go to for the most part, but I will have to say Jellyfin is definitely more polished. It downloaded the transparent logo for the movie I was watching and displayed it so nicely when I started a movie. I remember Plex offering music themes when you were browsing a collection.. I wonder if Jellyfin does something similar already.
- wallmountedtv 4y ago
  I also want to bring into light that Jellyfin is not very secure either [1], its sadly not in a great place to replace Plex still. 1: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415 https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415
  - nicoco 4y ago
    Most of these issues require a malicious user, right? I think none of them really are a problem for a friends-and-family instance (as long as they don't get their creds stolen obv). For a single-user usage, none of these really are issues, are they?
    - unixhero 4y ago
      Driveby scans happen all the time. Mass scan take 15 minutes to scan the entire internet, for instance.
    - cipherboy 4y ago
      The middle of the list had a media disclosure without any auth via the image API. That would mean running a publicly accessible instance would be ill advised if you can about the privacy of what you host. Plex on the other hand somewhat encourages publicly accessible instances, so you can listen/watch while not at home. (The caveat being, certain plugins disclose media to Plex but arguably that's a first or second party not some rando on the internet scraping stuff)
    - deadbunny 4y ago
      As long as you're not opening JF up to the internet none of these are a real issue, so you're fine with a single person/house/network with trusted users.
  - nijave 4y ago
    To be fair to the Jellyfin team, it seems they inherited a lot of tech debt from Emby which they've spent the last 2 years chipping away at. It might not be in a great place now, but I'm not sure that's necessarily a reflection of the product
- geerlingguy 4y ago
  I've been running it for the past year and besides the occasional odd bug with media discovery, it's run great for me and my family for all our movies and TV a shows.
- JeremyNT 4y ago
  Yes, it's shocking to me how many people are (apparently) willing to trust a closed source / SaaS product like Plex for this kind of thing. Jellyfin may not be perfect but surely it's good enough for most use cases.
smileybarry 4y ago
Plex doesn't require account linking IIRC, it's heavily suggested but you can just access Plex locally without an account.[1] But otherwise I've switched to Infuse[2] since then, it indexes sources reliably on its own (no manual editing though) and saves the entire need for a server if you use it with some cloud storage. Basically replaced my Plex server, with the added bonus of out-of-home streaming without needing high upload. The major disadvantage is that it's Apple-only. 1: https://support.plex.tv/articles/207538527-do-i-need-a-plex-account-to-stream-locally/ https://support.plex.tv/articles/207538527-do-i-need-a-plex-... 2: https://firecore.com/infuse https://firecore.com/infuse
- drexlspivey 4y ago
  With infuse plus cloud storage any transcoding happens locally though which is a problem with weaker devices
  - smileybarry 4y ago
    That's true, but I hate transcoding anyway so I just get HEVC when possible and play natively on Apple TV and co. (not casting).
    - reaperducer 4y ago
      Since you have an AppleTV, what is the advantage to you of using Plex instead of just an iTunes instance with Home Sharing turned on? Do you have non-Apple devices you're trying to stream to, or something else? I tried Plex years ago, and it wasn't to my liking because it was philosophically like Windows (Load the filename up with show information and constantly ping the internet for matches) instead of macOS (Metadata where it belongs — with the file). I'm considering adding a Sony phone to my household, so now that Plex is in the news, this reminded me to check it out again.
      - jmuguy 4y ago
        Well are you pirating stuff? I've been using Plex for years now and so its mostly just what I know but when I first started using it the main things it did were a) handle codec issues (transcoding on the fly when needed) b) pulling metadata and images for movies and shows based on title and year in the file name. C) allow remote users (friends, family, etc) access to your library via the app, which works out to being very similar to a regular streaming service from their perspective. Basically nothing else did that and so it had a big leg up over XBMC and other apps folks used back then. If you're purchasing everything through iTunes (do people still purchase stuff through whatever is "iTunes" now? I guess I don't know that either) I assume its handling transcoding/different device playback and delivering all the metadata for you. Also once Plex pulls metadata down you're right that it doesn't store it with the file but AFAIK its not constantly hitting the net to pull that info down - it keeps a local cache. I will say at this point - I wouldn't bother switching to Plex and look for an alternative like Infuse. The company is clearly under pressure to monetize beyond the Plexpass subscription you can buy. They've been steadily adding crap no one wants and automatically jamming it into the home screen of the app where you then have to go turn it off. Its just a matter of time before they cross a line somewhere and people jump ship. When that happens I imagine some of the open source alternatives (Jellyfin) will see a huge influx of development. I haven't switched just because I don't want to be hassled with figuring out a new system.
moffkalast 4y ago
Kodi's pretty good too, and doesn't insist on showing unrelated online content you don't care about like Plex seems to.
- jaimex2 4y ago
  Kodis always been the better option if you're remotely technical.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Xbox Media Center for LIFE
  - Arainach 4y ago
    I ran Kodi for years, but "always"? * Kodi only works on my local network. It requires exposing my file shares on whatever VLAN my Kodi devices are on. * Kodi is a pain to configure. To point it at the aforementioned file shares, I need to copy an XML configuration file, and getting this onto every device is a chicken and egg problem. * Kodi requires each client to scan and sync the entire library at its CPU and bandwidth limits. My Plex server automatically scans and indexes my media. * Plex allows me to access my content at the office, while travelling, and to share with friends * Kodi doesn't transcode, requiring all of my client devices to have enough power and bandwidth to do so locally. Plex makes it much simpler to (for instance) stream a 4k video to a low power device I know enough to have ran Kodi for years and intentionally switched to Plex full time
    - moffkalast 4y ago
      > Plex allows me to access my content at the office, while travelling, and to share with friends Bold of you to trust an opaque corporation with access to your network and the data they can log through that. I wouldn't even trust Synology with their account quick access thing, as seamless as they claim it to be. I don't really see remote access being secure without it being a self hosted VPN.
      - 4y ago
gadders 4y ago
I just use Universal Media Server now and the built in media-browser on my Samsung TV. It's a bit janky but it works. I've tried using Plex before and while the UI is nice, they don't seem to be able to write a video transcoder that doesn't have massive stuttering in it.
- rograndom 4y ago
  It's using ffmpeg. It's limited by the CPU/GPU on the server. You can adjust the options to have it encode faster or higher quality.
  - gadders 4y ago
    Yeah, I'm it's solvable if dug under the covers and spent hours tweaking and running between the PC in the study and the TV in the living room, but Universal Media Server just works.
Sytten 4y ago
People on HN always complain about this. But the reality is that the one time payment you (maybe) gave for Plex is not enough to make a viable company. So they have to offer complementary products and for that you need an online account. Normal people also want to have features like remote streaming, subtitles fetching, familly sharing, etc which are hard to do without centralized accounts. Not even mentionning securing your paid features which you have to do to survive. And that customer doesn't care about the login as long as it is up. I don't anything plex could do to please this particular demand would ever be enough so for me they do well to ignore it since removing that would effectively kill their business.
- koheripbal 4y ago
  I run a lot of self-hosted software services, many of which have their own internal account system and auth. None of the features you mentioned require 3rd party cloud based auth. I did pay for Plex prior to the cloud auth change, so for me it's a bait and switch, but my concerns are much more about privacy. One day Plex will be bought by a large media company, and my (and my kids') viewing data and library catalogue data will be owned by MGM, Disney, Fox, etc...
BeetleB 4y ago
> If anyone is curious, then alternatives like Jellyfin exist. It's a bit different and may not have all the features you need, but it works quite well in my experience. Jellyfin's DVR service is horrible compared to Plex. Practically unusable. And DVR is the reason I pay for Plex.
- tmm1 4y ago
  Check out Channels DVR

zexodus 4y ago

Perhaps the most important thing about Jellyfin is that it's open source. I really wish the project received a little bit more love.

gadders 4y ago
I like Jellyfin, but I need the Samsung client to be finished first. At least it looks like it has been started: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-tizen https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-tizen
- seanw444 4y ago
  The build steps were a nightmare. That's mostly the fault of Samsung, but it was still very off-putting. Unless I was doing something wrong. It took me a couple full nights after work to finally get it done and on the TV, trying to set up Samsung's developer tools on multiple different machines. I dread having to do it again.
  - gadders 4y ago
    Does it work OK? Was it worth the effort?
    - seanw444 4y ago
      Yeah it's been working perfectly for me ever since I set it up last fall (maybe it was winter, can't remember). At least half a year. I'd say it's worth the effort, but the process still sucks. One of the things I remember making it real difficult was that the UI of Samsung's dev tools app assumes you have the default light theme in GTK (or whatever widget toolkit they're using), and since I had a different dark theme, I couldn't see any of the icons. So then I switched to one of my devices that were running Ubuntu 20.04 with Gnome, where the app would not launch due to something about "pixbuf". Side note - I'd had that particular error so many times in Ubuntu with various apps that it's the sole reason I eventually learned Arch (and tiling window managers), and haven't looked back since. I finally managed to get it to launch and work correctly on Xubuntu running on my girlfriend's very, very old laptop that takes about 8 minutes to boot to full speed. So save yourself the headache, and run the Samsung dev tools app on an unmolested Linux installation, with no special theming, that is not vanilla Ubuntu.
      - gadders 4y ago
        I would if I had one. I'm windows-only currently. I guess I could spin up a VM but then I have networking issues... Thanks for the feedback.
        seanw444 4y ago
        Oh, in that case, I'm sure Samsung has it available for Windows, and it will probably work even better than the Linux version does (considering there aren't dozens of Windows distributions, and dozens of window managers, and a half-dozen popular GUI toolkits to account for).
shaunpud 4y ago
Has an app for the fire stick too which works really well
encryptluks2 4y ago
They have done a great job, but ultimately I believe a tool like Go or Rust would work much better and the XML metadata format while standard is not very good. Would be nice to see YAML or even JSON. Kodi is my go to for the most part, but I will have to say Jellyfin is definitely more polished. It downloaded the transparent logo for the movie I was watching and displayed it so nicely when I started a movie. I remember Plex offering music themes when you were browsing a collection.. I wonder if Jellyfin does something similar already.
wallmountedtv 4y ago
I also want to bring into light that Jellyfin is not very secure either [1], its sadly not in a great place to replace Plex still. 1: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415 https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415
- nicoco 4y ago
  Most of these issues require a malicious user, right? I think none of them really are a problem for a friends-and-family instance (as long as they don't get their creds stolen obv). For a single-user usage, none of these really are issues, are they?
  - unixhero 4y ago
    Driveby scans happen all the time. Mass scan take 15 minutes to scan the entire internet, for instance.
  - cipherboy 4y ago
    The middle of the list had a media disclosure without any auth via the image API. That would mean running a publicly accessible instance would be ill advised if you can about the privacy of what you host. Plex on the other hand somewhat encourages publicly accessible instances, so you can listen/watch while not at home. (The caveat being, certain plugins disclose media to Plex but arguably that's a first or second party not some rando on the internet scraping stuff)
  - deadbunny 4y ago
    As long as you're not opening JF up to the internet none of these are a real issue, so you're fine with a single person/house/network with trusted users.
- nijave 4y ago
  To be fair to the Jellyfin team, it seems they inherited a lot of tech debt from Emby which they've spent the last 2 years chipping away at. It might not be in a great place now, but I'm not sure that's necessarily a reflection of the product
geerlingguy 4y ago
I've been running it for the past year and besides the occasional odd bug with media discovery, it's run great for me and my family for all our movies and TV a shows.
JeremyNT 4y ago
Yes, it's shocking to me how many people are (apparently) willing to trust a closed source / SaaS product like Plex for this kind of thing. Jellyfin may not be perfect but surely it's good enough for most use cases.

smileybarry 4y ago

Plex doesn't require account linking IIRC, it's heavily suggested but you can just access Plex locally without an account.[1] But otherwise I've switched to Infuse[2] since then, it indexes sources reliably on its own (no manual editing though) and saves the entire need for a server if you use it with some cloud storage. Basically replaced my Plex server, with the added bonus of out-of-home streaming without needing high upload. The major disadvantage is that it's Apple-only. 1: https://support.plex.tv/articles/207538527-do-i-need-a-plex-account-to-stream-locally/ https://support.plex.tv/articles/207538527-do-i-need-a-plex-... 2: https://firecore.com/infuse https://firecore.com/infuse

drexlspivey 4y ago
With infuse plus cloud storage any transcoding happens locally though which is a problem with weaker devices
- smileybarry 4y ago
  That's true, but I hate transcoding anyway so I just get HEVC when possible and play natively on Apple TV and co. (not casting).
  - reaperducer 4y ago
    Since you have an AppleTV, what is the advantage to you of using Plex instead of just an iTunes instance with Home Sharing turned on? Do you have non-Apple devices you're trying to stream to, or something else? I tried Plex years ago, and it wasn't to my liking because it was philosophically like Windows (Load the filename up with show information and constantly ping the internet for matches) instead of macOS (Metadata where it belongs — with the file). I'm considering adding a Sony phone to my household, so now that Plex is in the news, this reminded me to check it out again.
    - jmuguy 4y ago
      Well are you pirating stuff? I've been using Plex for years now and so its mostly just what I know but when I first started using it the main things it did were a) handle codec issues (transcoding on the fly when needed) b) pulling metadata and images for movies and shows based on title and year in the file name. C) allow remote users (friends, family, etc) access to your library via the app, which works out to being very similar to a regular streaming service from their perspective. Basically nothing else did that and so it had a big leg up over XBMC and other apps folks used back then. If you're purchasing everything through iTunes (do people still purchase stuff through whatever is "iTunes" now? I guess I don't know that either) I assume its handling transcoding/different device playback and delivering all the metadata for you. Also once Plex pulls metadata down you're right that it doesn't store it with the file but AFAIK its not constantly hitting the net to pull that info down - it keeps a local cache. I will say at this point - I wouldn't bother switching to Plex and look for an alternative like Infuse. The company is clearly under pressure to monetize beyond the Plexpass subscription you can buy. They've been steadily adding crap no one wants and automatically jamming it into the home screen of the app where you then have to go turn it off. Its just a matter of time before they cross a line somewhere and people jump ship. When that happens I imagine some of the open source alternatives (Jellyfin) will see a huge influx of development. I haven't switched just because I don't want to be hassled with figuring out a new system.

moffkalast 4y ago

Kodi's pretty good too, and doesn't insist on showing unrelated online content you don't care about like Plex seems to.

jaimex2 4y ago
Kodis always been the better option if you're remotely technical.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Xbox Media Center for LIFE
- Arainach 4y ago
  I ran Kodi for years, but "always"? * Kodi only works on my local network. It requires exposing my file shares on whatever VLAN my Kodi devices are on. * Kodi is a pain to configure. To point it at the aforementioned file shares, I need to copy an XML configuration file, and getting this onto every device is a chicken and egg problem. * Kodi requires each client to scan and sync the entire library at its CPU and bandwidth limits. My Plex server automatically scans and indexes my media. * Plex allows me to access my content at the office, while travelling, and to share with friends * Kodi doesn't transcode, requiring all of my client devices to have enough power and bandwidth to do so locally. Plex makes it much simpler to (for instance) stream a 4k video to a low power device I know enough to have ran Kodi for years and intentionally switched to Plex full time
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    > Plex allows me to access my content at the office, while travelling, and to share with friends Bold of you to trust an opaque corporation with access to your network and the data they can log through that. I wouldn't even trust Synology with their account quick access thing, as seamless as they claim it to be. I don't really see remote access being secure without it being a self hosted VPN.
    - 4y ago

gadders 4y ago

I just use Universal Media Server now and the built in media-browser on my Samsung TV. It's a bit janky but it works. I've tried using Plex before and while the UI is nice, they don't seem to be able to write a video transcoder that doesn't have massive stuttering in it.

rograndom 4y ago
It's using ffmpeg. It's limited by the CPU/GPU on the server. You can adjust the options to have it encode faster or higher quality.
- gadders 4y ago
  Yeah, I'm it's solvable if dug under the covers and spent hours tweaking and running between the PC in the study and the TV in the living room, but Universal Media Server just works.

Sytten 4y ago

People on HN always complain about this. But the reality is that the one time payment you (maybe) gave for Plex is not enough to make a viable company. So they have to offer complementary products and for that you need an online account. Normal people also want to have features like remote streaming, subtitles fetching, familly sharing, etc which are hard to do without centralized accounts. Not even mentionning securing your paid features which you have to do to survive. And that customer doesn't care about the login as long as it is up. I don't anything plex could do to please this particular demand would ever be enough so for me they do well to ignore it since removing that would effectively kill their business.

koheripbal 4y ago
I run a lot of self-hosted software services, many of which have their own internal account system and auth. None of the features you mentioned require 3rd party cloud based auth. I did pay for Plex prior to the cloud auth change, so for me it's a bait and switch, but my concerns are much more about privacy. One day Plex will be bought by a large media company, and my (and my kids') viewing data and library catalogue data will be owned by MGM, Disney, Fox, etc...

BeetleB 4y ago

> If anyone is curious, then alternatives like Jellyfin exist. It's a bit different and may not have all the features you need, but it works quite well in my experience. Jellyfin's DVR service is horrible compared to Plex. Practically unusable. And DVR is the reason I pay for Plex.

tmm1 4y ago
Check out Channels DVR