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I hope the project succeeds and think this is a good move. But I have a lifetime Plex pass and Jellyfin still seems not as good. I have both on my box, but when

I hope the project succeeds and think this is a good move. But I have a lifetime Plex pass and Jellyfin still seems not as good. I have both on my box, but whenever I try to use Jellyfin theres just something missing. I will keep checking back.

nolok 2y ago
Do you have any specific exemples ?
- yegle 2y ago
  I can give a couple examples: 1) Jellyfin supports reading NFO files to help determining matching the file with the correct metadata (https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/metadata/nfo/ https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/metadata/nfo/). This is arguably superior than Plex's way (you have to name your file with IMDb id or tmdb id https://support.plex.tv/articles/201018497-fix-match-match/#:~:text=of%20the%20search.-,Tips,-There%20are%20a https://support.plex.tv/articles/201018497-fix-match-match/#...), but I still constantly find media w/o metadata in Jellyfin. 2) The way you fix the matching in Jellyfin has a pretty terrible UX. You select the movie w/o metadata (there's no filter to "find all media that Jellyfin fail to match w/ metadata) and click "Identify" in the 3-dot menu, then fill in the information and search (why can't Jellyfin prefill useful metadata, at the very minimum the year that should be easily identified using regex?), then pick either IMDb or tmdb (why do I have to choose one of them? Can I bulk-switch my library to use IMDb instead of tmdb?), with a checkbox to confirm you want to "replace existing images" (why do I have any images to replace? Jellyfin did not match the media to any metadata right?) you now have some useful metadata. 3) When I need to force a rescan of a library, there's no way (that I can find) to do that when you are viewing the library. The only way to do this is to go to Settings -> Dashboard -> Scan All Libraries. 4) There's no offline media playback support (AFAIKT).
  - nolok 2y ago
    1 - I'm not sure what you mean. Jellyfin can use the NFO, and if not will do a normal search and match. 2 - I agree that Find all without set metadata in a library would be nice. However when identifying you don't need to chose one or the other, you just type whatever info you have (the name, or the year, or both, or ...) and search and it search in all providers it has a plugin for (so in your case, both imdb and tmdb) and show all results from both. The do you want to replace image is because it's very common to switch to another provider for obscure series for exemple, but want to keep you hand replaced image. It doesn't really apply to "blockbuster" series or movies, so I guess it could be nice to have a default you can set. 3 - It separates the admin part and the viewing part, I think it's good. If you're solo user it can feel bothersome, but for me it's a better thing. 4 - You can download the files for later viewing offline. Overall the only one I agree with is the figure out which movie or serie you didn't identify and let me fix that in bulk, that process could be improved, but it's also a one time thing at first setup.
    - yegle 2y ago
      1) I do generate NFO for all my media and Jellyfin should have enough information to match the metadata, yet it fail to match constantly. 2) When I try to identify the media, I would expect Jellyfin to pre-fill the form with the name, year etc, basically anything it can find, either from parsing the filename or the NFO. But Jellyfin did nothing here to make it easier. 4) Oh I just found this functionality in the Android client! But this is over simplified, for TV shows it doesn't support "download the next N unwatched episodes". I also tried to download a movie just now and I got a notification "download unsuccessful" w/o more insight to debug the issue (although to be fair Plex is not better in giving a reason why download failed). And I don't see in the UI to manage all downloaded media (maybe because I haven't had a successful download?).
      - nolok 2y ago
        For 1) I use folder and file naming myself rather than NFO so I can't help you more, but if it fails on such a large scale you should submit a bug with an example as it's obviously not normal behavior. 2) I understand what you mean,but I would disagree, usually it would get in the way for me (whatever it identified or thought it did was wrong). 4) The log will be on the server, admin, logs. There won't be a manage my upload though, it's a client thing and the current client does consider that outside of its scope. Personnaly when needed it's download then use Vlc when I want to watch.
  - Sakos 2y ago
    I've been able to identify everything by just using the title. Jellyfin could be better here, but there's almost no friction in entering the title, hitting enter, selecting the right movie and then completing it. You don't have to change anything after selecting the movie, since it by default replaces images (and simply provides the option in case you already have images you'd like to keep). Are you advocating taking away an option other users might use because it confuses you?
  - ThatMedicIsASpy 2y ago
    I have 20tb+ of movies, tv shows, anime, documentations I do not allow jellyfin to scrape online. Everything goes through tinymediamanager (kodi format). There isn't a single missing piece in my library .
- weberer 2y ago
  Never used Plex, but I have 2 gripes with the Jellyfin iOS client. 1. I can't download shows from the iOS client. I can on my Android device 2. The music player doesn't interface with the device's media player. So you have to keep your phone open when listening to music
  - leinelissen 2y ago
    Just so you know, there are (open source!) third-party clients available that solve these issues. Particularly with respect to the music player, there's Fintunes[1], Finamp[2] and AmpFin[3] for instance. Source: am Fintunes dev. [1]: https://fintunes.app https://fintunes.app [2]: https://github.com/jmshrv/finamp https://github.com/jmshrv/finamp [3]: https://github.com/rasmuslos/AmpFin https://github.com/rasmuslos/AmpFin
    - weberer 2y ago
      Thanks! Fintunes works great.
phito 2y ago
So glad I stopped using Plex, it worked fine but was so bloated with useless garbage and I did not feel like I could trust it with my data. I need a plex.com account to use my own self hosted instance? Uninstalled.
- lofties 2y ago
  The garbage is exactly why I stopped using Plex. Yeah, Jellyfin isn't perfect. But at least it isn't bombarding me with crap I don't need.
  - Retr0id 2y ago
    I stopped using Plex almost immediately after installing it. I couldn't figure out how to proceed without creating a centralized account with them, which is the last thing I want or expect from a "self hosted" software package.
    - close04 2y ago
      I think this is the worst part of Plex, it's self hosted but not really. Still depends on the company's continued existence. If the company goes bust my solution will probably just stop working. It took some time to set it up properly so the bloat is thoroughly swept under the rug, never in sight. This gives me a more than decent experience and the interface/UX is spot on for me. The best of Jellyfin is that it's truly self hosted. But no matter how much set up I do, the experience is still never too good. I don't really like the UI/UX but I could get used to it. My biggest issue is how it handles the folder structure and metadata for series. They will always have to be neatly organized in folders to be properly picked up. You can't throw an episode file here, an episode in a folder there, the rest of the season in another folder and so on. They're just seen as independent material, no metadata. This makes the watching experience very stunted.
    - Tempat 2y ago
      When I used it a few years ago it was still possible to use without an account if you knew the exact extremely-hidden-behind-dark-patterns steps, much like making a local account in Windows these days. But from the other comments in this thread I get the impression that even that tricky process is no longer an option.
madaxe_again 2y ago
Ditto. I would love to use jellyfin in principle, but in reality I find myself often butting heads with it when I just want to watch a damned film - and Plex, despite its considerable bloat, just works.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- MattPalmer1086 2y ago
  Yep. Every time I've tried Jellyfin, I thought it was great... Until a video wouldn't play, or the sound wasn't synchronised, or something else. Whereas Plex just works, and always did. Hoping Jellyfin keeps going, maybe I'll check it out again at some point.
  - flkiwi 2y ago
    In my own experience (and the takeaway is “software is hard” not “I am right”), every movie I watched via plex had audio desync issues, which has never been an issue with Jellyfin.
- primax 2y ago
  The creeping enshittification of Plex is really putting me off. I know you can unfuck it, however I don't want to reward that toxic behaviour with usage
- yard2010 2y ago
  I feel the same with Plex! I'm scared to try Jellyfin.
Vaslo 2y ago
Jellyfin helps fit a niche between a more complicated Kodi setup and Plex’s easy setup with everything just working. Non-techie family though prefers Plex, hands down. Looks good and really easy to setup on any machine.
Sakos 2y ago
I have more issues when using Plex than I do with Jellyfin. Jellyfin can still be annoying, but Plex can be infuriating trying to get it play nice with my library. I've stopped using Plex.
e40 2y ago
The client I use is Apple TV 4k and Plex does not have reliable playback for that device. It’s pathetic this has been broken for so long. I have to use Infuse for playback, which is $1/mo. Does Jellyfin work well on this platform?
- vundercind 2y ago
  Jellyfin works well except that if you’re not transcoding, you’ll need Infuse for (IIRC?) a couple not-ubiquitous-but-not-rare audio codecs that Apple TV doesn’t natively support. I use Infuse with Jellyfin. My server’s way too weak for reliable transcoding, plus not using it avoids a large proportion of bugs in the Jellyfin issues tracker at any given time.
- bronson 2y ago
  Using the Jellyfin webui on AppleTV without even installing an app works decent. There’s a dedicated AppleTV app, which works great for a month, then reliably forgets its credentials. I use it, but the kids don’t want to learn how to type urls, usernames, and passwords so they don’t. That’s fair.

nolok 2y ago

Do you have any specific exemples ?

yegle 2y ago
I can give a couple examples: 1) Jellyfin supports reading NFO files to help determining matching the file with the correct metadata (https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/metadata/nfo/ https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/metadata/nfo/). This is arguably superior than Plex's way (you have to name your file with IMDb id or tmdb id https://support.plex.tv/articles/201018497-fix-match-match/#:~:text=of%20the%20search.-,Tips,-There%20are%20a https://support.plex.tv/articles/201018497-fix-match-match/#...), but I still constantly find media w/o metadata in Jellyfin. 2) The way you fix the matching in Jellyfin has a pretty terrible UX. You select the movie w/o metadata (there's no filter to "find all media that Jellyfin fail to match w/ metadata) and click "Identify" in the 3-dot menu, then fill in the information and search (why can't Jellyfin prefill useful metadata, at the very minimum the year that should be easily identified using regex?), then pick either IMDb or tmdb (why do I have to choose one of them? Can I bulk-switch my library to use IMDb instead of tmdb?), with a checkbox to confirm you want to "replace existing images" (why do I have any images to replace? Jellyfin did not match the media to any metadata right?) you now have some useful metadata. 3) When I need to force a rescan of a library, there's no way (that I can find) to do that when you are viewing the library. The only way to do this is to go to Settings -> Dashboard -> Scan All Libraries. 4) There's no offline media playback support (AFAIKT).
- nolok 2y ago
  1 - I'm not sure what you mean. Jellyfin can use the NFO, and if not will do a normal search and match. 2 - I agree that Find all without set metadata in a library would be nice. However when identifying you don't need to chose one or the other, you just type whatever info you have (the name, or the year, or both, or ...) and search and it search in all providers it has a plugin for (so in your case, both imdb and tmdb) and show all results from both. The do you want to replace image is because it's very common to switch to another provider for obscure series for exemple, but want to keep you hand replaced image. It doesn't really apply to "blockbuster" series or movies, so I guess it could be nice to have a default you can set. 3 - It separates the admin part and the viewing part, I think it's good. If you're solo user it can feel bothersome, but for me it's a better thing. 4 - You can download the files for later viewing offline. Overall the only one I agree with is the figure out which movie or serie you didn't identify and let me fix that in bulk, that process could be improved, but it's also a one time thing at first setup.
  - yegle 2y ago
    1) I do generate NFO for all my media and Jellyfin should have enough information to match the metadata, yet it fail to match constantly. 2) When I try to identify the media, I would expect Jellyfin to pre-fill the form with the name, year etc, basically anything it can find, either from parsing the filename or the NFO. But Jellyfin did nothing here to make it easier. 4) Oh I just found this functionality in the Android client! But this is over simplified, for TV shows it doesn't support "download the next N unwatched episodes". I also tried to download a movie just now and I got a notification "download unsuccessful" w/o more insight to debug the issue (although to be fair Plex is not better in giving a reason why download failed). And I don't see in the UI to manage all downloaded media (maybe because I haven't had a successful download?).
    - nolok 2y ago
      For 1) I use folder and file naming myself rather than NFO so I can't help you more, but if it fails on such a large scale you should submit a bug with an example as it's obviously not normal behavior. 2) I understand what you mean,but I would disagree, usually it would get in the way for me (whatever it identified or thought it did was wrong). 4) The log will be on the server, admin, logs. There won't be a manage my upload though, it's a client thing and the current client does consider that outside of its scope. Personnaly when needed it's download then use Vlc when I want to watch.
- Sakos 2y ago
  I've been able to identify everything by just using the title. Jellyfin could be better here, but there's almost no friction in entering the title, hitting enter, selecting the right movie and then completing it. You don't have to change anything after selecting the movie, since it by default replaces images (and simply provides the option in case you already have images you'd like to keep). Are you advocating taking away an option other users might use because it confuses you?
- ThatMedicIsASpy 2y ago
  I have 20tb+ of movies, tv shows, anime, documentations I do not allow jellyfin to scrape online. Everything goes through tinymediamanager (kodi format). There isn't a single missing piece in my library .
weberer 2y ago
Never used Plex, but I have 2 gripes with the Jellyfin iOS client. 1. I can't download shows from the iOS client. I can on my Android device 2. The music player doesn't interface with the device's media player. So you have to keep your phone open when listening to music
- leinelissen 2y ago
  Just so you know, there are (open source!) third-party clients available that solve these issues. Particularly with respect to the music player, there's Fintunes[1], Finamp[2] and AmpFin[3] for instance. Source: am Fintunes dev. [1]: https://fintunes.app https://fintunes.app [2]: https://github.com/jmshrv/finamp https://github.com/jmshrv/finamp [3]: https://github.com/rasmuslos/AmpFin https://github.com/rasmuslos/AmpFin
  - weberer 2y ago
    Thanks! Fintunes works great.

phito 2y ago

So glad I stopped using Plex, it worked fine but was so bloated with useless garbage and I did not feel like I could trust it with my data. I need a plex.com account to use my own self hosted instance? Uninstalled.

lofties 2y ago
The garbage is exactly why I stopped using Plex. Yeah, Jellyfin isn't perfect. But at least it isn't bombarding me with crap I don't need.
- Retr0id 2y ago
  I stopped using Plex almost immediately after installing it. I couldn't figure out how to proceed without creating a centralized account with them, which is the last thing I want or expect from a "self hosted" software package.
  - close04 2y ago
    I think this is the worst part of Plex, it's self hosted but not really. Still depends on the company's continued existence. If the company goes bust my solution will probably just stop working. It took some time to set it up properly so the bloat is thoroughly swept under the rug, never in sight. This gives me a more than decent experience and the interface/UX is spot on for me. The best of Jellyfin is that it's truly self hosted. But no matter how much set up I do, the experience is still never too good. I don't really like the UI/UX but I could get used to it. My biggest issue is how it handles the folder structure and metadata for series. They will always have to be neatly organized in folders to be properly picked up. You can't throw an episode file here, an episode in a folder there, the rest of the season in another folder and so on. They're just seen as independent material, no metadata. This makes the watching experience very stunted.
  - Tempat 2y ago
    When I used it a few years ago it was still possible to use without an account if you knew the exact extremely-hidden-behind-dark-patterns steps, much like making a local account in Windows these days. But from the other comments in this thread I get the impression that even that tricky process is no longer an option.

madaxe_again 2y ago

Ditto. I would love to use jellyfin in principle, but in reality I find myself often butting heads with it when I just want to watch a damned film - and Plex, despite its considerable bloat, just works.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
MattPalmer1086 2y ago
Yep. Every time I've tried Jellyfin, I thought it was great... Until a video wouldn't play, or the sound wasn't synchronised, or something else. Whereas Plex just works, and always did. Hoping Jellyfin keeps going, maybe I'll check it out again at some point.
- flkiwi 2y ago
  In my own experience (and the takeaway is “software is hard” not “I am right”), every movie I watched via plex had audio desync issues, which has never been an issue with Jellyfin.
primax 2y ago
The creeping enshittification of Plex is really putting me off. I know you can unfuck it, however I don't want to reward that toxic behaviour with usage
yard2010 2y ago
I feel the same with Plex! I'm scared to try Jellyfin.

Vaslo 2y ago

Jellyfin helps fit a niche between a more complicated Kodi setup and Plex’s easy setup with everything just working. Non-techie family though prefers Plex, hands down. Looks good and really easy to setup on any machine.

Sakos 2y ago

I have more issues when using Plex than I do with Jellyfin. Jellyfin can still be annoying, but Plex can be infuriating trying to get it play nice with my library. I've stopped using Plex.

e40 2y ago

The client I use is Apple TV 4k and Plex does not have reliable playback for that device. It’s pathetic this has been broken for so long. I have to use Infuse for playback, which is $1/mo. Does Jellyfin work well on this platform?

vundercind 2y ago
Jellyfin works well except that if you’re not transcoding, you’ll need Infuse for (IIRC?) a couple not-ubiquitous-but-not-rare audio codecs that Apple TV doesn’t natively support. I use Infuse with Jellyfin. My server’s way too weak for reliable transcoding, plus not using it avoids a large proportion of bugs in the Jellyfin issues tracker at any given time.
bronson 2y ago
Using the Jellyfin webui on AppleTV without even installing an app works decent. There’s a dedicated AppleTV app, which works great for a month, then reliably forgets its credentials. I use it, but the kids don’t want to learn how to type urls, usernames, and passwords so they don’t. That’s fair.