I run both Plex and Jellyfin. Jellyfin is ready for everyone who doesn’t have to deal with the Mother-in-Law Factor. Plex has an easy setup process, and I could walk my MIL through it on my phone. In 5 minutes, her TV was connected to my server.
Jellyfin isn’t to that point yet, and likely never will be. Since there’s no centralized server for an app to phone home to, there’s no way to create a unified account creation/login experience. Jellyfin is nice as a “just for me” server. But as soon as I have to help others use it, it becomes a nightmare. Walking my MIL through setting up Jellyfin on her TV was the reason I re-installed Plex in the first place.
I had finally converted my wife away from using paid streaming apps, and dealt with all of the “Why do I have to use three different apps to access it on my three different devices? They all look different and are harder to use” complaints. By the time it got around to my MIL, I was tired of dealing with it and just reinstalled Plex so people could have a consistent experience.
I still use Jellyfin for my personal viewing because I prefer it. But saying “just ditch Plex, Jellyfin is ready now” is a little disingenuous. Jellyfin is ready for the people who want to use it. But if you’re trying to convince people to ditch their streaming apps, you’re fighting a lot of social inertia. You need to be able to provide a consistent experience across their different devices, with a decent login experience. And Jellyfin definitely isn’t there yet.
Jellyfin is not there yet but it definitely can be. It can be done pretty easily without any centralised server.
Sending people magic links to their accounts on their phones that auto log them into Jellyfin.
Make IP dictionary to have people type “cat mug door end” which pings the server with a login from an IP.
Show QR code.
Scan with an authorised app which pings the server to authorise the device on behalf of the user.
It’s passwordless 4 word input + phone scan that can be optimised for TV pretty heavily since you only need make something 10^12 unique to account for all IPv4.
It will take around 15-30 hours to code though for a person familiar with Jellyfin on android TV and server.
Lemmy has a lot of really outspoken FOSS enthusiasts. It sort of goes hand in hand with the whole “anyone can spin up their own instance” idea that Lemmy is built upon. Same reason there are so many Linux users here. But that also means you need to take any sort of “just switch to the FOSS version it’s basically the same thing” posts with a grain of salt.
I tried spinning up my own Lemmy instance. Everything was configured properly, but I could not get it working. Mind you, I run lots of things that take more than a drop-in compose.yml, so I’m not sure what I was doing wrong 🤔
I’m in the same boat, I use Jellyfin where I can but Plex is still so much better for sharing, especially with non-technical people so I run both. Really hoping the Jellyfin folks realize they can sell a relay service to make some money and fund their development to improve the app. Seems to be working well for Homeassistant!
Switch to jellyfin, it’s really at the point where it’s ready for everyone
I run both Plex and Jellyfin. Jellyfin is ready for everyone who doesn’t have to deal with the Mother-in-Law Factor. Plex has an easy setup process, and I could walk my MIL through it on my phone. In 5 minutes, her TV was connected to my server.
Jellyfin isn’t to that point yet, and likely never will be. Since there’s no centralized server for an app to phone home to, there’s no way to create a unified account creation/login experience. Jellyfin is nice as a “just for me” server. But as soon as I have to help others use it, it becomes a nightmare. Walking my MIL through setting up Jellyfin on her TV was the reason I re-installed Plex in the first place.
I had finally converted my wife away from using paid streaming apps, and dealt with all of the “Why do I have to use three different apps to access it on my three different devices? They all look different and are harder to use” complaints. By the time it got around to my MIL, I was tired of dealing with it and just reinstalled Plex so people could have a consistent experience.
I still use Jellyfin for my personal viewing because I prefer it. But saying “just ditch Plex, Jellyfin is ready now” is a little disingenuous. Jellyfin is ready for the people who want to use it. But if you’re trying to convince people to ditch their streaming apps, you’re fighting a lot of social inertia. You need to be able to provide a consistent experience across their different devices, with a decent login experience. And Jellyfin definitely isn’t there yet.
Jellyfin is not there yet but it definitely can be. It can be done pretty easily without any centralised server.
It’s passwordless 4 word input + phone scan that can be optimised for TV pretty heavily since you only need make something 10^12 unique to account for all IPv4.
It will take around 15-30 hours to code though for a person familiar with Jellyfin on android TV and server.
Thank you for being a voice of reason. People here are completely out of touch from reality
Lemmy has a lot of really outspoken FOSS enthusiasts. It sort of goes hand in hand with the whole “anyone can spin up their own instance” idea that Lemmy is built upon. Same reason there are so many Linux users here. But that also means you need to take any sort of “just switch to the FOSS version it’s basically the same thing” posts with a grain of salt.
I tried spinning up my own Lemmy instance. Everything was configured properly, but I could not get it working. Mind you, I run lots of things that take more than a drop-in compose.yml, so I’m not sure what I was doing wrong 🤔
I dunno, I found it easier to move my family to JF.
I made them a bunch of accounts and sent them via signal.
For my mum I logged in as her and configured everything how she would want.
I didnt have to explain to anybody that remote stream needs to be unlimited bandwidth for better performance.
If mum forgets her password I can reset it.
To log her TV in we used quick connect where I had her enter the 6 digit code on the tv.
We used SyncPlay to watch a movie together.
I’m in the same boat, I use Jellyfin where I can but Plex is still so much better for sharing, especially with non-technical people so I run both. Really hoping the Jellyfin folks realize they can sell a relay service to make some money and fund their development to improve the app. Seems to be working well for Homeassistant!