Well I already have jellyfin running in a container, just have to figure out how to get mum’s TV to work with it I guess
<edit> log in on a local IP and not the network name and it’s working again. but I’ll be moving to jellyfin from now
I tried hitting the X thinking it was an ad XD
I know it’s fashionable to shit on Plex here, but OP either has his server misconfigured or is just trying to stir the pot:
https://support.plex.tv/articles/202526943-plex-free-vs-paid/
Free to Use: Video (movies & TV) streaming of personal content on the same local network as the Plex Media Server
Right, the $2 is to use the relay service, which costs Plex bandwidth. They can’t just do it free for everyone forever, bandwidth costs money.
They charge for remote access whether it’s through their relay service or not, and you can’t opt out of fallback to their relay service.
If you connect with the IP address it doesn’t charge you. You can use ZeroTier to connect from anywhere.
That’s not quite the same - that gives you the appearance of being a local device, which is enough to fool the restriction.
Their policy and technology enforcement is to charge for remote access, not relaying.
Can you give me an example of remote direct access that would be blocked? You can use nginx to forward your public IP to your Plex and it’s fine, you can forward ports directly on your router and connect to your public IP, you can use a VPN to connect from a different network; what are they limiting? It’s the same hurdle you have to overcome with Jellyfin. Relays are convenient, but they also cost money.
Yes, however using the relay is not a prerequisite to being required to pay for a Plex subscription. That is what he is trying to say.
I can run Plex on the open internet and not use their relay at all, however if the IP of the viewer is not an interal IP on the same subnet as Plex (I assume the same subnet is required) then you’ll be greeted with the Plex paywall.
You are absolutely correct that it costs money to run a relay, but the relay has nothing to directly do with the paywall.
That isn’t how it used to work.
Why would they care what subnet the request is coming from? That’s wack.
Thank you! That is exactly my point.
But there are dozens of people in this very thread who if I am understanding correctly are willing to offer the same service for free to prove their point that Plex is evil.
People are free to take some rando on the Internet up on their offer.
except not via mobile devices. you have to pay for the app to work.
It means the same specific subnet. If you have multiple subnets (one for wired, one for wireless for example) it will also trigger that limitation unless you go in and manually tell it hey these are local.
Yes, but they’re still sending emails to people even when it doesn’t apply. I had a Plex pass and still all of my users received emails and freaked out. They’re trying to trick people into thinking they need to pay, that’s the asshole move here.
I have always connected via a FQDN, for some reason last night it decided to shit it’s self. Resolved by accessing via local IP, then the FQDN worked again
I’ll shit on Plex as much as anyone, but I wouldn’t rule out some kind of DNS nonsense here.
Think they worked out that using the IP instead of the hostname solved it.
I have always connected via a FQDN, for some reason last night it decided to shit it’s self. Resolved by accessing via local IP, then the FQDN worked again
You can stream from a jellyfin server to Kodi
I agree, streaming on local network should be free, what is.
I had other reasons too, so a while back I tried other self hosted solutions and I got back to Plex, it is more polished and a cleaner user experience. I’m happy to pay for a well written software as long as it is reasonable and not too greedy.
Ah the weekly “Plex should be entirely free even though it’s commercial software!”
Except they’re spamming to users that they need this subscription even when they host locally or already have a membership.
I bought a plex lifetime pass for $100 over a decade ago and I never see ads like this. I only occasionally get the notice for plex pro week and stuff like that.
I also bought Plex lifetime pass also for $100 and I am getting ads like this.
That’s pretty fucked up. I’d be shootin off some angry emails to customer support. Sorry to hear that!
How is Plex used if you aren’t using it to stream your self hosted media? I remember seeing channels and such before. Is all the official stuff licensed content? I can’t imagine their offering is very competitive.
99.9% of the use mine has seen for the past several years has been to stream to my living room TV in the same house. But regardless, what point are you making? It’s commercial software. And btw the $85 I paid years ago to use it forever was more than worth it to me.
it’s commercial software
digital cancer
Here’s a controversial and complex stance, but you may be able to understand it eventually:
Don’t buy it.
I am a proponent of FOSS too but that doesn’t mean anything built for profit is shitty, let alone “cancer”.
Hey, you paid for them to spy on your media, give them their money’s worth.
God I hate humans
I do too. They tend to speak from the heart but the second something is inconvenient, they’re cool with relaxing their morals.
I’m not trying to make a point, I’m just curious how many this impacts and so on. I imagine it will go down similar to Netflix account sharing crackdown; generally viewed unfavourably, but will convert enough users to pay for it to be worth it.
Gotcha. We’ll see, I guess.
They’ve added commercial supported live channels like many other free services but yeah, it’s lacking compared to others. Pluto.tv is my go-to if I want to throw something on at a family members house or something like that. Owned by the networks, reasonably short ads, completely free. Too bad they didn’t figure that out 10 years ago lol.
Oh I’ve actually heard of Pluto.tv and watched it somewhere.
Also the weekly intentionally misunderstanding how Plex pass/Plex remote pass works in order to complain:
Free to Use: Video (movies & TV) streaming of personal content on the same local network as the Plex Media Server
Can you get around that bs with a VPN?
You should be able to. I have a wireguard tunnel to my parent’s house and when they watch plex it doesn’t go over the relay server (I can’t port forward on starlink).
Plex is entirely free and completely local, but only if you don’t use the features that make it so convenient (the relay server they offer, authentication and authorization, etc). Things I’m pretty sure jellyfin doesn’t provide at all. If people spent half the time reading as they do trying to convince people to get angry at optional features then maybe we wouldn’t have so many posts like this.
Jellyfin does offer authentication and authorization. Relay can be done via nginx iirc?
The authentication is lacking 2fa and has a half hearted attempt at fail2ban
If you try to properly implement either of those, the standard device clients won’t work anymore.
Plex provides default SSL.
The relay is actually a bit more useful.
You can be on a carrier grade NAT with no real external IP.
It’s more akin to running a VPS somewhere and SSH tunneling your home server through it.
They also cache* the entirety of the TVDB and EPG Services.
I’m not sore about most of this with jellyfin, and I am trying to primarily use it, but I really miss some of the features. But realistically, adding 2FA to the clients would be a huge benefit. trying to replace 2FA with wish.com fail2ban feels particularly dirty.
Good explanation. I’m out in the boonies with Starlink for internet right now so no port forwarding for me. I paid like $100 for a plex lifetime pass 12 years ago or something so none of my family or friends even notice most of the time. HEVC encoding helps too (you can squeeze 720p through their relay server with it).
You can run the OIDC version and use SSO and implement MFA on the IdP. I use Keycloak for SSO w/ MFA and users sign into my Jellyfin via Keycloak. Just disable username/password auth and leave it SSO only.
The only benefit Plex really has is the relaying, but I was able to sync watch with 3 people basically as far across North America as you can get from me and it worked without issue so…
That’s fine for browser-based watching, literally no one in my group watches via the browser. Even on android it’d be a fight. Grandma’s not going to go on to a browser to auth her session.
The clients need to support it. If it were just backend, I’d fork it myself.
Neither do I - I use either my phone, or my smart TV, or my fire stick. SSO works fine there, or you can use the QR based session transfer to SSO on your phone and then “sign in on another device” or whatever by scanning the QR your other device is showing. I think they call it quick connect or something.
It does what you want.
And if you think Grandma can’t figure out scanning a QR code, Grandma is also not gonna figure out MFA lol.
Relaying gigabytes of traffic per user costs serious money. Rely on them to do it, and they are either going to charge you or are just waiting to charge you when their VCs come knocking.
Having to set up a reverse proxy is basically a non-starter for most people, while I’ve talked extremely non-technical people into running Plex since it just works out of the box.
So glad I installed jellyfin years ago and never bothered to set up Plex.
For my media consumption, I use jellyfin for streaming thing. Like music and movies to mobile or laptop.
I use OSMC on a pi4 for TV viewing, it’s a kodo remix but I like it. Have the media from jellyfin mounted over NFS and in kodo directly.
I did run tvheadend for live TV, but we don’t watch any live TV now as the kids get TV priority. I also had tvheadend setup in jellyfin so I could watch TV out and about
y’all don’t use jellyfin???
for music: navidrome
With navidrome, my library is a little messed up from what I have on my local and the album art is wrong. Do you know any guide to properly setup navidrome library.
Something like picard to fix the metadata for you?
Thanks, that’s actually what I’ve been using but I guess something got messed up locally after I copied the data over. Maybe I’ll pass Picard directly over the server side data or try copying the music again because the metadata looks fine locally which was the cause of my confusion.
Oh weird. Then I don’t have anything to offer other than generic troubleshooting and best wishes.
i wish i could help. i got the privilege of having a friend who took the headache off me and just set everything up properly before i even got my server ready lol
we haven´t encountered this issue, so all i can say is: it´s solvabe. sorry
Lol, thanks anyway. Glad your library is not the headache I got
What benefits does navidrome provide as a separate music server if jellyfin can host your music already?
I can only tell you that personally I’m interested in trying out Navidrome because I don’t like all my eggs in one basket (Jellyfin is more complex sw for sure too) and I think I’m not the only one caring more about my music collection than movies and tv. But I did try Jellyfin for music (not with my main library) and it works very well, Finamp on android has offline mode which I find almost essential.
Does Jellyfin do smart playlists yet?
Edit: There seems to be a plugin. So, now it’s just about the fact that I already have it set up the way I want, and that I don’t wanna put all my eggs in the same basket. But I guess using Jellyfin for music is totally viable now.
Jellyfin can’t even do smart collections of TV and movies
I’d like to personally, however with my home environment being Apple TV device the plex application is fantastic. And sharing my libraries with other friends sharing back with me is pretty great. Does jellyfinn have that ability? I’ve seen about an app that’s supported but I’m not sure about it, the Apple TV app that is.
And sharing my libraries with other friends sharing back with me is pretty great.
This feature is imo THE killer feature of Plex, although I use Jellyfin. There’s no sharing of libraries like Plex does. Multiple user accounts per server, yes, but you have to switch between servers and search separately.
unfortunately i have no idea about the apple ecosystem. the ios app is smooth. i hope you can just download it and test it somehow on your apple tv.
jellyfin supports several user accounts for friends and family.
for music: not streaming.
Music is a solved problem, the files are small even at FLAC quality and can be tiny with Opus whilst sounding transparent. Any SOC made in the last 15 years features a more than fully capable DAC.
Why even bother with streaming? Have a local collection of files. Even syncing is easy.
i understand what you mean. there´s bad phone reception in my area and streaming is a horrible experience, i download everything on my phone. if i have a stable wifi connection i can stream easily. the benefit of it is just not bloating my 128gb phone to it´s limits
the benefit of it is just not bloating my 128gb phone to it´s limits
That’s kinda the thing though, using modern codecs there’s no way you’ll get anywhere close to facing this issue. A song encoded with Opus at higher than necessary quality is 2.5 MBs on average - that’s over 20 thousand songs in 50 GB, not even half of your total storage gets you 50 days of continuous audio.
Imo Plex is worth the lifetime pass if you get it on sale.
All the comments saying Jellyfin is better always puzzle me. I’ve given it like three chances now and each time it feels just as buggy as the last. And that doesn’t even consider the fact that you’ll need more steps to expose it to the Internet for remote viewing or the fact that there’s literally a list of unaddressed security holes https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415
So don’t expose it to the internet - which should be the default stance for anything.
The internet was (mistakenly and intentionally) built without security - that doesn’t mean we should just accept that, but instead build everything with our own security.
Numerous mesh VPN solutions exist: Hamachi has been around since at leas 2006. NeoRouter since at least 2012. Then we have Wireguard and Tailscale, and others.
Business build their own tunnels between locations, using routers/gateways with that capability. Consumer routers from Linksys could do this in 2006.
There’s zero excuse for running anything exposed to the internet.
In closing NO SOFTWARE is free of bugs. With Plex you get to pay for those bugs and still have software that depends on a connection even though you’re hosting and viewing your own media, locally.
You wanna denigrate Jellyfin, at least be honest about the pros/cons between the different solutions.
So don’t expose it to the internet
No
Thwres zero excuse for running anything exposed to the internet.
…except this entire thread is based on a use case for it
With Plex you get to pay for those bugs and still have software that depends on a connection even though you’re hosting and viewing your own media, locally.
You’re condescending dude. I wouldn’t be using Plex if I didn’t understand like 37 things you’re implying I don’t understand here. I paid for it once, it was a good value for me, and I find it pretty weird that you apparently want to admonish me for that. If you want to use jellyfin have at it. I found it buggy to the point of barely being usable. Just sharing that experience and I don’t need anyone to agree with that.
…except this entire thread is based on a use case for it
Except it’s not. OP is trying to watch stuff on his own network.
Then they aren’t doing it correctly, or lying. That is an included/free feature. They advertise it that way and other users ITT say it works. I’ve no reason to doubt them.
Don’t expose stuff to the internet
Are you advocating for an self hosting to only exist locally? Or are you advocating for hosting everything on corporate servers?
Don’t expose things to the internet
That goes for corporate settings as well as personal stuff. You almost certainly do not need your self hosted services to be publicly accessible by bots. Anything on the internet gets pounded.
… You just literally said hosting shouldn’t exist. You are using the Internet right now.
Also pretty weird to keep phrasing this as a command, discounting an entire class of use cases to be invalid because bad actors exist?
The problems with Plex are not technical. The problems from Plex are that they take away features and change the terms of use to the detriment of the user. Given plex’s pricing changes over the last year, I would be concerned that your lifetime pass be affected by some policy change.
Yes, they changed the free featureset, and afaik those changes were fair. Providing a tunnel for remote streaming for free doesn’t seem like a good business plan. I mean, yeah they could always back out of the promise of what a lifetime pass is, and if they do I will find a new solution and hope they’re sued for it.
If they do back out of their lifetime commitment, I suspect that would drive some other similar apps to get better. Maybe I would even learn to live with jellyfin as it currently exists in that situation. But so far I don’t see a reason to, and that would almost have been true if I never paid for plex.
Fair enough.
I’m speaking from both sides here, having used Plex for years and now jellyfin:
Don’t tie technical competence of a product with its monetary cost. They are not necessarily equivalent.
I didn’t realize I did that. Given that my opinion on OSes is that “the larger the budget, the shittier it is”, I don’t knowingly do what you’re suggesting here. Linux over windows and macOS any day.
From one of the Jellyfin devs in the issue you linked, posted in April this year:
Now, let’s address this clearly once and for all. What is possible is unauthenticated streaming. Each item in a Jellyfin library has a UUID generated which is based on a checksum of the file path. So, theoretically, if someone knows your exact media paths, they could calculate the item IDs, and then use that ItemID to initiate an unauthenticated stream of the media. As far as we know this has never actually been seen in the wild. This does not affect anything else - all other configuration/management endpoints are behind user authentication. Is this suboptimal? Yes. Is this a massive red-flag security risk that actively exposes your data to the Internet? No.
At this point, this over-4-year-old issue has gotten posted to HackerNews more than enough times and gotten quite enough unhelpful peanut-gallery comments like those above… We are limiting this issue to Jellyfin collaborators only at this point. Most of the big items are already tracked elsewhere (specifically, unauth playback) or have already been fixed. And many other options are now open to us in a post-10.11 landscape now that we have a proper library database ready.
That only addresses one of several items.
Yes, but it’s always the one people come back too.
They mention the other issues are either being tracked elsewhere or already solved.
At the end of the day, it’s a community project, done by primarily volunteers, who is not making any money doing this. No VC funding to hire developers to take care of these issues.
I understand there’s an explanation for it. Doesn’t make these things not things to consider when choosing one’s solution
Feel free to go read the multiple writeups from the maintainers that go over each one, we don’t need to copy them all here into the comments for you.
But it’s FOSS, compared to Plex. And it also does not ask for money for anything.
You can also add more security yourself if you want to. Not by coding new stuff into jellyfin, but by adding some sort of auth BEFORE jellyfin.
Setting up auth before Jellyfin breaks clients. This is not an option. Edit: Unless you meant VPN like Tailscale, but then you’d have to install Tailscale too, which I don’t want to explain to others.
Tailscale needs you to explicitly add your device to the tailnet, so it’s some form of authentication.
Also, why don’t you want to explain tailscale? It’s really simple.
Good luck installing Tailscale on my friends’ LG webOS TVs.
And making sure Tailscale auto launches on a FireTV stick is a pita too. Telling them to open Tailscale on each start is not an option.
I used Plex for privacy reasons. I stopped using Plex for privacy reasons.
This is why I use emby.
I would go with jellyfin, but my stupid old Samsung TV has tizen and can’t find a way to install it.
I had a similar issue where I wanted to use my Xbox Series X to play Jellyfin but there was no client available. I ended up switching from Plex to Emby. I tested it for a month and then bought a lifetime pass, I’m quite happy with it. The client definitely isn’t as polished as Plex’s clients are but they allow me to do everything I want with much more control. I especially like the plugin system, being able to create my own persistent 24/7 faux tv channels is A++
You need to setup a developer account so you can install apps from local sources
I’m running Openelec on a Raspberry Pi… Awesome interface, high wife approval factor.
I tried that through network and an app on my pc, didn’t work.
You could plug in a firestick or something similar as jellyfin has an android app.
Get an Onn streaming device from Walmart for ~$30
I don’t live in USA.
Surely they sell something similar in your country
Can you get a firestick from amazon?
Okay. What streaming devices can you order online?
I use an nVidia Shield for it. There’s probably cheaper ones, but you tend to get what you pay for, and I’ve got a few 4KBR remuxes that even that struggles on.
Is this an okd systen now, how does it hold up? Is it lacking anywhere?
It’s been pretty decent.
Supports Dolby Vision/Atmos etc. Image based subtitles (e.g. those ripped from a disc) end up getting transcoded, but that seems the only thing it doesn’t natively support. Had trouble with AV1 but I’m not sure if that’s a general thing or that one specific file.
Should have got the lifetime! The jellyfish UI is garbage without a mouse and keyboard BTW. Make sure to get that set up as well.
No you’re doing it wrong! This is a Plex bash thread! Angry face!
I mean it’s a mouse cursor, it’s not exactly a secret, just a limitation for a small project. I thought most here knew that lol.
Just pay for bad software! That solves all problems.
Jellyfin is garbage compared to Plex. You can’t even use a remote properly. Sorry not sorry.
Jellyfin.
That is all.
I don’t get this? is this because I have a lifetime pass?
Last I knew it was only a thing for sharing between accounts and outside of “Plex home”/managed users… I haven’t seen anything since the announcement months ago. Lot of whiners tho…
E: I’m wrong (except about whiners)… It only affects free/non-pass users.
Yeah
Either a lifetime pass, or you actually configured local access correctly instead of botching it (or ingoring it entirely) and then coming to lemmy to complain.
Aaaand that’s one of the reasons why I got rid of Plex. “Bought” it, then they found some other feature to paywall. Bought that, then another feature. Then it stopped playing files of certain extensions through chromecast. Fuck that. Put together Jellyfin and moved my collection over. Zero trouble since.
