this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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I've feel like I've used Plex forever. I also feel like every couple years I try Jellyfin to see how it's going. Recently I tried it again because of Plex restriction on more than one user.

Well, I just tried it again and it's substantially improved! This time it actually properly detected most of my library!

Also the Android TV app is AWESOME! No more glitches, lagging, and freezing trying to play my stuff like Plex did. It is butter smooth.

Wow! I'm impressed and I just deleted Plex. Good riddance.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I’ve been running plex for a few years no. No real issues to complain of.

Until today. I just upgraded my server with an Intel ARC. Was looking forward to enabling qsv for streaming. Turns out you need plex pass to do that.

Can jellyfin do it?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I've had both for a while now, but I find that subtitle playback is a bit spotty in Jellyfin. Is that fixed, or have I missed a setting somewhere? The other thing is that my libraries are alphabetical in Jellyfin, so "Anime" comes before "Kaiju", and I truly can't stand the idea that Godzilla gets sent to the back of the bus. Is there a way to customize the order of libraries?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The other thing is that my libraries are alphabetical in Jellyfin, so “Anime” comes before “Kaiju”, and I truly can’t stand the idea that Godzilla gets sent to the back of the bus.

If you mean the order the libraries are listed in the web interface, you change that from "User settings" -> "Home".

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So, I tried that a long time ago, and it didn't work. Tried it again today, same deal. Then, I tried a third time and actually hit the "Save" button this time... Yeah, I think Jellyfin was never the problem.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

The addons are great too. The intro/outro skip is slick and nearly flawless, background subtitle download is seamless, on and on.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I knew basically nothing bout jellyfin except it existed and this thread inspired me to finally set up my own server and client on the tv cause the chromecast has just become so unbearably bad.

I had it up and running in 5 minutes. Hardest part was remembering the auth key while running between rooms. I don't buy into the atmos meme, for music I have bt amplifier or vinyl and it has everything I need: Watch content from my tv.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I don't know about using the jellyfin client but as a backend for Kodi, it's amazing

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (5 children)

One thing jellyfin doesnt do well its anime content. But fortunately there's Shoko Server, a metadata engine you can selfhost. Its awesome!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

It works pretty well for me but I separate anime and TV/movies, and make sure the anime library is only scraping data from anime-centric databases. But I'm also not watching too much new or obscure stuff.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In my experience, jellyfin seems to think everything is anime for some reason.

I've had to go in to every single TV series and manually enter Metadata.

Not a huge deal I only have a few series' but man it's weird.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I tried Jellyfin a few weeks ago and didn’t have much luck with it. I only added a couple of shows and movies just to test it but half of them just didn’t show in the library (even though it detected them as they showed in other places). Will it only show stuff in the library if it can pick up the metadata for it?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

it will still shows stuff in the library even if it failed to pick up the metadata.

for jellyfin, folder structure is kinda important for auto detection to work.

For shows, you can organises your files like this:

series-name-a/
    season-01/
        episode-01
        episode-02

You can check out the doc, it is more detailed

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (4 children)

How long did you give it? It indexes the library. I had to rebuild my library once, and while I don't have a huge collection - mainly just rips of my DVD collection, about 450 films, and it takes over an hour to index everything. Until it's done, not everything shows up.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I tried to switch from plex to jellyfin 2 months ago, running both at the same time in containers, but I removed jellyfin after a week

The main issue was the CPU usage, on idle Jellyfin was using about 1vcore while plex used only 0.3, no background tasks seemed to be running and after a week my 4tb of media should have been indexed

Also a feature that I use regularly with plexamp, starting a radio from a song, was not giving me good results on finamp

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Also the Android TV app is AWESOME!

What do you run Android TV on? Raspberry Pi? My cheapo solution has been to use an old Android phone that supports DP alt mode (USB-C to HDMI adapter) combined with a USB hub + generic air mouse/remote + customized launcher.

It actually works surprisingly well. I installed FCast on it, so it even works like a Chromecast. If I'm watching a video on my phone using Grayjay, I can just cast it to the phone and it will start playing automatically. The only thing stopping it from being perfect is that it can't turn the TV on automatically. As a plus, since the phone has a battery, it's always powered on so I don't have to wait for stuff to boot, and it uses relatively little power.

... but overall it's janky and finicky, and the OEM bloatware is probably spying on me, so I've been looking for alternatives that can match the good parts of this setup.

I don't like Raspberry Pis for this because they're overpriced. I have a couple that I could use for this, but I'm hoping to find a cheaper solution, and one that I can recommend to friends/family when they ask. (the Android phone I'm using cost me a total of $15 on ebay)

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (3 children)

anybody have a guide for an old laptop

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I used Plex a while ago and didn't like how I had to look for my folders against the stuff they offered. And the upside of being able to get my stuff from a server install on another network had me wondering if they were looking at the movies I had to pirate. Once I installed jellyfin, I didn't have to worry. My only issue is if I want to use it on vacation, I have to do some vps hack-jiggery.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Can Jellyfin handle symlinks? That's all it would take to sell me at this point.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

My media folder is a symlink to my NAS mount if that's what you're asking.

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