We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.

    • dormedas@lemmy.dormedas.com
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      29 days ago

      Alright, so I have had Jellyfin installed for years now, but my primary issue is that most devices myself or my users use lack official, readily-available clients. For example, the Samsung TV app is a developer mode install. Last I looked, nobody has put a build into the store.

      I really want to use Jellyfin, but I feel like my users simply can’t. I’m interested in others’ experiences here that could help.

      • BroBot9000@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        Don’t ever connect a “smart” tv to the internet. It’s only going to become shit and steal your data.

        Raspberry Pi, old pc or any kind of other external player will always be better for connectivity and control.

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          29 days ago

          I agree, but having looked down this road, finding a quality external player that users will understand and is inexpensive is … not easy.

          • MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
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            29 days ago

            If you’re an Apple user the AppleTV is exactly this. It’s probably Apple’s most fairly priced computing device.

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            29 days ago

            I mean that literally appletv. Barely costs more than a Roku and is vastly better than every other device on the market.

          • Synestine@sh.itjust.works
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            29 days ago

            True, but there’s not much one can do about others’ stubbornness. I’ve been using cheap Android boxes with Kodi or the JF client installed. They make sense to my non-techie family. Dedicated boxes are better (something that can run CoreELEC, OpenELEC) but those are harder to find.

          • pory@lemmy.world
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            28 days ago

            $20 Walmart Onn 4k. Degoogle it if you want or just slap smarttube and jellyfin/plex on it.

          • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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            Facebook made one. They attached a gorgeous voice-controlled video-chat-on-tv setup to it, and released it just as they lost all consumer trust.

            Then they decided it wasn’t selling.

            So they killed it instead of open-sourcing it

            just saying.

      • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        A Chromecast TV device might fill your gap. There is a jellyfin android TV build in the app store and it works with every TV. Just costs about 50 dollarydoos

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            28 days ago

            True and while they are both enshitifying their services. Somehow in this one area Google seems to be going slower. And making slightly less bonehead moves

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        I had the same experience with my parents. They have a Samsung TV and the Jellyfin experience was awful.

        I ended up getting them a little N100 mini pc and installed Bazzite and the Jellyfin app from Flathub. You can configure it so it knows it’s on a TV, and responds to keyboard controls. I got them a remote from a company called Pepper Jobs that gives keyboard input and now they have a great experience with it. Even my mom, who’s a big technophobe, loves it.

        My dad also has an LG TV in his workshop that doesn’t have a working Jellyfin app (cause it’s ten years old), and he uses the Jellyfin app for his Xbox on that one.

      • blue_skull@lemmy.world
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        I use Jellyfin client on my new Samsung TV via a Google TV dongle (ONN tv, $25 at Walmart). Seems to work well.

        My only complaint is the stream volume has been very low after a recent update. Downsampling helps but seems like it shouldn’ t be necessary.

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        28 days ago

        I can speak from my experience with an Apple TV, the application “Infuse” works amazing with a jellyfin server. Though the application is essentially $1 month subscription, but works across all your apple devices, if you have any. I think it’s worth it.

        Additionally, the official app for Android TV worked pretty well when I last tried it on an Nvidia Shield

        • SirSamuel@lemmy.world
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          29 days ago

          I’ve got a Samsung TV and am nearly a complete Luddite (in the colloquial sense).

          I managed to install the Jellyfin app on my TV just by following the step by step instructions on a website

      • lori@lemmy.zip
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        28 days ago

        The only major pain point I had with Jellyfin was getting it on my Samsung TV yes. It is absolutely not a good recommendation for people with Samsungs unless they’re willing to get their hands very dirty. Now, once I got the app side loaded on there, it works perfectly well, but the process sucked ass.

      • Chris@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        I’ve never had an issue with the apps. It’s on my Chromecast and my android phone, and I typically stream to the TV from my phone.

        My only issue is that they require a real cert (which is good tbh) and I am having trouble getting letsencrypt working due to my isp blocking port 80 and me dragging my feet getting DNS working

      • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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        Yeah.

        Jellyfin is spectacular for LAN usage on two computers. Once you start using devices (because, you know, that is what people tend to plug into their TVs…) or going on travel, it rapidly becomes apparent that it just isn’t a competitor.

        Hell, a quick google suggests jellyfin STILL doesn’t have caching of media for offline viewing. Plex’s works maybe 40% of the time but… 40% is still higher than 0%.

        I have a lifetime pass for Plex and encourage anyone who even kind of cares to get one next time it is on sale (or shortly before the scheduled price hike). I have tried Jellyfin a few times over the years and… it is basically exactly what I hate with FOSS “alternatives”. It isn’t an alternative in the slightest but people insist on talking it up because they want it to be and that just makes people less willing to try genuinely good alternatives.


        To put it bluntly, Plex is an “offline netflix” as it were. Jellyfin is a much better version of smbstation and all the other stuff we used to stream porn to our playstations back in the day.

        • gdog05@lemmy.world
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          29 days ago

          Jellyfin allows you to download whatever you want to your local device. But in a world of streaming, it seems to be a much smaller usecase. I take my tablet camping with me all the time, download some shows via Jellyfin and watch via Jellyfin. Maybe you’re using the term “caching” differently from the use case, but if local files is what you’re after, it absolutely does it. Just click download in a couple of different locations.

          • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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            29 days ago

            Yeah, I don’t know what that dude’s on about. My kids download stuff from jellyfin to their tablets all the time for road trips.

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            Did they? Or is that still the old hack of “just download the raw file. Your tablet is just a computer”?

            Because I didn’t see it advertised on the main web page and a quick google got me to https://github.com/jellyfin/Swiftfin/discussions/364 which is open and abandoned tickets for the ios apps.


            https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-offline-downloads?pid=16373#pid16373 suggests it is also in the same boat for android. You can find workarounds but they aren’t using jellyfin.

            Which is “fine”. I watched WAY too many movies over the years with VLC on a laptop. But… why are we using a shim to treat a library as a streaming service in that case? Which gets back to Jellyfin just not actually being a Plex alternative for the majority of users.

            • MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de
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              29 days ago

              Oh no! Please GOD, anything but tHe rAw fIlE!!

              Seriously though, wtf did I just read? That can’t possibly be your real stance, can it?

              • MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
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                29 days ago

                This is a huge problem. The blueray remux might be 80 gigs. Most children’s devices will already be filled with other crap.

                • MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  29 days ago

                  I run ffmpeg on my phone. Alternately, I could shrink the file on my server and then download it without much trouble. You’re in a vanishingly small subset of users who know enough to care about file-size and know what can be done about it, but can’t be bothered to do it themselves.

                  I was avoiding suggesting getting more storage, but it sounds like in your case, keeping a 720p x265 version of each file(~1gb per movie) on-hand would cost you nothing.

            • gdog05@lemmy.world
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              You might be right, it might play in an external player. I don’t recall that or didn’t notice. We’re a few months from the last camping season. If it does play in an external player, seems like an inconvenience vs a dealbreaker, but I get it. We all have our things. I would argue that it’s maybe a big deal for you and not a majority of users. Maybe a small but focused minority.

    • keyez@lemmy.world
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      I’ve been testing out jellyfin for the last couple months but it doesn’t really fill the void of this specific feature that’s being locked behind a pay wall. If anyone has good recommendations for securely and reliably hosting jellyfin behind SSL and auth with email password resets where I don’t have to worry about it as much as Plex.

      I use jellyfin locally but for a handful of remote clients I have I may well block off their access they’re not going to be able to figure out my hand spun services and wall of text.

    • Obinice@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      Alas my TV (LG WebOS 2) doesn’t have an application for Jellyfin, or I’d have switched years ago :-(

      • gdog05@lemmy.world
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        27 days ago

        Is there an emby app available or Kodi? The base of Jellyfin should work in either. Plug and play as far as I’m aware with maybe some issues for certain versions.

    • Limonene@lemmy.world
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      Jellyfin depends on proprietary Microsoft .NET, even on Linux.

      It’s still better than Plex and Emby, which are fully proprietary, and have no source code. But I will stick with sshfs with kodi, and nginx plus mpv for now.

  • Evotech@lemmy.world
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    29 days ago

    I’m not pirating a bunch of shows just to pay Plex for the privilege of watching it.

  • RonnyZittledong@lemmy.world
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    29 days ago

    I have a lifetime plex pass so this does not really affect me but I expect the trend of degrading experience to continue. I would have switched to Jellyfin a long time ago but I am dreading contacting everyone I share with and getting them migrated.

    • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
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      29 days ago

      Same boat here. I chose Plex because the apps were everywhere. Smart TV’s, phones, web…

      I can switch, no problem. I don’t want to have to teach my parents a new app. OMFG!

      • corroded@lemmy.world
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        This is also true of Jellyfin, though. I have apps on my Windows PC, my Android phone, multiple Nvidia Shield boxes on my TVs, plus the web interface if I need it.

        I switched over from Plex several years ago, and while it takes a bit more time to configure, compatibility for clients seems just as good for Jellyfin as it is for Plex.

        Most importantly, Jellyfin is strictly client/server, no “cloud” bullshit and no remote account is required; I don’t want Plex phoning home with a list of the media on my file server.

        • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
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          29 days ago

          Jellyfin certainly took off. Great for them. It just wasn’t polished or an option when I set things up way back then.

      • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
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        29 days ago

        its actually the sole reason why i ended up paying for plex myself. its not because on ME that i ended up using plex, its moreso everyone else that I want to give my server access to with the least amount of hurdles that made me ultimately go that route.

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    29 days ago

    Glad I bought the Plex Pass like 13 years ago. While I understand everyone seems to think everything should be free, I’m sure your boss wishes you worked for free too, but the world doesn’t work that way.

    I’m OK supporting products I use , and Plex is an example of this for me. It was a well spend $75 in 2013

    • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      Nah. Cool that you think that, though. The moment they started charging for what was a free service, they lost me. I have gigabit internet. The only reason i used their service to begin with was ease of use.

      Hot take but maybe everything doesn’t need to be an infinitely expanding business. Just imagine for a second that it’s fine for something to just break even, pay for the few mainteners salaries and not expand the business at all ever. I know that I just uttered the cardinal evil under capitalism but fucking seriously. The primary userbase of plex is pirates. The whole incentive is not having to pay for a streaming service. Charging money for it is just torpedoing your entire userbase. The entire appeal of Plex was it not charging money.

      • Auli@lemmy.ca
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        29 days ago

        Yah and I still bought a plexpass and then left Plex. Do I care no I got my money worth. Software costs money how would they continue to developed it if not getting paid?

        • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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          29 days ago

          Software costs money how would they continue to developed it if not getting paid?

          Apparently a hot take as evidenced the downvotes on my other comments here, but by adding things people want instead of taking away things people already have and charging more for it.

          They don’t even have the excuse that they need to pay for the bandwidth costs of relaying video from servers to clients. Video is streamed directly from the user’s self-hosted server, using UPnP or NAT-PMP to make the server accessible from outside the local network.

          • rumba@lemmy.zip
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            29 days ago

            They don’t even have the excuse

            just for ref, I’m not downvoting you. They do offer some things that cost them dev/money/time. And some of those things are pain points on Jellyfin.

            They give you SSL and dynamic DNS style stuff behind the scenes. They give you a remote service that tells you if you’re remotely visible. They cache the tvdb and manage some subscriptions for EPG and do a pretty good job partnering with (and presumably caching) open subtitles.

            None of that makes up for their rug-pulling bullshit.

            You used to be able to download shit to your phone then become a local server so other people on your local network could watch off your device.

            You used to be able to run 3rd party plugins improving libraries and storing off youtube meta

            They’re scrapping watch together

            They’re scrapping free remote

            They’re spiraling the drain… But I won’t miss them, I’ll miss what they once were.

            • Anivia@feddit.org
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              28 days ago

              They also offer free tunneling for people that can’t port-forward because they are locked behind cgnat. To be fair, the tunneling is limited to potato quality 2mbps bitrate, but that is a significant cost to them still

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            29 days ago

            If you want free, there are alternatives. Plex is a business, with employees. Plex pass is their business model.

            I think locking remote play is entirely enshitification however, but I get it. Plex model has them provide authentication and relay services. They are now trying to push their own streaming services which I expect is a real money sink.

            • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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              29 days ago

              I actually jumped ship a while back. I agree that Plex is a business and they do deserve to get paid for development and infrastructure costs, but it’s the blatant enshitification that I have a big issue with.

              They chose to lock a previously-free feature behind a paywall for everybody and asked for even more money to get it back. The less shitty alternative would have been to ask only the users who needed to use the relays to purchase a Plex Pass. Or, if they wanted to make it seem like a positive thing, they could have made the new subscription into an “enhanced quality” remote streaming experience that enabled higher bitrates over relays.

              They gave their users the middle finger by picking the most transparently greedy option that they could get away with justifying.

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        29 days ago

        So, you’ve got option. You can just roll your own, or go to jellyfin.

        I’m one of the first people to complain about the incessant need to grow 20% a year to appease shareholders and how unsustainable that is. But I also realize as I said, stuff cost money and “just breaking even” will also grow in cost every year with everything else, so… Even in that perfect world you were describing, there would be an increase in cost applied to that project.

        Much like I am sure you expect at the very least a cost of living raise each year. I’m also guessing you’re glad your paycheck to bills ratio isn’t what it was 20y ago. (or I can say, that for me that is true). I’m pretty happy my discretionary money is more now than it was then. I bet those developers also want that same thing.

      • TheWilliamist@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        I don’t know when or how, but it seems in my lifetime we went from that. Having corporations that just did something well and left it at that to this idiotic grow or die mentality that seems to be fueled by investor ROI.

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        29 days ago

        No, it’s still wrong.

        We have ways to do NAT traversal and hole punching on consumer routers. Failing that, UPnP and port forwarding exist. Or, god forbid, IPv6.

        In the rare case that literally none of those are an option, they would have to use TURN to relay between an intermediary. That is a reasonable case to ask the user to pay for their bandwidth usage, but they don’t have to be greedy fuckers by making everyone pay for it.

        This is enshittification and corporate greed. Nothing more, nothing less.

        • Fluffy Kitty Cat@slrpnk.net
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          Reading about NAT Traversal and all that nonsense makes me want to start out my own ISP and we just configure things to be good because the corporate assholes clearly haven’t. Imagine how much better things could be if hosting stuff from your home internet connection was just a thing you could do with no drama

          • Melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            If anything is to blame for that, it’s the lack of momentum behind IPv6. We’re out of IPv4, so NAT is inevitable, and IPv6 doesn’t have enough inertia for single-stack to be viable (certainly wouldn’t be described as “no drama” at least).

            • Fluffy Kitty Cat@slrpnk.net
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              28 days ago

              The fact that people still try to do bullshit like Nat on IPv6 is completely crazy. It’s like they’ve never heard of the idea of a stateful firewall and just want to recreate bad old patterns again, combine with the fact that many internet service providers still don’t allow you to host anything from your home connection. We need to fix all of that of an IPv6 first Network. Ipv4 is several layers of exhausted by now so it should be considered deprecated but for some reason isn’t

              • Melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                A big part of IPv4’s persistence I think is that people insist that IPv6 is complicated, but then refuse to learn it or think outside their IPv4-brain. It’s just different enough that it’s easier to stay in v4, even if it requires a million hackjob fixes to keep around.

                • Fluffy Kitty Cat@slrpnk.net
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                  I haven’t really messed around if the intricacies of computer networking but the only downside I personally encountered to use an IPv6 is that it’s a bit harder to memorize the IP addresses but I usually copy paste those anyways so it doesn’t matter. People use names for stuff anyways so why use bare ips?

        • Evotech@lemmy.world
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          29 days ago

          They make a product. It’s not just the cost of infrastructure.

          They have developers and other employees

          • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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            And this isn’t a new feature they’re adding. Remote streaming was already implemented and generally available to users.

            I don’t discount there being a cost in maintaining code over time, but it’s not as though they have to spend any significant employee time on improving it. They already support UPnP and NAT-PMP to have the clients connect directly to the self-hosted servers.

            It would be nice if they added NAT hole punching on top of that, but it’s evidently good enough to work as-is in its current form. If they’re not even running relays to support more tricky networks (which the linked support article has no mention of), keeping this feature free costs them literally nothing extra.

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      29 days ago

      I fucking hope to god they don’t go full enshittification and decide to revoke the lifetime licenses.

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        29 days ago

        Even with Plex pass they were really pushing their paid content. Much happier with Jellyfin, and it was very easy to switch.

        • 032 Mendicant Bias@feddit.uk
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          28 days ago

          What paid content? I have a Plex lifetime pass and I can’t recall ever being asked to pay for anything? I can remember them dumping free TV channels in there at some point, but I simply switched that off and it’s not come back.

          • pageflight@lemmy.world
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            Hmm, it’s been a while, maybe I’m misremembering. There were definitely some categories of Plex content not from my library that kept reappearing on the home page of my server, despite trying to get rid of them a few times. Maybe they weren’t actually paid, I just assumed they’d only be pushing something if it was going to bring them more revenue.

            The other thing that made me want to jump ship extremely fast was when they started sharing your recently watched items with other users, without asking.

      • jacksilver@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        I keep expecting something, the lifetime pass has more/less paid for itself.

        That being said, they do still offer the lifetime pass, so clearly they see it as worth it.

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      Your view unfortunately doesn’t show you how shitty the unpaid experience has become. XBMC used to be a good product. Since becoming Plex, now we have:

      • no local hardware accel
      • no HDR
      • panels that look like local videos that trick you into switching to a paid app
      • rearranged home screen after some updates
      • no downloads on remote devices
      • and now I’ll lose the ability to share streaming with my kid, who lives many cities away

      If this were clear from the outset , no one would be upset. But pulling back features Plex at one time promised “forever” (remote streaming), is complete rug-pull bullshit.

      You can enjoy that warm and fuzzy reverse-fomo feeling now, but you should know that they’ll start limiting your paid experience eventually.

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        29 days ago

        Xbmc didn’t become plex. It’s still alive and kicking but rebranded to Kodi (mostly because it had little to do with xbox anymore) ages ago.

        • rumba@lemmy.zip
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          29 days ago

          What do you mean by this?

          Not OP

          Hardware-accelerated streaming is a premium feature and requires an active Plex Pass subscription.

          If you want to use your video card to transcode, you have to be paid.

          • lazynooblet@lazysoci.al
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            28 days ago

            Ah okay. When I used Plex it had hardware acceleration. But I’d been a Plex Pass lifetime pass user for years so forgot the distinction between that and non pass. Thanks

      • Harriet_Porber@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        what? all of these work on plex for me:

        -server hardware accel transcoding (are you talking about something else?)

        -HDR playback works fine for me…

        -I can download just fine from a browser or the plex app, when remote

    • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
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      29 days ago

      Same here. I don’t like some of the recent decisions, but I remember the time I looked at the value and thought “yeah, this is working, valuable, and I can get behind it”, and bought the lifetime pass.

      And I used the hell out of it! I don’t regret supporting the developers at all.

      But features like plugins disappear, rolled to in-house teams. They work better, but cost more to maintain.

      It’s ambitious, and gives developers plenty of work, but I feel the new redesign bit more than they can chew and overran budgets. They may be trying to balance budgets.

    • modus@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      Yeah, this doesn’t seem like that big of a deal for most people here. They kept the price down as long as possible. I spent $119 just before the 'rona hit and I think it’s been well worth it.

    • ghost@feddit.org
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      29 days ago

      Jellyfin is just so much better, imo. Much cleaner, less stuff that I don’t actually need.

      I’m a plex pass lifetime owner, but I don’t regret switching to Jellyfin one bit.

      • HorseFD@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        I switched when I had an internet outage and couldn’t log into Plex locally to watch my own media. Very happy with Jellyfin since then.

        • bishbosh@lemm.ee
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          29 days ago

          Assuming you know them well enough, can’t you just give your IP address to folks and forward the port on your router?

        • LoganNineFingers@lemmy.ca
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          28 days ago

          Here’s the thing though, for the average plex user (myself included) you’ve already used too many acronyms and words I don’t understand. Plex serves a purpose for a lot of people, people who are even willing to pay for it to be easy.

          Kind of reminds me of Netflix before anyone else did streaming. They had so much stuff I stopped sailing.

          • maniajack@lemmy.world
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            28 days ago

            Yep. Imo now with Plex you are paying for a much simpler and accessible setup. Seems fair enough to me. Lemmy FOSS or die users (every else in this thread seemingly) are not the target audience of Plex but they sure love to complain about it.

            • LoganNineFingers@lemmy.ca
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              27 days ago

              I try to use Foss but only when it’s a lateral move. I tried Linux mint. It came close but there were so many little things that just didn’t make sense to me as someone who used windows for the last 25 years. Do I want to use Windows 11? No, especially with everything they’ve been doing to it. But in terms of usability, the sacrifices that I make by using Windows 11 outweigh the extra work, frustration, and time spent trying to figure out Linux (tried 3 different distros too).

              I have 3 little kids, a full time job and aging parents. I don’t have hours every day to try and make stuff work.

          • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
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            28 days ago

            Yeah, welcome to the easy, fast, cheap conundrum.

            If you’re willing to do a bit of learning and asking the community for help if you get a little stuck, you’ve got a free solution, if not, which is perfectly okay mind you, then Plex is your solution and you have to decide how much you’re willing to pay.

            And honestly, of you’re going down the home media route with friend and family, you’re going to want to set up sonarr, radarr, ombi, transmission with VPN anyways.

            • deeferg@lemmy.world
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              28 days ago

              I’m going to be going the free solution route, been trying to find a cheap laptop to turn into my server right now. Do you mind if I reach out about it or do you know of any good instances?

          • tfw_no_toiletpaper@lemmy.world
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            28 days ago

            Just put it behind tailscale and use the IP. Doing this for a two years now with weekly anime watch togethers with my friends. Not elegant but enough.

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        29 days ago

        With the caviat that you have tailscale enabled on both devices. This prevents it from being used on a roku outside your home but you could access it remotely from your computer/phone/tablet.

        It is significantly harder than Plex, currently. There are improvements happening all the time though.

        • Sprocketfree@sh.itjust.works
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          29 days ago

          You very much can create an external port and access anywhere without any of this. No tailscale needed but I’d recommend one knows what they are doing…

        • SirSamuel@lemmy.world
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          29 days ago

          Hmmm, i use a Synology NAS with Jellyfin installed and my family can use their Roku TVs without issue. I didn’t realize Synology made a difference there

          • thisNotMyName@lemmy.world
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            29 days ago

            It totally depends on how you expose it to the outside world. If it’s exposed just like it is, it works fine with every device. If you put an authentication before it (e.g. Authelia), it can only be accessed by browsers from outside the network. That being said, it’s not recommended to expose Jellyfin directly, because there are a ton of security flaws. Best practice is to use a VPN

        • hikaru755@lemmy.world
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          29 days ago

          Huh? I’m streaming from my Jellyfin just fine when I’m on the go, with no tailscale or other VPN set up

          • Sarmyth@lemmy.world
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            29 days ago

            It was significantly harder to set up remote access for Jellyfin than Plex 6 months ago. I ha ent attempted since. With Plex there was literally no set up, it just works. Until it just works without having to do any extra work, Jellyfin will struggle with adoption.

            I have both running, and thatd a big difference to me. Also I prefer the way Plex detects intros and credits for skipping and their detection for captions. Once that’s all sorted Jellyfin wins in every field.

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
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        29 days ago

        does jellyfin have a roku app?

        Yes, it streams pretty well, it has some UX issues, but it will let you get off plex as it stands right now with most of your needs covered.

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    29 days ago

    As a plex pass lifetime user, this doesn’t change anything for me.

    I am, however, blown away that the price went from $75 CDN to $350 CDN over the last 10 years!! That’s just insane!

    • 032 Mendicant Bias@feddit.uk
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      28 days ago

      I’m not sure where you’re getting that from, the article literally states the price hasn’t changed in 10 years, and still hasn’t, but it finally will on the 29th of April.

      This tracks with my experience as it’s probably been 10 years since I bought the lifetime pass and here in the UK it’s often on sale for basically the same price (about £75 if I recall).

      • PhAzE@lemmy.ca
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        28 days ago

        Well, it was $75 CDN when i bought in 2012, it’s $150-170 CDN now, and going up to $249 USD which converts to $358 CDN, so I’m assumong they’ll round down to $350 or up to $360 CDN.

        The conversion from USD to CDN kills it for us sadly. It’s just such a huge jump this time. More than double on this bump.

    • tomkatt@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      They have sales, and it’s not really worth paying the “MSRP” price. My wife got Plex Pass for $80 back in 2023, and I got it late last year for $90.

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    28 days ago

    Can’t say I have a huge issue with this - Plex isn’t FOSS and the infrastructure to make this happen isn’t free. Other options are available if you don’t want to pay the fee.

  • profilelost@discuss.tchncs.de
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    28 days ago

    I’ve been meaning to set up a homeserver with plex recently but will defnitely go for jellyfin now that I read this thread.

  • the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    I already pay for plex pass but I’m going to start looking into jelly fin out of principle. I will not support the enshitification of a service I use and this is how it starts. Soon they will have tiered subscriptions and then the cheap one will be taken away and the cheapest paid one will be stuffed with ads then all tiers will be stuffed with ads then they will jack up prices again or charge more for sharing with family or block it all together to force your family to get their own sub and the circle of enshitification will be complete.

  • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
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    29 days ago

    I can understand new features being behind a fee, but this is putting old, old capabilities behind a paywall. Hmmm…

    This with a recent decision to remove watch together sort of eliminates the whole reason I would have tried Plex so many years ago.

    I’m a fan of Plex (it’s worked for me) and understand the Jellyfin crowd too. I’m worried about who is calling the shots at the moment. They aren’t aligning with their users.

    • kratoz29@lemm.ee
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      29 days ago

      I can understand new features being behind a fee, but this is putting old, old capabilities behind a paywall. Hmmm…

      I am a Trakt user, was an Evernote user and I am (thankfully) a Plex Pass user…

      What service are we missing that has done the same? We should make a list if there is not one already.