• Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        22
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        22 days ago

        Biggest issue I and my friends have with my Plex server is the constant buffer-play-for-a-minute-buffer issue with certain anime subtitle formats. Although the little bit of searching I’ve done with that indicates that may be more of an issue with the device being streamed on than with Plex itself. I dunno.

        • FlightyPenguin@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          24
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          22 days ago

          Certain subtitle formats cannot be directly streamed, so your server is probably re-encoding video on the fly to burn in the subtitles. PGS format is actually a series of images and will always require re-encoding video. Picking SRT should work with device direct streaming.

        • Encom@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          21 days ago

          As someone else said, this almost always comes down to the device they’re using. Especially if it’s a Playstation console or a Smart TV (in my experience) as they don’t support x265 codec or have .ass support, or both

        • ccunning@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          22 days ago

          Come to think of it the AppleTV app does say a piece of media doesn’t have subs when it does. And if I turn them on the playback hangs for ~10 seconds.

          I don’t get the play/buffer/play/buffer issue but I only really use it on my LAN so not really a surprise there.

      • BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        22 days ago

        My main complaint is when it decides to just stop casting to Chromecast in the middle of episodes randomly - then I have to open the app, reconnect, and resume.

        Also I find the Chromecast controls stop responding frequently making it so I can’t pause what I’m watching - it’ll like disconnect from the Chromecast but keep playing.

        My partner also complains about lots of bugs on the iOS app.

        • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          21 days ago

          I’ve been having trouble with this too.

          So far my best assessment is that the problem stems from the Chromecast not playing well with my router. Resetting the Wi-Fi on my router tends to fix the problem, but it’s seriously annoying.

          Separately, I also have issues with the play/pause not working when casting and some other weird interface behaviors sometimes. But all in all, it’s worth complaining, but it still works better than everything else.

      • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        22 days ago

        My biggest complaint is that it defaults to “recommended” instead of “library” which means for new users (family members you are trying to help remotely) don’t see the videos in your collection but instead a random unordered list to scroll sideways.

        After you select library to see everything, it doesn’t save that view as default unless you go into settings and change it to remember changes.

        A new annoying feature they added is when setting up a new account, the default is to send every video you watch to all friends/family unless you select disable. So you can’t even setup quickly by putting in a user/password and being ready to go. You have to talk family members through setup or everyone with access to your Plex will get email spammed with everything that person watched.

        I have home videos on my server and this means lengthy phone calls to family so they can actually see the videos.

        • JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          21 days ago

          My biggest complaint is that it defaults to “recommended” instead of “library”… it doesn’t save that view as default unless you go into settings and change it to remember changes.

          That’s a pretty minor gripe considering there is a setting for it. Also, given that it’s a you-get-it-one-way-or-the-other kind of setting, they’re always going to be upsetting someone.

          • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            21 days ago

            Have you helped an older relative with computer problems over the phone?

            If you could set the default, it wouldn’t be a problem.

              • CrazyLikeGollum@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                4
                ·
                21 days ago

                I imagine he means being able to set the default view for everyone accessing your server from the settings on your server. So that everyone who accesses your server gets those defaults that they can then change for their user if they desire.

                Which would be a nice feature.

                • JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  21 days ago

                  I would not want my settings affected by the servers I connect to. That would piss me off.

          • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            21 days ago

            Do you actually use their “recommended” view?

            Do you primarily watch Plex live TV or their other ad supported movies?

            • JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              20 days ago

              Do you actually use their “recommended” view?

              Yes, it lists shows I’m currently watching and takes me directly to the next episode.

              Do you primarily watch Plex live TV or their other ad supported movies?

              No, never.

      • Ugurcan@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        edit-2
        21 days ago

        It’s terrible with direct streaming lossless Dolby Atmos (TrueHD) streams, not only where it’s not possible but there are workarounds (AppleTV / Infuse), but also on each and every platform it’s being done by other apps (Android, Xbox, PC / Kodi).

        I only use it because I paid peanuts for lifetime premium and alternatives have egregious UX that I can withstand but my extended family cannot.

    • wlodi@szmer.info
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      20 days ago

      Yes I’m absolutely hating the Android app. The core player experience is so much better on iOS. No need to worry about direct play/transcode, it just works. It’s rubbish on android

    • nullboi@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      21 days ago

      Was going to say the same. Why use plex, when jellyfin exists.

      Edit: spelling

      • LordKitsuna@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        26
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        21 days ago

        Because jellyfin has less device compatibility, worse transcoding performance, and still struggles with media matching. Oh and still had memory leak issues.

        I have it installed, regularly update and test it, i want to ditch plex. But it’s just got to many basic issues. Anime matching in particular is rough and yes even after adjusting match sources some anime just outright fails till i manually match, matches incorrectly, won’t work either way.

        No it’s not the filenames. I use Sonarr, they are all very clean.

        Series name(year) | Season folder (001) | SxxExx episode title

        Edit: i give up figuring out how to make this stay treed, fucking hate reddit/lemmy formatting

        • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          21 days ago

          worse transcoding performance

          You have to pay on Plex to use hardware acceleration for transcoding. Lmao

          • linearchaos@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            20 days ago

            It doesn’t make the point any less valid. I would pay for better transcoding performance in jf if it were an option.

            • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              20 days ago

              I have hard time believing Plex’s software transcoding is more performant than Jellyfin’s hardware accelerated trandcoding

              • linearchaos@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                20 days ago

                My problems are less about speed and more about compatibility. I have Plex and jelly thing set up next to each other as containers on the same media database. There’s quite a number of videos that play on Plex that will not play on jellyfin. It could be problems between the two clients.

                • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  ·
                  20 days ago

                  I’ve understood that “performance” in this sort of context mean how quickly a given task is done

          • LordKitsuna@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            21 days ago

            I’m not using HA so that’s irrelevant to me. It’s just cpu encoding on my threadripper server.

      • master_of_unlocking@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        21 days ago

        i use Jellyfin but a big thing that Plex has is the ability to easily stream remotely. Its doable with Jellyfin but requires a lot of manual configuration that a non technical user just can’t/won’t do.

        • nullboi@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          21 days ago

          Jellyfin has automatic port mapping, but it’s been hit or miss in my experience. I use Zerotier for remote access, but I forget that not everyone wants to take the time to play around with stuff.

          Relevant XKCD

        • linearchaos@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          20 days ago

          For the sake of not being trapped by Plex I could deal with all the other problems everyone’s listed here.

          But asking my friends and family to either use tailscale or for me to leave that open highly complicated open source project dangling out there on an open port…

      • wrekone@lemmyf.uk
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        21 days ago

        I find the Jellyfin UX to be unbearable. It frequently shows the metadata for completely different movies, despite perfect file naming. Nearly every time I use it I have to restart it due to some weird UI bug or another.

      • codenamekino@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        22 days ago

        The only reason that Plex has survived every service purge on my system is because Jellyfin doesn’t have a PS4 app. Every other device that accesses my media is going through Jellyfin. I have my PS4 connected to Jellyfin via DLNA, but asking my wife to give up the polished (turd) Plex app for the file-picker front end in the media player app isn’t a viable option for me.

          • codenamekino@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            19 days ago

            Does a Firestick require WAN access? I know my PS4 calls out of the network pretty regularly, but I’m a little hesitant to add more data harvesting into my network. I haven’t ruled it out, though.

            • kaitco@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              19 days ago

              I can’t recall offhand. What I will say, though, is that your PS4 is not designed to be a streaming device. It can utilize streaming apps, but that is not its purpose or focus. The apps available on its platform will always be a step behind those for dedicated streaming devices such as Firestick, Roku, Chromecast, AppleTV, or specific streaming apps on a smart TV.

              If you are concerned about data harvesting, you should migrate away from Plex and onto something open source like Jellyfin overall. Once Plex closed their code and pushed towards monetization, they began harvesting data just like any other streaming service. That said, there is no Jellyfin app on PS4, but it is fully accessible through the PS4. Again, however, your PS4 is not really meant to be your all-encompassing streaming platform. A Roku or Firestick is very cheap, it is designed to only stream apps, both of Jellyfin, and Plex if you need to continue on that path, and will provide a far better viewing experience than a PS4.

              • codenamekino@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                18 days ago

                I appreciate the response, and as i said, I understand that jellyfin is completely accessible from PS4 even though there is no dedicated app. Unfortunately, that’s not an option for all the users in my household, which is why I’m running both a JF and Plex server.

                As far as PS4 not being designed as a streaming device, the fact remains that it does stream media, and since I have it in my house, it does serve that purpose when it is not being used for gaming. I’m not ruling out the option of adding a dedicated streaming device, but I am loath to the idea of trading in one data harvesting service (plex) for another.

      • superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        21 days ago

        Right now for me its smart collections and playlists and the fact that you can pin them to the home screen. My family lives off the home screen and smart collections.

    • undercrust@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      22 days ago

      Is there a good walkthrough of how to set up Jellyfin on Linux? If I’m breaking away from a shit OS, I may as well try breaking away from an increasingly crummy Plex

      • fuzzy_feeling@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        21 days ago

        depends on your distro.
        an internet search like “debian jellyfin install” should point you into the right direction.

        if in doubt or having trouble: there’s a friendly linux community around the corner.

  • WxFisch@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    22 days ago

    So still not addressing the myriad problems the player has, especially on AppleTV where it’s been reported for nearly half a decade to not work well. But hey you get yet another place to do photos things (which they admit literally no one wants or uses, they’d be better off dropping support for photos altogether).

    This is super frustrating because plex is very polished despite its clear bugs and misdirection. I just switched over to JellyFin and it’s faster and much more focused but just still has a lot of rough edges. I’m not sure which will be my long term solution but plex needs to attract folks to subscribe and focusing on features that 1/5 of a percent of users utilize is not how you do that.

    • NaN@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      22 days ago

      As a longtime Plex user, I also hate their lack of focus and tendancy to priorotize bad features (like paid streaming and VR). But this one feels more like a way to re-focus on video by removing photo code from the main (video) app’s codebase, making it easier to maintain.

    • ccunning@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      22 days ago

      Can Jellyfin and Plex point to the same libraries and coexist?

      I haven’t tried it before but maybe I should. I don’t have huge complaints with the Plex AppleTV app. I just find it laggy at times.

      • WxFisch@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        22 days ago

        They can, I turned off my plex VM to save resources but no real reason they can’t both point to the same libraries at once.

      • BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        22 days ago

        Yes I do this. Same exact library folders so I can let my friends use whatever they prefer. If everything is named in a Plex friendly way it should just work in jellyfin.

      • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        22 days ago

        I don’t use it much but haven’t had too many issues with plex on apple TV. I do have infuse too and a lot of people with plex servers prefer infuse on apple products.

    • tartan@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      22 days ago

      I switched to Emby earlier this year and never looked back. All the core features are solid. And it works great on my AppleTV.

  • Unmapped@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    edit-2
    20 days ago

    I don’t care about the photos. But glad to hear they are taking photos and music out of the main app and making it less bloated.

    • realitista@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      20 days ago

      I wish they’d allow syncing of my full music library to my mobile app so I can finally get off Apple Music.

      • dan@upvote.au
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        20 days ago

        Put all songs in a playlist and then download that playlist?

        • realitista@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          20 days ago

          But I need all my playlists, not just all my songs in one big useless playlist. I have around 50 of them.

            • realitista@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              20 days ago

              Hmm, okay maybe I will experiment with it. It seems I read somewhere that there was an issue with doing this. Have you tried it? Then whenever I add new music I’d have to remember to add it to this playlist. Other playlists would automatically use the local copy?

              • dan@upvote.au
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                20 days ago

                I have Plexamp on my phone configured to automatically download the “loved” album (songs I’ve rated 4 or 5 stars). It automatically downloads songs I add to the playlist. My library is too big to download it all to my phone (most songs are in FLAC format) so I’d need to download a curated list anyways.

                This seems to work well. I’ve used it a few times on flights or when I’m in a hotel room with spotty phone coverage and no wifi.

                • realitista@lemm.ee
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  20 days ago

                  If you play the same songs on other playlists does it use the local copy?

      • FallenGrove@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        18 days ago

        Musicbee can pull your songs and playlists from itunes and allow syncing of them to your phone. It doesn’t do streaming though.

          • FallenGrove@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            18 days ago

            It adds it to local folders so you can pretty much use any music player app you want. I like personally like poweramp. I just add the directory with my playlists which are .m3u and it they just pop up

            • realitista@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              18 days ago

              The problem for me is that my music is arranged around “smart playlists”. My music library would be unmanageable if I had to add every song to playlists manually.

              • FallenGrove@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                edit-2
                18 days ago

                Ah, then musicbee might not be for you. I’ve managed my own songs for at least a decade the old fashioned way so it was easy to import and move my songs around to other forms of media apps. You can however copy and paste the Playlist from iTunes to musicbee. You don’t have to manually add all the songs to the playlist from your library.

    • realitista@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      20 days ago

      I just wish it had local sync for my whole music library, not just some small slice of it.

  • yeehaw@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    21 days ago

    K. You lost me years ago when your photos and camera upload function were total shit forever. I since moved all my crap to nextcloud camera upload and photoprism. Not gonna change any time soon

    • Kairos@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      21 days ago

      Plex never fixes stuff and it’s really bad. They don’t even have a feedback system.

      The login process for Plex photos (Android) was near im impossible, because it used the browser which closed/if I went away from the app such as if I wanted to copy my passqord from my password manager. I wouldn’t be at all suprised if that wouldn’t change until way after stable release.

        • Kairos@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          20 days ago

          I use Firefox Focus because operating a phone is hard. I guess I can switch it temporarily but that’s once again iffy.

  • donkeystomple@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    21 days ago

    At this point the only thing holding me back from switching to Jellyfin is Plex’s transcoded download function.

  • fanzel@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    20 days ago

    I only recently started using Plex because they added the Drew Carey Show. I didn’t know they were anything other than a streaming service.

    • dan@upvote.au
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      20 days ago

      Their main product is a server that you run on a computer and lets you stream your own content.

      • PetteriPano@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        20 days ago

        Their main product is telemetry and selling your watch history to advertisers.

        That’s why Plex doesn’t work without an active internet connection.

  • auzy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    21 days ago

    I wish there was a way to hide the synopsis.

    I like watching movies and TV without knowing the plot of what I’m about to watch

  • veee@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    22 days ago

    Nice! The old photos feature in the main app felt too bloated so I stopped using it. Hopefully this one’s snappier cause I’ve been looking for a good way to access my old photos again.