[HN Gopher] Moving my home media library from iTunes to Jellyfin...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Moving my home media library from iTunes to Jellyfin and Infuse
        
       Author : geerlingguy
       Score  : 131 points
       Date   : 2021-06-10 16:48 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.jeffgeerling.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.jeffgeerling.com)
        
       | hbcondo714 wrote:
       | One feature Plex offers that I don't see from anyone else is the
       | ability to install their media server software on the router
       | itself. IMO this is a super simple and cost effective way to
       | distribute your media. Most routers already come with a USB port
       | and USB thumb drives are way cheaper and don't require any
       | additional hardware/setup like a NAS. Only issue is that this
       | appears to only be available on one router:
       | 
       | https://www.plex.tv/apps-devices/#modal-devices-netgear-nigh...
        
       | anewguy9000 wrote:
       | i know he settled on emby, but for anyone who uses Plex in a web
       | browser, i created an extension that adds widescreen zoom, random
       | sorting, a dynamic audio compressor, and links to movie trailers.
       | its open source, check it out!
       | 
       | https://github.com/conceptualspace/enhance-o-tron-for-plex
        
         | schmappel wrote:
         | Hey thanks, just installed it! These are all super useful
         | additions.
        
       | ryandrake wrote:
       | Maybe I'm old school, but a simple NFS server for media has
       | worked well enough for me for decades. Entertainment-center-
       | connected devices were once Linux PCs, now cheap ancient Mac
       | Minis running XBMC/Kodi. All connected over wired Ethernet. This
       | setup has been bulletproof for as long as I've run it.
        
         | handrous wrote:
         | I've come around to thinking just having a cheap computer with
         | a normal OS with a wireless keyboard + touchpad combo hooked up
         | to the TV is less of a pain than the "friendlier" alternatives,
         | for DIYers, because it's so much simpler to set up and
         | maintain, at least for video libraries. About the only thing I
         | miss with that is last-episode tracking for series.
         | 
         | Main down-side is that it can be harder to get e.g. surround
         | sound and HDR working reliably with a VLC + filesystem-browser
         | solution.
        
           | severine wrote:
           | Agree. What is HN's budget recommendation for Linux friendly
           | wireless keyboard+touchpad?
        
             | jabroni_salad wrote:
             | How important is the touchpad part? The Logitech K400 is
             | pretty good.
             | 
             | I would encourage you to look at the 'airmouse' category of
             | products, though. I have the Wechip one and it works pretty
             | well and detects as a standard mouse/keyboard. It has a
             | mini keyboard on one side and a D-pad on the other, with a
             | wii-mote like function for moving the cursor.
        
         | heavyset_go wrote:
         | I have my media collection mounted via NFS on Jellyfin and it's
         | pretty nice.
        
         | livueta wrote:
         | I do that too, mostly. The only real downside is no
         | transcoding. That's fine as long as you stay on wired Ethernet
         | but a 50G remux via trans-pacific nfs is... suboptimal.
         | Recently I've started running a Jellyfin server on a spare NUC
         | for those times when transcoding is needed, but sticking with
         | direct nfs access when it's not. Seems like the best of both
         | worlds so far.
        
         | NortySpock wrote:
         | Totally agree, own your own client hardware and connect to a
         | central server on your LAN.
         | 
         | My RPi3 kodi was performing wonky after ~30+ hours of uptime.
         | 
         | The duct-tape fix was scheduling a reboot at 3am.
        
       | BeetleB wrote:
       | I'm glad Jellyfin served his purposes. As a user of both Plex and
       | Emby, I will say that Jellyfin is still quite behind for my use
       | cases (e.g. Live TV streaming and DVR).
        
         | geerlingguy wrote:
         | Interestingly, Live TV/DVR is on my list of "will look into it
         | later". I've had an HDHomeRun plugged in for years, but only
         | really use it once a month or so.
         | 
         | It would be nice to set up DVR and now that I have Jellyfin
         | (which has a UI for it) running I might see how well it works.
         | But since that wasn't one of my primary use cases I didn't
         | really look into how well it functions.
        
         | heavyset_go wrote:
         | I'm convinced Plex is going to be looking at some kind of
         | lawsuit from rights holders[1] in the future, so I'm not keen
         | on investing time in that platform.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.inputmag.com/tech/copyright-lobby-calls-out-
         | plex...
        
       | amanzi wrote:
       | The key advantage to Plex is that it has apps for just about any
       | platform you need. Most smart TVs will have a Plex app, there are
       | Plex mobile apps, and apps for the PlayStation, NAS devices, etc,
       | etc... Plex often muddies the water by trying to push their
       | paid/premium offerings on you, but it's these paid services that
       | keep the core platform functional and free for everyone else.
        
         | NegativeLatency wrote:
         | I do wish there was one for the Nintendo Switch.
        
         | vibrio wrote:
         | Came here to say exactly this. I'll add that my media library
         | is very music heavy, and Plex is doing a pretty good job on its
         | music player Plexamp.
        
       | JohnWhigham wrote:
       | Has anyone else used Asustor NASs? Just learned of them, they
       | seem like a competent alternative to Synology (especially after
       | their security debacle a couple months ago).
        
         | geerlingguy wrote:
         | Honestly I hadn't heard about them much until this year (I
         | guess a big marketing push?). They seem to have offerings about
         | on par with Synology/QNAP (at least in terms of features),
         | though at a slight discount.
         | 
         | I've been happy enough with the Lockerstor 4 that I finally
         | gave up my Mac mini setup entirely and am routing all my home
         | data to the NAS. I'll be adding a second NAS soon for two local
         | copies of _all_ data (not just the active projects I'm working
         | on), plus a backup to Glacier.
        
           | JohnWhigham wrote:
           | How do you do backups to Glacier? Do you stuff all your media
           | in there once a month?
        
             | geerlingguy wrote:
             | I have a weekly script that uses rclone to sync all the
             | relevant folders from my NAS to an S3 Glacier Deep Archive
             | bucket. It works well enough, though my slow 35 Mbps uplink
             | from my home is the limiting factor.
             | 
             | Sometimes when I do some large video projects that are
             | 30-60 GB in size, the upload to the bucket can take a
             | couple days :(
        
       | at_a_remove wrote:
       | I am very late to the Media Library game, having amassed quite a
       | bit of "stuff" (which I do not feel too terribly about giving the
       | propensity of that stuff to vanish from streaming services), but
       | I keep wanting to construct a kind of "TV channel," wherein
       | multiple logged-in users can see the exact thing at (nearly) the
       | same time.
       | 
       | I would manage the queue myself. This way, I could host watch
       | parties of hard-to-find material, perhaps with intermission
       | material ("let's all go to the lobby" or other nostalgia). Plex,
       | from what I read, seems to be heading in a more legal direction,
       | and Emby closed its source ...
        
         | stryan wrote:
         | Jellyfin supports "Watch parties" which I've used for movie
         | nights in the past. It works well enough.
         | 
         | But if you want this going real-time and continuously it sounds
         | like you want more of an RTMP stream setup. I recommend
         | MovieNight[0] but you can handle it natively in Nginx I think.
         | Then it's just a matter of setting up OBS[1] or something
         | similar to stream to it and you can do whatever you want.
         | 
         | [0] https://github.com/zorchenhimer/MovieNight [1]
         | https://obsproject.com/
        
           | at_a_remove wrote:
           | That's interesting. We have the chat part already set up in
           | Discord.
           | 
           | I had heard of the OBS Project but I wasn't sure if it would
           | handle my somewhat specific use case.
           | 
           | I know Jellyfin had been working on a feature called SyncPlay
           | but I didn't know how far it had gotten in various clients
           | yet. Out of curiosity, why would you like an RTMP stream
           | setup over Jellyfin in my case? What are the pros and cons?
           | 
           | (I know wanting to set up my own little TV channel for a
           | dozen people is kind of a silly thing to do, but that's the
           | itch I have)
        
             | stryan wrote:
             | Ah, sorry, SyncPlay is the watch party feature I was
             | thinking of. I know it's available in the web client (what
             | we used) and the Android app.
             | 
             | RTMP gives you lower latency and more control over what's
             | being shown when combined with OBS. Jellyfin's SyncPlay
             | works great when you want to watch a shared movie with a
             | set group of people, but it gets buggy when you watch
             | multiple episodes in a row or people drop in and out. Doing
             | OBS with RMTP (I used MovieNight) means it's just one
             | continuous stream that people tune in to. You can use OBS
             | to queue up arbitrary video files, and with different
             | scenes set up you can even do bumpers and "commercials".
             | 
             | And it's definitely not silly! I used an RTMP stream to do
             | a "Saturday Morning Cartoons" stream for my friends a while
             | back.
        
               | at_a_remove wrote:
               | It sounds like your use case and mine are very similar.
               | That sounds fantastic! How well does this handle user
               | authentication/authorization? Are the clients widespread
               | enough?
               | 
               | This is definitely going on my Potential Solutions list,
               | which has been interesting to navigate, to say the least.
        
               | stryan wrote:
               | Jellyfin supports all the major platforms[0] to some
               | degree. The web client is definitely the most polished
               | though. I've only used web, Android, and Kodi; Kodi being
               | the flakiest. RTMP is a very well supported protocol, you
               | can watch it in browser or throw the URL at pretty much
               | any given media player and it'll work.
               | 
               | For user auth, Jellyfin has it's built in db and I have
               | it hooked up to an LDAP server with authorization for a
               | certain OU. RTMP I never tried to restrict, though if you
               | use the nginx/apache method you probably use .htaccess or
               | something similar?
               | 
               | [0]: https://jellyfin.org/clients/
        
               | at_a_remove wrote:
               | RTMP is looking really interesting for this. And your
               | cartoon use case matches something I had been
               | considering. Thank you!
        
               | livueta wrote:
               | If you're using nginx-rtmp-module auth is actually
               | extremely easy: use the on_play and on_publish callback
               | directives[1] to implement whatever auth you want, a la
               | [2][3].
               | 
               | [1] https://github.com/arut/nginx-rtmp-
               | module/wiki/Directives#on...
               | 
               | [2] https://github.com/Nesseref/nginx-rtmp-
               | auth/blob/master/pyth...
               | 
               | [3] https://github.com/Nesseref/nginx-rtmp-
               | auth/blob/master/pyth...
        
           | paulryanrogers wrote:
           | CyTube has performed well as a synchronized watch party.
           | Though it was tricky to install and the UI was quirky.
        
         | enlightens wrote:
         | There's a Plex approach to this, in fact.
         | 
         | https://github.com/FakeTV/pseudo-channel
        
           | crobibero wrote:
           | There are many forks of this, namely ErsatzTV[0] which also
           | supports Jellyfin
           | 
           | [0] https://github.com/jasongdove/ErsatzTV
        
       | josefresco wrote:
       | > Since 2008, I've ripped every DVD and Blu-Ray I bought to my
       | Mac
       | 
       | It's been years since I've ripped DVDs (I probably stopped when
       | this guy started) but the last I remember getting around copy
       | protection was ...tricky. I have an archive of DVD's I'd love to
       | digitize - anyone have a good ripper recommendation (Windows)? To
       | be clear, these are DVDs I legally purchased and own.
        
         | loudmax wrote:
         | In my experience, ripping my DVDs is easy. On most Linux
         | distros, mplayer will either do it out of the box, or you'll
         | need to download a single extra library.
         | 
         | Blu-Ray is another matter. As far as I can tell, it seems to
         | involve a lot of tracking down the right keys from the
         | internet. Maybe someone who's better plugged into the digital
         | piracy scene and will have more perspective. I just wanted to
         | copy movies onto my NAS so I don't have to look for a physical
         | copy on my shelf. Maybe it's easier now, but when I tried a few
         | years ago, the effort of tracking down decryption keys so I
         | could copy my Blu-Rays wasn't worth the trouble.
        
           | livueta wrote:
           | The problem you're referring to is how BD encryption keys are
           | rotated as they are compromised. When a player gets reversed
           | and the keys dumped, the organization basically revokes those
           | keys for any new discs going forward. Practically, this means
           | that things like when your particular BD was pressed matter
           | for what keys you need. It's a pain in the ass; deCSS was
           | much nicer.
           | 
           | e: apparently since I last used it makemkv now finds as many
           | of these on its own as it can: https://www.makemkv.com/svq/
        
           | salamandersauce wrote:
           | MakeMKV is the easiest route. On Linux I found it was way
           | easier to just rip the disc with MakeMKV and watch the file
           | than to get a Blu-ray to be read by VLC.
        
             | geerlingguy wrote:
             | MakeMKV makes it incredibly easy. There are still a few
             | Blu-Rays I remember giving me trouble, but it was a matter
             | of untangling a web of annoying track numbers that weren't
             | in chronological order (something like that).
             | 
             | 4K UHD Blu-Ray discs are another matter though; I still
             | have a couple of those I haven't been able to rip.
        
         | LeoPanthera wrote:
         | MakeMKV rips everything except the extremely rare DVD-Audio.
         | Even 4K discs.
         | 
         | Encryption hasn't been a problem for a while.
        
           | josefresco wrote:
           | I've used MakeMKV! Odd because I remember having to run
           | "helper" applications in order to break DRM - maybe that was
           | another software package. Good to know, now I just need a
           | rainy weekend!
        
             | LeoPanthera wrote:
             | I think it did need helpers in the past. It's all
             | integrated now.
        
         | salamandersauce wrote:
         | MakeMKV. It's mainly geared towards Blu-rays but it does DVDs
         | too. Basically you put in a disc and maybe select what
         | tracks/audio options you want and it spits out an MKV.
        
         | knodi123 wrote:
         | I use Handbrake on my mac, and it looks like there's a windows
         | version. For me it's pretty much perfect. I set up my favorite
         | settings as a preset, and now it's basically a one-click
         | ripper.
        
         | mongol wrote:
         | I remember I looked at Docker hub and found something I used.
        
         | dmos62 wrote:
         | Handbrake is probably the most popular software for that on
         | Windows. You might need an additional library to work around
         | copy protection. Google it.
        
           | paulryanrogers wrote:
           | IME there are so many impersonators it's difficult to find an
           | unadulterated copy. I've seen family members get infected
           | with malware trying to use the top results.
        
         | heavyset_go wrote:
         | DeCSS has been a thing for quite some time for unscrambling DVD
         | content.
        
         | dlkmp wrote:
         | I recently ripped a Bluray after years of not using optical
         | media at all and found MakeMKV to be a quick and effectively
         | free way of doing so.
        
           | hermitdev wrote:
           | Is audio sync still an issue with ripping/encoding? I used to
           | rip all of my DVDs and transcode to DivX. Getting the audio &
           | video to sync up was always a pain. I've been thinking about
           | ripping my Bluray & DVD collection again (in better quality)
           | since I don't have the room to store my media in the same
           | room, let alone the same floor of my house, as my TV.
        
             | rdschouw wrote:
             | I have ripped close to 1,000 Blu-Ray and DVD discs with
             | MakeMKV and never encountered audio sync issues. It's not a
             | thing anymore.
             | 
             | There was a time I used handbrake to reduce the file sizes
             | by encoding to x265 and that never resulted in any audio
             | sync issues either.
        
             | herbstein wrote:
             | BluRays are fully digital so just moving it from the disc
             | into another container on the computer, without touching
             | the actual video and audio data, is a possibility. It's
             | called a "REMUX".
        
       | watertom wrote:
       | How much time and money do people spend on collecting
       | music/movies?
       | 
       | How many times can a person watch Cars?
       | 
       | This just seems crazy.
        
         | prepend wrote:
         | I've been ripping Blu-ray and dvd for 15 years or so and have
         | hundreds of movies.
         | 
         | Watching all of LOTR each year without switching discs is nice.
         | 
         | Having kids watch their stuff over and over without ads is
         | nice.
        
           | sumtechguy wrote:
           | I have a _large_ collection of DVD /bluray/CDs. The real
           | issue is management and storage of the physical medium. I had
           | this ridiculous setup with DVD/CD carousels. Ripped it all
           | and it is now some files on a share on a NAS. Wildly easier
           | to use, also instead of 5 remotes I have 1.
           | 
           | Before I bought the movies I was going to the theater a
           | _lot_. The cost ratio was clearly in advantage of just buying
           | the movie. With the advent of streaming that cost ratio
           | shifted significantly towards renting /streaming again.
           | However, the fragmentation and region lockouts of which
           | service a show/movie is on that may switch back to discs
           | again. Also some studios are starting to like the idea of re-
           | editing the movies on the fly. You may be better off just
           | buying again. I am already invested in 'buying' but if I were
           | starting today I probably would not bother and just go all in
           | on streaming.
           | 
           | The GP basically is like a lot of people. They watch a movie
           | and they are perfectly good never seeing it again or maybe a
           | few years later. Renting is a perfectly good option for
           | someone like that.
        
         | Server6 wrote:
         | I canceled cable in 2009 and have been collecting media for 10+
         | years. It's grown into around 60TB and has become effectively
         | my own personal streaming service that I share with my family
         | and a handful of close friends.
        
           | jbscpa wrote:
           | Question: What hardware/software solution have you adopted?
        
         | pstuart wrote:
         | > How many times can a person watch Cars?
         | 
         | You don't have kids, do you? ;-)
        
           | MattPalmer1086 wrote:
           | Recognise!
        
           | handrous wrote:
           | Truly, two things drive me to care about having this kind of
           | personal media library, which is _absolutely_ not worth it
           | otherwise on a cost basis alone, let alone the time it takes:
           | 
           | 1) Works that are _only_ available via piracy, of which there
           | are a handful of entries I 'd hate to give up, and
           | 
           | 2) Inability to create curated cross-service playlists for my
           | kids, and lock them down to only watching items on those
           | playlists. Only way to get this is by keeping your own
           | digital copies of everything you want on those lists, _or_ by
           | using only physical media, which takes up more space and is
           | prone to being broken or lost (especially when handled by
           | kids)
        
             | esel2k wrote:
             | Parent here as well. I see so often people or unfortunately
             | the grandparents just using youtube for a child song to
             | play. I am very happy with my children playlists and
             | avoiding the kids beeing expose to ads and unlimited
             | consumption/ endless scrolling modes.
        
           | hkt wrote:
           | I swear I've seen every episode of Abbey and Teal at least a
           | hundred times.
           | 
           | (There are 50+ episodes)
        
           | post_break wrote:
           | Reminds me of the show Modern Family. Was something like
           | "we've got finding nemo on endless loop in the den"
        
           | geerlingguy wrote:
           | I still enjoy a lot of the movies--more especially since I
           | can relive the 'first watch' experience with my kids. It's
           | hard to make sure I don't reveal some of the fun plot twists
           | in older movies but it pays off.
           | 
           | Sadly, since my kids saw Toy Story 2 before Star Wars Episode
           | V, the whole 'I am your father' bit didn't land with the same
           | impact it did on previous generations :(
        
         | dmos62 wrote:
         | I used to use stuff like this when I had a TV. I didn't collect
         | anything, in that I would delete things after I watched them.
         | All of it was for easy sharing/streaming between computers and
         | media devices.
        
       | cvwright wrote:
       | Thanks geerlingguy. I used Emby for a long time, but somehow
       | missed the whole Jellyfin thing.
       | 
       | Definitely going to try out the setup from this article.
        
       | gog wrote:
       | I have all my media on a NAS (Synology) exposed via Samba. Kodi
       | is running directly on a TV. This setup has worked great for me
       | in the last decade or so, before Kodi I was using an external
       | media player (Mede8er) that also had access to the same share.
       | 
       | When the time came to change media players I didn't have to touch
       | the NAS at all.
        
         | prepend wrote:
         | I did this for years but my TVs and boxes were over WiFi and I
         | couldn't get fast enough network to play high res media files.
         | 
         | I switched to Plex running on Synology and that's worked much
         | better with the synology transcoding to match the app (usually
         | appletv and smartphones nowadays)
        
       | wolverine876 wrote:
       | Could someone suggest the solution that is easiest for highly
       | non-technical users? I'm talking about users for whom Netflix is
       | too difficult and YouTube crosses that threshold if anything goes
       | wrong. (And don't criticize the users, criticize your UI.)
       | 
       | I don't care how proprietary it is or who runs it, as long as
       | they can use it. I am arranging to have their CDs ripped (they
       | don't use the CD player and saw me using my music library - which
       | is just files in the file system and VLC - and liked the idea of
       | hearing their long-unheard, beloved music) and need something
       | they can actually use. Otherwise, they won't get to listen to
       | their music.
       | 
       | All they need to do is select a track and play it. No other UI
       | needed; it will only confuse things.
       | 
       | In fact, something that handles ripped music and new downloads
       | and streaming would be optimal.
        
         | axolotlgod wrote:
         | Yes! Seconding this request. For my purposes, a range from this
         | level of non-technical to some light Googling would be fine,
         | but it seems like so much of streaming hasn't reached levels of
         | approachability for people outside the command line and
         | scripting. Much appreciated!
        
         | asciimov wrote:
         | What are the specifics? What kind of devices do you have to
         | support, what kind of network? What kind of media?
         | 
         | If Netflix is too hard, then my goto Plex, wouldn't be much
         | easier. Before they added all their cruft, it was by far the
         | easiest solution, things just worked.
         | 
         | How do they fair using iTunes? Apples stuff integrates really
         | well together. You could get them an iPod Touch and let them
         | control it all from that.
         | 
         | Lowest rung for just music would be load all the media onto a
         | drive and use Winamp. But that is assuming just a computer
         | playing music.
        
           | wolverine876 wrote:
           | > What kind of devices do you have to support, what kind of
           | network? What kind of media?
           | 
           | Apple devices, including phones, tablet, laptop; as well as
           | an old high-end stereo (I'll need some digital-to-analog
           | adapter, but I assume those exist).
           | 
           | Standard home WLAN, with wired connections available for
           | devices that don't move.
           | 
           | Media - whatever works, but I assume it will need to be on a
           | server to be available to all those devices, and therefore I
           | assume I will prefer it in the cloud so that I don't have to
           | setup and manage the server. Ripped music will be in ALAC
           | format, I expect, though possibly FLAC. They will also want
           | to play newly downloaded tracks in whatever format provided,
           | and stream music.
           | 
           | > iTunes
           | 
           | > Winamp
           | 
           | How user-friendly are those? WinAmp I used long ago, and
           | certainly it was too geek-oriented, and there was too much
           | going in that GUI.
        
             | asciimov wrote:
             | > well as an old high-end stereo (I'll need some digital-
             | to-analog adapter, but I assume those exist).
             | 
             | Those adapters exist, look into Airplay 2 compatible
             | devices.
             | 
             | iTunes is pretty easy to use, my older parents don't seem
             | to have much of an issue with it. Admittedly, I don't
             | regularly use iTunes anymore, only for the occasional iPod
             | sync or restore.
             | 
             | Once you have Apple's HomeSharing setup, it's really easy
             | to play stuff on your apple devices.
             | 
             | The Winamp 2 default skin was pretty basic. It had a stereo
             | layout (play, stop, skip buttons), an equalizer, and a
             | playlist. It was a great stand alone app. If you were just
             | wanting a simple way to play stuff on one computer, it
             | might be the better way to go.
        
         | leokennis wrote:
         | Not totally sure what you're looking for playback wise. But you
         | can give https://asti.ga/ a try.
         | 
         | Basically, you point it to one or more online storages. It
         | scans and combines all music on there and presents is as a
         | library you can play from via a web browser.
         | 
         | It also exposes this library as a SubSonic library, which makes
         | that library usable in a lot of apps.
        
         | mStreamTeam wrote:
         | I'm working on mStream which is a server that aims to be as
         | simple as possible to setup and run
         | 
         | https://github.com/IrosTheBeggar/mStream
         | 
         | Its slow progress development wise. Making this easy takes a
         | lot of time. Currently the sever is in good condition but it
         | desperately needs a mobile app
        
           | wolverine876 wrote:
           | That's very cool. For my purposes, I'm less concerned with
           | the server-side; I'm kinda hoping to put the music in the
           | cloud somewhere and outsource server administration. In any
           | case, these users are in no way going to be setting up server
           | themselves. They don't know what "server" means and don't use
           | the word in sentences.
        
             | mStreamTeam wrote:
             | My goal is to combine mStream with this project.
             | 
             | https://github.com/fatedier/frp
             | 
             | With this mstream server could automatically tunnel through
             | a cloud service that gives them a domain and SSL certs.
             | 
             | This way I dont have to pay to host any of the users files
             | on the cloud. All I need is a unlimited bandwidth vps to do
             | the tunneling. And the user doesn't need to know what a
             | server is, they just need to be able to run mStream.
             | 
             | I actually made a proof of concept which worked well. I
             | just couldn't justify scaling it until I get a mobile app
             | finished.
        
       | Vaslo wrote:
       | Can this handle 4K HDR?
        
         | crobibero wrote:
         | Jellyfin supports 4K HDR playback depending on the client. I
         | don't personally use Infuse but I believe it supports 4K
         | playback depending on the hardware it is running on.
        
           | geerlingguy wrote:
           | Infuse does, but that's part of the paid 'Pro' version (in-
           | app upgrade). I haven't done it yet because most of my
           | content is still 480p! But I may once I start getting more 4K
           | content.
        
       | 75central wrote:
       | I'd love to switch to Jellyfin, but I'm still using Plex as their
       | apps are ubiquitous...It comes pre-installed on most Smart TVs
       | and is available on pretty much every platform.
        
         | heavyset_go wrote:
         | There's an Android TV client that works well with Android TV,
         | Chromecasts and the Amazon Fire Stick.
         | 
         | There's also Roku, Samsung TV[1], LG webOS[2] and iOS/tvOS[3]
         | apps in development if anyone wants to work on them.
         | 
         | [1] https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-tizen
         | 
         | [2] https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-webos
         | 
         | [3] https://github.com/jellyfin/SwiftFin
        
         | TameAntelope wrote:
         | It seems like the author wanted to stick with open source. If
         | that's not a concern, I think Plex wins handily.
        
         | silicon2401 wrote:
         | Does plex let you just play media from a device on the network?
         | I'm a huge noob to the home media game. If I plug a usb hard
         | drive into my router, can I download media from my PC to the
         | hard drive, then play it on a plex device like a smart tv
         | directly from the hard drive?
        
           | 3np wrote:
           | If you have Plex running on that router, yes. Same for
           | Jellyfin (which I recommend) and Emby - as long as you have a
           | corresponding app/client, DLNA, or a web client. If you
           | connect with several clients you can "cast"/remote between
           | them seamlessly so you can play to your TV from your phone,
           | for example.
           | 
           | The library is centralized, though, so you need all the
           | medial files on one place. Also, I'd recommend not running it
           | on your router but on a separate device for various reasons
           | (security, performance especially if you need to transcode).
           | If you want to stream 4K without having to think about codecs
           | you'll need decent CPU and GPU. For 1080p you should be OK
           | with an integrated AMD or Intel, or even a decent SBC.
        
             | silicon2401 wrote:
             | Thanks very much. I've been slowly trying to learn about
             | NAS/home media stuff as I've gotten more into watching TV
             | shows and movies, and your comment is making me lean
             | towards plex/jellyfin/emby on a NAS to centrally store my
             | media and stream it to devices.
        
         | GordonS wrote:
         | I mainly use Plex, but every now and then there is a file that
         | it won't play on my Samsung TV. Sometimes it will play the se
         | file on another TV I have, an old Sony.
         | 
         | I also have Jellyfin installed and serving up the same
         | collection of media for exactly this reason - sometimes it
         | plays stuff that Plex won't. But the Plex app on my Samsung TV
         | is far superior to the generic DLNA app I use for Jellyfin (I
         | can't even remember the name of it; I tried multiple, and none
         | were even close to as nice as the Plex one).
        
       | nrvn wrote:
       | I am frustrated with music streaming. Whenever an artist or label
       | revokes the right your precious music turns "grey" and when
       | clicked on the "fantastic with over 600 million tracks available"
       | streaming service throws a popup in your face saying "this song
       | is not currently available in your country or region" which I
       | read as "you pay for access to our library, you don't own
       | anything mate, get lost!"
       | 
       | I want to purchase songs and access them in the "cloud" from
       | around the globe and from Mars and I want to own them!
       | 
       | Haven't researched the question. Are there any approaches to
       | throw your library behind authed CDN or aws s3 with a frontend
       | ios/android/desktop app to get rid of those fancy subscription
       | models?!
        
         | wodenokoto wrote:
         | If you buy the songs on iTunes, you get to access them from the
         | cloud and backup the actual audio files to whatever local or
         | cloud storage you want.
         | 
         | All iTunes songs are DRM free and available from the cloud on
         | all devices that can run apple music.
         | https://support.apple.com/guide/music/intro-to-the-itunes-st...
        
           | Qerub wrote:
           | You don't even have to buy the songs on iTunes to have Apple
           | stream them to all your devices. With iTunes Match (included
           | with Apple Music subscriptions or available stand-alone) you
           | can build a "cloud library" from local files:
           | https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204146
        
             | geerlingguy wrote:
             | This is how I manage my music library, and other than the
             | fact that iTunes Match could potentially 'eat up' a song
             | you import into it if it matches to a different but
             | similar-name/time track, it's been great.
             | 
             | I always keep a second copy of all my original rips just
             | because I'm worried that kind of thing could happen--if not
             | immediately, then later on when I sync a new computer and
             | iTunes Match finds some new song that conflicts.
        
             | lloeki wrote:
             | Watch out, iTunes Match and the Apple Music match service
             | are subtly different: the former will match to (and failing
             | that, upload, transcoding to AAC 256 if needed) DRM-free
             | versions, while the latter will match to/upload for sure
             | but downloading them on another device (or the same if you
             | delete the source file) will get you a FairPlay protected
             | file.
        
         | NegativeLatency wrote:
         | Plex is pretty solid, I run it on a low power Linux box at home
         | with a few hard drives of media.
         | 
         | It's great for sharing with friends and stuff too. Has decent
         | mobile apps, but haven't used it much for music.
        
           | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
           | +1 for Plex.
           | 
           | I can access it from anywhere on all of my devices and I own
           | all of the media.
        
             | jbscpa wrote:
             | "...and I own all of the media" This.Yes.This.
        
         | heavyset_go wrote:
         | > _Are there any approaches to throw your library behind authed
         | CDN or aws s3 with a frontend ios /android/desktop app to get
         | rid of those fancy subscription models?!_
         | 
         | You can use an S3 compatible storage provider and either mount
         | it via NFS[1] or s3fs[2], and point Jellyfin to it.
         | 
         | [1]
         | https://docs.aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/latest/userguide/...
         | 
         | [2] https://github.com/s3fs-fuse/s3fs-fuse
        
       | phreack wrote:
       | I love Jellyfin and the fact it exists is amazing, but I try it
       | every three months or so and it feels like while there's amazing
       | progress, it's still on the last 20% of work left before it's
       | entirely painless. The web player would just not load subtitles
       | every other video, and there's no native player (yet!) for my
       | family's TV. From what I've gathered from Github, all problems I
       | encountered are being worked on (I even tried to fork it and fix
       | a thing myself but failed miserably), so hopefully in a year or
       | so it'll be the Emby killer.
        
         | MattPalmer1086 wrote:
         | Yeah, I tried Jellyfin, but I had problems when running from a
         | Pi 4. Severely slow and unplayable on both Roku and Android
         | clients, with and without hardware acceleration. Emby seems to
         | work fine though, as does Plex.
        
           | NortySpock wrote:
           | I've gotten it to work hosted on an RPi4, but only if you can
           | completely prevent video transcoding.
        
           | pgcudahy wrote:
           | I've got it running from a Pi3 with no issues serving to
           | multiple roku clients simultaneously. I'm also really happy
           | with how the roku client has gone from just working to well
           | polished in the past year, even on my first gen device.
        
         | JeremyNT wrote:
         | I switched to Jellyfin fully (from MythTV) shortly after its
         | fork from Emby a couple of years ago.
         | 
         | I would suggest taking another look at it. It has really
         | improved over the last couple of years and seems to have a very
         | active development community that is engaged with its users.
         | They have a dedicated subreddit and they post there a lot. [0]
         | 
         | I find the web interface functional enough, but the dedicated
         | "Jellyfin" apps for Roku or Android are _slightly_
         | disappointing still. They are definitely usable, just not as
         | slick as better commercial apps. However, there is an excellent
         | Jellyfin for Kodi addon, and that is what I use on PC and
         | Android TV. [1]
         | 
         | I do have an actual mini ITX PC to host the media, an old-ish
         | i3, which I would strongly recommend over something like a Pi.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/jellyfin/
         | 
         | [1] https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/clients/kodi.html
        
           | simonmales wrote:
           | Came to say I too am quite happy with the Kodi Jellyfin
           | plugin. (The webapp is great too).
        
       | silicon2401 wrote:
       | Great read. Open question to any other readers: is there a best
       | practice or common pattern to managing media and playlists? If I
       | want to create different playlists referencing the same media
       | (audio and video playlists), can I have one or more folders
       | containing playlist files as long as the media stay put? Are
       | playlist files compatible across media players?
       | 
       | My real-life goal is to have a library of media on a NAS and then
       | various playlists played through various clients: my PC, a
       | raspberry Pi, a PS2 with Freemcboot, etc. I also want to be able
       | to combine playlists, like "rock" and "metal" music for example.
       | Not sure where to get started.
        
         | dsr_ wrote:
         | In general, use the filesystem hierarchy consistently.
         | 
         | /media/music/artist-or-composer/album/01_trackname.flac
         | 
         | /media/video/seriesname/season/01_episode.mkv
         | 
         | /media/music/playlists/
         | 
         | and construct your playlists in .m3u format, which is the
         | nearest thing to a cross-player standard.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3U
        
           | silicon2401 wrote:
           | Thanks very much, I remember that format now from before I
           | streamed media. Seems like that should be at least a good
           | starting point for what I want, I'll look into that further.
        
         | entropicdrifter wrote:
         | Jellyfin has full playlist support. AFAIK it keeps the
         | playlists themselves as text files on the Jellyfin server that
         | just reference the media files themselves, wherever they may
         | be. Adding playlists to your Jellyfin server does not seem to
         | add files onto your NAS, in my experience. That's just the
         | default behavior, though. Could be that you could set it up to
         | save the files to a folder in the NAS.
        
           | silicon2401 wrote:
           | That's awesome, thanks for the response. I've been looking
           | for a free and open source solution to media so this adds to
           | my interest in jellyfin
        
       | amaccuish wrote:
       | Trying to move away from Plex since it became more "online"
       | focused and less hosted, but can't find a way to export my
       | podcast subscriptions to OPML, only import
       | 
       | Looks like I fell hook line and sinker for Plex :/
        
         | pwinnski wrote:
         | It seems easy enough (so far) to ignore/disable all of the new
         | features, and the new features seem to provide a nice legal
         | raison d'etre for the software.
         | 
         | It's possible that it'll be harder in the future, but so far
         | Plex still compares favorably to all alternatives I know about.
        
           | 3np wrote:
           | A lot has happened in Jellyfin over the past year - it's been
           | a bit bumpy until fairly recently but if you haven't checked
           | it out recently it can be worth another go.
           | 
           | Once they complete the full migration to Entity Framework I
           | think everything will fall in place.
        
             | yunohn wrote:
             | The main issues I've faced with Jellyfin are chromecast
             | streaming and the auto-organize plugin failing. I've been
             | using it for 2 years now, and still very shaky.
        
             | pwinnski wrote:
             | I gave Emby another shot earlier this year, but abandoned
             | it after a couple of days.
        
               | 3np wrote:
               | A lot has happened and a long time has passed since the
               | fork. The two are extremely different now.
        
               | pwinnski wrote:
               | For me, at least, Emby handled movies with non-English
               | titles _very_ poorly. I have a lot of those, so it was a
               | lot of work getting those matched up correctly. At some
               | point I realized that the fastest /best approach would be
               | to check the Plex metadata, which matched the same movies
               | up correctly and had the Chinese or Korean title for me,
               | and use that to match up Emby. Saved a few steps, but I
               | could save even more steps by abandoning Emby.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | LeoPanthera wrote:
       | If you live on the command line I would like to highly recommend
       | "beets" to manage your music: https://beets.io
       | 
       | It allows you to match your albums with specific MusicBrainz
       | entries to get precise metadata.
       | 
       | It can be used in combination with playback tools like Jellyfin
       | or Plex if you simply point them at your Beets library folder.
       | 
       | I've been using it for a few years and I would never go back.
        
         | mmastrac wrote:
         | Nice, thanks. I was using Picard and it's great but a little
         | buggy at times.
        
           | LeoPanthera wrote:
           | They're a good complement to each other. You can "pre-tag"
           | files with Picard before having beets ingest them if you
           | prefer a GUI to check what you're getting.
        
         | fredthomsen wrote:
         | I was very happy to see this tool mentioned and recommend it
         | highly. Very nice tool to add album art and cleaning up the
         | tags for your existing music
        
         | pimeys wrote:
         | Been going with this config[0] for some years already. Beets is
         | awesome and gives me the organized flacs in my NAS, and the
         | 96kbps opus files in my phone.
         | 
         | [0]:
         | https://github.com/pimeys/nixos/blob/main/home.nix#L96-L126
        
       | sneak wrote:
       | Note that Infuse, the Jellyfin client app he recommends in this
       | write up, uploads your usage data (so, what you're watching) to
       | the app developer, even when playing your own local media.
       | 
       | Even selfhosting doesn't give you privacy anymore because all the
       | client apps spy on you. :/
       | 
       | Maybe stick to the web interface if this is something you care
       | about. (Does Jellyfin itself phone home?)
        
         | crobibero wrote:
         | The only data Jellyfin "collects" is the download count from
         | our mirros, which resets every ~24h, and can be viewed here[0]
         | Note that this number is a count from all of the mirrored
         | files, not just the server.
         | 
         | [0] https://repo.jellyfin.org/mirrorstats
         | 
         | Disclaimer - I am a Jellyfin maintainer.
        
           | sneak wrote:
           | That's awesome, and thank you for respecting the privacy of
           | your users. :) I wish more people took the approach that you
           | do.
        
       | jonathantf2 wrote:
       | I've got a setup with Emby instead, Jellyfin is just far too
       | immature and unstable for my liking. Great setup though.
        
         | sildur wrote:
         | Jellyfin is emby. It is an open source clone of emby, minus the
         | spyware.
        
           | ninju wrote:
           | What's the _spyware_ you speak of?
        
       | amiga-workbench wrote:
       | I've got my entire library on a Jellyfin server at home, its port
       | forwarded and available on a subdomain.
       | 
       | I've got enough upload capacity to stream 1080p to my workstation
       | at the office. Its really great software, the only annoyance was
       | figuring out that I needed to setup a hairpin NAT so I could cast
       | video to my TV's around the house.
       | 
       | My other slight gripe is that the bookshelf plugin for handling
       | ebooks is a bit picky with nested directories when scanning for
       | new media.
        
       | mongol wrote:
       | Something I like with Kodi is that I can create short text files
       | with .strm extension to refer to Youtube videos. This together
       | with .nfo metadata files allows me to create a "metadata library"
       | of content on Youtube. Since the Youtube plugin lost most of its
       | browsing capabilities, I have now scripted download of metadata
       | from my favorite Youtube channels and view them that way.
        
         | deftnerd wrote:
         | I didn't know that was a Kodi feature. It's actually enough for
         | me to consider migrating away from my Plex setup, or at least
         | running them in parallel.
        
           | mongol wrote:
           | It might be a feature by accident. All documentation about
           | this is about it's use for local media but it works for
           | Youtube. You need the Youtube addon, and the .strm file
           | contents should refer to the plugin with the video id.
        
           | sumtechguy wrote:
           | Kodi and plex were once one in the same codebase. Depending
           | when they added the feature it may work in plex as well.
        
           | 3np wrote:
           | Kodi has a plugin for Plex, so you can do both.
        
         | 3np wrote:
         | FWIW there are also two alternatives for Jellyfin plugins for
         | Kodi (depending on how tight you want to integrate with the
         | libary), they play quite well together.
        
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       (page generated 2021-06-10 23:01 UTC)