recommend a media server - perhaps not jellyfin? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GetInHereStalker · 2023-10-31 05:49 Had a bunch of trouble with self-hosted jellyfin: 1. It's always very difficult to get a "directory view" as I would if I just connected to the shared drive via file explorer. This is what I want though. I don't want to sit there and created libraries. I just want a view that lists the folders and lets me select the folder and then the file I want to play. I don't need to see titles or images - just the filename is fine! I don't need it to refresh the library, I don't need it to do anything! Just let me view directory structure view please! 2. Jellyfin app on the firestick seems broken. I keep getting problems starting files, and even if they do start they freeze. This happens with different built-in players and even external ones. I finally got it to somewhat work with Kodi+jellyfin *plugin*. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Conscious-Fault-8800 · 2023-10-31 06:02 MiniDLNA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- shadoodled · 2023-10-31 06:09 What you probably need is a DLNA server. Try searching on [Awesome Self-Hosted](https://awesome-selfhosted.net). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GetInHereStalker · 2023-10-31 06:11 Are they compatible with old file types and codes like avi? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- shadoodled · 2023-10-31 06:15 you'll have to read that from the docs of whichever solution you choose. I personally am not using one as I am on Plex. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BAAAASS · 2023-10-31 06:54 Serviio ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fromage9747 · 2023-10-31 06:59 What are you installing your Jellyfin server on? If it's Windows, that is your problem. Run it in a docker container on Linux and you will be good to go. If you are not Linux savvy, I implore you to look into it. You will never look back. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- slevin71 · 2023-10-31 07:04 Emby ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thekrautboy · 2023-10-31 07:30 DLNA doesnt care about that at all. It simply streams whatever media you have to the client (your TV with a DLNA app), and its left entirely to the client to play it back correctly. There is no transcoding or anything. Its a very basic and "dumb" technology. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HearthCore · 2023-10-31 07:35 Jellyfin does expose its media through DLNA aswell or at least I have it doing just that, then you just need to pickup that broadcast in your network with any Client application. PS5, XBOX got one Native, some TVs aswell, other than that there's a bazillion TVBoxes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- liveyourdreamsmax · 2023-10-31 11:05 Yea just enable dlna and done. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jkirkcaldy · 2023-10-31 12:49 You don’t want a media server then. Not in the way that media servers have developed over time. As others have suggested, a dlna server is likely what you are after, but you will lose everything other than simple file playback. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GolemancerVekk · 2023-10-31 14:15 That being said there are apps that can help with that. For example BubbleUPnP on Android is a DLNA controller that can help a lot: it can browse all kinds of file sources for you (DLNA server but also Samba, Drive etc.); it can play on the phone or cast to media players on the LAN (TV, Chromecast etc.); it can transcode on the phone or on a PC running BubbleUPnP Server. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GetInHereStalker · 2023-10-31 15:20 You mean this can be done on my current jellyfin server and it will remain compatible with the fire stick? Could you elaborate how this is done and what changes if any need to be done on the fire stick end? Do I keep using Kodi? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GetInHereStalker · 2023-10-31 15:22 Can you elaborate? Will I still get playback on my fire stick? I thought fire stick had little or no transcoding guts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GetInHereStalker · 2023-10-31 15:23 This is a turnkey Linux deployment (jellyfin package). https://www.turnkeylinux.org/mediaserver ---------------------------------------------------------------------- liveyourdreamsmax · 2023-10-31 16:59 Many media devices (roku, firestick, etc) can navigate a file folder structure like you're describing. That file folder stucture serving media to those media devices is called dlna. You can run a basic dlna service like minidlna, and yes jellyfin ALSO has an option to enable dlna. go to admin ->devices -> dlna and enable. That should be sufficient but you can dig into setting up profiles for certain types of media (music vs photos vs video) and other options. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- uprightanimal · 2023-10-31 17:16 If you already have jellyfin but don't want to use the client-side app, then add others have suggested, just enable DLNA in jellyfin. Your client will still need an app to browse DLNA shares. I use native JF apps on my android tv devices, but my LG tv didn't have one, so I just use the built-in videos app and access the jellyfin DLNA instance ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GetInHereStalker · 2023-10-31 18:08 So in that case there is no server-side transcoding? How does the firestick do all of the file playing then? I bet there must be severe file type / codec limitations? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- liveyourdreamsmax · 2023-10-31 18:35 Not really. You can look up the video and audio codecs your fire stick or other device supports: https://developer.amazon.com/docs/fire-tv/device-specifications-fire- tv-streaming-media-player.html If you have a PC with a decent GPU you can convert unsupported types to supported types quickly. I did this recently with a bunch of .avi files I had into mp4 and h.264. I used handbrake and my nvidia gtx1070. Not sure if AMD GPUs work for it but it was a breeze with my setup. For integrated GPUs it'll take longer to convert the files but it can be done. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GetInHereStalker · 2023-10-31 20:25 If I use it like this (samba mode) does it matter what sort of computer is doing the serving? I have an i7 I thought I needed for transcoding but I guess it's no longer needed? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- uprightanimal · 2023-10-31 20:55 TBH I don't know. I don't think JF will do any transcoding for DLNA clients, but I could be wrong. If it isn't transcoding, you don't need much to serve the files. My Jelly is a VM on a 6th-gen i5 and it's more than enough. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Brancliff · 2023-11-01 07:24 \> I just want a view that lists the folders and lets me select the folder and then the file I want to play. I don't need to see titles or images - just the filename is fine! Get filebrowser. Point it to your library. Click on a video to play it. :| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SaleB81 · 2023-11-05 00:37 >or on a PC running BubbleUPnP Server Interesting. Thank you. As someone who uses DLNA since his TV does not have apps for media hosting services, I used Serviio for years on Windows and have been struggling with finding a good solution that would do it well in Docker (Jellyfin as one of the best sometimes jumps out of the player during playback). During the years I have sometimes used BubbleUPnP as a remote control by setting up Serviio as a source, and TV as the player. But, I did not know that Bubble Server existed. I will try to find a docker compose for Bubble Server in hopes that it works better than any other solution for DLNA. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GolemancerVekk · 2023-11-05 18:04 Here's my docker-compose.yaml: version: "3.8" services: bubbleupnpserver: image: bubblesoftapps/bubbleupnpserver:latest # other images don't pass transcode check container_name: bubbleupnpserver network_mode: host # needed for DLNA detection on LAN user: "0:0" devices: - "/dev/dri:/dev/dri" volumes: - "./data/configuration.xml:/opt/bubbleupnpserver/configuration.xml:rw" #environment: # - USER_JVM_ARGS= restart: always And here's the configuration: https://bubblesoftapps.com/bubbleupnpserver2/docs/config_overview.html It has a web interface running on 58050 where you can create a DLNA renderer for devices that don't do it natively (like Google devices) and control rendering parameters too. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SaleB81 · 2023-11-05 22:05 Thank you. I'll try it out tomorrow. Btw, a not directly connected question about the user. I've seen compose files with UID/GID defined, as 1001, 1000, or 999, usually, but I don't recall seeing "0:0". What's the significance of it? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GolemancerVekk · 2023-11-06 14:05 If it's UID/GID or PUID/PGID defined in the "environment" section then it's environment variables. Means the image was designed to observe those variables when the container is being built, so it can adapt to whatever host id's you want on the fly. Unfortunately not all docker images were designed with this much thought given to id mapping. In this case case the image needs to access `/dev/dri` devices which on the host are chmoded 660 and owned by root and two groups that don't exist inside the image (44 and 105). The image also doesn't have any useful IDs to speak of (only root=0, user=100 and bubble=449). The "user" directive is thus an ugly hack. It's the equivalent of the `--user` / `-u` parameter for `docker compose run` and means "run the container as that uid/gid". There's probably a nicer way to do this, `user: "0:0"` is a "nuclear" option, but it works. BTW depending on your video card you may have other devices to deal with but they're probably located in /dev/dri too (and will run into similar problems). Check the bubble docs, they explain about Nvidia/AMD/Intel. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SaleB81 · 2023-11-06 23:41 Thank you for the explanation. I always strive to find nicely prepared images if available, with uid/gid variables and health checks. (probably the best-prepared image, actually a compose stack, I've seen until now is for Inventree where they wrote the whole compose using the variables and added an associated `.env` file where a user can make changes without the need to touch the compose file ever) I am looking forward to a moment when I will be able to build better containers for some services that do not have a good one, but in the near future, I am happy to be able to personalize the compose file and to implement labels and health checks where they are not natively available (at least the basic ones which would just ping the `server:port` address). I will try it out. If I run into trouble I'll try with docs. If it does not help I will feel free to ask you for a suggestion. I am smelling some trouble since `/dev/dri` is hardware, and the machine that should run it is a VM (and the underlying hardware is an NUC), so it might be different there.