Plex’s crackdown on free remote streaming access starts this week : plex

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 107 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (17 children)

Before the influx of "just use jellyfin" bros come in let me get ahead of it.

I ran Plex for a decade and loved it, had the subscription, was happy to pay for software I found value in. This however was the kicker, not because it i was directly affected (not because I had a lifetime subscription), but it signaled the end of Plex that I knew from before.

So I did switch. It was not easy or painless like people here claim. Metadata is stored in different ways that made conversion difficult. I tried multiple conversion tools and none of them worked for me, or left my library in a half state. I ended up just staring from scratch, and it was a couple of months before I was happy with it.

That being said, I think it's worth it. It's pretty much at feature parity, but mostly because Plex hasn't been doing anything for server owners while jellyfin devs have been for years now. I'm happier with jellyfin than I was with Plex.

So, to the "I use jellyfin LOL" guys here, no that's not helpful, and it's condescending. It pushes people away, but I have a weird feeling they want to push people away (and honestly if that's your only comment it's the same energy as crypto bros).

Instead, I empathize with Plex hosters, I was there, it's not a fun place to be anymore, and I am here to say that yes you can switch, no it's not as easy as Plex, but I personally think it's worth the effort. With all open source things the user interface and experience is definitely lacking, but if you're willing to put in the time it will be worth it.

[–] alekwithak@lemmy.world 33 points 11 months ago (5 children)

The conversion is not the biggest issue. For my dad or Grandmother to stream my content, Plex as a streaming app is something they can easily understand and digest (though Plex's new streaming app has done quite a bit to undo that -_-). I have the subscription, I acquire the content, I choose who to share it with. Now they need a subscription, too? Where's the value? Why wouldn't they just pay for a streaming service at that point? I'm using my hardware and doing all the work and they are paying Plex? And if I accepted payment for the same thing it would be a crime! BUT I'm not sure I'm comfortable opening Jellyfin to the internet, even behind nginx, and I don't want to have to spend time setting things up for them or troubleshooting their issues w/ Jellyfin. I put enough labor into this thing already.

So yes obviously everyone should switch to the FOSS option, but in reality it's not that simple because the services aren't 1:1.

[–] blitzen@lemmy.ca 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

They do not need a subscription, assuming you (the server owner) have a plex pass.

[–] alekwithak@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

That is what I thought, until this article. I'd be pleased to find out I misinterpreted.

[–] blitzen@lemmy.ca 18 points 11 months ago

The title of this article is vague.

Here is the important part

Under the new rules announced in March, a server owner needs to have a Plex Pass subscription, which starts at $7 per month, to grant users remote access to their server. Alternatively, someone can remotely access another person’s Plex server by buying their own Plex Pass

TLDR; there has to be at least one pass in the chain

[–] deeferg@lemmy.ca 6 points 11 months ago

BUT I'm not sure I'm comfortable opening Jellyfin to the internet, even behind nginx, and I don't want to have to spend time setting things up for them or troubleshooting their issues w/ Jellyfin. I put enough labor into this thing already.

This is still where I'm at too. It's a great service, but the fear of messing something up when opening it up to the internet is too worrying. I'm usually pretty good picking up new tech with easier setups, but when there are 4 different networking techniques with their own pros and cons, at that point it's just easier to just run as a local service.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yes! I'm glad you mentioned the crime! If you own a DVD and rip it - that itself is a grey area that is mostly acceptable now. However, sharing it digitally is another grey area that providers have been skimming under the radar, but by requiring a subscription that is 100% illegal. You cannot pay for shared content. I think they're trying to get around it but personally, I just want to avoid the whole thing. Jellyfin was a no brainer from that aspect.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 7 points 11 months ago

If you own a DVD and rip it - that itself is a grey area

In some countries. In others it is legally protected.

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[–] CrazyLikeGollum@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Yeah, switching isn't that easy. Especially if you have a lot of "unique" media types with different requirements for scraping metadata. Things like anime, audio books, or comedy albums.

TBF Plex doesn't handle those all that well either from a stock install. It was a lot of work to get it to handle everything well.

But also, Plex's proxy service for remote streaming, is it's killer feature that prevents me from switching. I need to access my media from networks where my private domain is blocked.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

There's no Jellyfin app for my TV, and it's shit in the TVs browser

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[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

fair assessment. there are two major features i still miss from plex:

bulk editing metadata
smart playlists

also setting up users with tailscale is a struggle, even the ones relatively tech literate.

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[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago (3 children)

How are you doing remote streaming with Jellyfin?

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

tailscale is the easiest option. learning curve isn't too bad, but definitely a hurdle for users.

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[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 2 points 11 months ago

I'm in the open, but have a proxy and a nested domain so it can't be automatically port scanned. It's a tradeoff I made for simpler setup for my family, and so far it's been fine. I could do tailscale, but there's no way my family would be in favor of it.

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[–] iamericandre@lemmy.world 29 points 11 months ago (1 children)

[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 17 points 11 months ago

Hey look it's One-Face.

[–] watson@lemmy.world 18 points 11 months ago (2 children)

tried JellyFin, and it's just not there yet. lots of little things…

Good thing i got a lifetime PlexPass, like, 15 years ago when it was on sale for $35

[–] watson@lemmy.world 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The tons of bugs, there’s no Apple TV app, remote streaming is janky, the entire interface feels rough and cheap compared to Plexes shine and polish.

Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that jelly fin is nowhere nearly as mature a piece of software as Plex is, and it really really shows. I’m not interested in “roughing it“. I’m sure I’ll try jelly fin later, maybe when it’s much more mature, but for now, I’m not interested.

Plex meets all of my needs, and I have a lifetime Plex pass, so I don’t have to worry about subscriptions.

[–] mbirth@lemmy.ml 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

there’s no Apple TV app

SwiftFin

Then, SenPlayer promises Jellyfin support in the description (which seems to be borrowed from Infuse Player).

And Infuse is the go-to of many, AFAIK.

[–] AtariDump@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

$99 for “lifetime” infuse? No thanks.

Yes, I know there’s monthly but I had being slowly bled dry by subscriptions.

[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

What little things? I've been using Jellyfin for a while now with very few complaints, but maybe I don't know what I'm missing.

[–] superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

As a former Plex user who is on Jellyfin now, I'd say Smart Collections and playlists. Their are tools out there you can use to try to achieve similar results, but the Plex implementation is far better.

[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Unless I'm missing something, Jellyfin can do playlists just fine for my liking anyway.

What are Smart Collections?

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

You can essentially create a filter of any media type and then save it as a collection, as new things are added if they meet the criteria they are auto-added to the collection. So an example could be if you want documentaries to be their own collection you could create a smart collection with a filter of genre=documentary.

[–] deeferg@lemmy.ca 7 points 11 months ago

Some people are using their media servers way more intricately than I am hahaha. Wild to know what features are being implemented to enhance these services.

[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago

Interesting. Jellyfin doesn't have something exactly like that afaik, but it does have genre categories. I don't think a more robust category feature is really something I need personally though, so I don't think I'm missing out.

[–] AtariDump@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Plexamp.

Actually security out of the box.

A decent iOS app (including the TV) that is free.

Plexamp.

A server that doesn’t seem to forget my logon almost every time I try using it instead of plex

Tautulli

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[–] tetrachromacy@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I have moved my library to Jellyfin as of a few weeks ago. It's really a step backwards in terms of polish and feature parity. It's extremely annoying because Plex was such a set and forget app for me, especially because I was only using it to host content locally on my home network for streaming. I wasn't able to move any of my metadata, poster images or subtitles over so I'm starting from scratch on over three thousand media files.

I'm glad there's an alternative but what's gonna stop Jellyfin from doing this same problem once their user base has grown and is firmly entrenched?

The march towards enshittification rolls on.

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 23 points 11 months ago

Jellyfin is fully open source, and GPL licensed. If the current maintainers start making it worse, the community can just fork it and keep going. They also have no control over what you do with it, unlike Plex which has centralized auth servers they could ban you from.

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[–] Skyline969@lemmy.ca 8 points 11 months ago

Good thing I moved over to Jellyfin

[–] Know_not_Scotty_does@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Everyone is either saying I'm staying on plex or Move to jellyfin and I here just enjoying Emby. Its functional, easy to setup, and is a good middle ground for sharing without having to train people how to use it.

Yes, I paid for the license, and I know it isn't foss so the potential for enshitification exists, but for now its fine.

My kids can use it, so can my inlaws, and its been reliable.

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[+] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

[deleted]

[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

I got the lifetime Plex like 13 years ago. I gave up on it about five years ago.

[–] JCSpark@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago

It would seem we can't have a civil discussion about this, so I've locked the post.