“We’ve spent two years requiring our apps from the ground up to boost our development speed, which should enable us to bring new features to you more efficiently, across more platforms,”
… “and that’s why we’re deleting a bunch of features never to bring them back. Because we’re just so efficient!” Crazy how many companies use this awful excuse.
Also is that a misquote by the author or did they really write “requiring”?
Misquotes are unlikely thanks to copy-paste. The post from Plex has been edited, so I think it was to correct that typo.
Removing old features so we can bring them back as paid features later on.
It’s wild to me. I’ve been in software development for almost 8 years now. The number one thing that we’re told across both companies (one small company and one huge company) is to not remove existing features or APIs.
More often than not that is corporate speak for “we fired the old team and replaced them with cheaper workers. And we didn’t want to pay them to learn the old code/they tried but failed, so we are dumping features now”
Ah, that makes sense. I didn’t realize we had asked for a new UI, here I was thinking we just wanted basic quality of life updates
It was a cool idea, but I could never get it to sync everyone’s playback properly without constant buffering for all involved. We just sync manually by counting down from 3.
Jellyfin has much better Syncplay than plex
release announcement:
Is there some trick to get it to work properly? Everytime I tried to use it, it works fine for like 10 minutes and then everyone desyncs to hell.
It’s still better than Plex’s which didn’t work at all though.
I personally had really huge problems in the beginning with this feature, it depends on the file format, if it needs to be transcoded, if the subs are external or in the video container and what your users are watching it on.
I can give you some advice on what to look for, but it will come down to just tinkering with the settings until you find something that works for you the best.
Hardware acceleration is quite important, especially when there are like 6 people watching at once and 4 of them just refuse to watch it using the jellyfin desktop client that actually supports direct play feature (video does not need to be transcoded).
Switching languages of subtitles sometimes mess things up, especially when the subtitles need to be extracted from the video container and then sent separately. Sometimes it just lags the video for up to two seconds. It usually just messes with one person that then is a few seconds behind so not a big deal. Although I recommend setting languages in the very beginning so it does not break sync mid-way.
I also limited the thread count of the single ffmpeg stream to just one. Then i also limited the stream buffer to like 5 minutes so it just won’t try to prepare a 4k movie for one person for the next several minutes. From my experience anyways, when we were watching some movie that is quite big, the jelly went bananas and a single user just maxed out the CPU and GPU. Ever since I set those limits, while also having the hardware acceleration enabled, the sync-play feature caused me little to no trouble. — One of my friends has a slow internet that sometimes likes to drop things on the way and when his net drops out totally, it usually causes some issues and he then has to restart the browser tab. Although rare, it still happens from time to time.
I have an Intel i5 8400 and a UHD Graphics 630. The performance is good enough for my uses and movies play without issues even when 6 people are watching while my dad sits on tv while also watching something else.
Oh yes, now there are also a few other things to worry about. Make sure to check the maximum per-user bitrate the jelly will enable the users to watch. It’s 40Mbps by default, I think. And you do not really need anything above it anyways, especially if streaming over the public internet.
The second thing is having a Nvidia GPU. From what I heard, the consumer graphics card can have up to 3 consecutive video streams running at once. But since I do not have anything Nvidia, I can’t really care, tho I would strongly recommend you checking the GPU limitations including both the encoder/decoder limits and the codec support. This will help you set the buffer limits and codec support.
So full wrap, you’ll just have to monitor your server’s vitals and see if there is a bottleneck. Check your users client compatibility, see if the GPU or CPU is maxed out or if your ISP just isn’t giving you a big enough pipe. It just comes down to tinkering.
It’s not currently my own jellyfin server but I am looking to set up one soon. Thanks for the huge write up though, it’ll be very helpful when I eventually get to it. So far whenever I searched it up, I just found a lot of complaints on GitHub with not much solutions, so I really appreciate it.
Well I’ll just hope you’ll find something that works for you.
Ah, strange.
I’ve never had any issues, but I also haven’t used it in a while.
Might be related to transcoding/sub-burning? https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-web/issues/6210
Lack of feature parity is the number one thing holding so many people back from switching to Jellyfin. Of Plex is going to start deleting beloved features, a lot of minds will be made up very quick.
This is a feature that Jellyfin natively has already. So now Jellyfin exceeds Plex in some areas.
Now if they could just tidy up remote access so that everyone is comfortable being able to use it.
They really need to partner with let’s encrypt. If they implemented automated SSL generation and regeneration in the app and a dynamic DNS/Port registry, they would get mountains of new users.
Just tidying up remote access would probably be enough to sync Plex.
They already have a guide on this, its not too difficult. How would a “partnership” work?
By it’s not too difficult, are you actually expecting average users to run certbot cli?
We need to get out of the mindset of jellyfin being self hosted and into the same mindset Plex has of you’re just running it.
Hosting is one of my professional duties so I don’t have problems doing all this. But any idiot can install PMS and have secure shared communication with their friends and family. And we need those idiots.
Jellyfin needs the ability to request certificates and install them without any serious user intervention beyond the initial setup, maybe just an email address. And none of this should require users to touch CLI. This probably needs to be dynamic DNS, maybe we also partner with duck DNS. Right in the GUI make an account, store off the URL in the configs.
I’m presuming this means a le API that will not change from the let’s encrypt side, or advanced clear notice when things are going to change, with opportunities to delay if possible and necessary. That’s where your actual partnership comes in.
We need that thing that Plex has that shows you that your server is remotely accessible from inside the admin. This will help the uninitiated set up a port forwarding and test it.
Once the server is set up and working we don’t need centralized login but we need something. Start with the main settings page, where you drop down in your account on the admin We need an invite users option. It just takes you to users add.
Users add needs to have email or slack or something so that when you add the user it can notify them that they’ve been added and send them a link back to your server. It could be a mailto:// or maybe just a page saying here’s the link to share with your family.
That link would contain the dynamic DNS previously set up and whatever port you’re able to use.
It’s just a handful of creature comforts that plex does particularly well that is barely touched on the jellyfin side. But there’s some of the most important comforts.
I really try to move to Jellyfin, but there’s always some papercuts that block me. Tried it last weekend again, and:
- It just can’t find most of my movies in the NAS share. They never appear in the library.
- The music player cannot play all my files. DSF files are transcoded to AAC. Also finamp streams AAC and not Opus, and uses more data than Plexamp did.
I also tried Navidrome for music. Weirdly it had hiccups playing some files, and DSF was again a problem.
I really want to get out from Plex, but I use Plexamp so much and it handles my huge music library really well it’s hard to switch :(
All my media is shared from a Raspberry Pi 4 with a HDD attached to it via NFS. Jellyfin runs as a container on a cheap Chinese mini pc I got off AliExpress. I’ve not had any issues over the network. It even transcodes on a share of the Pi as my SSD that has Jellyfin on is too small for larger movies.
I loved the idea of navidrome and also briefly ran an instance, and like you use plexamp heavily. I stopped using Navi because one day it broke, and I found the plexamp experience just better.
Maybe it’s time to try again.
Plexamp right now is the biggest reason I have not even thought of moving to something else. I have yet to see a music player that comes close to the features Plexamp has.
Hard agree. PlexAmp has been stellar.
Honestly, the two reasons I’ve been sticking with Plex is the federated/shared libraries and watch together.
If they’re starting to axe those then I see no reason to continue using it.
Jellyfin has had sync play for a long time
Jellyfin has this, but it’s kinda busted: https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-syncplay. There was one guy working on it and he apparently vanished. It still does work for some use-cases but be prepared for some rough edges.
Maybe someone will pick up the torch now that Plex is axing it?
Ada is a Jellyfin user? We’re in good hands.
Id love to have the federated libraries in jellyfin. That would be amazing.
Although Plex is running on your server it isn’t there to do what you want… unless Plex’s real owner permits it.
That’s how proprietary software works.
I’ll sadly have to keep using Plex until jellyfish makes library sharing simple.
I have like 10 different family members using my server. If I have to do anything beyond just letting them log in to a plex account on the app to get access, they just won’t.
Isn’t it trivial to run both? You just point them at the same library right?
You need a network level solution. You could pickup a few cheap single board computers and setup Tailscale or Netbird to route traffic back to your server.
I haven’t tried Plex but Jellyfin is super easy. Type in IP, username and password and you’re done. Only need to setup port forwarding on the router to make it work.
I have like 10 different family members using my server. If I have to do anything beyond just letting them log in to a plex account on the app to get access, they just won’t.
Umm that is all you need to do with jellyfin. You can setup wizarr and give them invites to create an account or just manually make them and give out the info to people.
Yup, took my SO like 10s to get on our Jellyfin server. No issues here.
Is adding a URL too much? Jellyfin is also just login in addition to enter the server URL.
Yes. Even with Plex I’ve had people just never log in. Or after I log them in and set it as a favorite they just never go to the unfamiliar icon.
Most of the problem isn’t even Plex/Jellyfin/etc.'s fault, it’s that the UI of smart tvs is a nightmare hellscape running on underpowered hardware and people just want to interact with it as little as possible. The absolute best thing would be to copy Netflix/Disney/etc and throw a QR code on the screen to sidestep that by throwing authentication to the phone.
Yes. Anything harder than Netflix is too much
But it’s easier. Instead of “Netflix” you type “yourdomain.com.” And no payment or whatever needed, and it has the same login process as Netflix.
That’s it. I call mine “media.mydomain.com,” and my domain is really easy to remember.
I mean fuck yeah, probably. I share with my family and I had to check their email for them to prove that they received it.
The eternal problem of open source: people will happily pay for proprietary software and services, complain that open source isn’t ready. Then when it is, they will not donate a single cent to continue development but instead create passive aggressive posts and issues demanding features or shitting on the project.
Lame. I’ve used this feature a lot. It feels like such a basic thing to include.
SharePlay is a standard feature in Apple devices, and it handles it. But only in supported apps.
The pandemic showed how nice such a feature can be for a lot of people.
My friends and I use syncplay + mpv for this. It works well, and even though it’s designed around local file playback, you can add https URLs to the playlist. So this with nginx serving the files has been a great solution.
You can even play YouTube videos by adding yt-dlp to mpv, but that doesn’t reliably work right now as far as I can tell.
Good thing I chose jellyfin over plex. This is the main reason I got jellyfin.
LoL. That feature is literally the only reason I also have a Plex docker pointing to my library. But they’ve definitely not been supporting it for a while, because I don’t think it’s worked well in forever. Last few times I tried it with friends, we ended up having to just try to hit play at the same time.
Oh well. One less container now.
I’m seeing a lot of love for Jellyfin in the comments. Seems like Jellyfin is finally mature enough to give a real shot.
Does anyone know how Emby is doing in relation to Plex feature parity?
Emby I feel is more mature then jellyfin in the sense of every device my family or I have just works on emby but has some issues on jellyfin. Also emby has features closer to plex that jellyfin doesn’t have, like offline downloads and, at least in the emby beta, smart playlists. Jellyfin gives you more settings options for things like transcoding and per user settings than emby or plex. Both programs do some things better than plex too, like scheduling individual server tasks or outright disabling them. Overall from my experience a direct competitor to plex right now is emby while I would say a few more features are needed for jellyfin to be a direct competitor.
That’s interesting, I wonder why no one in these comments mentioned it if it’s a bit farther along than Jellyfin. Maybe just good word-of-mouth marketing?
Jellyfin is actually open source and free. Totally self hosted. Emby is closed source and has a licensing model similar to Plex’s.
Ah, that would do it! Thanks for the information.
Maybe I’m not understanding offline downloads, but I’m able to download media on jellyfin and watch it offline.
Do you mean on an iPhone or android device or only on pc? And have it set to download x amount of episodes and when you watch an episode download the next one automatically? When I checked out jellyfin a few months ago that wasn’t a feature
I’m doing it on my android. Don’t have an iPhone to debug sadly. I click on the three dots next to the episode and it is an option there. Just checked and I can also do it by the season. I am on an administrator account
I can confirm jellyfin is great… But I have moved onto burning onto physical Media (BD) to avoid HDD / SSD failure with data loss
Optical disks rot even in perfect storage conditions. There’s no failure proof storage solution easily available.
Yeah disc rot is a problem… But luckily it’s A LOT longer (50-100 years)
This is compared to HDD (6 years) and SSD (10 years)
Why not both? BD for backup, Jellyfin for convenience.
I have both currently but it’s an HDD so it won’t last forever
That’s what RAID is for. When a disk fails, hopefully you’re fast enough with the replacement so the array never fails.
It’s only a single extern HDd from western digital
I have had a plex instance but when they started adding their own movies and crapola into it, and requiring logins and etc etc etc I started keeping a Jellyfin instance live as a hedge. I still use Plex primarily, but use Jellyfin and keep it patched just in case. If there’s any kind of ugly action with Plex, I feel like my bets are pretty well hedged. Plex definitely has a lot more polish than Jellyfin, but I wouldn’t doubt if there is a rug-pull in some way or another. After all, Plex sold a bunch of lifetime subscriptions ONCE but they still end up paying to support those. Sooner or later they are going to want more money again.
I used to use Plex as well but similar to your remarks, they started doing a lot more updates that added a “corporate” feel to it such as adding their own movies/tv. Nothing inherently wrong with that but in my opinion, when a platform has the option to add features such as that, that costs money. And they’re gonna want to get that money back somehow. Yeah they offer subscriptions but to me this all was a redflag that I could see them taking further in the future. Where as Jellyfin is completely free at the cost of a little extra work to setup.
I never used that feature. Sometimes less is more. Anyone actively using it in plex or Jelly?
Probably around 40% of my watching is via syncplay on Jellyfin, as I like watching with buddies.
Sans jellyfin you have to find a way for both of you to access the same file/stream and manually sync across snack/bathroom breaks or use the external and separate syncplay app.
I do like the external syncplay app but if I’m going to have to get the file to them anyways, why not just stream it synced? In my mind this is a really convenient feature.
It is not perfect, in my experience;
- on rare occasions, it gets ‘stuck’ and won’t sync correctly, so one will play but noth the other, pausing one unpauses the other, etc. Usually rebooting helps, but if not, I just manually sync
- there was 1 occassion which made no sense. I played a movie with a friend, we were watching together, but they were ahead of me by a whole ~15 minutes by the end of the film. Neither of us felt it was fast/slow or skipping anything.
- I haven’t had luck using syncplay on my TV. The feature exists but it doesn’t actually work.
But these are rare, minor gripes IMO. I’m glad Jellyfin has this feature.
Thanks for sharing
I never used it, but it was a popular third party add-on before the feature was integrated.
Yeah I don’t even used the SharePlay on Apple. Question for people using it: How do you start that? First do you start over phone/whatsapp/messengers? Or do you see people online in plex and propose to watch? For me either people are in different timezone so not practical or will be home and we watch it irl sync on the same tv.
I text my buddy, and say “hey do you wanna watch xyz, when you’re done with work?”. We hop on discord to chat and watch it. An hour or two timezone is not an issue, and for someone ‘local’ I’m probably not driving half an hour to their house after work. I do prefer watching together in-person, but thats not always as convenient.
Thanks for sharing
First they removed downloads and now this? Feels shitty. I used this feature weekly to watch a show with a remote friend.
Downloads definitely haven’t been removed. I use it virtually every day to watch stuff on my iPad at work.
In 2022 they added a paywall to the feature which was previously free to all users of a Plex Pass server. https://support.plex.tv/articles/downloads-sync-faq/
Downloads havent been removed
In 2022 they added a paywall to the feature which was previously free to all users of a Plex Pass server. https://support.plex.tv/articles/downloads-sync-faq/
