We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.
I’m surprised by the resistance to Jellyfin in this thread. If you are using Plex, you’re already savvy enough to use bittorrent and probably the *arrs. If you can configure that stuff, Jellyfin is absolutely something you can handle. If you like Docker, there’s good projects out there. If you’re like me and you don’t understand Docker, use Swizzin community edition. If you can install Ubuntu or Debian, and run the Swizzin script, you’re in business.
I used to use Plex, then one day my internet was down and since Plex couldn’t phone home, it wouldn’t let me log in to watch media ON MY LAN.
So yeah it’s inherently broken. That’s before you even consider the licensing.
Hellooooo jellyfin!
Only use open source software
Jellyfin is figgin Great 😃👍
They do not have chromecast support. (Atleat the last time i checked) Thats a deal breaker for me, would love to use it.
I run Jellyfin on Chromecast with Google TV every day, it works super well.
Unless you mean casting from your phone, then I don’t know.
I will check it out!
IIRC it has it. Not if you’re behind VPN or a tunnel. Only over HTTPS.
Hmm i need to revisit it again. Thanks!
I just confirmed it has it. You need to be on the same subnet, which is why VPN won’t work. But then everything shows up as castable
Alas my TV (LG WebOS 2) doesn’t have an application for Jellyfin, or I’d have switched years ago :-(
Is there an emby app available or Kodi? The base of Jellyfin should work in either. Plug and play as far as I’m aware with maybe some issues for certain versions.
Before now I was on the sunk cost fallacy of not wanting to teach my extended family how to use Jellyfin instead of plex but after this I’m already mid-way through setting up a Jellyfin docker container on my server and I only found out an hour ago
I’ve been testing out jellyfin for the last couple months but it doesn’t really fill the void of this specific feature that’s being locked behind a pay wall. If anyone has good recommendations for securely and reliably hosting jellyfin behind SSL and auth with email password resets where I don’t have to worry about it as much as Plex.
I use jellyfin locally but for a handful of remote clients I have I may well block off their access they’re not going to be able to figure out my hand spun services and wall of text.
Forget the Auth, use VPN profiles as access controls. Give them to trusted folks and you’re gold.
Dumb question but should there be VPNs operating on both ends, server and client? Or just the client because I’m guessing the server might change the connection address.
A VPN Server on the server or home network (look into PiVPN for instance), and a VPN Client on clients (look at openvpn for instance).
Good luck and let me know if you have any further questions - I’m more than happy to answer!
Authentik + jellyfin SSO plugin?
I haven’t tried it out personally, but I use authentik, for that you can just create a password policy, then add a new stage for identification (just make sure to add the email field), and an email stage, then create a flow.
More work on your end than paying someone else obviously.
Jellyfin is still way behind Plex in general performance but I keep a VM of it running and updated, for when the day comes that Plex is absolutely worthless.
Which at this rate, is, well, we’re getting there.
Jellyfin depends on proprietary Microsoft .NET, even on Linux.
It’s still better than Plex and Emby, which are fully proprietary, and have no source code. But I will stick with sshfs with kodi, and nginx plus mpv for now.
jellyfin + tailscale is all you need. It’s so damn good and easy
I’m not pirating a bunch of shows just to pay Plex for the privilege of watching it.
Also remember to give them your credit card, name and address for the privilege of pirating the content.
Even better, it’s now a nice database of who companies and governments can go after when they want or need to!
It always has been… just now they want you to pay.
lmao me either
Jellyfin ftw
Wireguard so you are always seen as being on the local network. This bit of assholery is easily defeated.
Universal media server works for me. I run it headless on a small instance. Streams my movies and music just fine.
Another company fucked by executives.
This is the best ad campaign Jellyfin could have asked for.
How to kill a service speedrun any%
They think they have enough users locked in to just pay over setting up another server. They might.
Lol jellyfin
I already pay for plex pass but I’m going to start looking into jelly fin out of principle. I will not support the enshitification of a service I use and this is how it starts. Soon they will have tiered subscriptions and then the cheap one will be taken away and the cheapest paid one will be stuffed with ads then all tiers will be stuffed with ads then they will jack up prices again or charge more for sharing with family or block it all together to force your family to get their own sub and the circle of enshitification will be complete.
I stopped using Plex shortly after they started forcing logging in with your online Plex account to connect to LAN only based server. The writing was on the wall all those years ago. Who wants to be locked out of their media when the internet is offline, completely defeated the point of self hosting local infrastructure
Jellyfin, while lacking a bit when I first migrated, has continued improved over the years and it has been joyful to use. Plus Jellyfin supported hardware transcoding before Plex did, which was a gripe I had with Plex at the time.
I stream from my server remotely and share with Family without hassle. I dunno where Plex is trying to go, glad I bailed long ago
Not here to defend Plex’ enshittification but you can still use Plex offline just fine. I had 0 issues yesterday when I had no internet all day.
I’ll probably get the details wrong but my understanding is that when you sign in, you get an authorization token. That token is valid for some period of time, let’s say 48 hours. You can use that cached token but let’s say it’s on your phone and not your TV. Maybe you haven’t used Plex on the TV this week. Want to use your TV, out of luck. Want to use a different local account, out of luck. Want to use Plex longer than the token is good for, out of luck.
Wow, I had no clue it worked like that. That’s actually really bad.
Yeah, so I have local accounts for my family, but only the last person signed in can get back in if the Internet goes down. We still have temporary access to most of the media, but it sucks.
I just want to make sure I read this correctly. It says that if you’re a Plex plass holder already that remote streaming changes won’t affect your service. This means that if I have the lifetime subscription and host my own server than users whom have not payed for Plex pass can continue to access this server without issue correct?
Correct
Thanks
Historically, that’s how they usually rolled out features requiring a Plexpass - It usually depended on the server owner owning Plexpass. This move, however, makes me think they’ll probably change that for shared to others via E-mail.
Yeah. The day they start making something subscription that isn’t included in the lifetime pass is the day they get their office burned down by a lot of angry people.
Dammit, my friend just said he would give me access to his file server, all I have to do is install Plex. Presumably this announcement means that will become impossible without a subscription.
If they have Plex pass then it’s still fine.
All it means is you can’t go through their servers. If you setup a different way to access your network (VPN) it’ll still work.
Mmmmmaybe.
A lot of what they paywall depends on if the server runner’s account is a Plexpass holder. You might have to pay a one time fee for the app depending on what platform you choose.
Then again, there’s different ways of sharing your server, they might be keen on only including Plexpass for the Plex Home users and then paywall the E-mail shared users.
I think most people probably have a lifetime plex pass for their plex server, or they are using alternative servers.
Lifetime pass grants licenses to all clients, at least it used to unless this changes that.
My server has many users and nobody has paid anything aside from my original buy of $120 in 2019. So far that comes out to about $1.67/mo for unlimited users and unlimited updates.
I’m not saying I really like the updates though. I think they should have remained slim, but someone is trying to make more and more money by branching out into bullshit beyond private media serving. All that trash should be separate products that are divorced from the private media server / client product.
All this being said, check out Jellyfin, little reason to use plex over it for private media but it has some limitations if you need subtitles or cannot relocate file structures.
