Did a quick check of this in the iOS beta and there is no indication of additional enshitification as everyone fears.
The first tab is the home tab and the first few rows are from my library. I don’t see any option to hide the random noise that comes after it.
The second tab is the library itself which has the normal rows of various groups, continue watching, recently released, etc.
There is also a tab for live tv, on demand and discover.
I’ll probably only use discover because I use the watch list as one of many ways to feed my wanted lists.
There are some punctuation errors in your title. It should read:
Plex is “overhauling” its apps with a redesign and under-the-hood “upgrades”
Those who use Plex to access personal media will find that their libraries are in a
dedicated[hidden] tab, while the Watchlist will take up prime real estate in the top navigation section. Plex says it also streamlined the user menu for quick access to things like your profile, friends and watch history.So they’re hiding the entire point of Plex deep in the menu and promoting things that make them money. Enshittification.
Well, Jellyfin is right over there, and it’s FOSS too. Consider switching, it’s pretty great.
I use JF. It’s ok but still rough around the edges and if we count as JF the apps, I have to admit that the Android TV app is pretty bad, it’s chokefull of very basic bugs, like crashing on start, and missing very basic features like delaying subtitles and the navigation is pretty bad, especially for TV show, navigating between series, episodes and home is a hot mess.
crashing on start
My main issue is that my TV occasionally decides to kill the network, which causes Jellyfin to crash on startup, clearing the server. It’s annoying, but I think the bigger problem is the TV, not Jellyfin.
I think the navigation is fine. I like the scroll by letter thing for movies on the right, and I don’t have so many TV shows that it’s an issue (maybe like 5-10 series? We don’t watch a ton of serials), and my kids seem to navigate it just fine. I did spend some time naming everything properly, so maybe that’s the difference? We rarely navigate though. My kids watch one show start to finish (however much time we give them), we generally watch one movie as a family and are done, and my SO uses it for exercise videos.
I’ve reported my fair share of bugs but the main issue with the android app is that the code is amateurish and poorly tested. Lots of the crash bugs are just devs not checking for non existent values and relying on perfect network conditions.
But yeah, It gets the job done, it’s just not a great app.
Hmm, I haven’t used it much. Maybe I’ll take some time this holiday season to go bug squashing. I did a little of that with the Jerboa app here some time back, so maybe I’ll lend a hand here as well.
That said, I’ve only used it to show my collection to friends or test a new network tweak.
Is there a jellyfin app on the Xbox? The ps5? Roku TV app store?
I think no so it’s hard to switch if you have family using many different devices to watch plex.
No, No, and Yes – Consoles are notoriously difficult to work with. Not for actual programming, no - Consoles are difficult to navigate POLITICALLY. Xbox, understandably doesn’t like F/OSS software, and PS5 has tons of rules and regulations you must meet.
Idk, but there’s one on my LG TV.
I tried to switch from Emby to JF but I am grandfathered into free premium Emby and if I switch to JF I would have to pay for live TV guide.
I jumped to linux and downloaded jellyfin… shit is too complicated I havent got time to get to terms with it
Guy who runs Plex on a Ubuntu container on Proxmox.
Yeah see I barely understand that
That’s too bad, but it sounds more like you bit off too much rather than Jellyfin being bad. Once it’s set up, it’s fairly smooth, we just drop movies in a folder on the NAS, name them somewhat appropriately, and Jellyfin frequently recognizes it, though sometimes I’ll need to help it out a bit. Setup wasn’t much more complicated than other self-hosted stuff I run, but I’m also a full-time Linux user for some 15 years and a SW dev by trade, so I guess I’m blind to issues I take for granted.
Yeah absolutely it is a me problem, but the imsinuation is that these jumps are easy. Plex works easier and windows in mpre intuitive, I hate microsoft and will push on with Linux and hopefully jellyfin but it isnt an easy move.
Windows is only intuitive because that’s what you have experience with. If you grew up on macOS or Linux, you would probably find it as confusing as you do Linux right now.
But yeah, it’s a learning curve, and self-hosting on Linux generally requires a mental shift from thinking of things as “apps” and moving to “clients” and “servers.” On Windows, the two tend to be mixed, because managing servers on Windows kinda sucks, but the opposite is true on Linux.
But yeah, do one thing at a time. Get comfy with Linux first, and then learn about self-hosting stuff (including Jellyfin).
I dont know what to do with linux to get comfortable. Outside of doing something like jellyfin, which is basic to most people, I would just be browsing.
Tbh I cant even get my ps5 controller to work properly to play games.
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It’s a FOSS alternative, and that’s a pretty important feature for me. It has worked well so far for me.
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It being FOSS does not make up for it being severely lacking and features in comparison
It does for me. I apparently don’t need all those extra features because Jellyfin completely meets my expectations. I don’t even know what I’d want to add.
GIMP
GIMP is an exception. It’s usable (I made my wedding invitations using it), but you’re right, it’s pretty awful to use. There are tons of related software that’s pretty high quality, such as Krita (drawing) and Blender (3D modeling). I’m not sure why GIMP has such bad UX, but there’s still plenty of good stuff in the FOSS landscape.
That said, I’m not a FOSS purist, I just tend to prefer FOSS for things that I’ll be relying on for many years to come, and self-hosted platforms absolutely counts there. If I decide to bail from Jellyfin to something else, I know there will be a way to export my data, even if I have to build it myself. I don’t know much about Plex (maybe it’s easy to export too?), but if I don’t need the features, I’ll tend to stick w/ FOSS.
Here are some of the distinguishing features I see (looking at this site):
- hardware transcoding - I think Jellyfin supports it, and it’s an extra fee for Plex; not sure how “good” it is though since I don’t need it, it works fine on my devices
- app support - works on my TV, tablets, phones, and desktop; honestly, I can’t think of anywhere else I’d need it
- TV shows + DVR - looks like Jellyfin supports this, but I don’t watch live TV, so I have no use for this; maybe I’ll look into it at some point
- access more movies/TV shows - I’ll just get a streaming subscription to Netflix or something instead
I’m probably missing a ton though, and I’m guessing Plex has an overall smoother experience. But Jellyfin has been fine so far, so I haven’t had any reason to try others. I only want it for playing my ripped DVD and Blu-ray collection, and it works well for that.
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You admit that you’re “missing a ton of stuff” after listing a couple of features
No, I was curious what I was missing, so I looked for a comparison between the two. I’m not “contradicting myself,” I’m trying to compare the merits of both so I’m fair, despite not ever using Plex.
Jellyfin was the first one I tried, and it did everything I needed it to do. So I stuck with it. I heard about Plex and Emby, but I never got around to trying them. I did try Kodi years ago, but I didn’t like it at the time (mostly used it to get Netflix working on my Raspberry Pi connected to my dumb TV on my RetroPie box).
My argument is that I didn’t feel like Jellyfin was lacking anything once I got it set up. If this UX update pisses people off, try Jellyfin, because it does largely the same thing, and it being FOSS is also a pretty neat feature.
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Hauppage TV tuner DVR capability, apps for more TVs and i could kill off Plex, personally
I’ve liked the sound of Plex forever but after it taking years for the wife to finally be comfortable finding her way around Kodi I couldn’t really try it.
Just last week I fancied a tinker & I’d heard Plex has potentially begun to enshittify so I ended up putting Jellyfin on our htpc just to test it. As well as all the usual groups, it was simple to create additional collections for stuff only the wife wants to see rather than things we’ll watch together. Within a day or so she’s already flying round it so we’ve pretty much moved to Jellyfin. It doesnt seem to like IR remote control like Kodi does which is a shame & I’m struggling a little with the live TV aspect which was also very straightforward on Kodi but I havent looked too closely into it yet.
Overall very impressed with Jellyfin.
Oh no…
There are so many little fixes and changes they have done over the years. I expect so many edge cases that they kindly took care of not being taken care of anymore.
I just want to use my local library in peace
Anyone that has tried the new version, does plex still make it really difficult to view your library by folder/file rather than by meta data?
I use jellyfin because I can get a folder view.
Yeah I can’t see a file / folder view on the new client. Not that I saw one on the old android client either.
Must admit the new app is more responsive than the old version on my P7P however having “new on XYZ” service that I don’t have is a shit addition to the new client.
I installed the beta. It’s not that bad. My server was the first thing I saw when I opened it. So it wasn’t pushing the other stuff.
It’s missing a bunch of little things tho, like checking the file properties for an episode or movie.
This overhaul might live up to their pitch. I hope it does.
A bunch of talk about UI and art, nothing about the unified code base. Will it stop sucking on Samsung TVs?
If this turns out as bad as it seems then I’ll probably finally be leaving my lifetime Plex pass behind for jellyfin once it rolls out to the Android TV app.
If it’s shit I’ll jump to Jellyfin
It’s 2024 friend. There are no such things as good upgrades. Enshitification dominates every damn time.
Looks like I’ll have to give jellyfin a go. I’ve been pleased with plex and haven’t yet had a good reason to transition (what can jellyfin do better than plex? )
None of the people I’ve added as friends ever use Plex. Feels stupid to have that in the UX, and I’m not even sharing what I’m watching with them.
In this thread posted by Jesus himself: EleventhHour having a mental breakdown fighting everybody yo explain how Plex is better than everything else.
I don’t even have a take on this, it’s just funny.Why do people still use Plex
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I tried Jellyfin but I use the live TV section extensively and something about their implementation of the programming guide worked badly.
It runs well and runs on Synology
There is no reason not to
