Looking for suggestions for an app my family can use to “stream” entertainment from server to TV/computers while staying within the home network.
I know of a guide to redirect Plex so it doesn’t have to go to the internet, but I haven’t been able to get it to work.
Any recommendations?
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Jellyfin
Or just a file share and mount it in Windows as a network drive. Then view the content with VLC.
I switched to Jellyfin 6 months ago after a few years of Plex and did not look back.
Pros:
- Free, no paid client or subscription
- Entirely self-hosted, no account on a centralized server
- “SyncPlay” killer feature for remote watch parties
Cons:
- Media identification not as good as Plex’s, needs some massaging
- Native clients not as widespread and less mature
Emby.
I know everyone loves Jellyfin because it’s open-source, but I’ve used Emby for years after trying all 3 and it’s been the easiest set and forget system. I also think the interface is the best but that’s subjective.
If you have the time I suggest you try both Emby and Jellyfin and see which suits your needs best.
The gap is closing but Emby really is the best Plex alternative when WAF is involved.
when WAF is involved
I had to ask chatgpt what this meant:
> In the context of media home streaming, “WAF” likely stands for “Wife Acceptance Factor.”
And I choked on my coffee a bit with laughter. I must be old or something, but did not know of this word and I find it hilarious and so accurate!
Ha, glad you could appreciate it. I picked it up from some people in a diy electronics/home automation Discord, but it was relayed to me as Wife Approval Factor.
You should try a few and make up your own mind; like Emby and Jellyfin.
I have all three installed in my cluster, and jump between them now and then to evaluate how they work for me/my family.
For us, after Plex and over time Emby have been a much “better” experience than Jellyfin; in terms of performance/load/transcoding, how features like sub titles or media scanning or whatever to bugs and crashes.
It makes me sad because I really do wanna go with something more open, but I have to use what works at the end of the day.
Yeah, Definately will do. I’ve spent a decade with Plex, built a library and family knows the interface. So if it’s easiest to change some settings, I’ll stay with Plex. If not, I’m going to try JF and emby
My Plex is offline except for Metadata downloads. What does not work on your end? Why do you need an offline Plex? Plex works offline too, you just get no Metadata unless you have it in the folder of the file.
For real?! What settings do you have?
When my internet went out, Plex was offline, even though it’s through the same router hardware as TVs and computers.
I want offline capabilities in new location in case power goes out, internet speeds vary, etc
This is the frist time I hear of that. Plex alway worked offline. Did you forget to add your subnet to the “no authentication” list?
Had similar experience to OP, added no authentication list, that fixed it, kind of. But it’s not 100% at least for me, still never tracked down why that is.
Plex works offline if you set your subnet to the “no auth” list. However, a lot of smart TV clients require that you be online to run the client because they don’t store the software locally. We run AppleTV boxes and have no issues using local library while Internet is out.
Thanks
Jellyfin. Just be weary that it’s not great in some cases depending on your hardware. A media server is typically a weak workstation PC. I found that Jellyfin does not handle ASS (most common format for Anime) subtitles well, though if you only have SRT subtitles you should be fine.
There are a few other little things that are missing, such as sorting shows by date last episode was added and the clicking on a show button will always start the very first episode available instead of the next un-played episode.
