this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I gotta be honest, when I look at the problem pragmatically, it'll be a lot easier to pay $20 a year than to switch to jellyfin and get all my users to figure out how to install clients and make it work for them.

I'm already at the point in my life where my primary concern is making things work smoothly, and if I need to throw money at something to make it work smoothly, the choice is a no brainer. (At least for some values of "money")

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Jellyfin works in the browser just like Plex.

And for now you can do that, but that's not the first, and not the last update trying to prevent people selling access to their server.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

It definitely has some issues for ease of use. For example Jellyfin for some reason will not find the server on my network in any of the client apps, and typing in a URL by hand with a TV remote is not fun.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I use a firestick since it has app support

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago

Yeah that's not the issue, it's just their auto-discovery not working on my network.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago

Browser apps are very annoying though. The support for some codecs (like HEVC) is usually worse in a browser.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah, but jellyfin's clients apps are all pretty bad. And I say this as a jellyfin user.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I have fewer issues with the jellyfin app on my TV than I do with literally any of the streaming apps on the same television. My only gripe with jellyfin is there's no PS5 app.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago

The TV app for my LG is just a webview of the webpage and works great; but on my android devices FinDroid has problems with decoding the video, and the official app kinda sucks, and on my apple devices swiftfin works ok, but sometimes doesn't load the videos and has to be manually relaunched. Dunno about other streaming apps since I never used them, but for me jellyfin's clients are very unreliable.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

If you're not selling access, why should you care? You are providing a service to your users and if they want to stream from you, they will figure out how to do this

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago

Well my users are my family and close friends, so I just do care about them... Some of them use a smart TV app to access Plex, which is pretty convenient as it doesn't even require additional devices or remote controls.

The fact is, as the family tech guy I spend a lot of my effort trying to make tech as easy to use for everyone as possible. And more than anything else, making things intuitive and simple is what eliminates the most amount of hassle for me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

That was my thought...

"Somehow they got the Plex app installed..."

Jellyfin somehow works on freaking Roku, even, and WELL. Just give the URL to connect to, they pick a profile, and boom, "Netflix who?".

(Also, unlike Netflix, it's not BOMBARDING my PiHole with a gazillion telemetry requests per freaking second holy crap NF calm down. It's a treat when I have something I want to watch on my Jellyfin drives lol.)