I genuinely do not understand the issues people are having with Jellyfin subtitles. I just have Bazarr set up to automatically download and they play on every device (web, android, iOS, roku, android TV) with zero issues.
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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Sounds like it's mostly with embedded subs inside the media files already. Thats where all my subs are so I'm going to test soon but haven't played anything on jellyfin needing subs in a while
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I've been running plex since 2016 and jellyfin since 2019. I'm slowly moving users over to jellyfin with the plan to cut off plex at somepoint in the next couple years. Jellyfin is missing some quality of life features but nothing super crazy
Maybe I need it give it another chance, but 3 months ago it was still hot garbage compared to plex
I've noticed it definitely varies depending on how you access it. The web version is flawless as long as the software has the resources it needs to run (my server is slightly very over-provisioned and gets crazy IO delay pretty frequently from running too much on too little).
The official Android and IOS apps are pretty good but do glitch and hitch from time to time, but apps on other platforms are less perfect. Also the third party Streamyfin and Swiftfin apps both seem to work a bit better than the official one but have their own quirks to be aware of.
The Roku app only just got consistently usable around 3-6 months ago, and still prefers to crash without displaying an error when fed media it can't direct play, and for some reason some user profiles just don't work on it. I don't have anything else to try other apps on but that's my experience so far
I haven't really used Plex so I don't know how clean of an experience it provides, but Jellyfin is very usable and honestly at this point most of the problems I have are specific to my media or my setup and not so much problems with the software itself
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I might have to check out Jellyfin. Can you run both at the same time?
I don't see any reason why you couldn't with default settings. Beware of enabling any setting that stores data next to the media like nfo metadata storage, as those could maybe cause conflicts.
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I don't know about using the jellyfin client but as a backend for Kodi, it's amazing
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It's still terrible for music. There's not even user-based star rating...
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Also the Android TV app is AWESOME!
What do you run Android TV on? Raspberry Pi? My cheapo solution has been to use an old Android phone that supports DP alt mode (USB-C to HDMI adapter) combined with a USB hub + generic air mouse/remote + customized launcher.
It actually works surprisingly well. I installed FCast on it, so it even works like a Chromecast. If I'm watching a video on my phone using Grayjay, I can just cast it to the phone and it will start playing automatically. The only thing stopping it from being perfect is that it can't turn the TV on automatically. As a plus, since the phone has a battery, it's always powered on so I don't have to wait for stuff to boot, and it uses relatively little power.
... but overall it's janky and finicky, and the OEM bloatware is probably spying on me, so I've been looking for alternatives that can match the good parts of this setup.
I don't like Raspberry Pis for this because they're overpriced. I have a couple that I could use for this, but I'm hoping to find a cheaper solution, and one that I can recommend to friends/family when they ask. (the Android phone I'm using cost me a total of $15 on ebay)
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I never used Plex. Up until my kids were born I used to just watch my videos on my desktop, but now I find myself watching on my phone and TV more often. My Jellyfin server has been super stable for the last 6 months or so running on a super low powered machine and external hard drive. The only issues I have is with movies with Dolby digital, they tend to get out of sync when scrubbing the timeline. I am assuming that is due to the lower power of the machine. But, I have a 400watt desktop with a 7th gen i7 and a pascal Quadro P1000 that I am planning on migrating to. Then adding a 20tb internal drive for storage. Hopefully that will resolve the small issues I have seen with it.
I tried Jellyfin a few weeks ago and didn’t have much luck with it. I only added a couple of shows and movies just to test it but half of them just didn’t show in the library (even though it detected them as they showed in other places). Will it only show stuff in the library if it can pick up the metadata for it?
it will still shows stuff in the library even if it failed to pick up the metadata.
for jellyfin, folder structure is kinda important for auto detection to work.
For shows, you can organises your files like this:
series-name-a/
season-01/
episode-01
episode-02
You can check out the doc, it is more detailed
How long did you give it? It indexes the library. I had to rebuild my library once, and while I don't have a huge collection - mainly just rips of my DVD collection, about 450 films, and it takes over an hour to index everything. Until it's done, not everything shows up.
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Any recommendations about how to install all this jazz?
I'd like to build a music box controllable by the family, eventually centralising videos so anyone (or at least me) can just pick up their phone and watch an episode of star trek without the hassle of copying. Automatic subtitles would be magic.
Cheers!
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The addons are great too. The intro/outro skip is slick and nearly flawless, background subtitle download is seamless, on and on.
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One thing jellyfin doesnt do well its anime content. But fortunately there's Shoko Server, a metadata engine you can selfhost. Its awesome!
It works pretty well for me but I separate anime and TV/movies, and make sure the anime library is only scraping data from anime-centric databases. But I'm also not watching too much new or obscure stuff.
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I’ve been running plex for a few years no. No real issues to complain of.
Until today. I just upgraded my server with an Intel ARC. Was looking forward to enabling qsv for streaming. Turns out you need plex pass to do that.
Can jellyfin do it?
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