I did this for a good while but let me tell you, keeping watch progress across devices is a killer feature! I can’t go back.
When I used a folder via NFS I had to memorize my current progress on a episode, then manually open the same episode and seek to where I was on the other device.
With Jellyfin I hit pause on one and play on the other, it’s seamless.
It also shows in-progress and next-up episodes at the top of the homescreen, so resuming playback is just one click.
Maybe there’s a plugin to do this in Kodi, but I find it rather clunky on mobile…
Neat, navigable UI. Pulls posters, metadata, etc. Can generate “trickplay” images so you’ve thumbnails when scrolling the progress bar. You can sync playback across connected clients (I mostly use that feature for multi-room music playback). Restrictions by account and/or tags so the little ones don’t end up watching Ichi the Killer, Saló, your complete Cronenberg collection, or that library you created populated by a script routinely checking the e621 API for the latest animation uploads.
Runs in browser and on clients for Windows, Linux, Android, probably iOS too but homie don’t Apple. Took every bit of space but I even sideloaded it onto my old Samsung Tizen TV (wouldn’t actually recommend, little slow, build an HTPC or just nab an Nvidia Shield).
If you can get by without any/all of that, nothing wrong just browsing directories and playing media with your local player on a single device. In my case I’d need to set up overly complicated network shares and then configure every single device I want to have access. I’d need to change how I organize my libraries, then probably spend a little time writing an ansible playbook (that’d only really be worth it when adding new devices in the future) but… no thanks.
You get a cute little user interface to browse through your movies and shows with little posters and information. You also don’t have to use a flash drive and move stuff over if you want to watch from your PlayStation or other device. just a browser is enough.
In addition to the UI others have mentioned, I host mine behind a VPN so all my friends can use it over the Internet, too. It gets a decent amount of traffic every week.
Mostly, I’ve been fed up with music streaming platforms recently, and found that Jellyfin also supports my other media cases. I started with Navidrome, but had a computer running Mint already, so I just ran both side-by-side and find I liked Jellyfin better. They both took like 15 minutes to set up; getting my local VPN running and convincing people to use it was by far the hardest part of the setup.
That all said, I’m a software engineer in my day job, so I had a pretty good idea about how to navigate everything.
Not OP, but each friend gets a different login so that their watch stats don’t get convoluted (Jellyfin does this thing where it allows you to pick up where you left off)
because it is convenient to access the movies from a smartphone or laptop from anywhere in the house without dealing with the headaches of windows file explorer shitting itself upon seeing a folder with 3000 files in it
I personally have one so that I don’t have to mess around with plugging in any hdmi cables and moving my laptop from where it’s docked, I can flick on the server and then it can just be accessed on any tv in the house by anyone.
What exactly is the point of a Jellyfin server? Wouldn’t it be easier to just like, open the files? Why would that require a server?
I did this for a good while but let me tell you, keeping watch progress across devices is a killer feature! I can’t go back.
When I used a folder via NFS I had to memorize my current progress on a episode, then manually open the same episode and seek to where I was on the other device.
With Jellyfin I hit pause on one and play on the other, it’s seamless.
It also shows in-progress and next-up episodes at the top of the homescreen, so resuming playback is just one click.
Maybe there’s a plugin to do this in Kodi, but I find it rather clunky on mobile…
Neat, navigable UI. Pulls posters, metadata, etc. Can generate “trickplay” images so you’ve thumbnails when scrolling the progress bar. You can sync playback across connected clients (I mostly use that feature for multi-room music playback). Restrictions by account and/or tags so the little ones don’t end up watching Ichi the Killer, Saló, your complete Cronenberg collection, or that library you created populated by a script routinely checking the e621 API for the latest animation uploads.
Runs in browser and on clients for Windows, Linux, Android, probably iOS too but homie don’t Apple. Took every bit of space but I even sideloaded it onto my old Samsung Tizen TV (wouldn’t actually recommend, little slow, build an HTPC or just nab an Nvidia Shield).
If you can get by without any/all of that, nothing wrong just browsing directories and playing media with your local player on a single device. In my case I’d need to set up overly complicated network shares and then configure every single device I want to have access. I’d need to change how I organize my libraries, then probably spend a little time writing an ansible playbook (that’d only really be worth it when adding new devices in the future) but… no thanks.
You get a cute little user interface to browse through your movies and shows with little posters and information. You also don’t have to use a flash drive and move stuff over if you want to watch from your PlayStation or other device. just a browser is enough.
In addition to the UI others have mentioned, I host mine behind a VPN so all my friends can use it over the Internet, too. It gets a decent amount of traffic every week.
How did you get started with hosting your setup?
Mostly, I’ve been fed up with music streaming platforms recently, and found that Jellyfin also supports my other media cases. I started with Navidrome, but had a computer running Mint already, so I just ran both side-by-side and find I liked Jellyfin better. They both took like 15 minutes to set up; getting my local VPN running and convincing people to use it was by far the hardest part of the setup.
That all said, I’m a software engineer in my day job, so I had a pretty good idea about how to navigate everything.
Are you just giving them a shared login or do you set them all up individually?
Not OP, but each friend gets a different login so that their watch stats don’t get convoluted (Jellyfin does this thing where it allows you to pick up where you left off)
All individual logins. It just requires making an account through the UI, which is pretty quick.
because it is convenient to access the movies from a smartphone or laptop from anywhere in the house without dealing with the headaches of windows file explorer shitting itself upon seeing a folder with 3000 files in it
If I can just add to what @[email protected] said:
I personally have one so that I don’t have to mess around with plugging in any hdmi cables and moving my laptop from where it’s docked, I can flick on the server and then it can just be accessed on any tv in the house by anyone.
This is the way. And you can watch from anywhere in the world if you set things up with a VPN.
So one can watch from a phone, tablet, TV etc.