Kodi user here. NAS is just set up with SMB, Kodi on a ShieldTV can play anything, no transcoding needed, no problems with subtitles that seem to plague other programs. It just works.
I use Kodi as well. I have playlists shared with a Maria database on my NAS. There is an XML file you load on each client and it has just worked for years.
Good on you. If you like to play around with stuff, and the potential of a little bit more performance, try looking at NFS instead of SMB. Simpler too.
@@BobFace22 I might have a look for one. I have a second Kodi client running on a Dell Optiplex. It works well but is a bit too big. I was going to replace it with a mini-PC but a Shield, well, sounds like it's made for the job. Cheers!
Jellyfin here, initially because it allowed hardware transcoding with my AMD GPU, but have since moved to an Asustor NAS. I also run a Kodi box in the living room for free-to-air satellite and terrestrial TV. Any programmes i do record can be played easily, anywhere, on almost anything. Works well for me.
Kodi on NVIDIA Shield playing directly from NAS or local attached SSD. I know it's old school but never had an issue. Shield is the most powerfull Hardware and Kodi plays everything with ease. No licenses, no crappy subscriptions 😊
That’s what I do. The only downside is if u are having more people connect to it and u care about keeping passwords secure u have to make them make a Tailscale account
@@WillFuI I don’t let others remote in. It’s just when I travel and want to stream on the tablet. I’ve had issues with the connection not being strong enough to let others use it. Not sure what the deal is. May be I was trying to stream too large of a file. What quality settings do you use for remote watching?
@@SRMB1 well normally I run a Speedtest to see how my connection is and normally I just stream at that. So at work i mean at a random building i stream at 480p 1.5 amd on my tiny phone it looks fine. I haven’t tested it over super long distances like 100 miles + but i would imagine it would be fine just more buffering.
@@WillFuI yeah I was trying to stream an HEVC from Massachusetts to NH and I think transcoded to 1080 and it was hit or miss. The HEVC file was a high quality file which didn’t help. High bitrate audio and video. When I have time I’ll have to mess around with it again. Def the easiest way I’ve found to remote in tho
I love Emby, I find it super easy to customize and like the set up. I purchased a lifetime pass. I am on this chanel now because i am looking into getting a starter NAS just for Emby. I have it running on my PC and want to stop that.
Couldn't agree more! it's kinda interesting to see that people who change to emby stay there. I like it because of the simplicity, setting it up was easy and to get people to stream it was also super easy. I could just send a small guide to my friends and family on how to log in and after that I don't need to help them anymore.
Look at the many miniPC's around. All you need is an N100 based system. Add a suitable direct attached storage enclosure and your set. This set up is significantly cheaper than equivalent dedicated NAS enclosures.
@@ChrisM541 How well can a N100 system transcode 4k HDR videos? I've also been looking at getting/building a nas but I'm having a hard time finding good data on what I should get. Is a 11th gen i5 enough for 2 4k HDR streams? Can it handle transcoding but will struggle if you skip a lot?
Wait wait wait wait... The one feature I WOULD LOVE TO SEE. Jellyfin linking to synologies quick connect is actually possible? Could you make a tutorial on how to do that? Because that is LITERALLY THE only feature i am missing. And i did a ton of research and found NOTHING. Personally i started with Video Station because its so simple, then i even wrote a tool that could make bulk metadata editing easier, which i am planning on open sourcing too, well at least the writer/reader of the file format because there is non working out there atm. Which will happen soon (TM). But the thing that let me finally move from Video Station to Jellyfin was: the VideoStation app on the PC wasn't even able to play my TV Shows... Honestly please make a tutorial on how linking jellyfin to the QuickConnect feature of synology!
Disclaimer: I am a Jellyfin server dev member. We dont support Synology directly. The Community app is not maintained by the official JF team but an 3rd party and has no special integration into Synology per-se. Further do we not usually recomend running jellyfin on a synology nas anyway because your run of the mill pre-build NAS system is very underpowered and transcoding needs a lot of horse power. But QuickConnect should just be enabled and then you add the default port 8096 of jellyfin to your Control Panel > External Access > Router Configuration and that should be it.
Finally, someone who did KODI a bit of justice! KODI is great for organizing your own content. The level of cool things you can do with that content is great (movie sets, actor/actress lookups, sorting by a lot of different options, the various display options). IMHO you did a great job pointing out that the bad rep is largely undeserved. I'm doing exactly what you mentioned. I have custom-built NAS (Truenas) hidden away. Attached to our TVs are a couple of tiny form factor PCs running KODI on Linux. Content is shared from the NAS to these TFF boxes. It keeps areas looking clean. At one point there was even a trivia add-on that queried your video collection and quizzed you based on your collection (for example: which director did a particular movie).
Literally JUST finished season 12 of Letterkenny as I read your message...watched (like 50% of my media) on Kodi, via a Nas media server. Unquestionably still a solid "always there" solution, in Kodi
Kodi on my new Google TV Streamer for me. Nothing to mess about on the server and I don't need big pictures and sliding menus to select my movies. I don't think any of those tile front ends help me with my collection. Don't use any live services on it. Just SMB to my NAS.
@@nascompares covering kodi with kore remote could be cool - kodi is also great for security because you don't have another service with potential vulnerabilities running on your server! Set it up with a read only user account that can only access media dirs and it's more secure and doesn't require any server side updating beyond your regular server OS/firmware
Been using kodi for years and it is my media video server, now up to v21.1, ain’t I have had any major problems. My only issue is that I can’t sync the shows and movies that I watched across devices. So if I have watched a show on my tv it doesn’t say watched on kodi on my pc. Unless of course I have missed a setting if so can some feel me in on how to do this.
DLNA also works in Kodi. Lol, so even if people want to use Kodi and dont want to fuss with the library importing, they could just still use DLNA in Kodi. IT really can be as simple as that for 90% of people's home networks.
Started back in the days with XBMC which now is Kodi. Than i tried Plex and Videostation on Synology NAS for a amount of time. But finally i moved to Jellyfin. Of course I donated for the hard working developers. So everyone has his/her favorite. Nothing more nothing less. Just my 2 cents.
Jellyfin. Have a lifetime subscription to Plex but dropped it because it went downhill. Jellyfin has some rough edges, but it's really good and constantly improving. Emby would be my second choice. I run it in a docker container on my Qnap with hardware decode setup. The Linux Server docker package has the correct stuff for hardware decode. The Jellyfin standard docker container does not and requires a bunch of changes.
@@Story_Teller_Everyone True! My son wants it on Xbox, and no app there either. Definitely a show stopper if there is no app for our preferred client platform. Part of what me jump to Jellyfin though is the open source. Plex refused to fix certain things and no one could do anything about it. Hopefully new Jellyfin clients will be forthcoming.
Kodi is good for security! Client only means code you didn't write is not running on your server/nas (which could be hijacked to turn you into a botnet node), you can set up a user to have read only access to media directories only, and your data is kept much more secure. The need to worry about updates on server software simply doesnt exist. If you want remote access, you can set up a home network VPN.
Picked up Lifetime Plex over 10 years ago at 50% off for the extra features even though I didn't have a server at the time, just in case I would in the future. I built my NAS 1 year ago and now have added most of my discs, and it's great not having to handle and deal with the physical media and can just play on demand.
I do this with Kodi. Because I want to record TV shows, I also installed Jellyfin, and use my existing Kodi as a client. Since I installed Jellyfin, I used it to consolidate all my media.
Same, a lifetime plex when on sale is great, BUT what I like is being able to get family connected because just about every device/smart TV has a plex client, so it is just log in and go. (They live with the terrible order, till I visit and rearrange the home menu - Why plex cant default to movies/TV Series first, grrr). It is that it just works for most people, and they can use it like other streaming services, which is why I recommend it . I dont want to be their network engineer.
Jellyfin user here. I have had issues with jellyfin getting upset when I use hardware acceleration on specific video types. The cpu I use is more than powerful enough to do 2-3 videos at once. It being free was very important to me. My parents love it
I have a server running OpenMediaVault which then allows SMB shares and miniDLNA access to any and all machines, Raspberry Pi's on the TVs running OSMC (a Kodi variant) or DLNA if wished, and direct access from the PCs for playback using VLC media player. Music is fed through my Marantz all-in-one streaming system.
It looks like I'm one of the few to use DLNA almost exclusively. I do have a paid subscription to Plex, but DLNA is just too easy to use with a well organized folder structure.
I use Kodi because Plex does not support .iso file format. I can install Kodi, enable SMB and point Kodi to the media folders that are shared. It scans the folder fo meta data and I check it for errors from file names or choose different posters and art backgrounds. Kodi works on Android phones, Android TV (nVidia Shield) and Windows computers. Kodi on Windows will playback 4k media, Blu-Ray and DVDs with no additional effort. I add my shared folders as favourites on the system menu, done. My media devices have read only access as a user. Using a Kodi Build is full optional. Simple, quick to setup and easy access.
I like Kodi as a front end player for TVs and use it myself. But not a fan of it's scraping capabilities (especially when it gets them wrong). Very cumbersome to correct when that happens. I also tried to install it on my daughters TV using a HDD as a media source and didn't work out well at all unfortunately.
I planned for a long time to upgrade to a synology...but then synology took a dump so I dumped synology and built a DIY NAS instead... omg, I should have done that years ago. I paid a small fraction of what plex lifetime pass costs today so...worth it! I might ditch plex some day, but not really feeling a need yet...jellyfin just isn't quite there yet
How to stream and especially WHY stream it that way! Thanks, those last 2 options were great additions, because you explained, that they use completely different concept from the usual 'self hosted netflix". KODI is a player, uPnP is a protocol, but mentioning their support on embedded devices is great info 😁👍
I use Emby, which is running on a Raspberry Pi 4 in a container (via portainer). I just point my samba share to it and that's it. I also have a VPN set up, so I can view / listen to my stuff from anywhere. It's pretty nice, but I'm on the Emby free tier, so I can't download stuff in advance (only stream it). At some point I will get around to figuring out how to make a Jellyfin container and move to that, but for now I'm pretty happy with this setup.
Plex just works for me. So never had to dive into others. Running plex with intel gpu transcoding via docker to smb nas shares. All filtered via their own vlan controlled by pfsense. Yes over kill some would think. But I like to segment my network.
I have been using two kodi (living room and bedroom). I installed a Jellyfin server and now use kodi as a client. Jellyfin give me a much better TV recording experience than Kodi (I tried), and then I consolidated my media files on this server..
Hi I'm new to NAS and I have been researching a lot, I found your channel and saw your installations of TrueNAS in an Asustor one. I want to learn and thinker with it more because i like to experiment with docker and i data hoard a bit; but a NAS is a bit pricey. I am making a shot here in asking if you have an Asustor NAS you want to get rid of and sell it ill be much interested. Thanks a lot for helping me learn more about this subject.
Tried Emby and Plex. Picked up a Plex Lifetime pass. Never looked back. . Kodi and Jellyfin were very under developed back then. If it were today I would be comparing Jellyfin and Plex. DS Video WAS also an easy to connect option before I got Plex Lifetime pass. Synology dumping it cost them a lot of good will as it was easy to set up for the non technical.
I run the LSIO Plex, Emby, and Jellyfin containers all on the same DS918+ all pointed at the same media library. They all have their pros and cons. Plex does the most things that piss me off. Emby has a few things that piss me off. Jellyfin is missing some things I wish it had, but it barely does anything that actively pisses me off. So Jellyfin is the one I use most of the time.
Juast found your channel and love the insights. You have several videos touting the Synology DS224+ and did some great benchmarking. I might have missed it - but did you do all that with the 2gb of memory (only)? If so, that's impressive and makes me wonder whether or not if I get one if I would even need to get 6gb. My main use cases are plex/streaming to my Quest 3 or roku and backing up of photos. Thoughts?
Got my Plex Pass and haven't looked back. Still use a HTPC (lovely SilverStone case) as both Client and server although the time has come to upgrade to a NAS I believe. I am very worried about getting all that data (currently using 2@12TB individually) as I want to put them on 2@14TB [schucked] drives I already have and then use the existing 12TB drives in a RAID set up.
I got a DS215j years and years ago and paired it with 4 usb TV tuners to record freeview and a weetek play with the satellite card added as a local network IPTV server to access freesat as well. I’ve used tvheadend since day 1 for tv since it had synocommunity support & xbmc/kodi support. I also ripped dvd & CDs for the nas too to stream as raw content to kodi over smb. It’s worked perfectly and barely touches the internet…. Only now I have to not update to DSM 7 or I permanently loose access to freeview. A new synology box on dsm7 makes recording tv legally so much harder / more steps than using usb sticks. Now video station is gone… It’s genuinely upset me to the point that I’m thinking of doing an xpenology build so I can run a VM that can process the tv sticks while using dsm 7 … or even to just run the final dsm6 build for the rest of time. I feel quite surprised synology think removing features like usb and h.265 is something that’s ok to do when devices were sold with those features and physically have those capabilities :/
Emby here. I have a Plex lifetime licence but it's junk. It will not catalogue TV shows accurately however much help I give it with IMDb and tvdb IDs. Plex can offer all the bells and whistles it likes but if it refuses to catalogue properly and overwrites manual catalogues I create, it's of no use to me. Jellyfin was such a pain to install that I gave up. Emby works perfectly, catalogues perfectly and uses my hardware acceleration, allows me to do parental controls and just works flawlessly
Hey Robbie, what about local media players like Zidoo and Dune HD. Definitely cost more, but can be worth it for consumers looking for high quality playback.
Nice, well rounded up video! An important aspect of Home Nas fore sure! I own only custom built nas systems. Recently tried jellyfin, instead of libre elec. A test install on linux mint was ez, surprisingly jellyfin ran well on a fire stick. When you have your media sorted, named and set up properly, its very good. Transcoding on Ryzen 2200g was just perfect. Recommended. On libre elec the jellyfin is not up to date, and logitech media server is not so ez. I prefer lms still over kodi/plex/jellyfin for music in the house. As i have set up my movie bib for kodi, for some reasons plex always gave me headaches recognizing my movies. Metadata are not compatible. I spent days to tag my movies for kodi manually, so not doing it again. Jellyfin had no issues at all with my metadata. Libre Elec can be used as a small footprint server, as Kodi can serve Dlna/Upnp, Samba share, Airplay oob and a lot more via plugins.
I listen to my music through a Sonos system, does this make a difference to what you’ve said? What would you use? The 45,000 limit in Sonos is a big problem!
Biggest issue to me was/is app support and remote connectivity with all other apps vs plex. Plex has always been easy, works well and the plex app on all my devices just works. Jellyfin was easy to setup and looks great but the app sucks. Constant issue with playback and remote play isnt possible without jumping through hoops.
Kodi on a dedicated device. It is hands down the performance/customizability winner, above any of the media server softwares. Running on e.g Odroid N2+ with CoreELEC (Kodi distro), that's about as good as it gets. A couple of downsides though depending on use case, is no transcoding and limited device support list. Also Robbie you dinosaur. Try changing to one of the Aeons, hell even Estuary (standard) is better than that Confluence fossil of a skin 😁
Jellyfin here, but Jellyfin has many silly errors that never seem to get solved. Previews not being updated, subtitle getting out of sync during viewing, worse video quality than with plain vlc playback. Can't find data of films that are obviously easy to find on IMDB etc. The community doesn't seem to care for it anymore, these bugs are in for many years.
I switched from Plex to emby because emby had variable playback speed, a very important feature for me, that Plex didn't have. I highly regret it. Often it was impossible to connect to emby remotely. Despite all settings being correct, I regularly had to reset it to function. But wat really angered me was that Emby replaced my carefully synced subtitles with the first one it found on open subtitles. Ok, I'm partially responsible for this as I didn't had the setting right, but it was so I clear, that I had a lot of work to correct it all again. I switched back to Plex ( lifetime pass) and never had any issue. Plex now has variable playback, so is perfect for me
That's why I use a different account for software like this to access my files which has read-only access. If it needs to download a subtitle file, it can download it in a specific folder for subtitles and read it from there. I have no experience with either Plex, nor Emby, but that's how I used to do it with Kodi anyway. I have no trust in either the software, nor my own missclicks if it has the option to delete files and such.
I do both. Me, my local network is jellyfin. Remote for family is plex. I like plex for the simple thing it is. Little setup and done. Emby: I hated it. Tried and did not like it. Jellyfin: I enjoy it checked all the blocks I wanted. Kodi: too much configuration.
I haven't changed from Plex yet, but I'm seriously considering it. I don't mind paying for software, even if there are free alternatives. However, that means the paid software has to justify the premium. Plex has been the easiest plug and play (for me personally) media server that allowed me to get up and running from my NAS to multiple devices in the house for my family. The interface is easy to use. It worked. Now, for me and my families needs, Plex's premium justification is no longer there. It's bloated, buggy, and more and more "features" are forced on me. Why would I pay a premium for that? I'm more than ready to move on.
hello I bought a ds923+ and I am happy but I have a problem with plex etc because I can't even see content upload from my drone or mobile that is 4k. can I buy something to enhance it? if I buy a nvidia shield or another nas just for plex, what is your recommendation?
I used to be an avid Kodi user because I have my DVD collection in ISO format.. but I have mostly Rokus in my house, so it was a pain. Im looking to migrate to Jellyfin but that Means I need to transcode all the movies to a video format.... it sux as no other media service can handle ISO correctly
Personally I use a combination of Emby Server on a NAS for the backend and Kodi for the front end on a TV with an Embruary skin. The reason being is I just found Plex server too cumbersome to install on the NAS compared to Emby. And Jellyfin server is essentially a stripped down version of Emby anyway. Plus Jellyfin isn't natively available on QNAP (well neither is Emby now but it's available from the Emby forum whereas Jellyfin isn't). I'm also not a fan of the Jellyfin front end player and interface and much prefer Kodi's. While I like kodi as a front end, I found the scraping also cumbersome and prefer Emby to do that part of it. And to tell the truth, it also just doesn't work well on a TV and a HDD combo. Did I mention that Emby server with Kodi and embycon is all free? We could have the FOSS debate of Emby vs Jellyfin but in the end, all I want to do is play my shows with the least amount of back end effort to maintain it. And for me, this combo works pretty well (other than the Embruary skin resetting every now and again)
Good man! Hope the video either helps you see if the grass is greener, or massively validates your decision to stick with Plex. Have a great weekend bud
Plex is just one of those software I'm willing to pay for and live with it's shortcomings(got none that affects my use case) instead of the free alternatives. Free and open-source is a good thing until you start dealing with the software's respective community, which is full of people with under-developed social function. Plex devs and the community is just great.
Jellyfin is the worst. The first reason is that the update speed is extremely slow. The second reason is that there are too many bugs to fix at all. The third reason is that the app is so bad that it is not complete at all. The main reason for this idea is that I have been waiting for its improvement for about 3 or 4 years ago. As a result, it has not been perfect until now, and there seems to be more and more bugs. In a word, I have never encountered such a poor open source project.
These are just alternatives, like cycling to work is an alternative, but we all drive. The only advantage of jellyfin is that you don't have to pay to download a file.
Please learn what the word alternative means, because if you can't match the feature set, it's not an alternative, it's a different use case. When I'm looking for an alternative, it has to match or beat the feature set of the thing I'm trying to leave. So far, nothing allows watch together, and remote play, without some nasty hacky fuckery that barely works.
I’m not surprised jelly fin is second but not because it’s better than any of the other ones it’s just a matter of people being cheap. For one jelly fin is just a fork or as I like to color it a flat out rip off of Emby anyone that’s even watching this video and watching you show the interface can see it’s pretty much identical with just some subtle changes to make no mistake it’s basically a rip off of Emby. Secondly everyone says it’s free but I learned a long time ago there’s no such thing as free if they’re not selling it somebody is paying the bills for servers website etc. They’re not hosting all your servers for free the goodness of their hearts lol which means you’re probably the product nine times out of 10 anything that’s free they’re selling your data to pay for it and I’m sorry I don’t want third parties knowing all the movies and TV show shows and what not are on my server and who’s accessing it and who’s watching what shows for analytics so I refuse to ever run jelly fin I just don’t trust them to be honest.
Gee... Tell me that you don't know anything about open source without saying that you don't know anything about open source! First of all, Jellyfin is a not rip-off of Emby; they both descend from the same codebase. Emby started as open source but at some point, Emby developers decided to make it proprietary and to try to make a living selling services for it in the same mold of Plex so Jellyfin developers took the existing open source code and worked from there. There is nothing shady about it; this is how open source works! Second of all, they are definitely NOT hosting anything for you. You have to set up your own server, download their application and set it up yourself the same way you would with Plex (except that it is somewhat more involved than setting up a Plex server). But unlike Plex, there is no paywall: you don't have to pay no one to be able to transcode your streams using your own hardware, you can set it up so that your relatives & friends can access your server remotely without having to pay a fee, the clients are fully free wherever they are available (Android TV, Tizen, iOS, webOS, web client and more), etc. And unlike Plex, Jellyfin is not trying to sell you anything. They will not be constantly trying to rub your nose on online content from their business partners, putting that above your local hosted content in the UI, etc. That alone is worth the hassle of setting it up.
Who pays for the website? Who pays for its development? You’re telling me this is all being done 100% free not one dime is exchanging hands anywhere for jellyffin? If you believe that I’ve got some oceanfront property to sell to you. 😂 but you can believe what you want I’m not advocating for either one because I’ve been a lifetime Plexpass user probably since it’s inception so I don’t care which server people run but to use the excuse of open source for it to be a pretty much 99% rip off of emby setting for setting tab for tab anything you can go through in the dashboard and interface is almost identical and emby stopped being open source a long time ago. Either way like I said I don’t trust it believe what you wanna believe run what you wanna run that’s you’re prerogative i’m simply saying nothing in life is free if you believe that you’re naïve somebody is paying for something otherwise it wouldn’t exist period. Which again proves my point which is that’s the only reason it’s gain such popularity because people always want things for free but someone pays the piper somehow.
@@DaveofAllTrades75 Dude, you really need to read up more on Open Source and Free Software. If you think that having a high quality piece of software given away for free is some sort of scam then when you find out about Linux, Apache, git, Docker, LibreOffice, OpenSSL, Blender, Krita, Android, Chromium and others it will blow your mind. Whatever you do, stay away from github, my friend! Plus it is clear that you are clueless about this anyway when you barely understand the architecture of these solutions like, who is hosting your content in this scenario (hint: it is not Plex!)
The only one people should use is one that doesn't need to reach out to a company's servers for any reason, so no, Plex is not the one people "should" use, but it is the most convenient.
Emby and Jellyfin media recognition is worse, you need very clean, perfect file names, and even this is sometimes not enough, sometimes the track name has a different name and dots, without spaces, etc.and this causes problems.
I keep hearing people saying this but I have very rarely run into media files that either Kodi or Jellyfin couldn't scrape the metadata themselves requiring a little help from me. And in the few odd cases where this _was_ a problem, Filebot was there to rescue me. I could add the metadata manually but why do it when Filebot make it so convenient and automated, making bulk edits so pleasing to do?
@user-0341htrs4 - There's Jellyfin Plug-ins that can tie the movie and TV names via IMDB, MoviDB, TBDb etc.. They work really well. Granted NO APP is perfect, they all have faults to contend with. But, for the most part, Jellyfin is a good app to use.
Jellyfin scrapes the correct metadata 96% of the time. The trouble is Jellyfin makes fixing that 4% a pain in the ass. My solution was to just scape the data myself and put it in the media folders before I move them to the server. MediaElch is a fantastic tool. Doing this has made metadata a non-issue for me.
Kodi user here. NAS is just set up with SMB, Kodi on a ShieldTV can play anything, no transcoding needed, no problems with subtitles that seem to plague other programs. It just works.
I use Kodi as well. I have playlists shared with a Maria database on my NAS. There is an XML file you load on each client and it has just worked for years.
Good on you. If you like to play around with stuff, and the potential of a little bit more performance, try looking at NFS instead of SMB. Simpler too.
I had a similar setup for years. Installed jellyfin about a year ago and use kodi as a front end with a jellyfin plugin. Best of both worlds
@@BobFace22 I might have a look for one. I have a second Kodi client running on a Dell Optiplex. It works well but is a bit too big. I was going to replace it with a mini-PC but a Shield, well, sounds like it's made for the job. Cheers!
@@thezfunkYes, and MariaDB also shares the information for the Media Data.
Jellyfin here, initially because it allowed hardware transcoding with my AMD GPU, but have since moved to an Asustor NAS. I also run a Kodi box in the living room for free-to-air satellite and terrestrial TV. Any programmes i do record can be played easily, anywhere, on almost anything. Works well for me.
Watching you for over 2 years and today I finally ordered my first NAS, this video is perfect timing.
Thanks bud
Same here lol
The limit is only 4 items in a poll if you have images as it uses more vertical space. Remove the images and you can fit more options in the space.
Kodi on NVIDIA Shield playing directly from NAS or local attached SSD. I know it's old school but never had an issue. Shield is the most powerfull Hardware and Kodi plays everything with ease. No licenses, no crappy subscriptions 😊
Jellyfin + Tailscale works well for remote play for free
That’s what I do. The only downside is if u are having more people connect to it and u care about keeping passwords secure u have to make them make a Tailscale account
@@WillFuI I don’t let others remote in. It’s just when I travel and want to stream on the tablet. I’ve had issues with the connection not being strong enough to let others use it. Not sure what the deal is. May be I was trying to stream too large of a file. What quality settings do you use for remote watching?
@@SRMB1 well normally I run a Speedtest to see how my connection is and normally I just stream at that. So at work i mean at a random building i stream at 480p 1.5 amd on my tiny phone it looks fine. I haven’t tested it over super long distances like 100 miles + but i would imagine it would be fine just more buffering.
@@WillFuI yeah I was trying to stream an HEVC from Massachusetts to NH and I think transcoded to 1080 and it was hit or miss. The HEVC file was a high quality file which didn’t help. High bitrate audio and video. When I have time I’ll have to mess around with it again. Def the easiest way I’ve found to remote in tho
I love Emby, I find it super easy to customize and like the set up. I purchased a lifetime pass. I am on this chanel now because i am looking into getting a starter NAS just for Emby. I have it running on my PC and want to stop that.
Couldn't agree more! it's kinda interesting to see that people who change to emby stay there. I like it because of the simplicity, setting it up was easy and to get people to stream it was also super easy. I could just send a small guide to my friends and family on how to log in and after that I don't need to help them anymore.
Look at the many miniPC's around. All you need is an N100 based system. Add a suitable direct attached storage enclosure and your set. This set up is significantly cheaper than equivalent dedicated NAS enclosures.
@@ChrisM541 Thank you!
@@ChrisM541 How well can a N100 system transcode 4k HDR videos? I've also been looking at getting/building a nas but I'm having a hard time finding good data on what I should get. Is a 11th gen i5 enough for 2 4k HDR streams? Can it handle transcoding but will struggle if you skip a lot?
Thats my choice as well for the server part and been using it for years.
Wait wait wait wait... The one feature I WOULD LOVE TO SEE. Jellyfin linking to synologies quick connect is actually possible?
Could you make a tutorial on how to do that? Because that is LITERALLY THE only feature i am missing. And i did a ton of research and found NOTHING.
Personally i started with Video Station because its so simple, then i even wrote a tool that could make bulk metadata editing easier, which i am planning on open sourcing too, well at least the writer/reader of the file format because there is non working out there atm. Which will happen soon (TM).
But the thing that let me finally move from Video Station to Jellyfin was: the VideoStation app on the PC wasn't even able to play my TV Shows...
Honestly please make a tutorial on how linking jellyfin to the QuickConnect feature of synology!
Disclaimer: I am a Jellyfin server dev member.
We dont support Synology directly. The Community app is not maintained by the official JF team but an 3rd party and has no special integration into Synology per-se. Further do we not usually recomend running jellyfin on a synology nas anyway because your run of the mill pre-build NAS system is very underpowered and transcoding needs a lot of horse power.
But QuickConnect should just be enabled and then you add the default port 8096 of jellyfin to your Control Panel > External Access > Router Configuration and that should be it.
Finally, someone who did KODI a bit of justice! KODI is great for organizing your own content. The level of cool things you can do with that content is great (movie sets, actor/actress lookups, sorting by a lot of different options, the various display options). IMHO you did a great job pointing out that the bad rep is largely undeserved. I'm doing exactly what you mentioned. I have custom-built NAS (Truenas) hidden away. Attached to our TVs are a couple of tiny form factor PCs running KODI on Linux. Content is shared from the NAS to these TFF boxes. It keeps areas looking clean. At one point there was even a trivia add-on that queried your video collection and quizzed you based on your collection (for example: which director did a particular movie).
Literally JUST finished season 12 of Letterkenny as I read your message...watched (like 50% of my media) on Kodi, via a Nas media server. Unquestionably still a solid "always there" solution, in Kodi
Kodi on my new Google TV Streamer for me. Nothing to mess about on the server and I don't need big pictures and sliding menus to select my movies. I don't think any of those tile front ends help me with my collection. Don't use any live services on it. Just SMB to my NAS.
@@nascompares covering kodi with kore remote could be cool - kodi is also great for security because you don't have another service with potential vulnerabilities running on your server! Set it up with a read only user account that can only access media dirs and it's more secure and doesn't require any server side updating beyond your regular server OS/firmware
Been using kodi for years and it is my media video server, now up to v21.1, ain’t I have had any major problems. My only issue is that I can’t sync the shows and movies that I watched across devices. So if I have watched a show on my tv it doesn’t say watched on kodi on my pc. Unless of course I have missed a setting if so can some feel me in on how to do this.
DLNA also works in Kodi. Lol, so even if people want to use Kodi and dont want to fuss with the library importing, they could just still use DLNA in Kodi. IT really can be as simple as that for 90% of people's home networks.
Started back in the days with XBMC which now is Kodi. Than i tried Plex and Videostation on Synology NAS for a amount of time. But finally i moved to Jellyfin. Of course I donated for the hard working developers. So everyone has his/her favorite. Nothing more nothing less. Just my 2 cents.
Jellyfin. Have a lifetime subscription to Plex but dropped it because it went downhill. Jellyfin has some rough edges, but it's really good and constantly improving. Emby would be my second choice. I run it in a docker container on my Qnap with hardware decode setup. The Linux Server docker package has the correct stuff for hardware decode. The Jellyfin standard docker container does not and requires a bunch of changes.
Problem is there is less apps for it example for Apple tv
@@Story_Teller_Everyone True! My son wants it on Xbox, and no app there either. Definitely a show stopper if there is no app for our preferred client platform.
Part of what me jump to Jellyfin though is the open source. Plex refused to fix certain things and no one could do anything about it. Hopefully new Jellyfin clients will be forthcoming.
Kodi is good for security!
Client only means code you didn't write is not running on your server/nas (which could be hijacked to turn you into a botnet node), you can set up a user to have read only access to media directories only, and your data is kept much more secure. The need to worry about updates on server software simply doesnt exist.
If you want remote access, you can set up a home network VPN.
Picked up Lifetime Plex over 10 years ago at 50% off for the extra features even though I didn't have a server at the time, just in case I would in the future.
I built my NAS 1 year ago and now have added most of my discs, and it's great not having to handle and deal with the physical media and can just play on demand.
I do this with Kodi. Because I want to record TV shows, I also installed Jellyfin, and use my existing Kodi as a client. Since I installed Jellyfin, I used it to consolidate all my media.
Same, a lifetime plex when on sale is great, BUT what I like is being able to get family connected because just about every device/smart TV has a plex client, so it is just log in and go. (They live with the terrible order, till I visit and rearrange the home menu - Why plex cant default to movies/TV Series first, grrr).
It is that it just works for most people, and they can use it like other streaming services, which is why I recommend it . I dont want to be their network engineer.
Jellyfin user here. I have had issues with jellyfin getting upset when I use hardware acceleration on specific video types. The cpu I use is more than powerful enough to do 2-3 videos at once. It being free was very important to me. My parents love it
I use Tailscale to be able to watch my stuff anywhere
I have a server running OpenMediaVault which then allows SMB shares and miniDLNA access to any and all machines, Raspberry Pi's on the TVs running OSMC (a Kodi variant) or DLNA if wished, and direct access from the PCs for playback using VLC media player. Music is fed through my Marantz all-in-one streaming system.
It looks like I'm one of the few to use DLNA almost exclusively. I do have a paid subscription to Plex, but DLNA is just too easy to use with a well organized folder structure.
I tried DLNA, but with large collections it can be slow and painful.
I use Kodi because Plex does not support .iso file format. I can install Kodi, enable SMB and point Kodi to the media folders that are shared. It scans the folder fo meta data and I check it for errors from file names or choose different posters and art backgrounds. Kodi works on Android phones, Android TV (nVidia Shield) and Windows computers. Kodi on Windows will playback 4k media, Blu-Ray and DVDs with no additional effort. I add my shared folders as favourites on the system menu, done. My media devices have read only access as a user. Using a Kodi Build is full optional. Simple, quick to setup and easy access.
I like Kodi as a front end player for TVs and use it myself. But not a fan of it's scraping capabilities (especially when it gets them wrong). Very cumbersome to correct when that happens. I also tried to install it on my daughters TV using a HDD as a media source and didn't work out well at all unfortunately.
We just need a good Jellyfin app for Samsung TVs 😔
Yeah I'm not a fan of the Jellyfin app itself from the Google playstore.
Maybe try Kodi with the jellycon plugin
i side loaded onto my samsung. it works!
I planned for a long time to upgrade to a synology...but then synology took a dump so I dumped synology and built a DIY NAS instead... omg, I should have done that years ago.
I paid a small fraction of what plex lifetime pass costs today so...worth it! I might ditch plex some day, but not really feeling a need yet...jellyfin just isn't quite there yet
How to stream and especially WHY stream it that way!
Thanks, those last 2 options were great additions, because you explained, that they use completely different concept from the usual 'self hosted netflix".
KODI is a player, uPnP is a protocol, but mentioning their support on embedded devices is great info 😁👍
I use Emby, which is running on a Raspberry Pi 4 in a container (via portainer). I just point my samba share to it and that's it. I also have a VPN set up, so I can view / listen to my stuff from anywhere. It's pretty nice, but I'm on the Emby free tier, so I can't download stuff in advance (only stream it). At some point I will get around to figuring out how to make a Jellyfin container and move to that, but for now I'm pretty happy with this setup.
Plex just works for me. So never had to dive into others. Running plex with intel gpu transcoding via docker to smb nas shares. All filtered via their own vlan controlled by pfsense. Yes over kill some would think. But I like to segment my network.
I bought a lifetime Plex Pass a few years ago. Not that I needed the added features, but because I wanted to support the project.
I have been using two kodi (living room and bedroom). I installed a Jellyfin server and now use kodi as a client. Jellyfin give me a much better TV recording experience than Kodi (I tried), and then I consolidated my media files on this server..
Hi I'm new to NAS and I have been researching a lot, I found your channel and saw your installations of TrueNAS in an Asustor one. I want to learn and thinker with it more because i like to experiment with docker and i data hoard a bit; but a NAS is a bit pricey. I am making a shot here in asking if you have an Asustor NAS you want to get rid of and sell it ill be much interested. Thanks a lot for helping me learn more about this subject.
Tried Emby and Plex. Picked up a Plex Lifetime pass. Never looked back. . Kodi and Jellyfin were very under developed back then. If it were today I would be comparing Jellyfin and Plex. DS Video WAS also an easy to connect option before I got Plex Lifetime pass. Synology dumping it cost them a lot of good will as it was easy to set up for the non technical.
I run the LSIO Plex, Emby, and Jellyfin containers all on the same DS918+ all pointed at the same media library. They all have their pros and cons. Plex does the most things that piss me off. Emby has a few things that piss me off. Jellyfin is missing some things I wish it had, but it barely does anything that actively pisses me off. So Jellyfin is the one I use most of the time.
Juast found your channel and love the insights. You have several videos touting the Synology DS224+ and did some great benchmarking. I might have missed it - but did you do all that with the 2gb of memory (only)? If so, that's impressive and makes me wonder whether or not if I get one if I would even need to get 6gb. My main use cases are plex/streaming to my Quest 3 or roku and backing up of photos. Thoughts?
Got my Plex Pass and haven't looked back. Still use a HTPC (lovely SilverStone case) as both Client and server although the time has come to upgrade to a NAS I believe. I am very worried about getting all that data (currently using 2@12TB individually) as I want to put them on 2@14TB [schucked] drives I already have and then use the existing 12TB drives in a RAID set up.
I've been writing my own from scratch, I'm tired of all the limitations 😊
I got a DS215j years and years ago and paired it with 4 usb TV tuners to record freeview and a weetek play with the satellite card added as a local network IPTV server to access freesat as well.
I’ve used tvheadend since day 1 for tv since it had synocommunity support & xbmc/kodi support.
I also ripped dvd & CDs for the nas too to stream as raw content to kodi over smb.
It’s worked perfectly and barely touches the internet…. Only now I have to not update to DSM 7 or I permanently loose access to freeview. A new synology box on dsm7 makes recording tv legally so much harder / more steps than using usb sticks.
Now video station is gone… It’s genuinely upset me to the point that I’m thinking of doing an xpenology build so I can run a VM that can process the tv sticks while using dsm 7 … or even to just run the final dsm6 build for the rest of time. I feel quite surprised synology think removing features like usb and h.265 is something that’s ok to do when devices were sold with those features and physically have those capabilities :/
Emby here.
I have a Plex lifetime licence but it's junk. It will not catalogue TV shows accurately however much help I give it with IMDb and tvdb IDs.
Plex can offer all the bells and whistles it likes but if it refuses to catalogue properly and overwrites manual catalogues I create, it's of no use to me.
Jellyfin was such a pain to install that I gave up.
Emby works perfectly, catalogues perfectly and uses my hardware acceleration, allows me to do parental controls and just works flawlessly
DLNA can be used externally trough a VPN type tunnel, and it's a shit ton more secure than port forwarding
DLNA here. old atom netbook runs on micro usb. vlc on clients. sorted.
Hey Robbie, what about local media players like Zidoo and Dune HD. Definitely cost more, but can be worth it for consumers looking for high quality playback.
Nice, well rounded up video! An important aspect of Home Nas fore sure!
I own only custom built nas systems. Recently tried jellyfin, instead of libre elec. A test install on linux mint was ez, surprisingly jellyfin ran well on a fire stick. When you have your media sorted, named and set up properly, its very good. Transcoding on Ryzen 2200g was just perfect. Recommended.
On libre elec the jellyfin is not up to date, and logitech media server is not so ez. I prefer lms still over kodi/plex/jellyfin for music in the house.
As i have set up my movie bib for kodi, for some reasons plex always gave me headaches recognizing my movies. Metadata are not compatible. I spent days to tag my movies for kodi manually, so not doing it again. Jellyfin had no issues at all with my metadata.
Libre Elec can be used as a small footprint server, as Kodi can serve Dlna/Upnp, Samba share, Airplay oob and a lot more via plugins.
I listen to my music through a Sonos system, does this make a difference to what you’ve said?
What would you use?
The 45,000 limit in Sonos is a big problem!
Jellyfin is part of the truenas app suit. And it is available in the app store of our fire stick
Biggest issue to me was/is app support and remote connectivity with all other apps vs plex. Plex has always been easy, works well and the plex app on all my devices just works. Jellyfin was easy to setup and looks great but the app sucks. Constant issue with playback and remote play isnt possible without jumping through hoops.
Kodi on a dedicated device. It is hands down the performance/customizability winner, above any of the media server softwares. Running on e.g Odroid N2+ with CoreELEC (Kodi distro), that's about as good as it gets.
A couple of downsides though depending on use case, is no transcoding and limited device support list.
Also Robbie you dinosaur. Try changing to one of the Aeons, hell even Estuary (standard) is better than that Confluence fossil of a skin 😁
How to avoid maintaining Kodi media db on each client? Can they all read from a single source db?
Jellyfin still have some problem with outsync subtitle on various codec. Sometimes i play with Emby
Jellyfin here, but Jellyfin has many silly errors that never seem to get solved. Previews not being updated, subtitle getting out of sync during viewing, worse video quality than with plain vlc playback. Can't find data of films that are obviously easy to find on IMDB etc. The community doesn't seem to care for it anymore, these bugs are in for many years.
I switched from Plex to emby because emby had variable playback speed, a very important feature for me, that Plex didn't have. I highly regret it. Often it was impossible to connect to emby remotely. Despite all settings being correct, I regularly had to reset it to function.
But wat really angered me was that Emby replaced my carefully synced subtitles with the first one it found on open subtitles.
Ok, I'm partially responsible for this as I didn't had the setting right, but it was so I clear, that I had a lot of work to correct it all again.
I switched back to Plex ( lifetime pass) and never had any issue. Plex now has variable playback, so is perfect for me
That's why I use a different account for software like this to access my files which has read-only access. If it needs to download a subtitle file, it can download it in a specific folder for subtitles and read it from there. I have no experience with either Plex, nor Emby, but that's how I used to do it with Kodi anyway. I have no trust in either the software, nor my own missclicks if it has the option to delete files and such.
I do both. Me, my local network is jellyfin. Remote for family is plex.
I like plex for the simple thing it is. Little setup and done.
Emby: I hated it. Tried and did not like it.
Jellyfin: I enjoy it checked all the blocks I wanted.
Kodi: too much configuration.
Plex and infuse on Apple TV. Infuse is fantastic.
I haven't changed from Plex yet, but I'm seriously considering it. I don't mind paying for software, even if there are free alternatives. However, that means the paid software has to justify the premium. Plex has been the easiest plug and play (for me personally) media server that allowed me to get up and running from my NAS to multiple devices in the house for my family. The interface is easy to use. It worked.
Now, for me and my families needs, Plex's premium justification is no longer there. It's bloated, buggy, and more and more "features" are forced on me. Why would I pay a premium for that? I'm more than ready to move on.
Have Synology fixed the memory leak for DLNA? If I have it enabled, men usage is at 80% after a week on my DS918+.
I stop worring, just installed Nova Video Player in a couple of cheap Onn TV Boxes and that was all.
I guess my needs are simple.
hello I bought a ds923+ and I am happy but I have a problem with plex etc because I can't even see content upload from my drone or mobile that is 4k. can I buy something to enhance it? if I buy a nvidia shield or another nas just for plex, what is your recommendation?
I used to be an avid Kodi user because I have my DVD collection in ISO format.. but I have mostly Rokus in my house, so it was a pain.
Im looking to migrate to Jellyfin but that Means I need to transcode all the movies to a video format.... it sux as no other media service can handle ISO correctly
JF started as emby fork. It's still suffering from that codebase
This is a great walk through of the options. But I wish we could normalize the idea that it is fair for software makers to monetize their efforts.
I mainly use Emby, but I am more moving towards Plex and jellyfin, Emby in recent year is really slow in their dev team
Wow! Very informative!
Personally I use a combination of Emby Server on a NAS for the backend and Kodi for the front end on a TV with an Embruary skin. The reason being is I just found Plex server too cumbersome to install on the NAS compared to Emby. And Jellyfin server is essentially a stripped down version of Emby anyway. Plus Jellyfin isn't natively available on QNAP (well neither is Emby now but it's available from the Emby forum whereas Jellyfin isn't). I'm also not a fan of the Jellyfin front end player and interface and much prefer Kodi's. While I like kodi as a front end, I found the scraping also cumbersome and prefer Emby to do that part of it. And to tell the truth, it also just doesn't work well on a TV and a HDD combo. Did I mention that Emby server with Kodi and embycon is all free?
We could have the FOSS debate of Emby vs Jellyfin but in the end, all I want to do is play my shows with the least amount of back end effort to maintain it. And for me, this combo works pretty well (other than the Embruary skin resetting every now and again)
This is the way. 😊
Emby user + wireguard vpn for remote connections.
Use Plex and Jellyfin both have their own good and bad.
I couldn't get my head around jellyfin. It felt like it took way to much work
Thx for the vid
Ooh, I'm rarely early to a vid. Also, I'm heavy in Plex, but always open to a new software.
Good man! Hope the video either helps you see if the grass is greener, or massively validates your decision to stick with Plex. Have a great weekend bud
Jellyfin has no means to continue audio where you left off. It only does that for video.
I have so many problems with plex I get annoyed by that I hate using it.
Why would anyone want an alternative to perfection?
thanks robert
I use a Zimaboard with a cached folder for the files i want to watch and just open VLC with a bluetooth keyboard ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sounds like you are saying Plex is the best choice for non technical users who do not mind paying a little bit each year.
allways the best
Plex is just one of those software I'm willing to pay for and live with it's shortcomings(got none that affects my use case) instead of the free alternatives. Free and open-source is a good thing until you start dealing with the software's respective community, which is full of people with under-developed social function. Plex devs and the community is just great.
Can't argue with you on any of that (and wouldn't want to!)
Jellyfin is the worst. The first reason is that the update speed is extremely slow. The second reason is that there are too many bugs to fix at all. The third reason is that the app is so bad that it is not complete at all. The main reason for this idea is that I have been waiting for its improvement for about 3 or 4 years ago. As a result, it has not been perfect until now, and there seems to be more and more bugs. In a word, I have never encountered such a poor open source project.
Plex was way too easy. Paid $90 like 5 years ago and havent had to fiddle with it much since.
These are just alternatives, like cycling to work is an alternative, but we all drive.
The only advantage of jellyfin is that you don't have to pay to download a file.
Kodi user here, never interested in plex or similar
Synology - DS VIDEO
doh.. i'm too late.. 😛
Nothings ever too late....except British public transport...sadly
i find that emby plays videos better than plex but emby sucks for organizing videos.
Plex Media Server is and remains the best. Thanks for the video
Absolutely zero reason top leave Plex.
Plex has gotten bad
Please learn what the word alternative means, because if you can't match the feature set, it's not an alternative, it's a different use case. When I'm looking for an alternative, it has to match or beat the feature set of the thing I'm trying to leave. So far, nothing allows watch together, and remote play, without some nasty hacky fuckery that barely works.
I’m not surprised jelly fin is second but not because it’s better than any of the other ones it’s just a matter of people being cheap. For one jelly fin is just a fork or as I like to color it a flat out rip off of Emby anyone that’s even watching this video and watching you show the interface can see it’s pretty much identical with just some subtle changes to make no mistake it’s basically a rip off of Emby.
Secondly everyone says it’s free but I learned a long time ago there’s no such thing as free if they’re not selling it somebody is paying the bills for servers website etc. They’re not hosting all your servers for free the goodness of their hearts lol which means you’re probably the product nine times out of 10 anything that’s free they’re selling your data to pay for it and I’m sorry I don’t want third parties knowing all the movies and TV show shows and what not are on my server and who’s accessing it and who’s watching what shows for analytics so I refuse to ever run jelly fin I just don’t trust them to be honest.
Gee... Tell me that you don't know anything about open source without saying that you don't know anything about open source! First of all, Jellyfin is a not rip-off of Emby; they both descend from the same codebase. Emby started as open source but at some point, Emby developers decided to make it proprietary and to try to make a living selling services for it in the same mold of Plex so Jellyfin developers took the existing open source code and worked from there. There is nothing shady about it; this is how open source works!
Second of all, they are definitely NOT hosting anything for you. You have to set up your own server, download their application and set it up yourself the same way you would with Plex (except that it is somewhat more involved than setting up a Plex server). But unlike Plex, there is no paywall: you don't have to pay no one to be able to transcode your streams using your own hardware, you can set it up so that your relatives & friends can access your server remotely without having to pay a fee, the clients are fully free wherever they are available (Android TV, Tizen, iOS, webOS, web client and more), etc.
And unlike Plex, Jellyfin is not trying to sell you anything. They will not be constantly trying to rub your nose on online content from their business partners, putting that above your local hosted content in the UI, etc. That alone is worth the hassle of setting it up.
Who pays for the website? Who pays for its development? You’re telling me this is all being done 100% free not one dime is exchanging hands anywhere for jellyffin? If you believe that I’ve got some oceanfront property to sell to you. 😂
but you can believe what you want I’m not advocating for either one because I’ve been a lifetime Plexpass user probably since it’s inception so I don’t care which server people run but to use the excuse of open source for it to be a pretty much 99% rip off of emby setting for setting tab for tab anything you can go through in the dashboard and interface is almost identical and emby stopped being open source a long time ago. Either way like I said I don’t trust it believe what you wanna believe run what you wanna run that’s you’re prerogative i’m simply saying nothing in life is free if you believe that you’re naïve somebody is paying for something otherwise it wouldn’t exist period. Which again proves my point which is that’s the only reason it’s gain such popularity because people always want things for free but someone pays the piper somehow.
@@DaveofAllTrades75 Dude, you really need to read up more on Open Source and Free Software. If you think that having a high quality piece of software given away for free is some sort of scam then when you find out about Linux, Apache, git, Docker, LibreOffice, OpenSSL, Blender, Krita, Android, Chromium and others it will blow your mind. Whatever you do, stay away from github, my friend!
Plus it is clear that you are clueless about this anyway when you barely understand the architecture of these solutions like, who is hosting your content in this scenario (hint: it is not Plex!)
Plex is the ONLY way you should use and it worth all the $$$
I’m tired of ads and bloatware. I rather use Emby
The only one people should use is one that doesn't need to reach out to a company's servers for any reason, so no, Plex is not the one people "should" use, but it is the most convenient.
I paid in Brasilian Reais with Paypal, much cheaper than $$$
Jellyfin for the win but would use Plex if hardware acceleration was free
Naw Emby is probably the best out of all of them.
Emby and Jellyfin media recognition is worse, you need very clean, perfect file names, and even this is sometimes not enough, sometimes the track name has a different name and dots, without spaces, etc.and this causes problems.
I keep hearing people saying this but I have very rarely run into media files that either Kodi or Jellyfin couldn't scrape the metadata themselves requiring a little help from me. And in the few odd cases where this _was_ a problem, Filebot was there to rescue me. I could add the metadata manually but why do it when Filebot make it so convenient and automated, making bulk edits so pleasing to do?
@user-0341htrs4 - There's Jellyfin Plug-ins that can tie the movie and TV names via IMDB, MoviDB, TBDb etc.. They work really well. Granted NO APP is perfect, they all have faults to contend with. But, for the most part, Jellyfin is a good app to use.
Jellyfin scrapes the correct metadata 96% of the time. The trouble is Jellyfin makes fixing that 4% a pain in the ass. My solution was to just scape the data myself and put it in the media folders before I move them to the server. MediaElch is a fantastic tool. Doing this has made metadata a non-issue for me.