This is not a rant or an attack on you. I get the point of easyness that Plex and/or Jellyfin offer. I merely would like to explain why i do not need it. I tried both Jellyfin and Plex, but i could not find a huge benefit in using them in our household. Again, not a rant.

I think it's an extra layer on top of things i do not need. I do not need cover art, descriptions or trailers. The smb shares have a folder hierarchy that's very logical and easy to our household so sorting and reindexing is not needed. Kodi (Windows,Linux, Android) keeps track of where i was, but i don't really care that much. Usually i remember what i was watching. File Explorer Pro (paid version) on IOS plays anything. I do not need transcoding, because all the players can play anything i throw at it. My wife and kids know how to use Kodi both on the pcs and the chromecasts.

Mp3's go to a Sonos at the moment. If more mp3 devices would be needed in the future, i'm kinda curious about the CrowdSupply Esparagus systems [1][2]

1: https://www.crowdsupply.com/sonocotta/esparagus-media-center 2: https://www.crowdsupply.com/sonocotta/esparagus-audio-brick

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al_borland 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

If you’re using Kodi, that’s effectively the same thing. Kodi is XBMC. Plex started as a fork of XBMC for OS X. At some point they broke it out into a client/server architecture, which Jellyfin emulated.

If you have one primary client, Kodi is fine. Moving to Plex, Jellyfin, or Emby is more about serving multiple clients while maintaining continuity.

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theshrike79 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> "Usually i remember what i was watching"

You must not watch that many TV shows or Anime then. Or you have the memory of a savant.

Without an automated system I'd have zero clue where I am in the 100+ series I'm tracking.

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4ggr0 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> I'd have zero clue where I am in the 100+ series I'm tracking

curious question then - do you remember the content of what you were watching? i totally get that you don't know on what episode you are and i used and love Jellyfin myself, but if you're watching 100+ series "at once" i'm starting to wonder if you even remember the last episode of a show if you rotate so heavily, know what i mean? i barely remember an episode after a week, even if i exclusively watch one show. so either my memory is even worse than i thought, or - you have the memory of a savant ;)

	▲	theshrike79 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's not like the plots are complex :D Mostly it's shows that are on hiatus, due to release cycles being completely random nowadays. Or Anime releasing a second season under a whole different show name. Also shows I've watched 1-2 episodes of and decided it's worth watching, but not now - as there are a limited number of hours in a day.

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b3lvedere 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Unfortunately i don't have the luxury to watch a lot of shows during the week. Usually the max is around 5 or so. Call me strange, but sometimes i actually like it that i forget what i was watching. Makes me kinda of realise it's still a little luxury leisure. Usually i get happy when i realise there's more show to watch (happened with Foundation). Or i keep ignoring it, because interest was lost over time (happened with Rick and Morty). The kids tend to watch a series back to front and then ignore it completely once they lose interest.

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Fnoord 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I still have artifacts in my dirs of TOSORT, TODO, and DONE.

	▲	theshrike79 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I've resorted to manually tracking some non-Plex/Jellyfin shows on Obsidian manually :D It's super fun to watch some 7 season show on a local streaming service, be on season 3 episode hellifiknow, come back in a week and poof it's gone.

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stasomatic 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I can't watch anything without subtitles. Plex and Jellyfin support them, in many languages, because of the mumbled dialogues. Yes, I know you burn subs in.

Plus the whole *arr stack.

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b3lvedere 2 days ago | parent [-]

Usually subtitles are not that hard to find.

	▲	infecto 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yes but there is something nice about automatic subtitles. Less friction in my life.

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GolfPopper 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Plex makes it much easier for non-technical relatives to interact with my media server. That's my own use-case.

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ryandrake a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Same here. XBMC/Kodi pointed at NFS has served me and my family well for 15+ years. Every once in a while I check out the alternatives with their custom server software and thick "stacks" and conclude that they don't offer me anything I want to do that I can't do with just shared files.