Plex’s crackdown on free remote streaming access starts this week : plex

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 103 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (15 children)

Before the influx of "just use jellyfin" bros come in let me get ahead of it.

I ran Plex for a decade and loved it, had the subscription, was happy to pay for software I found value in. This however was the kicker, not because it i was directly affected (not because I had a lifetime subscription), but it signaled the end of Plex that I knew from before.

So I did switch. It was not easy or painless like people here claim. Metadata is stored in different ways that made conversion difficult. I tried multiple conversion tools and none of them worked for me, or left my library in a half state. I ended up just staring from scratch, and it was a couple of months before I was happy with it.

That being said, I think it's worth it. It's pretty much at feature parity, but mostly because Plex hasn't been doing anything for server owners while jellyfin devs have been for years now. I'm happier with jellyfin than I was with Plex.

So, to the "I use jellyfin LOL" guys here, no that's not helpful, and it's condescending. It pushes people away, but I have a weird feeling they want to push people away (and honestly if that's your only comment it's the same energy as crypto bros).

Instead, I empathize with Plex hosters, I was there, it's not a fun place to be anymore, and I am here to say that yes you can switch, no it's not as easy as Plex, but I personally think it's worth the effort. With all open source things the user interface and experience is definitely lacking, but if you're willing to put in the time it will be worth it.

[–] alekwithak@lemmy.world 33 points 1 month ago (5 children)

The conversion is not the biggest issue. For my dad or Grandmother to stream my content, Plex as a streaming app is something they can easily understand and digest (though Plex's new streaming app has done quite a bit to undo that -_-). I have the subscription, I acquire the content, I choose who to share it with. Now they need a subscription, too? Where's the value? Why wouldn't they just pay for a streaming service at that point? I'm using my hardware and doing all the work and they are paying Plex? And if I accepted payment for the same thing it would be a crime! BUT I'm not sure I'm comfortable opening Jellyfin to the internet, even behind nginx, and I don't want to have to spend time setting things up for them or troubleshooting their issues w/ Jellyfin. I put enough labor into this thing already.

So yes obviously everyone should switch to the FOSS option, but in reality it's not that simple because the services aren't 1:1.

[–] blitzen@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

They do not need a subscription, assuming you (the server owner) have a plex pass.

[–] alekwithak@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

That is what I thought, until this article. I'd be pleased to find out I misinterpreted.

[–] blitzen@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 month ago

The title of this article is vague.

Here is the important part

Under the new rules announced in March, a server owner needs to have a Plex Pass subscription, which starts at $7 per month, to grant users remote access to their server. Alternatively, someone can remotely access another person’s Plex server by buying their own Plex Pass

TLDR; there has to be at least one pass in the chain

[–] PhAzE@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 month ago

No, you're mistaken. If YOU have a subscription on your server, they do not need to pay anything to stream from you.

They only need a subscription if you do not have one associated to your server.

[–] deeferg@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago

BUT I'm not sure I'm comfortable opening Jellyfin to the internet, even behind nginx, and I don't want to have to spend time setting things up for them or troubleshooting their issues w/ Jellyfin. I put enough labor into this thing already.

This is still where I'm at too. It's a great service, but the fear of messing something up when opening it up to the internet is too worrying. I'm usually pretty good picking up new tech with easier setups, but when there are 4 different networking techniques with their own pros and cons, at that point it's just easier to just run as a local service.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes! I'm glad you mentioned the crime! If you own a DVD and rip it - that itself is a grey area that is mostly acceptable now. However, sharing it digitally is another grey area that providers have been skimming under the radar, but by requiring a subscription that is 100% illegal. You cannot pay for shared content. I think they're trying to get around it but personally, I just want to avoid the whole thing. Jellyfin was a no brainer from that aspect.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 month ago

If you own a DVD and rip it - that itself is a grey area

In some countries. In others it is legally protected.

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[–] CrazyLikeGollum@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

Yeah, switching isn't that easy. Especially if you have a lot of "unique" media types with different requirements for scraping metadata. Things like anime, audio books, or comedy albums.

TBF Plex doesn't handle those all that well either from a stock install. It was a lot of work to get it to handle everything well.

But also, Plex's proxy service for remote streaming, is it's killer feature that prevents me from switching. I need to access my media from networks where my private domain is blocked.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

There's no Jellyfin app for my TV, and it's shit in the TVs browser

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[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago (3 children)

How are you doing remote streaming with Jellyfin?

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

tailscale is the easiest option. learning curve isn't too bad, but definitely a hurdle for users.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

I can write my own iptables so the learning curve isn't really a problem, but making it easy for users is a lot more important.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 2 points 1 month ago

I'm in the open, but have a proxy and a nested domain so it can't be automatically port scanned. It's a tradeoff I made for simpler setup for my family, and so far it's been fine. I could do tailscale, but there's no way my family would be in favor of it.

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[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

fair assessment. there are two major features i still miss from plex:

bulk editing metadata
smart playlists

also setting up users with tailscale is a struggle, even the ones relatively tech literate.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 2 points 1 month ago

Security is definitely a tradeoff, and you have two good features missing. I think they'll make their way over, but it's a pain for sure.

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[–] WormFood@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I swapped to jellyfin and it was worth it but it was a lot of work. I had to pay for a static ip, set up my home network properly, and redo all my metadata. and months later I'm still finding missing or incorrectly tagged media. plus it doesn't auto update. also I had to tell my friends and family to download a new app and make logins for them.

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[–] iamericandre@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 17 points 1 month ago

Hey look it's One-Face.

[–] watson@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

tried JellyFin, and it's just not there yet. lots of little things…

Good thing i got a lifetime PlexPass, like, 15 years ago when it was on sale for $35

[–] watson@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

The tons of bugs, there’s no Apple TV app, remote streaming is janky, the entire interface feels rough and cheap compared to Plexes shine and polish.

Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that jelly fin is nowhere nearly as mature a piece of software as Plex is, and it really really shows. I’m not interested in “roughing it“. I’m sure I’ll try jelly fin later, maybe when it’s much more mature, but for now, I’m not interested.

Plex meets all of my needs, and I have a lifetime Plex pass, so I don’t have to worry about subscriptions.

[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

What little things? I've been using Jellyfin for a while now with very few complaints, but maybe I don't know what I'm missing.

[–] superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

As a former Plex user who is on Jellyfin now, I'd say Smart Collections and playlists. Their are tools out there you can use to try to achieve similar results, but the Plex implementation is far better.

[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Unless I'm missing something, Jellyfin can do playlists just fine for my liking anyway.

What are Smart Collections?

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

You can essentially create a filter of any media type and then save it as a collection, as new things are added if they meet the criteria they are auto-added to the collection. So an example could be if you want documentaries to be their own collection you could create a smart collection with a filter of genre=documentary.

[–] deeferg@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 month ago

Some people are using their media servers way more intricately than I am hahaha. Wild to know what features are being implemented to enhance these services.

[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago

Interesting. Jellyfin doesn't have something exactly like that afaik, but it does have genre categories. I don't think a more robust category feature is really something I need personally though, so I don't think I'm missing out.

[–] AtariDump@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

Plexamp.

Actually security out of the box.

A decent iOS app (including the TV) that is free.

Plexamp.

A server that doesn’t seem to forget my logon almost every time I try using it instead of plex

Tautulli

[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 weeks ago

Strange, Jellyfin doesn't log me out that often. Maybe a configuration difference?

I've heard about Jellyfin's security before but my, admittedly limited, understanding is that it's pretty limited in what an attacker could do. Granted I host behind tailscale anyway.

What's Plexamp and Tautulli?

[–] tetrachromacy@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I have moved my library to Jellyfin as of a few weeks ago. It's really a step backwards in terms of polish and feature parity. It's extremely annoying because Plex was such a set and forget app for me, especially because I was only using it to host content locally on my home network for streaming. I wasn't able to move any of my metadata, poster images or subtitles over so I'm starting from scratch on over three thousand media files.

I'm glad there's an alternative but what's gonna stop Jellyfin from doing this same problem once their user base has grown and is firmly entrenched?

The march towards enshittification rolls on.

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 23 points 1 month ago

Jellyfin is fully open source, and GPL licensed. If the current maintainers start making it worse, the community can just fork it and keep going. They also have no control over what you do with it, unlike Plex which has centralized auth servers they could ban you from.

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[–] Know_not_Scotty_does@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Everyone is either saying I'm staying on plex or Move to jellyfin and I here just enjoying Emby. Its functional, easy to setup, and is a good middle ground for sharing without having to train people how to use it.

Yes, I paid for the license, and I know it isn't foss so the potential for enshitification exists, but for now its fine.

My kids can use it, so can my inlaws, and its been reliable.

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[–] Skyline969@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 month ago

Good thing I moved over to Jellyfin

[–] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

The prices aren't that bad. What is bad is the direction plex is going as a company.

I recently tried using the new Roku interface and holy fucking shit I've never wanted to buy a new TV and switch off of plex more in my life. Plus no /link or qr sign-in option? I am never. Ever. Going to use that app. Ever. My only hope is that it's not a sign of what's coming to other platforms, but if it's not, then they are ok having inconsistent UX across platforms which is also concerning.

It's obvious that plex is actively making user hostile choices in favor of short term profits.

[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

I got the lifetime Plex like 13 years ago. I gave up on it about five years ago.