Stick with Emby

[lstryhrn85 13]

This is for all the people who are on the fence  between Emby and Jellyfin. So I moved away from Plex and start messing around with Emby and Jellyfin. All I am going to say is Jellyfin is a hot mess. I get it that everything is a open source and their developers dont get paid. (Maybe this is the reason why you ask for money or donations)

When you question something about Jellyfin, you get all of these people that get pissed at you. For example I just wanted to know why I couldn't rewind\fast forward on the Jellyfin android app. I was told I was doing it wrong and if I didnt like it  I should go to Emby or Plex lol

The reviews online about Jellyfin is pure bullsh*t. I see people saying that its alot better than Emby but they dont give a reason and when they do its  a pure lie. I think alot of people are pissed off about the premiere paywall which is only 4.99 a month. ... yeah 4.99 a month... a cup of gourmet coffee a month. My career is in the IT world and I know that it takes a lot to develop and keep up a project. 

Emby dev team, keep up the great work.  You can have my 4.99 a month. I may even go with the lifetime plan. 

[Luke 42083]

Hi, welcome, and thanks for the feedback !

[aptalca 71]

I've been using plex and emby side by side for years. I used emby myself, but my family and friends used plex to stream from my server. That's because emby licensing is weird that all shared users' devices count towards my, the server admin's, premiere quota and once I give access to a user, there is not much I can do to restrict that user from using it on a whole bunch of devices and maxing out my quota. Plex handles it much better. Premium features are dependent on the user's own subscription or license status and not the server admin's. My plex users can pay for plexpass themselves to get the premium features like sync/download, and it doesn't inconvenience me.

 

Anyway, Emby usually had been pretty good at fixing reported bugs (in my experience) until recently. I troubleshot the crap out of an issue with external subs and url only nfo's and provided well detailed reports on how to reproduce it 100%. Over a month has passed and the issue/bug has not even been acknowledged. Total silence: https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/100309-missing-metadata-on-new-movies-added/

 

I had similar issues with plex as well in the past, so it's not specific to emby.

 

My point is, things are great until they aren't. Emby has no streamlined method for reporting actual bugs. You just post it here on the forums and watch it get lost in a flood of random questions. Often people chime in and say you're doing it wrong (like you were told on the jellyfin side, funny I was told that here).

 

I am now testing jellyfin and it seems to be working well for my purposes. At the very least they do have a proper bug reporting mechanism on github. We'll see how they're handled when I need it.

[Jägs 85]

I agree about Emby.  I do use Jellyfin for one specific thing, though:  a portable video streamer for the kiddos on road trips.  I had wanted to use Emby for this, but it needs to phone home for Emby Premiere, which was a dealbreaker for me, as the portable streamer does not have an internet connection when in use—it's a RPi4 acting as a hotspot. 

While Jellyfin works well for this purpose, I still happily support Emby through a lifetime membership, in part because @Luke et al. are so helpful on this forum.

[GrimReaper 4749]

2 minutes ago, Jägs said:

I had wanted to use Emby for this, but it needs to phone home for Emby Premiere, which was a dealbreaker for me, as the portable streamer does not have an internet connection when in use—it's a RPi4 acting as a hotspot. 

Which devices are used to access it? 

[lstryhrn85 13]

8 minutes ago, aptalca said:

I've been using plex and emby side by side for years. I used emby myself, but my family and friends used plex to stream from my server. That's because emby licensing is weird that all shared users' devices count towards my, the server admin's, premiere quota and once I give access to a user, there is not much I can do to restrict that user from using it on a whole bunch of devices and maxing out my quota. Plex handles it much better. Premium features are dependent on the user's own subscription or license status and not the server admin's. My plex users can pay for plexpass themselves to get the premium features like sync/download, and it doesn't inconvenience me.

 

Anyway, Emby usually had been pretty good at fixing reported bugs (in my experience) until recently. I troubleshot the crap out of an issue with external subs and url only nfo's and provided well detailed reports on how to reproduce it 100%. Over a month has passed and the issue/bug has not even been acknowledged. Total silence: https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/100309-missing-metadata-on-new-movies-added/

 

I had similar issues with plex as well in the past, so it's not specific to emby.

 

My point is, things are great until they aren't. Emby has no streamlined method for reporting actual bugs. You just post it here on the forums and watch it get lost in a flood of random questions. Often people chime in and say you're doing it wrong (like you were told on the jellyfin side, funny I was told that here).

 

I am now testing jellyfin and it seems to be working well for my purposes. At the very least they do have a proper bug reporting mechanism on github. We'll see how they're handled when I need it.

So the server side of things was fine for Jellyin. They has some strange bugs going on but it was wasnt a biggie. For example, there is a bug where once your remove live tv from your server, it still shows up on the home screen. Its been reported last year as well but users are still having that issue. Also I added a plugin and it killed my server.

But the main problem was the playback device apps was a laughing joke. It plays fine until you want to rewind or fast forward.  When you try it does nothng. They told me to stop the video and try it. It worked but when I fast forward the video wasnt  sync with the time of the video. They also told me to use kodi jelly fin sync. But I hate Kodi clunky layout. 

I think Plex, Emby and Plex will have their issues but least get the player (app) right. 

[Carlo 4561]

9 hours ago, aptalca said:

I've been using plex and emby side by side for years. I used emby myself, but my family and friends used plex to stream from my server. That's because emby licensing is weird that all shared users' devices count towards my, the server admin's, premiere quota and once I give access to a user, there is not much I can do to restrict that user from using it on a whole bunch of devices and maxing out my quota. Plex handles it much better. Premium features are dependent on the user's own subscription or license status and not the server admin's. My plex users can pay for plexpass themselves to get the premium features like sync/download, and it doesn't inconvenience me.

Hi, With Emby you can lock a person to a specific device if you like.

Check out users->Access Tab->Devices section.

In that section you can choose what devices can be logged in from.  So for example you could give them access on a Roku or ATV device but no mobile devices.  If they want access on mobile devices you could have them purchase the lifetime app to allow full playback for roughly $5 and then grant them access to that device as well.

Also keep in mind not all devices count against your license count for non Premiere features.
https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001173099-emby-premiere-feature-matrix

Also keep in mind devices fall off your license count a week after last use.

[Jägs 85]

13 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

Which devices are used to access it? 

iPads.

[GrimReaper 4749]

21 minutes ago, Jägs said:

iPads.

Then you don't need Premiere subscription, Emby for iOS app unlock (one-time purchase) enables full playback. 

https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001173099-emby-premiere-feature-matrix