Keeping Up with the Jellyfins

[Spaceboy 2573]

Its been remarked on by a number of people that the development of core server features has been slower than desirable this year. I don't remember anything coming to the server or apps that have enhanced things from my end user perspective.

Contrasting this to the development at Jellyfin, the product that broke away from Emby in 2018. The FREE product Jellyfin which is dependent on a community of volunteers.

Their most recent blog https://jellyfin.org/posts/jellyfin-10-6-0/ , not only announced a number of features that have been asked for and are outstanding at Emby for over 5 years now (Multi-cast support first requested 1 February 2015), is also quite illuminating on some of the technological choices made by Emby. Its worth taking a read and keeping an eye on for the future

[CBers 7450]

An interesting read those release notes. 

 

[Sammy 790]

Treasonous! 

[Sammy 790]

Blasphemy! 

[Sammy 790]

I'm just kidding you know..

In reading that it seems they are re-writing the db which Luke did at the same time as Emby went "Private", IIR.

It is good to have competition and I haven't tried Jellyfin because I'm unsure what ill effect it may have on my Library in Emby and I'm just not willing to take that risk. Have you done it @Spaceboy?

[CBers 7450]

11 minutes ago, Sammy said:

I haven't tried Jellyfin because I'm unsure what ill effect it may have on my Library in Emby

Set up a separate library and point JF at it. 

That's what I have done, same as I have with Plex. 

 

[Sammy 790]

1 minute ago, CBers said:

Set up a separate library and point JF at it. 

That's what I have done, same as I have with Plex. 

 

I don't have that much duplicate disk space. Out of 48Tb, I have about 11Tb free and 8Tb of that is in process of being shucked to go into my case.

[CBers 7450]

1 minute ago, Sammy said:

I don't have that much duplicate disk space. Out of 48Tb, I have about 11Tb free and 8Tb of that is in process of being shucked to go into my case.

Just a small library will suffice. You don't have to duplicate like for like. 

I created a library with just one TV show in, which only has 6 episodes. 

[speechles 2055]

Do they have "a guy" who writes the blog posts or is that also a development guy? It seems like they wasted quite a bit of time on that getting all the names as anchor references and linking stuff. It reads like somebody totally biased with no objective reasoning wrote it who likes to toot their own horn. They wasted all that time to make that blog post look purdy for some reason. They waste time on Pull Requests to correct ReadMe's and comments in code. They chase their tail A LOT. Wag wag tail chase wag wag. It is a public project so of course there are going to be people who try to "make it their own" and do the blog stuff all purdy. Perhaps that is all this is and all that text was fed to them to purdy. Prolly? Prolly. Why did they choose purple? Roku is purple. They shouldve chose pink. Pink is a jelly doughnut.

Edited July 21, 2020 by speechles

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

Well my curiosity exceeded my good sense and I made an install of Jellyfin to test and I found that it is little better than a petrified piece of petrified putrid crap. The Roku app does not even have a functioning "play" button. 

I have uninstalled it and it will never be installed again. I should have known better but I did not. It is clearly written by people that are not concerned with the user experience. Maybe they came from the Plex development team.

Edited July 21, 2020 by Gilgamesh_48

[vdatanet 1617]

I've also took a look at Jellyfin, although the server seems acceptable, in my opinion client applications are underdeveloped.

Edited July 21, 2020 by vdatanet

[Carlo 4560]

Well the server can't be all bad since it basically started as Emby 3.

[Spaceboy 2573]

Well my curiosity exceeded my good sense and I made an install of Jellyfin to test and I found that it is little better than a petrified piece of petrified putrid crap. The Roku app does not even have a functioning "play" button. 
I have uninstalled it and it will never be installed again. I should have known better but I did not. It is clearly written by people that are not concerned with the user experience. Maybe they came from the Plex development team.

[emoji23] it’s a previous version of emby

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

17 minutes ago, cayars said:

Well the server can't be all bad since it basically started as Emby 3.

The server only matters if the clients are at least decent but, on the Roku at least, the client is at best childish and at worst written by people with no idea of exactly how to write client software.

The client is what the user actually sees and what I saw was primitive and badly conceived software.

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

1 minute ago, Spaceboy said:

it’s a previous version of emby

No previous version of Emby on the Roku that I ever used failed to have a functioning play button.

[Spaceboy 2573]

Do they have "a guy" who writes the blog posts or is that also a development guy? It seems like they wasted quite a bit of time on that getting all the names as anchor references and linking stuff. It reads like somebody totally biased with no objective reasoning wrote it who likes to toot their own horn. They wasted all that time to make that blog post look purdy for some reason. They waste time on Pull Requests to correct ReadMe's and comments in code. They chase their tail A LOT. Wag wag tail chase wag wag. It is a public project so of course there are going to be people who try to "make it their own" and do the blog stuff all purdy. Perhaps that is all this is and all that text was fed to them to purdy. Prolly? Prolly. Why did they choose purple? Roku is purple. They shouldve chose pink. Pink is a jelly doughnut.

Perhaps but at least they produced a new function in 2020. It’s telling that the most active thread here at present is where to put the buttons on the osd. Not what those buttons should do, that hasn’t changed, just where they should be

[speechles 2055]

They better produce a new function TBQH. They better find what Emby isn't doing and exploit that fact. Good to hear they are being predictable. To be marginally successful they need to fill the niches where Emby isn't ready to go there yet. This is natural. That is why I say they better be doing out of the ordinary/niche things or quite frankly they will not survive. It is this vacuum they can provide air to breathe. The fact their implementations of everything leaves much to be desired and they shall always be known as "those guys" who promote that "FREE" aspect of their culture meaning they shall always be getting the bottom of the barrel in users. They will have to self promote those donation links frequently until they start to jam those inside the apps. They are almost at that point to start nagging users. Aint that the kettle calling the pot black? It is funny how evolution starts free and goes to asking for donations then onto... you know where it goes. It becomes a business model if you do things right.

Edited July 21, 2020 by speechles

[speechles 2055]

15 minutes ago, Spaceboy said:

It’s telling that the most active thread here at present is where to put the buttons on the osd. Not what those buttons should do, that hasn’t changed, just where they should be

There are many more "engaged and active users" on these forums than normally found. How many unique impressions are there in the last 15 minutes? The fact people participate in the OSD button thread means users are willing to participate in change and debate it. That is a good thing. Right now that is the "trending conversation" and that changes all the time. The fact it has/had that much participation is due to @ebr being an awesome and willing to compromise developer and chat partner. He will actually listen to your counter arguments, constructive debate with you, then change his attitude... possibly. It is hard to push a 10 ton stone up hill by yourself but together we can build a pyramid.

Edited July 21, 2020 by speechles

[Carlo 4560]

Yes, and if you want to take some things to the next level, like Guide data as part of the product there is an ongoing cost that you just can't do with donations.  Some development/features cost money for licensing.

[Spaceboy 2573]

Yes, and if you want to take some things to the next level, like Guide data as part of the product there is an ongoing cost that you just can't do with donations.  Some development/features cost money for licensing.

I still pay separately to get my guide data elsewhere due to the shockingly bad function of embys epg matching

[Carlo 4560]

Well that's your choice but you're describing a matching error, not a DATA issue.  It's worth spending a few minutes matching channels that are wrong or didn't auto match.

It's not just the guide data that's better but it's completely fully functional data that's used and works like a library filled with all the meta-data.

I've never seen a 3rd party guide data work as well as that what's built in once setup.

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

Just now, cayars said:

Yes, and if you want to take some things to the next level, like Guide data as part of the product there is an ongoing cost that you just can't do with donations.  Some development/features cost money for licensing.

Some "free" projects flourish and are top of the line like "Libra Office" and other like apparently "JellyFin" cannot flourish unless they receive a steady influx of money to defray some of the costs. 

I doubt that JellyFin can find the funding needed even if some users are willing to "buy" some of the needed functionality for some parts to function well. 

But, as I have already said, most people will judge a product by the face it presents to the world and that face is not anywhere in the server but rather it is in the face presented in the clients and the Roku client, the most popular streamer in the US, is poor bordering on the truly horrid.

People seem think that "free" software is somehow more virtuous or even better but it is not. It is simply free. Also "open source" does not equal better. Sometimes a number of eyes looking at the source code simply brings into play the old saying "too many cooks spoil the broth." 

I am going to stick with Emby for now and for the foreseeable future and I do not think JellyFin will seriously trouble Emby unless they firs fix their client software. 

BTW: The core functionality of Emby is free as it has always been and closing the software was actually a good decision judging by what JellyFin is currently showing to the world.

[CBers 7450]

I installed the new (?) JellyFin server earlier and although it's OK, it's not Emby, plus the Android TV app is like a millions years old 

I think I'd prefer to use Plex over JellyFin. 

 

[Spaceboy 2573]

Well that's your choice but you're describing a matching error, not a DATA issue.  It's worth spending a few minutes matching channels that are wrong or didn't auto match.

It's not just the guide data that's better but it's completely fully functional data that's used and works like a library filled with all the meta-data.

I've never seen a 3rd party guide data work as well as that what's built in once setup.

Cayars you don’t understand what it’s like being in a non us non hdhr system so best you keep quiet on this one. It’s every fricking channel.

[feerlessleadr 173]

I have jellyfin installed if for no other reason than I like to tinker, and I rarely get to do that with Emby anymore.

Overall, I like the subtle interface changes they've made. The kodi clients seems to work well (although I don't really use them at all for much testing), and I really like the 'gelli' android music app for JF (community driven, but it is exactly what I wish emby had), however the dealbreaker for me is that hardware transcoding doesn't work at all for me. 

I've opened topics on github and on reddit, and the devs have stopped responding to me with ideas/solutions. 

 

Not to make this an emby vs. JF issue, but when I had issues with hardware transcoding on emby last year, @ebr and others responded very quickly and had me sorted in in less than a day. Can't put a price on that from a WAF perspective. 

 

Overall, I'll keep JF installed for curiosity purposes, but don't see myself switching unless they get a game breaking feature, or emby features that I use are abandoned (like kodi integration). 

Edited July 21, 2020 by feerlessleadr