Shrinkflation, hitting online world too.
That’s why I pirate. Jellyfin FTW.
I was a long time pirate back in the day, and thinking of sailing once again. However all my old booty spots are gone. What is Jellyfin?
A great UI to stream your movie files from your TV. A bit like Plex, but open source.
Tbh JF is faaaaaaaar from a ‘great UI’, it suffers from the ‘open source design’ of developers who have no idea how to design a good UI as the designers for the UI. I shouldn’t need to click vaguely in the direction of where I think the X (close) button is to make it appear in the first place. The settings for a user should be in the same location as the admin settings. The main screen shouldn’t look like it came straight out of 2000, it should have the categories all visible by default, it should be easier to setup https (plex was WAY easier in this regard), ota channel guides shouldn’t be outsourced to a paid project, there is no built-in import/export (I recently moved to a docker image and found that out, yay)…
It ‘works’, but fuck me it’s so rough around the edges that it draws blood. Plex has issues (downloading content from a server is wonky, metadata can grab the wrong movies, paid sub/lifetime etc) but it’s so, so, so much closer to what an all-in-one media platform should be, imo.
I’m not arguing that any of your complaints are invalid. I just want to say that I use jellyfin to organize my movies and TV shows and access them from other computers on my home network. It works, is easy, was free. I like it.
Yeah, there’s a reason I keep it installed and at the ready, but it’s just less user-friendly and that is essential when my users aren’t tech savvy, they just want things to ‘work’. If JF reaches feature parity I’ll migrate my users, but I can’t be asked to explain why they need to pay a monthly fee for ota guides or why everything looks different, if I also need to explain that features are missing and why can’t I move their watch history. It’s got to be easy for them, but also for me too.
I’ve found that most FOSS projects just have a “for us, by us” mentality where nobody cares about making things easy to use to the point that it’s not even possible if you’re not an experienced coder AND have strong knowledge of networking.
That’s because it’s a fork of Emby from 13+ years ago, still running 90% of that old code. They’ve kept it functional, that’s about it.
If you want something that’s actually still being developed/improved look to Emby or Plex. Emby is more focused on ‘personal’ media servers with your own content and users under your own control; plex is more focused on cloud services, integrating content they can run advertising on and requiring your users to authenticate through their public servers to be able to access your local/private server.
I’ve had plex running on my nas for 6+ years now, and have it set to where all the cloud stuff is available but out of the way, as I have a small collection so I don’t need to lean into the cloud streaming. I remember trying Emby in my evaluation of Plex, but as I recall the UI was bleh and it too followed a paid model. I know of Kodi but I haven’t looked into it in a long time, and I never ended up actually trying it.
Plex is fine for my needs, but I decided to get setup with JF just ‘in case’ plex takes a sharp new direction or something (I’ve had it installed since the whole ‘watch stuff free with ads’ kicked off), so if/when I can just be like ‘hey all plex did [stupid thing] so I just need you all to uninstall plex, grab this jellyfin app, and login with [credentials] and we will be all set’.
I use Plex for music because it is very good there, but Jellyfin for movies/tv which I like more for that kind of content.
Not to mention the setup for hardware encoding which basically expects deep knowledge of the matter to even get it to run, let alone run well. Plex on the other hand hides it behind a license but it JUST WORKS, there’s no setup or anything.
I really wanted to use Jellyfin, but there’s just too many pain points
Plex and Jellyfin are two ways to host your own content. Basically, instead of streaming from a Netflix server, you’re streaming from your own server.
Plex was the original, and Jellyfin is the FOSS alternative. In short, you run the program on a computer somewhere, and tell that program where all of your media is stored. It’ll scan your media depending on the library type (movies, TV shows, music, etc,) automatically pair it with the appropriate metadata, and make it available for streaming via the computer.
You can combine this with the *arr suite (Radarr, Sonarr, etc) to have your torrent client automatically download new content as it comes out. Basically, the appropriate *arr program listens for when new content gets released, then automatically tells your torrent client to search for that content (based on specific rules like language, bitrate, capture method, etc) and download it automatically. This pairs nicely with Plex/Jellyfin because you can use automatic torrent management to drop the files directly into the right folders for your server to scan and make available.
It does have a few drawbacks. One of the most annoying is port forwarding. Lots of VPNs have stopped offering port forwarding, because some creeps figured out how to use it to share/trade CSAM anonymously. But Plex and Jellyfin require an open port in order to be made available outside of your network, and you don’t want to run the server+torrents without a VPN. Some VPNs allow port forwarding, but randomly assign the port every time you connect. So it may work fine for a while, but will require occasional attention when that port changes.
There’s also the issue with needing a computer that’s turned on all the time. Some people (like myself) just run it on their home desktop. But that means I needed to set up Wake On LAN to be able to boot my computer up remotely, or just be okay with letting it idle all the time and never sleep. Personally, I chose to enable WOL, so I just remote into my network and send a magic packet before trying to stream. But that’s an extra step some people won’t want to do every time. If you have an old computer sitting around gathering dust, it can be a great weekend project.
Is there a benefit to setting something like this up instead of just using some of the better free streaming sites?
It’s fun
Which sites are those? From my experience it’s hard to find 4k/Dolby Vision on those free streaming sites, which is where pirating and streaming your own stuff is the better option.
Metadata categorization of your media content
I just pirate everything on to a hard drive I plug into my TV. I don’t see the point in streaming files you already own.
If I understand your setup, when you decide you want to a new movie you have to download it, pull the hdd over to the machine, transfer it to the hdd, rename, perhaps even transcode, and then put the drive back on the TV.
In the type of setup described above or like mine, I can pull out my phone and using a very simple search all of the file handling and such is taken care of for me. I don’t ever have to worry if I have the right filetype for the device I’m on, and I can watch that from any device on my local network, or just about any device that has an internet connection. Also, while I’m watching one thing, several other people can be watching whatever else they want on their devices.
Hdmi cable.
I have a smart TV where you can just plug in a NTFS formatted USB drive and it plays perfectly. Never had to rename or transcode anything. It plays 4K files more smoothly than most computers I’ve had.
The only problem I’ve had is when I’m watching a foreign film and the subtitle file is in the wrong file format.That covers a small subset of the reason a lot of us set it up the way we have. I mean, if that is working for you, great. But you still have to move a physical device, and the ability to watch media is still limited to the location of said device.
I don’t do it now, but I’m looking to.
The main benefit for me is the app accessibility (easier to search through an app than a file system), the convenience of not needing to carry around a bunch of data all the time, and the ease of sharing it with family.
I’ll tell you, I have my setup to the point where I go to one website, subscribe to a show, and episodes of that show appear to watch on my TV same day they are released.
I also set myself up to get email alerts telling me what new episodes I have to watch when they are done being downloaded.
… Setting all that up took me awhile and will take tech skills. But now that it’s set up, it’s zero touch aside from adding new shows.
Plus, I never have to worry about trying to find where to stream at it and even if my Internet goes out I can still watch my shows
The better free streaming sites are my go-to, because I have plausible deniability, I don’t with a torrent. And unfortunately my VPN throttles you unless you start paying. Which I am thinking about going ahead and doing.
you run the program on a computer somewhere
“the cloud is just someone else’s computer”
(even if the computer is yours, whereas you have created your own ‘mini cloud’. I hate that term, it’s just a machine running software. It’s all just machines, consuming us all. screams … anyway)
I have been using Emby, which is like Plex and Jellyfin. Just another option. I don’t need bells and whistles, just want to stream my content.
Jellyfin is an Emby fork
You can use it behind a reverse proxy to avoid port forwarding.
What’s FOSS?
Free (and) Open Source Software
Plex is actually a fork of Kodi (XBMC). Kodi is still actively developed, and easily supports both local media (for example, downloaded using one of the *arrs) and streaming from various sources using addons.
That’s like saying humans evolved from monkeys. Plex and Kodi share a common ancestor, XBMC.
No it’s not. Kodi is XBMC, they just changed the name.
Edit: straight from the horses mouth https://kodi.tv/article/xbmc-getting-new-name-introducing-kodi-14/
Right, so they share the common ancestor of XBMC from around 2007.
You can literally say the same thing about any fork, and yet nobody ever does. I’ll reiterate, Kodi is XBMC - there was no fork, no split in development, only a rename.
Where can I find good tutorials for the *arr suite? I have Jackett installed for easier searching in Qbit, but I half assed that somehow into working. I would love to have auto downloads for content, especially those shows that still release episodes like a drop feed. An almost fully automated Plex would be amazing the TV show requests I get.
Tbh, all you need nowadays for most stuff is a VPN , Qbittorrent and 1337x.to
Download speeds are such that a 1.5gb film takes about a minute to download (in Europe, not sure about third world countries lol)
If you need something more obscure, look up how to add the search engine to Qbittorrent
I highly discourage 1337x. They got caught not banning a user who intentionally uploaded malware. Forgive the reddit link, but there aren’t a lot of piracy news sites.
Dude… Malware comes hand-in-hand with pirating. You just have to exercise caution and you’ll probably be fine.
Never hafta worry about malware on private trackers!
What is the alternative?
torrentgalaxy.to is pretty solid, but cya with antivirus etc
Viruses or pay for your shit? That’s the alternative.
If you don’t know how to use a computer, I agree
Yeah, because nobody’s ever embedded some sort of crypto spam in their content online. Y’all are way too smart to fall for that. 🙄
Damn. Just learned that trusting 1337x and IGGGAMES was a bad idea. Trying to teach my little pirate how to be safe on the high seas only to find out the places and people I thought were safe aren’t so.
Realdebrid costs equal or less than vpn and you don’t need to jump any hoops.
Realdebrid just finds the torrents for you though, right? You’d still need a VPN since you’re technically downloading the movie to watch it. I know a lot of ISPs send notices if you torrent a copyrighted movie
Nope. It also downloads the torrent for you and gives you download link or stream link to the video. Most of the time, the torrent is already on their cache, so it’s instantly available to you.
Wow I had no idea. How are they still running if that’s the case?
They’re more like a private storage server. You can’t see what movies they have. Technically you can only download what you ‘add’ there, but they cache everybody else’s downloads too, so your download is readily available. I’m not sure of all technicalities, but there are a few different debrid services, so there must be some way they are able to do this.
Goated thank you so much
Nevermind that shit, Stremio + Torrentio + Real-Debrid. I’m fucking done with these greedy-ass companies. I was paying Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple, Paramount , MLB.tv and HBO, and pretty content to do so, and they all continually removed content and adjusted their pricing to reduce what I was getting for my money. They finally pushed me beyond my tolerance limit a few months ago and I’ve been back to sailing the high seas for the first time in 20 years.
I have more content now, all at acceptable quality options, all with good subtitles instead of the mess HBO was, and all on the same platform instead of having to jump between 7 different apps. I’m done with them and I’ll stay done with them until they pull their heads out of their asses.
Edit: if you get a cheap computer, a Chromecast, a FireTV, or what I have - an Nvidia Shield TV, then you get even get a nifty remote controller and a good standard browsing platform for everything.
Just set this up on a cheap Onn 4k box from Walmart. Works fantastic. Also setup the Trakt integration to keep up with what I watch across multiple devices.
I haven’t heard of Trakt before, but that sounds neat. I only ever watch stuff on my TV from my couch, so I haven’t needed anything like that.
I’m like you, hadn’t pirated outside of games since early 2000s and just started again. Wait until you see the shit we have now, it’s mind-blowing how far it’s come.
And with Jellyfin if you have the upload speeds you can even host for family etc, so anyone sharing your Netflix now can just login to your Jellyfin server, for them it will be a comparable experience.
Pirating games is basically unheard of for me, unless it’s a product not readily available on a modern storefront.
Nintendo has a problem with me playing Pokemon Omega Ruby on a 3DS emulator? they are free to offer a switch version.
This is because steam is not an asshole, which is a big reason why I kind of got disappointed when they stopped offering movies. I like having those on the same platform
Do you need to set up a VPN for doing that? Or can they just log in straight up?
I’m still maining plex, and at least there, they just create a plex account, you grant access to that account, and that’s it. Don’t even have to open ports. My guess is with JF since there isn’t a central account host, you’d probably have expose some ports on your network to be able to login without a VPN.
They can just log straight in, there is an android app or they can even login via a browser
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Check out Stremio, if you are used to streaming services it is the best equivalent.
It’s like Plex, but with fewer features and a worse interface.
Facts. I run both but JF is not ‘family-ready’ and thus sits on my server, receiving updates and idling until that changes. Plex took 5 minutes of explaining and the folks have been happily using it for a few years now.
Same experience for me. Is worth the $5/month for premium access.
If you think you’ll be in this long-term, get a lifetime license. What would have got me 2 years has got me 6 and counting.
Yeah buncha haters in here but you’re right.
Personally I prefer Apple TV and infuse.
Ten bucks says anyone downvoting has no idea what XBMC is.
But it’s totally free. You don’t need app unlocks, you can have as many devices as you want, and you can hardware transcode without paying for premium.
Paid ~$100 for the lifetime license 9 years ago. So less than 93 pennies a month.
Throughout that time Emby has constantly been developed bringing bug fixes, UI improvements, and new features; while also providing excellent support as needed on the forums.
TBH I think I’ve vastly underpaid and plan to donate to the project shortly.
In that same time, I’ve seen very few meaningful updates to jellyfin. Just scrolling through their changelogs it’s mostly filled with:
New Features and Major Improvements
N/A
Release Notes
N/A
!c/opensignups @c/opensignups @[email protected] [email protected]
I think one of those should work… Sign up for a private tracker or two
Add the *arr apps into the mix and you get super low effort pirating, legit changed my life when I set it all up lol
Sorry, what are the *arr apps? Not familiar with that stuff…
Ah, my bad. I’m so used to it all that I can’t help but spit out jargon with no context sometimes 😅
I’m referring to apps like Sonarr, which basically keeps an eye on torrent/usenet providers and downloads episodes for you automatically. So you tell it you want some show, optionally set the quality you want it at, and it takes care of everything so that the episodes just show up on Jellyfin/Plex after they air and it grabs them. There’s also Radarr for movies and a whole bunch of related ones.
Thanks dude!
Just make sure you use a VPN so you don’t get a nasty DMCA notice from your ISP.
Pretty much the one upside of living where I do is ISPs couldn’t care less haha
Appreciate the heads-up anyway, very much relevant to a good portion of the folks who might stumble upon my comment :)
They’re small services that you load your libraries into, and select content you want to get and the quality of that content. Then the service goes out and finds the torrents for you and adds them to your library.
And thanks to you as well!
I’ve tested jellyfin this week on my dedicated server. It’s cool but most of my files need transcoding to be played on the browser, which my weak server CPU cannot handle. The best option I found to stream any file format without eating up all server resources on this machine is to set up a simple nginx server with autoindex streaming the files to VLC. I use the “Open with VLC” browser extension to quickly open the links. Playback performance is quite good (scrubbing is fast) and everything plays well.
Cool
I like Plex and Real Debrid too.
On it’s like Plex.
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It helps me organize what I download. I m trying *arr softwares now for content.
Piracy always rises up from service issues. This is a service issue
The trick is to pirate everything first and if it’s good then pay money afterwards to support the creators
And as an added bonus: If I buy the blu-ray, I don’t need to keep the massive 4k remuxes on my server. It’s a win-win.
This.
Bring back bookshelfs full of DVD cases (or blu-ray nowadays^^)
thats if the corporations behind it are actually paying the creators
For music, to avoid this with record companies, I use a youtube downloader to rip songs from youtube then go to shows or buy shirts. Admittedly probably harder with movies or games, though.
Piracy is a service issue. - GabeN
- Einstein
and then all corporations go suprise pikachu face when piracy is on the rise :O
like retail suddenly writing off large chunks to ‘theft’ coinciding with move to self checkout. surprise
HBO MIN
HBO MID at most
HBO AVG
I came back in here just to up vote this. Perfect!
I’m old enough to remember when HBO’s entire point was you paid for cable so you wouldn’t have ads. That was their business model.
Then sometime in the late 80s or early 90s (I dunno, that decade’s kind of a blur) they started sneaking ads in between shows, but not in the middle of shows. But you were paying a higher price, with a few ads. Then they started showing ads to everyone, and still making you pay. I’m still salty about that.
This was always going to happen. They’ll compound paying PLUS ads, and you’ll like it, because what choice do you have if all services are doing it?
Fuck them all . 🏴☠️
e: massively borked that first sentence
what choice do you have if all services are doing it?
in Australia that was the whole selling point of foxtel when it launched. these days it has more ads than free to air TV and still costs like $60 a month for the basic package. most people only use it for sport
Great example , thanks! Yeah, same thing.
Paying customers attention is so fucking valuable. People pay for something, maybe if we add ads they will pay for more things!
And most people are surprisingly not bothered by ads. So… Just criminalise the people that are, and there you go, infinite money making machine.
Thank you for being a loyal subscriber. Please hold still while we fuck you
“Thanks for the money, fuck you”
They must think so little of me, as if I’m grateful for this?
This is it isn’t it? I’d complain and cancel but they don’t care about how I feel.
maybe or maybe not. but they do care where you spend your money
Cancel it, problem solved.
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what they do is lure you in with unsustainable prices and once they got established slap you with real price. Because for the real price you wouldn’t find it worthy in the first place. But now that you enjoy it it’s more likely you’ll pay more than what you might initially do
Man, they really are like drug dealers…
Time to start sailing the high seas!
Hehe, “start”
Don’t worry, they’ll raise those prices very soon.
“I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”
Ja I got the email today, and I’m like, what new features? This is anti new features.
if you want to try your luck, I suggest contacting their customer support to notify them of this issue. I did too.
Did you cancel during that call?
Because they put your concerns in a furnace, if you didnt.
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And what did that do for you?
absolutely nothing. But they said they will inform someone of my complaint. maybe if enough people complain, they will be more likely to respond?
I’m doing everything I can to blow this up, even if some stuff leads nowhere its worth a try. I contacted press websites as well.
Customers cancelling over the shrinkflation, and leaving the feedback as to why you’re cancelling, is really the only thing that companies will respond to. Because of their fiduciary responsibility to their share holders, their share price is all that drives these decisions.
Gotcha, the expected response.
I would cancel if I were the customer, but I have a peg-leg and an eye patch already. Good luck!
ARGHHH, touch water!
They didn’t inform anyone. They laughed as they hung up. The only four words they understand are “I want to cancel”.
“Thank you for being a loyal Max customer”
“Now roll over like a good customer…”
Meanwhile the trusty pitate has none of these problems lol
I have never seen a company actively promoting that they have less to offer. Jesus Christ will capitalism please just come to a crashing halt already
