the idea of signing up at plex is somewhat antithetical to a lot of selfhosters.. theres nothing plex is doing that cant be done for free with better software.

[–] TheOneCurly@lemmy.theonecurly.page 20 points 10 months ago (4 children)

To be fair that's a pretty recent development. Jellyfin apps for smart tvs are only just becoming stable enough for real use. Plex was the only option for a long time.

[–] jasep@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

The Jellyfin for Kodi add-on has been out for 3 years. I use the Jellyfin app for content when I'm away from home, but I use Kodi for a front end for all my home based clients. Works great.

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago

There's always the software Jellyfin was forked from: Emby.

It does have a paid model to support development, but with single-purchase lifetime options instead of requiring a monthly subscription.

I've been quite happy with it for the last 7 years. Their apps are pretty stable, hardware accelerated transcoding works great, it does a great job identifying content then managing/fetching metadata, and the developers and their community are responsive and helpful.

[–] neo@lemmy.comfysnug.space 1 points 10 months ago

I would argue that they're still not, until their UIs can be easily wrangled with just a TV remote.

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 0 points 10 months ago (3 children)

ha, k.

most of us have been using some form of emby/jellfin, sage(defunct), xmbc, myth(defunct) for decades.. i mean theres a huge list of not new software.

smart tvs are only used by people who cant setup their own stuff and are generally derided as garbage.

"tvs" for most of us are an hdmi input

[–] apprehensively_human@lemmy.ca 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If you look up gatekeeping in the dictionary it gives a link back to this comment.

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com -1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

then your dictionary is absolutely wrong

A gatekeeper is a person who controls access to something, for example via a city gate or bouncer, or more abstractly, controls who is granted access to a category or status. Gatekeepers assess who is "in or out," in the classic words of management scholar Kurt Lewin.

im not saying what is in and out, im point out a single, terrible product.

plex is a shitty gatekeeper, and broadcasting o everyone the many, many, many alternative products to plex sure doesnt sound like a gate

[–] stratosfear@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sage was a DVR app and live TV guide for a tuner and is ancient, hardly a competitor to plex. Xbmc and Kodi - while great - are not at all parity for Plex. Emby or Jellyfin might let me share my media with my parents in their 70s but Plex just works. Unless you live somewhere with highly unreliable internet there still is no parity to Plex.

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

haw, wrong. it was great local front end to stuff. i directly replaced it with xmbc as a drop in

you are absolutely wrong about sage. i still own and have a license.

[–] stratosfear@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I bought sage in 2003 to use with my hauppage TV tuner. I still have recordings made from it. But once I retired that htpc I stopped using it. Maybe they added functionality after that.

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

the funny thing is, i dont use DVRs ... myth tv was the last one i really had setup as dvr, and that was back in 00-04.. i realized the DVRing was a waste of time, i can just download that stuff... so i switched to SageTV because of its local file handling.

when google bought SageTV and shut that shit down i was beyond pissed.. i had custom XML all over that bitch, which is why i made sure to grab the license the developers leaked on the way the door.

[–] stratosfear@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 10 months ago

Yeah when Google bought it and killed it I just forgot about it, definitely annoying...

[–] neo@lemmy.comfysnug.space 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I wasn't aware that you could even BUY non-smart TVs anymore...unless you're using PC monitors as a TV of sorts, that is.

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"retail display panels" but ya gotta watch refresh specs

or what some of us do, just leave it on hdmi input 1, never connect to a network

[–] neo@lemmy.comfysnug.space 1 points 10 months ago

Mind throwing a shopping link my way for retail display panels?

For the second thing, if I have to, that's what I'll do.