Hey now, that extra bandwidth for downloading 4k content is really expensive, same goes for buying a third device to stream it on – HBO is really doing OP a favour here by saving them money
Don’t forget the whole point of the rebrand was to sell off the actual HBO content and fill Max with shitty reality TV. It’s the exact same thing only they don’t send you an email about it.
Shit. I saw a few shows that were on HBO Max elsewhere (Netflix?) recently and was like ??? but yeah, that makes sense. When Westworld left, I took it as a one-off but I guess not.
Jellyfin never worked great for me on my older tablet and chromecast. Always struggled with either unsupported codecs or just buffering to hell. My plex server is also on somewhat limited hardware and jellyfin could never transcode fast enough, where plex has no issue.
The Jellyfin app is much faster for me on TVs too. Plex was always chugging like it was trying to load too many thumbnails at once. Jellyfin doesn’t seem to have this problem.
Do you mean hardware encoding, because that’s what’s paywalled in Plex.
I personally migrated from a Jellyfin ecosystem to a Plex with Lifetime Pass one when building my current server - while both are highly capable media servers, Plex has, by far, the better clients.
Jellyfin requires a reverse proxy or similar to be reachable from outside the network, once that’s set up, the usability gap between the two becomes a lot smaller. And Jellyfin does, still, have some benefits over Plex - first and foremost: it doesn’t require an active Internet connection and an “ok” from a central server to fully function - it also has fewer restrictions when it comes to sharing content and a better plugin ecosystem.
Again, I think both are highly capable servers and I’m running both in parallel, even after migrating most of my personal use to Plex.
It’s the clients where it all falls down, sadly. Jellyfin’s are, even after all these years, clunky, ugly and unpleasant. The choice of supported devices and systems is also quite limited. This is where Plex shines: they have a, generally excellent, client for pretty much everything you would ever want to play your media on.
To be fair there are workarounds to getting Plex to play locally without Internet (I had to look this up because I didn’t believe you lol) but you have to set it up on the server with internet… I originally started with jellyfin but it was too clunky for me overall, Plex was way more elegant. Also I’m pretty sure Plex deprecated plugins entirely.
Plex killed their official plugin repository, but plugins are, technically, still supported. There just isn’t much life left in that ecosystem after Plex strangled it.
Ironically, it’s probably Jellyfin’s thriving plugin-ecosystem that’s holding back its clients - since anything with a native UI can’t really be used with any plugin that extends the UI feature set and vice versa.
Oh, and all “workarounds” that I know of for “offline” Plex involve essentially disabling user auth for certain IPs - which is insane. Plex simply doesn’t support local auth, it’s not an offline-capable solution. That (and some other restrictions) is why I’m still running and maintaining Jellyfin as a fallback.
Yes, it’s been a while since I made the jump, I misremembered. I also found the Jellyfin apps to work better than Plex on my LG TV. Plex was so slow in comparison. Things might have changed since then, though.
You are aware that this isn’t a lifelong commitment, right? A Plex license doesn’t make using it mandatory. In fact, had you read a bit further, you’d have seen that it’s no commitment at all, and I’m still running and maintaining a Jellyfin server simultaneously, reverse proxy and all. Not just as a fallback, but also for the things it still does better.
I migrated my household use to Plex, though, because this evil “closed source for profit app” offers an on-device user experience that is as good, if not better, than that of a commercial streaming services. This makes the rest of the household use it happily, instead of seeing it as an inferior alternative.
Jellyfin’s user experience is simply not there yet, not even close. Its clients, if available at all for the system in question, are (mostly) functional, but certainly not fun.
I had the money to spend on the evil “closed source for profit app” and it made my family’s life a little better for it - are you sure that trying to shame me for that was the right reaction?
I’m very glad to have been using Plex/Jellyfin for years, since before HBO Max and Disney+ etc were even a thing. It really is a much better experience.
When they dumped all of that discovery network garbage on there I knew my days with the service were numbered. When they canceled winning time (the one show they had left worth watching imo) and ended it with the Lakers losing, I knew it was time to leave.
A spoiler? Dude, it’s covering things that actually happened.
They just stopped making it abruptly because HBO are assholes and I wouldn’t recommend wasting the rest of your time unless you like watching unfinished stories that are concluded by blocks of text like a fucking Wikipedia article.
The plot follows actual events very closely.
I suspect if they had known they were getting the axe they wouldn’t have spent nearly the whole season detailing the year they did.
Shrinkflation is a scheme that takes subtlety to pull off. There’s some level of artistry involved in increasing prices in a way that is unnoticed by the customer.
This is so unsubtle it doesn’t even deserve to be called shrinkflation.
I really don’t want to have to go back to torrenting, but it seems that’s the only option if they keep pushing like this. I’m a camera operator, I work in the industry, my livelihood depends on movies being made. But racketeering the viewers is not how you’ll sustain an industry. Sure it’ll raise your quarterly report but it will damage your business deeply. Producers are cutting themselves a slice bigger every day, both from the viewers and the workers (look at the writers and actors strikes). We can’t make art in a system dictated by instant guaranteed returns and viewers aren’t stupid enough to pay hundreds of dollars to watch the same low effort shit over and over. The film industry NEEDS TO CHANGE!!!
Agree, and I’d add that it’s not just the film industry. It’s mostly the same shit all throughout entertainment industry as a whole. Take video games for example - each year there are assumingly AAA titles coming out half cooked at release and yet they cost more than they ever have. Thank you very much, I’d much rather just wait a year for you to fix all those bugs and I’ll buy the game at 80% off if it’s any good.
I blame it on investors quarterly reports. Movies and games take years to make. For a movie is usually 1-2years pre production 2-4 months filming 1-3 years post production. So you will see a net loss for all this time. Same with games. It’s years in the making but they want quarterly returns not possible.
Well, what do they expect? Of course there won’t be much (if any) revenue before release. If you built trust in the audience that you ship quality products from day 1, maybe more people will preorder, but the way it is now it’s rather the opposite.
I also work in the industry, light tech, and I went back to torrenting like a year ago. Feel pretty good about it. I actually had a paramount plus subscription that I cancelled after working on a paramount show. Fuck those guys.
Ohhhh I had xbmc like a decade ago, before I gave up on the aye matey lifestyle, so I’ll probably choose that over plex as well. Thanks for the info. I’m looking up libreelec now, but I was just assuming it was some other hardware solution in my last comment.
Just curious is a raspberry pi powerful enough for streaming on multiple devices in 4k? Thinking of doing a setup and sharing with my family and friends. I anyway have a pi available
I host anywhere from 1-6 streams at a time on a custom built server.. I'd doubt you're going to get what you're asking without a much bigger build. It doesn't take a crazy build for plex but if you ever need transcoding the pi can't do it. My most recent iteration was ~$1300 but the price was mostly storage.
It’ll only work if you can direct play everything and depending on your ISP upload speed, you may need to transcode any remote streams in which case a Pi will probably burst into flames. A comparable option would be a micro form factor office PC like an Optiplex with a recent gen Intel processor. The iGPU in these works great for transcoding.
If you want something more serious you can do a custom built PC with a Fractal Design case (Define 5, 6, 7 or Node series) which are made to hold a ton of 3.5" drives. Again here all you really need is a newer Intel CPU and SATA ports (and/or an LSI SAS card).
It’s more like “thanks and goodbye“ and maybe a little bit of “don’t you dare show your face around these parts if you know what’s good for you” sprinkled in for good measure.
Interesting customer retention move for a service that hasn’t been able to make much new content for the past six months and is about to see its new releases dry up.
I swear I’ve seen every single company from Netflix to Disney to Spotify to Youtube to Apple doing the same sort of thing in like the past 3 months. This is GROSS.
I can’t wait for their suprised pikachu faces when they put so much friction into using their products that piracy starts eating into their profits. Us nerds are already fed up, and when that happens piracy alternatives grow. That makes it that much easier for the general public to also sail the high seas. I give it 3 years or so before they’re all shocked and crying to congress about the problem they created
I don’t think that piracy will get to a point that it will eat into their profits. Most people want whatever is easiest, and doing the basics of torrenting in a way that doesn’t cause drama with the internet provider and then either using some kind of Jellyfin or continuous streaming setup is far beyond “easy” for the general populace. In order for piracy to get to the public, it would need to be just as simple as streaming through a TV.
Folks predicted that Netflix would see a mass exodus when they cracked down on account sharing and they actually increased accounts instead.
Piracy will definitely continue its upswing, but it is more likely that the majority of people will just watch whatever is available on maybe one or two streaming options or just slowly return to just broadcast TV or even cable. Piracy didn’t kill television when the VCR was invented, and it didn’t kill music when the first iterations of Napster and such first became known. Piracy will always be present, but it has a lot of hurdles before it really makes a dent in corporate bottom lines.
Already is as easy as streaming. There’s a site that I won’t link directly called movie web. Takes 15 seconds to search for what you want to watch and cast to your tv
Nah they’ll put out a bunch of news articles talking about how much money pirates are costing them. If they get enough public support or line the right pockets we might also see Congress crack down on this ‘scourge’ that’s probably totally linked to terrorism somehow and “must be dealt with swiftly.”
Sopa/pipa was the one and only time the American people beat the corporations+Congress. Don’t mess with our circuses is the one thing everyone agrees on.
A lot of these streaming companies are just cable companies who needed to change their business to keep up, but don’t want to change their predatory practices
“New Features” ah yes. Actually it’s an upgrade to a new features plan. They are doing you a favor. The new plan is completely free and you even gain streams from other platforms, also free. Yarr!!!
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