We are also changing how remote playback works for streaming personal media (that is, playback when not on the same local network as the server). The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature. This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources. This change will apply to the future release of our new Plex experience for mobile and other platforms.
Jellyfin allows you to download whatever you want to your local device. But in a world of streaming, it seems to be a much smaller usecase. I take my tablet camping with me all the time, download some shows via Jellyfin and watch via Jellyfin. Maybe you’re using the term “caching” differently from the use case, but if local files is what you’re after, it absolutely does it. Just click download in a couple of different locations.
Yeah, I don’t know what that dude’s on about. My kids download stuff from jellyfin to their tablets all the time for road trips.
Did they? Or is that still the old hack of “just download the raw file. Your tablet is just a computer”?
Because I didn’t see it advertised on the main web page and a quick google got me to https://github.com/jellyfin/Swiftfin/discussions/364 which is open and abandoned tickets for the ios apps.
https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-offline-downloads?pid=16373#pid16373 suggests it is also in the same boat for android. You can find workarounds but they aren’t using jellyfin.
Which is “fine”. I watched WAY too many movies over the years with VLC on a laptop. But… why are we using a shim to treat a library as a streaming service in that case? Which gets back to Jellyfin just not actually being a Plex alternative for the majority of users.
Oh no! Please GOD, anything but tHe rAw fIlE!!
Seriously though, wtf did I just read? That can’t possibly be your real stance, can it?
This is a huge problem. The blueray remux might be 80 gigs. Most children’s devices will already be filled with other crap.
I run ffmpeg on my phone. Alternately, I could shrink the file on my server and then download it without much trouble. You’re in a vanishingly small subset of users who know enough to care about file-size and know what can be done about it, but can’t be bothered to do it themselves.
I was avoiding suggesting getting more storage, but it sounds like in your case, keeping a 720p x265 version of each file(~1gb per movie) on-hand would cost you nothing.
Alternately I could keep using plex.
I mean, I bought the Lifetime Plexpass when it was on sale years back, so I have little reason to change my own setup, but I still have even less reason to stan them at Jellyfin’s expense.
Seriously, one is a paid service executing rug-pulls, and the other is a free and open-source project. This level of nit-picking at Jellyfin is a shit stance to take.
I’m not so much nitpicking Jellyfin as I am highlighting how crucial transcoded downloads are for my use case, and attempting to get you to have empathy for that use case.
Like, based on the headline I was ready to try out Jellyfin because fuck Plex, but alas, I can’t bail just yet.
Maybe being silent on the matter is best, people asking for features is a dumb way to improve software.
Your kids will be ok without the 4K60 version of Paw Patrol.
Correct, they could do without, which is why I rely on Plex’s transcoded downloads to cram a cross-country flight’s worth of stuff onto their iPads.
Good suggestion though.
Or you just get a smaller version to begin with and save your hard drive space and your compute time.
You’ve kind of keyed in on one of the things I was hesitant to say:
There are two big uses for an “offline” media library.
Some people just use it for all the stuff they grabbed off the pirate bay (probably avoid TPB in 2025 but…). You don’t really care about quality and just want to consume media.
Others, like myself, primarily use it to rip/back up their blu rays and UHDs and the like. If I am watching on my TV in the living room? I want that to be the highest quality I have available and I want to revel in every shadow gradient and so forth. If I am watching it on my computer? I don’t need anywhere near that much detail. And on a tablet? Compress that shit like an exec at netflix just saw the storage arrays.
That is the benefit of transcoding and offline caching. It means you, as a “server”, just focus on backing up your library/finding the best quality rips or whatever. And you, as a “user”, don’t have to worry about figuring out how many different versions to keep so that you always have an appropriate version for whatever your use case is that week.
You might be right, it might play in an external player. I don’t recall that or didn’t notice. We’re a few months from the last camping season. If it does play in an external player, seems like an inconvenience vs a dealbreaker, but I get it. We all have our things. I would argue that it’s maybe a big deal for you and not a majority of users. Maybe a small but focused minority.
As I was curious, Findroid gives you an android client that allows offline mode and downloading/playing/removing movies from the client.
Seems Infuse Pro (paid) version also has support for it if you’re an iPhone user.
edit: I see the discussion regarding filesizes and I believe that Findroid is downloading the raw file in the background, so for those that wish for smaller transcoded versions in the cache it isn’t a solution. I don’t own any apple devices so can’t tell how Infuse handles it.