I have a dumb TV, and a spare computer. I want a nice easy way to interface with several services. (Jellyfin, disney+ etc)
I know of Kodi, but really dislike the interface. I know I could get a USB keyboard/mouse remote thing, but that isn’t very elegent. Is there a simpler solution to this?
I’m not sure which client device you’re using, but on desktop there is the desktop player as well as jellyfin-mpv-shim which don’t rely on the browser for playback, but do use it for management, show selection etc
I think the solution is to get hardware-accelerated transcoding set up correctly.
Either that, or maybe bulk-transcode all your media outside of Jellyfin and then add it all back as alternate versions and hope Jellyfin is smart enough to choose the best supported version automatically?
(I’m in the process of setting up a Jellyfin server and noticing the same issue with some of my media.)
But with Kodi, there is zero transcoding required. I just play directly from an SMB share without the processing overhead of transcoding. So, despite Kodi’s many flaws, I’ve stuck with it.
Doesn’t that just mean the clients (running Kodi) need to have all the right codecs installed themselves? If that’s an option, then Jellyfin wouldn’t need to do any transcoding either.
The advantage of Jellyfin is that the client apps can run on things like Rokus where you can’t install Kodi and/or that have limited codec support.
The best solution at the moment is using an nvidia shield (2019) instead of a PC:
it’s tiny
it’s fanless
it’s got low power draw (5-10w)
it can do 4k, hdr, and dolby vision (most importantly, it has the best support for these among services. good luck getting 4k video from netflix, disney+, and amazon on a PC)
it has usb ports for dacs, controllers, external drives, and keyboard + mouse
you can sideload android apps including ad-free home screens, remote button remappers, SmartTubeNext as a youtube replacement frontend, and moonlight for game streaming
you’ll have the most up-to-date and best supported versions of apps like jellyfin and plex
it has pretty much the best selection of audio/video codecs, so you shouldn’t need to transcode anything
you can set up the nvidia shield remote to control tv power and volume on the tv or on a separate av receiver
Run an *arr stack somewhere on your network, install Jellyfin on the server and the Jellyfin app on the Shield and you’re golden, no need for subscriptions.
@thanevim Sonarr/Radarr, to my understanding one is for "obtaining" shows/movies and the other is for users to request things for the other program to obtain.
Yeah, that’s about right. Sonarr is for linking services for TV shows, Radarr is for linking services for movies, there are others for media types, and Overseerr is for users to request media. Servarr wiki
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