Plex has announced a massive price increase on the service’s Lifetime Plex Pass. On July 1, the lifetime subscription option will go from $249.99 to $749.99, an increase of 200%. The price hike will only apply to new subscribers, with no changes to monthly or annual subscription pricing.

  • Lonewolfmcquade@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    I don’t know why anyone would pay that instead of using Jellyfin. I’ve had my server up for years now and it works great.

    • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      18 days ago

      Last I looked, jellyfin auth and public facing security were less than ideal.

      How far has that come in the last few years? I have plenty of people using my Plex and it’s been secure. I had heard a public facing Jellyfin wasn’t super secure.

      Honestly, 95% of the reason I use Plex is so I don’t have to manage user passwords and troubleshoot issues for my friends and family. I just grant access.

      • Lonewolfmcquade@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        I only need my server to work locally so I haven’t messed with that part personally. But I’ve read that setting up tailscale is straightforward and works fine. There are many other solutions to the problem. I would definitely invest a lot of effort before paying for Plex.

          • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
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            18 days ago

            Unfortunately, that’s probably not gonna happen without some new hardware.

            You could setup a wire guard at the router (can you setup tail scale on a router? idk). If she’s renting the ISP router, replacing that could save a 100+ a year, depending on how much the isp is scamming her for it.

            or you could repurpose a minipc/nuc from bay and set up a jellyfin streaming box with tailscale.

            If you have the extra hardware, you could also setup a local server with her jellyfin and use wiregaurd/tailscale to remotely connect to it and run backup/sync during off-hours.

            • W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              18 days ago

              So, no answer because I can’t. I’m not replicating buying hardware for all of the people who are on my plex account to move them to some free software because all y’all who shout “Jellyfin” do so because you do t want to pay for anything.

              Why doesn’t anyone ever mention Emby? Oh, right, because you have to support the project and no one wants to do that.

              Plex isn’t in the right here, but yelling Jellyfin ever. Single. Time. Is like using a hammer to tighten a screw; it’s not always the right tool for the job and tall look like morons for just blindly parroting what others say.

              • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
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                17 days ago

                Bro, if you want to use Emby, nobody is stopping you. Jellyfin is the popular solution because it is open source. Emby isn’t a project, it’s a product just like plex is a product. Both Emby and Plex started as free methods to host your media and converted to a paid closed source solution. Jellyfin is a fork of Emby from before they moved to closed source and remains free and open to this day.

    • |IlI|lIIl|IlIll|Il|IllI|@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      I haven’t checked in on Jellyfin for a while now, but don’t they still have issues with hardware transcoding support?

      Not to mention the lack of software clients on other platforms for just playback that Plex has been established on for years and even multiple device generations like with PlayStation, Roku, Fire Stick, etc.?

      Also you have to configure your own reverse proxy / Tailscale set up to securely access a content library remotely, right - as opposed Plex’s relatively simpler remote access configuration?

      • warm@kbin.earth
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        18 days ago

        Surprise, surprise, a paid product with salaried developers has more features than a volunteer project!

        More people using Jellyfin, more people who will contribute, through code or donations. It’s worth a downside to swap over.

        • W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          18 days ago

          More people using Jellyfin, more people who will contribute, through code or donations.

          Doubt.

          What about Emby? Why is that never mentioned?

          • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
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            17 days ago

            Because Emby is a closed source application and Lemmy is an open source platform with community member who prefer open source solutions to closed source. Your out here screaming at Linux bros “why not choose apple??”

  • uuj8za@piefed.social
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    18 days ago

    I wonder if instead of Jellyfin + Tailscale, people should be doing Jellyfin + Netbird.

    Netbird offers a reverse proxy, so you can easily expose Jellyfin to the public Internet and not have to jump through hoops for friends and family…

    https://docs.netbird.io/manage/reverse-proxy

    At least, in theory… I haven’t tried this setup yet, but I’m thinking about it…

    I bought my parent’s an Android TV, just so they could install Tailscale on it. Unfortunately, Android TV keeps killing Tailscale or doesn’t launch it on boot. They’re old, so they can’t really troubleshoot VPN issues.

  • MynameisAllen@lemmy.zip
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    18 days ago

    Honestly if you’re a smaller server, or anywhere decent at tinkering Jellyfin is the better product at this point

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      I tried switching and I’ll try again. But getting https reverse proxy was a lot of moving parts that I never got working.

      The instructions were a long chain of learning:

      Install ngnx for reverse proxy

      Ngnx only available as docker

      Install docker

      Docker not working because I don’t understand it.

      Install podman

      Give up and go back to 3d printing where I have a backlog of stuff that actually needs to be done.

  • mycodesucks@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Pro-tip: If the company hasn’t already been around for over 100 years, NEVER buy a lifetime pass for ANYTHING.

    • CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca
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      18 days ago

      I bought a lifetime membership for $99 about 20 years ago. Never had one regret.

  • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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    18 days ago

    I already have lifetime but there have been increasingly more and more yellow/orange flags recently.

    For you jellyfin folk: Is there a good solution to being able to cache/download episodes/movies ahead of time for “offline mode” with any of the android clients yet? Last time I checked that was a pain point and most solutions boiled down to “just download the file and use VLC”. At which point… why am I running a media server when I can just mount a samba share at home?

  • BeUnique@lemmy.zip
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    18 days ago

    That’s just gonna drive lazy people to learn how to use something open source like Jellyfin.

    • JigglySackles@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      Lazy ones will just keep paying monthly. Industrious ones might move to jellyfin. The main thing this will do is separate a few fools from their money get people to stop buying lifetime passes.

  • |IlI|lIIl|IlIll|Il|IllI|@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    At this point, I think we all can see the critical tipping point of enshittification writing on the wall for Plex.

    I know everyone says Jellyfin, but given how easy Plex still handles hardware transcoding on many common current standard NAS configurations as well as the somewhat non-standard network configurations needed to otherwise easily yet securely access content remotely from external locations, not to mention the decent UX and deep integration across all client platforms whether web, iOS, Android, Smart TV, and even things like PlayStation and Xbox hardware, but do others here have some any thoughts on how to jump ship to get 1:1 features here at some point?

    Many people have been on Plex for more than a decade and have seen it slowly try to reposition its business model to one that is leaning toward something more akin to a streaming subscription rather than a simple personal content library software… but I still have yet to feel the need to switch… at least not yet.

    • Q@piefed.social
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      18 days ago

      I was an early adopter to Plex, came over from Boxee when it was a thing and bought a very inexpensive lifetime pass.

      I jumped ship about a year ago to jellyfin. I use tailscale and just help people set it up. After initial setup, it’s a toggle and start jellyfin and it functions pretty close to Plex. My users use the Onn box or Nvidia shield. Almost nothing has to transcode. I had issues with poorly encoded mp4 files but mkv streams flawlessly without transcode. Transcode itself is limited by graphics chip.

      One note, I don’t add people to my tailscale, each user has their own tailnet and then I join it to mine by inviting them to my server. This gets around the 3 user limit.

      Overall, some annoyance and pain but not bad and people went along with my plan and now it’s just normal.

      My thing was, it’s my server. If they want what I have then buy an Onn or whatever and spend 15 minutes setting things up. Or don’t. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

      • NekoKoneko@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        How does it work on TVs? You start Tailscale on the TV, and have to toggle it every time you use Jellyfin?

      • Fiery@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        18 days ago

        These days the user limit is at 6 users. That could be large enough for a family, though not quite sufficient if you want to share with a whole bunch of friends .