I currently have two TVs, one I use an appleTV with and the other with a googleTV HD (device formerly known as Chromecast), but they both have issues.
The jellyfin app on appleTV is messed up, it fucks up audio and subs all the time, and in general has a hard time with media that has multiple audio tracks, not using the audio I select with the remote.
The googleTV just stutters with almost everything, direct stream or transcoded doesn’t matter. All of my library is just 1080p, I have proper wifi to it, all mobile devices stream just fine.
So neither of these provide me with a solution that really works.
What solutions can you recommend, that allows for seamless navigation of jellyfin with my remote? I don’t want anything resembling a mouse/keyboard combo for navigation whatsoever.
I know people knock it, but Plex has worked without issue for me for years. They have apps dedicated to every type of media for easy browsing. It’s so simple my mom can use it without help.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Second Plex. It just works and doesn’t need any big configuration to get it running
Third Plex. It’s a bit baffling as to why it’s got such a bad rep recently because it performs its core function of serving media incredibly well, is super easy (barely an inconvenience) to setup, and there’s apps for every conceivable platform.
Yes there’s a few features locked behind a subscription (though they still sell lifetime passes, often at good discounts) and they’re trying to “legitimize” with their ad-backed streaming thing, but the core product of local media server is still very much there, and free, and isn’t going anywhere.
Exactly, and in contrast to Jellyfin it actually looks like someone with expertise in UI has worked on theirs. I personally would also prefer a monetization similar to Immich, but the lifetime pass on sale is definitely money well spent.
I don’t have specific troubleshooting advice to give, but I have been using an Nvidia Shield Pro as my main streaming device for about 4 years now. It is overpriced for what it is, but it has been rock solid for streaming via both Jellyfin and Plex.
The official Jellyfin app is definitely not as polished as Plex, but it has consistently worked for me on the Shield.
I will agree, I got an Nvidia shield pro two years ago, I was a bit afraid because it’s a product from 2019, but damn it’s been rock solid, it plays everything, it’s quite open and not limited like some other boxes, it’s even faster than the most Samsung smart TVs that I have tried, I can’t recommend it enough, even at the end of 2024 it doesn’t have any issues when playing YouTube and Plex.
I bought two like two months ago and they still hold up. I was very leery buying a 2019 model in 2024 but zero regrets (and I’ll be getting another).
I wish it had another HDMI and 2.5GBE but those aren’t deal breakers by any means.
Yup, they work awesome, it even supports upscaling to 4k direct from the shields GPU, I haven’t tried yet as I don’t have a 4k tv but it’s also nice, my favorite thing about it is the remote, the backligh is a godsend.
You may want check out Infuse for the AppleTV. I have found it fixed every audio drift and video jitter concern that I’ve ever had with Plex or Jellyfin.
You can point it either directly at an SMB share, or a library hosted on Jellyfin or Plex. The advantage of this is it caches the artwork in the library, not on the AppleTV, because the AppleTV will periodically flush its local cache, leading to long re-fetching times and waiting to watch things.
I have no recommendations for the Chromecast.
The jellyfin problem is probably it downmixing surround 7.1 really shittily. You can run tdarr to downmix surround into stereo before you watch. Kind of a pain but it’s the only workaroumd I’ve got for the shit audio
I went the other way and just set up 7.1 sound. Being able to control the music and the speech channels has been really useful.
Not a bad idea honestly. That’s my next project after a home server upgrade.
I’m not getting sync issues at all, the jellyfin client on appleTV simply doesn’t select the audio track I select when I choose something different than default. It works perfectly fine on all other devices, just not appleTV. I only have stereo devices.
What did I write in my OP to suggest audio sync issues? You’re not the first to think that’s my issue, so I must have worded something poorly…
I think there’s miscommunication. I don’t mean you’re audio is out of sync, I mean that the file being played has 7.1 as the audio track, then when jellyfin downmixes it to stereo for you speakers it sounds like absolute ass.
The “doesn’t select the right audio track” is another issue that I personally don’t have, but the downmixing one is something that seems to be baked into Jellyfin for TV.
Aah, the audio quality if fine for me, I don’t have exceptionally bad audio quality.
I use the Kodi app on my smart tv to watch movies and shows shared from my server via SMB, never had any problems, aside from green tint on some HDR encodings. My TV’s wired tho.
I’ve used a bunch of different solutions over the years, but currently I just run Gerbera and it streams my local library to my TVs because of the sheer ease. It’s not perfect, fast forward and rewind can be iffy to get working with some configurations, but otherwise it has been a smooth experience.
It has to be user friendly enough for a literal 5yo though
Since you are against using plex even with using it only locally I would suggest you look into the Jellyfin clients support. Specifically look at each client device documentation and take a look at what audio and video codex they natively support. If there is one they both support then I suggest you do some testing and stream a movie or show that is encoded with that specific format. This will let you know if it will work across both clients whether it’s a stream issue hardware issue or Wi-Fi issue.
This will prevent transcoding that can cause audio sync issues.
Edit - if that works then I suggest you convert you library to that format.
I don’t have audio sync issues at all. I have issues with appleTV using the wrong audio track when I select something different than the default. E.g. if I select Danish, it shows that it’s using the Danish track but it’s actually playing something else like Finnish or Swedish. This behaviour is only on the appleTV and no other devices.
Ahh, well I have found the Jellyfin clients to be less than perfect on appleTV. You may want to try another endpoint client if you don’t want to try another server side software.
There used to be a similar bug in the Roku jellyfin app.
If you can recreate the subtitle issue using test file 5 from this repo, it might be worth submitting a bug report. https://github.com/ietf-wg-cellar/matroska-test-files
Roku Jellyfin app has been pretty good lately, few complaints now!
Does it need to use the remote? I have a Chromecast (the casting device, not the app running device) and I use the Jellyfin app on my phone and I cast to the Chromecast. Works fine for me.
Doesn’t need to be the remote, but it does need to work independently of other devices than what’s connected to the TV. Having to cast from a device doesn’t really work with how we use TV watching in our house, especially for the kids since they don’t have their own phones or tablets to do it from.
Plex, unfortunately, is the best answer for this right now. Easiest to set up and maintain, the client apps are fine, you may have to fiddle with the Apple TV to be pain free though.
I have a few raspberry pi’s with kodi running and linked to my media served over nfs, which works well, just not as polished and fast as plex.
Personally, as soon as the Apple TV client gets fixed for Jellyfin, will probably drop plex altogether. The iOS app is stellar so not sure why it hasn’t been ported yet. I also have an easier time with my media playback with Jellyfin over plex, and you don’t need to pay for good hardware transcoding, it’s just the ui is so god awful!
I’m not touching Plex ever, so I’ll have to find another solution, or demote the appleTV to the bedroom because my wife and I watch most things in English anyway so we don’t change the audio track like the kids do.
I have to use an AppleTV for various reasons, so I settled on a simple SMB share on an old mac mini server and the (subscription) Infuse app, it’s been rock solid as a player on all devices and very low effort.
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Was looking for something a bit more elegant…An old laptop is going to look like shit
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stove them out of sight?
We have a fairly minimalistic setup around the TV, there’s nowhere to hide it which is why we originally went with an appleTV because it looks pretty decent.
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Do you know of a solution won’t boots directly to jellyfin and can ONLY be used with that?
You can also just install the libreelec os (Kodi), and install the Jellyfin Kodi addon. Haven’t tried that addon. I used to use Kodi when I had only one TV, and liked it. Now that I have 2 Android TVs, just installing Jellyfin on the TVs works fine. I might go back to rPIs and disconnect my TVs from the internet though.
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Yeah I really prefer as close to plug-and-play as possible, I don’t want to spend hours tinkering to get something that basic working.
I’ll take a look and see if it’s low effort enough.
I use Emby. It’s similar to Jellyfin, but the Apps get a little more attention to detail. Worth a try, and if you don’t need gpu transcoding you don’t need to pay.
But, if I was still using an Apple TV, I would use Infuse.
Are you hellbent on using Jellyfin? It’s basically a Kodi for dummies where they removed the best parts, kept the worst and and slapped on a pretty ui. It’s bloated behind the scenes and does have it quirks.
An alternative could be to just set up an NFS share with your media and use whatever player you like. Nova video player on Google/Android TV isn’t as pretty as Jellyfin but it gets the work done.
I’ve had zero issues with Infuse on apple tv. Easy to navigate, looks good and plays stuff on my network shares. I think there is support for adding a Jellyfin library as a source as well but I haven’t tried it.
It’s important that I can restrict certain users to specific content based on age rating, i dont want to do that manually. the server has content for both kids and adults, and my *arr stack + jellyfin works really well aside from these two devices which have quirks.
I’ve use Kodi years ago, i absolutely hated using it.
A simple and intuitive UI is important, since the kids have to be able to use it as well.
I see. The multi user support in Jellyfin is arguably one of its strengths so that’s a shame. Don’t have a good recommendation in that case.
Adult or not, Android/Google tv lacks good media centers or video players. Jellyfin, Kodi, Nova or VLC are basically your options and they are all crap in their own way. If you don’t want to watch something on Netflix, HBO etc. It’s really a bummer.
pretty UI
Lol
Beats Kodi.
Now that’s a low bar if I’ve ever seen one
With WebOS app, I’ve noticed sometimes when watching TV shows, if I select one audio track, it will
- go to the next episode
- keep the desired audio track selected
- play the original/nase starting track.
To remedy it, I have to switch from the current selected audio track and back ¯_(ツ)_/¯
As far as possible solutions to bad app behavior on your device - get a separate TV device (roku, etc) or some pc or SBC run a jellyfin app on it. You’d want to research first to see if you could use your existing remote somehow (e.g. maybe an IR receiver)
I think jellyfin offers DLNA support? You could enable it localy and see if your TV(s) can access files that way, without the jellyfin TV app as a middleman
Or just install minidlna. It works and it’s easy to set up.
Then I wouldn’t be able to filter the contents of the server based on age rating, and since it’s serving content for both adults and kids I kind of want to be able to limit some content to certain users.
Got an amazon firestick pro 4k. Have just a 1080p TV, but the pro4k hardware is just better than the other models.
Fully satisfied. Works beautiful with Jelly fin TV app.
Has amazon advertising tough, so YMMV.
I stream from Jellyfin to an Apple TV without your issues. It might be a network or configuration problem.
Have you tried Infuse, SenPlayer or other clients?
It might be a network or configuration problem.
I’m not sure how a network issue would cause the jellyfin client to select the wrong audio track? E.g. when I select Danish, it sometimes uses the Finnish or Swedish track. This only happens on the appleTV, all other devices use the selected track correctly.
I have not tried other clients, none show up when I search for jellyfin in the app store on the device, so I wasn’t aware there were others for appleTV.
As suggested above, I would try Infuse player. I recently switched from a Kodi/Jellyfin setup to an Apple TV/Jellyfin setup and I’m extremely happy with it. Infuse has a free trial, and then you can choose to pay a few different ways (they do have a rather expensive lifetime option, but it might be worth it). The Infuse app has no trouble playing directly from my Jellyfin server, no transcoding, even for full 4K Bluray rips, and yes it even supports Dolby Vision (which the native Jellyfin app struggles with). No hiccups, no issues with multiple audio tracks or subtitles, it’s just buttery smooth direct playback.
It also has a couple different ways of interacting with your Jellyfin library, so it feels completely seamless to me.
I’d rather avoid paid solutions, especially anything subscription based.
Totally understandable. I was hesitant about it too, but to me it’s sometimes worth a premium to get something that just works, and Infuse works better than any player I’ve used in the past. To each their own, good luck!
