Casting support is still available on older Chromecast devices or TVs that support Google Cast natively, according to Netflix’s support page
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Use Jellyfin. Fill your server with treasures procured from the high seas. Watch on any device. Sync play with far away friends or family.
I tried jellyfin for about a month last year, but it lacked a lot of what I was used to in plex, so I returned to it. But lately plex is really going downhill… has jellyfin improved somewhat in this time frame?
I’m not sure what features you feel are lacking. And I haven’t used Plex at all.
For me, all I want is being able to connect to it from any device, and sync play.
I’m not sure what features you feel are lacking
As I said, it was about a year ago. I vaguely remember not liking the layout when displayed on my TV, sorting shows/episodes not working correctly, watched list not being properly updated… that and assorted little bugs that finally tired me and I went back to plex
What features? I have both and I vastly prefer Jellyfin. Plex is slow and the menus dont get right to the point.
Haven’t tried JF in over a year, but last attempt was full of errors. I’ll give it another shot.
Only reason I’m still on Plex is I have a lifetime pass, and it’s working. But it’s sure inshitifying every day… Remote play with plex pass is super easy, and plex amp was promising but replaced it with navidrome and so much happier. I’m ready to ditch Plex if JF is better now, I’ll install it next time I have time to mess with my setup.
I have had a lifetime pass for years since maybe 2014 or so? They added photo sync, that was awesome, then they took it away. That sucked.
I simply run both at the same time on my server, they point to the same library. The compose file is stupid simple (as is plex’s) so why not.
Better is relative, but I like Jellyfin better. Plex’s choices for my library layout suck. Jellyfin gets to the point, and fast.
Either way, doesn’t cost anything to run both, and set up is about 10 minutes if you already are using docker.
That’s it, the pain is coming back now. I didn’t use docker last time I tried, I don’t remember the issues I ran into, but I was running Plex on windows vm with the library on a nas share mounted locally through iscsi. Don’t ask why, it was a good setup at the time.
Plex is slow and the menus dont get right to the point
That is true. I also hate having to change each episode separatedly to change subtitle/audio track. Apropos, jellyfin didn’t have subtiles download integrated on their menus, has that changed since last year? Not having that means manually downloading and syncronizing subtitles, and life’s too short for that kind of drudgery
Jellyfin has a plug in for open subtitles. I think all my media already has subtitles so I don’t need to download them.
Changes like this are always made to “Enhance the user experience” yet the UX only goes backwards
They recently made everything massive blocks of color so now it’s impossible to read anything. Damn splash screen takes up a third of my TV
They’re made to “Enhance the
user experienceprofit”“Enhance the user experience” is just what the dev or documentation team writes when management dictates that they drop a feature. The only reasons they would have dropped it:
- Dev work vs actual customer usage (e.g. it wasn’t getting a lot of users but devs had to maintain it with each update)
- People were using it to intercept the stream and capture movies to pirate.
Every decision is about increasing profits first, and UX almost always takes a back seat to that
As a Chromecast user, it seems like Google is trying to kill this feature anyway.
What possible benefit does this offer to Netflix? Are they trying to avoid paying licensing fee or something?
Probably. Or they want to reduce their development and maintenance costs with the extra code for those devices. Or maybe they somehow make more money when users are watching on some other device/software.
IS IT extra code to maintain though? My understanding of casting is it effectively sends a URL to the receiving device. I would think there’s a negligible amount of development spent on maintaining it. And every media app under the sun supports it, now except for Netflix. 🤦
In that case maybe Google was gathering too much insight on the content Netflix users were watching. I’ve heard that Amazon (for a while) stopped including product information in their order confirmation emails because Google was gaining product purchase trend data.
This is a VERY interesting thought. I hadn’t considered all the data collection likely available to Google as a result of the casting protocol. This is definitely plausible.
Lol why?
Genuinely seems pretty arbitrary given you need to use their app to start the cast anyway
The fact that casting to older devices is allowed on the expensive plan but not the ad-supported one offers a clue.
Because fuck you, that’s why. I’m sure they will re-introduce the feature behind a paywall soon.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Once you tell a company that you are willing to pay for something more than once, prepare to get fucked, because that’s all you’re gonna get. And not the fun kind.
Over the last weekend I was surprised to learn that you can’t stream from the mobile web interface of at least some, if not most, of the streaming apps.
I was gonna say this could be a way to make account sharing more annoying, so say if you go to a friend’s house and you gotta fiddle to log in with the remote instead of picking up your phone and starting a cast they might be motivated to get their own subscription.
But it seems you can still log into an account by scanning a QR Code, so… ehh???My understanding is they already made it more annoying. Your devices have to connect to the home accounts “home” wifi within a certain amount of time or that device gets locked out.
I quit Netflix when they announced the pilot program for removing account sharing in South America, and I stand by that decision to this day.
I guess I don’t do the casting thing much, but what would the application have to do with it? I mean you cast the presentation from the device, does it care what is on the screen at the time?
Yes. DRM
I had no idea. Stupid drm. My device dammit. It will play where I want it to.
Thou shalt buy a smart tv or other device that we can pull metrics from and force advertising to.
I’m glad we only have old chrome-casts then because we don’t have any smart TVs and might never get one either if it’s possible. The little I’ve interacted with them, they seems to be a real pain in the ass. Some/all of them collect loads of data as well. NO THAN YOU. Yes, I might be old and grumpy :c
Yeah… There goes my subscription. I’m casting everything to Chromecast on my older TV.
I thought for Chromecast the “casting” part is just telling the Chromecast what to play. Do you need your phone on while Chromecast shows content?
You need the phone for any controls issued to the Chromecast like volume, subs, pause, seek, etc… But you don’t strictly need it once the video has started playing, presuming you’re not using any control commands.
Thanks for the details, seems like that may be why the older Chromecasts are still supported.
I mean, you still need it, the phone has to be on and connected to the same wifi as whatever it’s casting to.
Nah you can turn the phone off once the video has started. I only know this because my kids have regularly failed to charge the ‘phone that we only use for Chromecast to the tv’ and it sometimes dies while they’re watching something. Keeps playing until the end.
As if I needed another reason to never get netflix again. 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
enshittification
Imagine having Netflix nowdays. Just pirate all the movies.
But yea, complain about ads, price and casting as you keep paying them.You have to understand that streaming services are not your friends! They will rise prices, take off features and goes on.
Between their new interface and this, it’s like they are actively trying to get you to use it less.
Keep paying them but use it less = more profit.
That’s a nice theory. But if I use it less I may not continue paying for it. That’s certainly worth considering if you’re Netflix.
Yup, exactly what I was thinking. They’re no longer under any obligation to make their product easy to use.
Awesome. Another reason to never give them money again. 👍
Hmmm… still works fine from the Plex app
