I’ve been wanting to ditch Plex for a long time now, but there are a number of things in my way.
One of the main ones is the fact that I don’t know if it’s possible to migrate data such as what has and has not been watched. Just my anime collection alone is comprised of a little under 450 series, with many thousands of episodes. Not to mention sizable collection of regular cartoons, tv shows, etc. Keeping track of what I have already watched was the main motivator of finally moving to a media server 5 or so years ago, rather than continuing to just watch everything in VLC like I had been doing for many years before that.
So yeah, first question is whether or not there is a way to migrate all of that data. And any other data that can be migrated. There are more than a few titles, posters, etc that I had to set manually because the information scaped by Plex was wrong. I’d rather not have to do it all over again.
Next would be a question about subtitle/audio track management. With Plex, I can use PastaTool to batch set the audio track and subtitle for a single episode, a whole season, or an entire series, all at once. As you might guess, anime is my primary media consumption on Plex. So just changing some “default language” setting just isn’t good enough. The audio track language/title is often either unamed or named inconsistently, so it often never works. And for subtitles, you have the same issue, except you have to also include the fact that there can, and usually is, two or more English subtitles for dialogue, signs(on-screen text), commentary, etc. It’s far more enjoyable to take 30 seconds to batch change an entire series to the correct audio and subtitles for spending your day off watching 40 episodes of a show, than it is to have to manually change them every 20 minutes when the next episode starts. Is there a way/tool to do this on jellyfin?
The other main concern is transcoding. I watch on a desktop with a TV as a monitor. Not on Mobile/Android, not on some trash smart tv. So with Plex, I can only use their desktop app on Windows, because it is the only one that will direct-play videos without any transcoding. Plex in the browser refuses to play videos without transcoding, and I vaguely remember trying to access Plex libraries from other stuff(maybe Kodi), which would also not play without transcoding. My NAS hardware does not remotely have the power to transcode video. And quite frankly, it shouldn’t have to. It’s 2023. Every device I own is more than capable of playing every format, codec, etc that I could possibly need. And I don’t stream outside of my local network, so data rates are really not a concern either. So basically, what are my options for direct-play with jellyfin, if any?
And the easy question. Every time the Internet goes down for many hours, which with Comcast is apparently a constant occurrence, Plex decides that I don’t get to watch my own media, on my own server, on my own network, in my own home. When my Internet shits the bed, will I be able to keep watching my stuff, or will jellyfin throw a hissy fit and refuse to work, like Plex does.
And any other tips and tricks for migrating from Plex to jellyfin without having to do countless hours of manually configuring/editing my massive library, would be helpful. I’d really like to make the move. Aside from the issues I mentioned, there is also the fact that they keep shoving unwanted features down my throat, and making absolutely terrible UI changes with no way to change it back.
So yeah, first question is whether or not there is a way to migrate all of that data.
JellyPlex-Watched is exactly what you are looking for.
I don’t think there is a way to migrate the posters but I could be wrong.
Is there a way/tool to do this on jellyfin?
For audio and subtitles there is a setting for Jellyfin to remember which ones you want for a specific series so you select it for one episode and it will keep using it for subsequent episodes. No external tool required. I’m not sure if they are enabled by default but you can find “Set audio track based on previous item” and “Set subtitle track based on previous item” under the Playback settings.
The audio track language/title is often either unamed or named inconsistently, so it often never works. And for subtitles, you have the same issue, except you have to also include the fact that there can, and usually is, two or more English subtitles for dialogue, signs(on-screen text), commentary, etc.
Part of your problem here is also just bad sourcing. If the releases you’re downloading are incorrectly labeling their tracks those releases are probably not worth grabbing. I would avoid whichever ones those are. When they’re done correctly both Plex and Jellyfin (and almost any other player) will correctly select Japanese+Full Subtitles or English+Signs/Songs automatically.
So basically, what are my options for direct-play with jellyfin, if any?
Jellyfin Media Player on desktop, Findroid on Android, Swiftfin on iOS.
It’s 2023. Every device I own is more than capable of playing every format, codec, etc that I could possibly need.
That’s not Jellyfin or Plex’s fault. Especially with anime most is in HEVC which is not supported by most browsers because of patents/licensing issues. Chrome and other Chromium based browsers added support recently but if you use Firefox that is probably the issue.
When my Internet shits the bed, will I be able to keep watching my stuff, or will jellyfin throw a hissy fit and refuse to work, like Plex does.
All accounts on Jellyfin are local so it works perfectly fine offline. My internet actually just went down for a couple hours yesterday and Jellyfin was the only thing I was able to watch.
And any other tips and tricks for migrating from Plex to jellyfin without having to do countless hours of manually configuring/editing my massive library, would be helpful.
One recommendation I have is just run both Plex and Jellyfin at the same time. You can point them at the same folders and they won’t interfere with each other. Then if you end up not liking Jellyfin you can continue using Plex. Something that also helps with recognizing files correctly is if you include the imdb, TVDB, or TheMovieDB IDs in the file names. If you use the *arr apps they can rename them for you. For example all of my files have names like this so it is impossible for them to be misidentified:
Monogatari - S02E01 - Karen Bee Part 1 [imdb-tt1480925] [tvdb-102261] [Bluray-1080p] [x264] [FLAC 2.0].mkv
Blade Runner 2049 (2017) - [imdb-tt1856101] [tmdb-335984] [Bluray-2160p] [x265] [TrueHD Atmos 7.1].mkv
Thanks for the info. Looks like pretty much everything important has a solution. If the subtitle/audio track settings you mentioned work well enough, then that’s a good bonus, not having to load up a separate tool in a browser every time. And yeah, I was planning to run the two side-by-side for a bit to test, and to make sure that everything I want properly replicated gets done, even if I have to do some of it manually. I’m hoping to eventually ditch Plex entirely, it’s just so bad, and they keep making it worse. Next, I’ll have to go have a look around at any other mods/add-ons/etc that are available and see what else I can do.
IDK if Plex has a setting for this, but on Jellyfin you can turn on a setting to keep metadata in .nfo files in the same folder as the content files themselves, as well as artwork in the same folder.
If Plex can do that, Jellyfin ought to just automatically detect everything. Likewise if you use Sonarr/Radarr and everything’s metadata is correct there, you could just turn on .nfo file creation and put all the metadata in there and Jellyfin will automatically pick it up.
Actually, I just finished importing all of my media to jellyfin a few hours ago, and just opened Plex and jellyfin side to by side, and manually verified everything. Took maybe an hour and a half to carefully look through everything, and just listened to a podcast in the meantime. Only had to manually identify maybe 10 anime, change cover art for 4 or 5, and I was good. Setup the docker version of that jellyPlex-Watched tool, let it do it’s thing for another hour, and I’m basically now fully moved over to Jellyfin and ready to go.
And yeah, first thing I did was turn on the nfo file setting. Thankfully, I don’t put anything into my library without first manually organizing/naming the internal folder structure, and then using the RenameMyTVSeries app to rename the actual files using data from tvdb. So as long as I have Plex/jellyfin set to be forced to prioritize metadata from tvdb, it is almost always detected correctly. Sometimes it’ll decide to identify an anime like One Piece or Witchblade as the live-action show instead, since they have the same name. But that rarely happens, and only needs to be fixed once. And with now having those files sitting in with the actual media files, if I ever have to make another move like this in the future, it should be that much easier.
Hey! Glad to hear it worked out
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Thank you for the JellyPlex Watched link! I was wondering if there was something like that! I am running both, and have been for a while. Never dug too deeply into it, but I just find that Plex works better for some shows, Jellyfin works better for others. Same media folders though, so I was going to post that OP can/should just do that.