Creating your own streaming service is not impossible. With a solution like Plex, it’s even very easy. With Jellyfin everything is even easier and more complete.
Building your own streaming service isn’t a dream: it’s entirely possible, whether it’s your movies, TV series, or music. And for this you only need a disk drive, a PC and a fairly stable Internet connection. Existing software solutions will do all the work for you. Like Plex, or the one we’re interested in today, Jellyfin.
Why Use a Media Center?
If you’ve heard of Plex, you’re probably already familiar with such apps. Today we are interested in Jellyfin, completely free and open source, which takes care of everything. Jellyfin turns a folder into an interactive content library. You can browse your entire collection just like you would on Netflix. Jellyfin will even scan everything to give you a synopsis, title, trailers, and even automatically download subtitles.
Once the app is downloaded and installed on your iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or Smart TV, your media will be visible everywhere wirelessly as long as you are on the same Wi-Fi network. You can then stream the movie or series. on your iPhone while you’re in bed, with your data on your computer in your office. If you’re out and about, you can stream your content outside, but you can also download it directly to your device.
Don’t get carried away by media servers
Once you dive into the world of media servers, it’s easy to get carried away. I’m going to buy a special machine like Synology’s with hard drives and a RAID system for backup. But if you’re just starting out, it’s best to use what you already have, which is your computer.
The only important investment is good hard drives, reliable and high capacity if you’re going to leave your PC running. For much rarer use, you can use regular hard drives.
How to set up Jellifin
Before starting, you can create logical folders “Movies”, “Series”and “Music”. As long as the files are properly named, you won’t have any problems. Start by installing the server application on your computer.
Set a username and password (optional but recommended). Remember these credentials, you will need them to connect client devices for streaming.
Then choose a folder according to your media type and let Jellyfin do the work. In a few minutes you will see your movies, series and music appear with their posters and descriptions.
It’s time to install Jellyfin on clients. Go through the list of official clients for all platforms and choose the right one for you. When you run a client application on the same Wi-Fi network, Jellyfin automatically scans the server. If you’re connected to the same network, select your PC name, enter your username and password, and voila: you can view all your files on your PC from the client device!
How to set up the system
Now that the basic configuration is done, you can play around with the settings. Almost everything is customizable. You can change the metadata sources and even edit them manually. In the settings, you can also change the subtitle source and more. What’s more, you can go to the Plugins section to add a whole bunch of features to the Jellyfin app. Tek Syndicate details the main parameters in their video below.
To download subtitles automatically, you need the OpenSubtitles plugin. You can activate it via “Administration”> “Dashboard”> “Plugins”> “Catalog”. Once added, enter your username, code, and OpenSubtitles API key, which can be obtained from the OpenSubtitles account page.
Jellifin vs. plex
Plex, the market giant, is the most obvious option when it comes to media servers, and for good reason. Simple and intuitive design and easy handling. The solution is available everywhere and works flawlessly.
But Plex has drastically cut back on the features of its free offering – offline downloading and streaming can be accessed with a $5/month Plex Pass subscription. That, and the fact that Jellyfin offers a faster and less cluttered interface – and more with the community and plugins – for free, makes it hard to choose Plex over Jellyfin.
The aspect where Plex retains an advantage is its remote access feature, which allows you to access the library from anywhere and share it with your loved ones. The Plex Pass feature takes all the complexity out of remote access down to a few simple details. While this is possible with Jellyfin, it is not native – in particular, you must use Tailscale -. If you’re interested, follow this step by step guide.