Hi, All –

I’ve been using Jellyfin on and off for the last month or so, trying to migrate away from Plex. Jellyfin’s server, web, and mobile applications have all been great, and aside from some small quibbles and quality of life things that Plex does, I have no complaints. It’s never been a hassle to work with or use.

Except for the Android TV app. I have two Shield TVs (2019 tubes) and while Jellyfin has been outperforming Plex in terms of playback/transcoding, the app itself is insanely frustrating from an accessibility/usability standpoint. There are some quirks I can live with and accept as it’s still a young application in active development. But a few critical problems make it an absolute nightmare for everyone in the house.

The two big issues are: no text titles on the movie/tv series library screens and auto-play next episode frequently replays the episode we started from. Another big irritation is when it auto-skips an intro, the audio is desynced, but that’s a plugin and something I can disable, and we can survive without it.

Can anyone recommend an alternative app for Android TV that works well with Jellyfin and maintains watched/next up status? So far, all I have found is Kodi, but I’ve had bad experiences with it in the (distant) past, and recent anecdotal evidence implies it could bring its own set of problems.

Thanks!

  • 1hitsongMEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    I’ll upvote, but won’t be much help to you as we’re a Roku family.

    • Naate@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Sadly, phone/tablet only at this point. I may give it a go anyway, but I’m not expecting much bc it’s meant for touch, not keyboard/remotes

  • Chaphasilor [he/him]@feddit.nlEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    If you find a good skin for Kodi, the Jellyfin integration actually works pretty well. Also supports controlling playback from the mobile app.

    • Naate@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, that’s what I finally settled on. My only gripe is that it doesn’t sync with the homescreen/launcher.

      My initial test with Kodi gave me xbmc flashbacks, and felt like I had gone back in time. But a more modern skin and different ui sounds make a huge difference

        • Naate@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Yeah. It’s weird. Sometimes a show will pop up to load via jellyfin, which I didn’t use.

          There are still some design choices in Kodi that I don’t like (e.g. media continues playing in the background, and messes up the home navigation), but I just need to search their wiki for answers.