Couple of Questions Regarding my Use Case for Jellyfin

[crazedfencer]

Hello! I had a couple of questions I was hoping I could get some help with. So far everything has been going super well with Jellyfin. 

The main problem I am having is that when downloading files to tablets/phones using apps like Infuse or Findroid it is downloading the full files. Sometimes this means movies are over 30gb in size. This is obviously a problem as a lot of these devices have 32-128gb of internal storage. One of the main use cases I have for Jellyfin is to be able to download files to my kids devices to use offline. How would you folks solve this?

My limiting factor is that I dont want to just make my whole library into 720p or something as I use Jellyfin on my living room 4k TV. My initial thought was to use Handbreak or something to re-encode my media files and  make a copy to a separate location and run a 2nd Jellyfin instance only to host those smaller/lower quality files. I would then just point all my mobile devices to that 2nd instance of Jellyfin. This would allow me to have the smaller files sizes for mobile/remote viewing while still maintaining high quality files for local viewing.

Is this a sensible solution or is there a better/more elegant way to handle this?

Additionally, I am overwhelmed with the different codecs/media formats. I know there is no "best" file as when you compress the media it loses quality but what are your preferred formats that strike a decent middle ground between file size/quality?

Thanks for your help.

[TheDreadPirate]

Storage space vs quality vs codec efficiency vs client compatibility.  The never ending balancing act.

There is no easy solution to this.  Jellyfin can't transcode downloads on the fly.  AFAIK, Plex still can't either.  Regardless, you WILL need to pre-transcode.

You can keep them separate or use some of Jellyfin's functionality to have both versions together. Jellyfin currently supports multiple "versions" of a movie in a graceful way (see first screenshot below).  And that can mean resolution/quality or some other differentiator.  Shows kind of supports "versions" but not as gracefully (see second screenshot).

   
   

For movies, selecting the "version" and then download should download that version.

You could setup a separate library, but that also means having multiple results when you search for something.  And separate watch statuses for each library.

Setting up a separate instance means duplicate users, having to use another address.  You could solve the duplicate users issue with LDAP, but that's another headache.

As for how to transcode and to what formats.  Handbrake is an option.  But Tdarr can automate a lot of the pre-transcoding process.

What formats you choose depends on your device's capability, but it should be something it can decode in hardware instead of the device's CPU.

8-bit H264 is the most compatible for video and stereo AAC is the most compatibility for audio.  I'm pretty sure Findroid and Infuse can play any subtitle type directly.  If your devices can play HEVC or AV1, those are more efficient for the same quality.  The container shouldn't matter if Findroid or Infuse are the clients.

The other side of the coin is to just encode in the most efficient codec your hardware can support, find an acceptable balance between storage space and quality, and just have that version (this is what I did).

[crazedfencer]

Wow, thanks for your very detailed response. Glad to see I was mostly on the right track. I was not aware JF could deal with multiple versions like that for movies. That is good to know but the way it handles shows doesnt seem that great. As for the user duplication/watch history thing; Yeah I can see that being a problem. My initial thought is just to make group users (for a lack of a better word) for the mobile focused instance of jellyfin. It wouldnt be much different than sharing a profile on Netflix or something. I only have my family as users so a jacked up watch history shouldnt be too much of a headache.

I will have to do some research onto what formats my devices support but like you said since they are using Findroid/Infuse the container shouldnt matter. The biggest issue so far has been my TV running the Jellyfin app or using the web browser on my PC. I end up having a lot of transcoding going on. Which for some reason uses a TON of CPU even though I have a GPU installed but thats a topic for another thread by itself.

[TheDreadPirate]

Jellyfin requires that you setup GPU acceleration. We have guides for AMD, Intel, and Nvidia here.

https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/admini...eleration/

Just select your GPU vendor's page, find the directions for your OS and read carefully.

Also, when I talked about container I was specifically talking about MP4 vs MKV. Not about codecs. Container =/= codec.