Implement true 'Direct Play' when using 'External Player' to reduce network routing

[TheDreadPirate]

I'm not a developer, but my assumption for requiring the jellyfin server to mount the network share has to do with client limitations for communicating with the network share. For example, if you are enforcing a particular SMB protocol and SMB encryption, will the client support it? Does Jellyfin have to bundle SMB support with jellyfin? Now the devs have to maintain that.

By having the operating system handle the network share, the Jellyfin devs no longer have to maintain that within the Jellyfin project's code.

Additionally, SMB is NOT a streaming protocol. And Jellyfin is not simply sending a file to the client. It is streaming the file to the client in chunks using the HLS protocol. With all the flexibility that protocol enables that SMB simply can't.