2023-11-25, 10:22 PM
Every few years I look at media server options to see if anyone has adopted a logical UI that would help me navigate my content. Every time I am disappointed.
As I'm upgrading my Unraid server, I looked again and was initially excited about Jellyfin, but after much Googling it seems once again my hopes are dashed.
I have many many thousands of media files, but every option out there seems to just put everything into one or two big buckets, like "movies" and "tv shows". To me this seems insane, and I am forced to use a secondary directory/file interface (via Kodi these days) so I can navigate around my library. This approach is functional and works well, but it's text based and I'm missing out on the graphics and metadata that the software is designed for.
The behavior I expect is to be able to click on a "tv shows" icon, for example, and see icons for "comedy, drama, mystery, documentary, ..." etc. If I then click on "documentaries" I might see "nature, space, history, ..." etc. Yes, I know there's a search function (if you are looking for a specific thing), but sometimes (in my case, almost always), I prefer to browse. I love to accidentally discover something I have not watched in years!
It looks like Jellyfin can't do this either! I don't understand how anyone can live without this basic functionality. I keep thinking "surely someone has fixed this my now", but no luck so far.
I must be missing something. How do YOU use Jellyfin to manage your content and navigate around it?
If Jellyfin can't do this, do you know of an alternative that can?
TIA for your insights.
As I'm upgrading my Unraid server, I looked again and was initially excited about Jellyfin, but after much Googling it seems once again my hopes are dashed.
I have many many thousands of media files, but every option out there seems to just put everything into one or two big buckets, like "movies" and "tv shows". To me this seems insane, and I am forced to use a secondary directory/file interface (via Kodi these days) so I can navigate around my library. This approach is functional and works well, but it's text based and I'm missing out on the graphics and metadata that the software is designed for.
The behavior I expect is to be able to click on a "tv shows" icon, for example, and see icons for "comedy, drama, mystery, documentary, ..." etc. If I then click on "documentaries" I might see "nature, space, history, ..." etc. Yes, I know there's a search function (if you are looking for a specific thing), but sometimes (in my case, almost always), I prefer to browse. I love to accidentally discover something I have not watched in years!
It looks like Jellyfin can't do this either! I don't understand how anyone can live without this basic functionality. I keep thinking "surely someone has fixed this my now", but no luck so far.
I must be missing something. How do YOU use Jellyfin to manage your content and navigate around it?
If Jellyfin can't do this, do you know of an alternative that can?
TIA for your insights.