Using Jellyfin on TV

[ajp_anton]

I'm trying to set up Jellyfin on a computer connected to a TV, which can be navigated only by a keyboard. Currently trying the official JMP, but it feels like this use case has never even been thought of.

- Navigating by the arrow keys is very choppy. There's no scroll animation when the screen scrolls, so with every keypress it feels like I teleported to some other part of the page, even though it just scrolled a tiny bit. I've enabled the smooth scroll setting, but it didn't do anything.
- Navigating the library is difficult. I'm trying to migrate from Jriver Media Center, and there you just start typing, and when you stop typing, it will jump to what you typed. Just the first letter or two is enough to get you where you want. With JMP, there's no such thing, and you're left with mashing the arrow keys to navigate to your movie that starts with a Z. There's search, but it's also unnecessarily difficult to navigate to, and as it doesn't let you jump to a certain point in your library, you have to know exactly what you're looking for.
- Choosing subtitles is very unintuitive. When choosing a movie, there's the drop-down menu for the available subtitles, but it's unreachable by arrow keys unless you "know the trick", which is very unnecessary. You default to the play button, but pressing down jumps past the subtitles to the tags. You have to first press right to the trailer icon, and then down, because apparently the page is a grid and the drop-down is in the second column.

This is just what I've gathered only after scanning my library, before I've even really started using it, so there's probably more issues coming. But are these solvable? Have I just missed something obvious? I'm using the Display Mode = TV setting already.

[TheDreadPirate]

If this is a PC connected to a TV, Kodi might be a better client since it has a more TV centric interface.

You'd need to install the Jellyfin for Kodi plugin in Kodi to make it work well with Jellyfin. Or is it Jellycon. I forget how each plugin is different.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

I've also been using a computer connected to a TV to use my Jellyfin server, but with MPV Shim. I just use a mouse to browse Jellyfin (with some mouse buttons mapped to some keyboard keys to control MPV Shim). You don't really need a keyboard unless you want to search for something, but Windows does have a virtual keyboard that you can bring up on screen for cases where you only have the mouse on hand.

You say you can only use a keyboard? Is it due to space constraints? Why not get one of those Logitech wireless keyboards that have a touch pad attached to the side? That way you could also browse with a mouse and switch away from the TV display mode on the browser.

You could use the Jellyfin phone apps as a "smart control". Any Jellyfin client can cast to any other client as long as they're in the same local network. So you could just have JMP open on the TV, then use your phone to browse and have JMP display on the TV whatever page you're viewing on the phone. The cast option will even give you basic pause/play & skip controls to control the other client.

You could even take this concept a bit further. What about this idea?:

Install MPV Shim onto the computer you have connected to the TV. MPV Shim will always be waiting in the background until you cast a video to it. It will only pop up to play the video and exit from view when the video is done or you quit it. You can have some sort of wallpaper(s) being displayed on the TV to act as filler while MPV Shim waits for you to cast a video. You then browse Jellyfin with your phone and cast to MPV Shim and watch as it plays on the TV. When you're done watching, you'll be taken back to your PC's screen to display once again some artwork.

You could get a power-efficient PC/laptop to stay on 24/7 (or just turn the PC on as you turn on the TV, and vice versa) and have it act as this glorified casting device.