I really want to get into jellyfin streaming, but I am a noob and have not much knowledge about hardware and video tech, and I could need some help! Please apologize if some of my questions seem uninformed.

  • My plan is to store my DVDs on an external HDD, I already have some movies stored with makemkv.

  • I do not want to spend a lot of money, at least for now. Synology is out of question because of enshittification. But I don’t have 300-500€ to spend on a mini PC, for a project I might abandon.

  • What I have is an old Raspberry Pi 3, where I could set up a Jellyfin server on.
    From what I gathered, it will be slow AF, but I guess for trying out the technology it should be enough to start?

  • I want to stream to mobile devices, for example an Android phone or tablet, or my Hisense TV. I know already there is no Jellyfin app for the TV, but I could imagine setting up another pi as a client for it.

  • Now there is another problem: I do not really understand what transcoding is, or if any if my devices support the H265 codec making transcoding unnecessary.

  • Can you recommend me a low cost setup, let’s say max. 150€? Would a Pi 4/5 work, or does it need to be a mini PC?

I am not really interested very much in 4k, but if it is possible, why not.

Bonus question: How easy would it be to setup remote streaming so my SO could watch with their android phone from home?

  • gigachad@piefed.socialOPEnglish
    1·
    6 hours ago

    How do I find out what codec a file has? I guess there is a ffmpeg command to check and also to convert?

    Does that mean I can rip all my DVDs to the H.264 format to be sure all devices can play the file? Is there a disadvantage using H.264?

    With remote streaming I mean of course streaming outside of my network.

    • JASN_DE@feddit.orgEnglish
      1·
      6 hours ago

      H.264 for DVD content is perfectly fine. H.265 will save a little storage, but that’s basically it.

      If you need to go outside your network it will suddenly be a lot more effort. I’d suggest a Wireguard tunnel, but in theory you could also open up the server to the internet. But you better know what you’re doing in that case.

      • gigachad@piefed.socialOPEnglish
        1·
        6 hours ago

        Okay, so without the need of transcoding I gather a Pi 4 or 5 may actually be fine? What about the rare case I get hands on a Blu-Ray, H.264 would not work?