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?

  • Lumidaub@feddit.orgEnglish
    1·
    6 hours ago

    I know nothing about Hisense TVs but a very cursory look tells me it’s a Fire TV? There’s a Jellyfin client for those, you just need to sideload it.

    One more thought: my Synology NAS (I know…) came with 2 GB of RAM, which was barely enough for Jellyfin, even with nothing else running on it. I added 16 GB and it’s very smooth now, with several services running comfortably concurrently. So maybe don’t go for the smallest amount of RAM.

    • gigachad@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      1·
      6 hours ago

      Nah, it’s a cheap Chinese TV with a random OS, so I guess I need to find a workaround. I don’t buy at amazon so I thought of another Pi.

      Noted, RAM is important.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        5 hours ago

        It doesn’t need much RAM, my file server/jellyfin server runs on an old laptop I just have sitting with the lid closed on a desk near my router. I RustDesk into it for anything I need, and I have a split VPN tunnel running at all times, so anything I acquire goes through another IP.

        (Had a 256gb SSD laying around I put in it for the OS, and 2 1tb USB hhd’s hold media). Jellyfin runs on both our cheap Roku TV’s, and our phones if we ever wanted)