I've been using Jellyfin on and off for the last month or so, trying to migrate away from Plex. Jellyfin's server, web, and mobile applications have all been great, and aside from some small quibbles and quality of life things that Plex does, I have no complaints. It's never been a hassle to work with or use.

Except for the Android TV app. I have two Shield TVs (2019 tubes) and while Jellyfin has been outperforming Plex in terms of playback/transcoding, the app itself is insanely frustrating from an accessibility/usability standpoint. There are some quirks I can live with and accept as it's still a young application in active development. But a few critical problems make it an absolute nightmare for everyone in the house.

The two big issues are: no text titles on the movie/tv series library screens and auto-play next episode frequently replays the episode we started from. Another big irritation is when it auto-skips an intro, the audio is desynced, but that's a plugin and something I can disable, and we can survive without it.

Can anyone recommend an alternative app for Android TV that works well with Jellyfin and maintains watched/next up status? So far, all I have found is Kodi, but I've had bad experiences with it in the (distant) past, and recent anecdotal evidence implies it could bring its own set of problems.

Thanks!

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[–] Chaphasilor@feddit.nl 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If you find a good skin for Kodi, the Jellyfin integration actually works pretty well. Also supports controlling playback from the mobile app.

[–] Naate@beehaw.org 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, that's what I finally settled on. My only gripe is that it doesn't sync with the homescreen/launcher.

My initial test with Kodi gave me xbmc flashbacks, and felt like I had gone back in time. But a more modern skin and different ui sounds make a huge difference

[–] Chaphasilor@feddit.nl 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You mean it doesn't show your next shows on the Android TV homescreen? Maybe there's a script or plugin for that...

[–] Naate@beehaw.org 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah. It's weird. Sometimes a show will pop up to load via jellyfin, which I didn't use.

There are still some design choices in Kodi that I don't like (e.g. media continues playing in the background, and messes up the home navigation), but I just need to search their wiki for answers.