Love findroid, it just feels good. Only disadvantage is no random play/shuffle but other than that I like it very much, it’s nicer than the og jellyfin app/web wrapper
- Direct play only, (no transcoding)
The app sounds great but this is for me a critical missing feature.
May I ask why? Maybe I haven’t been in your actual case so I probably can’t relate.
However having everything in a format that every device can read and disable transcoding on jellyfin, saves resources and power usage.
Being able to stream my shows on an unstable or lower bandwidth internet connection like on a train (which is where I really enjoy watching it) is impossible if I am streaming the raw files. I usually watch 480p or 720p on the go but enjoy the 1080p quality when watching from home.
Also, downloading a 1080p file takes significantly longer and takes up much more space than a 480p or 720p. My phone has no memory card and despite having 128GB internal storage, it is scarce. For a while, in the morning I was downloading my episodes before heading out, but really needed to luck out to get the episodes before I needed to catch the train (as the native jellyfin client does not allow downloading the transcoded files). You could argue I should adapt my habits to my means but I frankly really think it should be the other way around, and transcoding solves that for me.
For some content DirectPlay is just not possible, as much as I’d love it to be.
More complex stylized subtitles will absolutely trash almost any Android device unless transcoded.
Offline playback / downloads
Dope. Aside from the usual, outside of wifi situations, if your networking skills are (like mine) not to the point of confidently, and securely opening ports, this is a great stopgap. It’s a nice-to-have feature that’s missing from the official app, last I checked.
I think the official app does let you download but its literally a file on your phone. So you need a file manager and a video player that can play your file in addition. There is generally no management of downloads or a way to see what you downloaded in the official app.
Findroid improves on this massively, I however keep having the issue it doesn’t seem to download images from the library, so all my downloads are grey boxes. Just a cosmetic issue though as they all play fine.
What are the advantages over the regular jellyfin app? Seems like it maybe does less?
the regular jellyfin app is just a web wrapper, at least it behaves like and looks like it, as for advantages, it’s the little things, like offline playback, double tap to skip like in youtube etc.