What does hardware decoding get me on an Apple TV? It seems plenty powerful enough to decode anything I’ve ever thrown at it.
Jellyfin official apps are sporadic though, so Infuse is popular for Jellyfin users because it is well maintained and allows you to direct stream content without transcoding as often as possible.
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I'm also the developer of Aviato Media Server (https://aviato.media), which I just released publicly last week and is available only as a beta, and I am an ex-Plex employee.
Even if your server can support transcoding, all transcoding results in quality loss, so if you want to enjoy your media in the best formats then you want to direct play. Just depends on the media you are playing and how much you care about the quality.
Also, what modern formats for media typically used in Plex servers isn’t supported? Nobody uses AV1 for plex media, no offense. It’s universally h264 or h265. Or perhaps mpeg2 for super old stuff.
Guessing you’re not talking about iPhones - fwiw Finamp works pretty well.
That being said, Plex apps also lack proper support for HW decoding of some 4K codecs and their AppleTV situation is just plain sad (2 years without an update, no proper HW decoding).
With the Pass being $750, I’m expecting Jellyfin to become a more popular alternative than ever. I’d personally never spend this kind of money on Plex.