Popular Plex rival app Jellyfin launches for Samsung TVs

Plex is one of the most popular video streaming apps for users who want to stream their personal video collections to a TV. However, Plex is not for everyone, as it comes with its own set of issues, including buffering issues and slow performance on Samsung TVs. Emby, Jellyfin, and Kodi are among the most popular Plex alternatives, and Jellyfin is now available on Samsung TVs and Smart Monitors running Tizen OS.

The listing for Jellyfin’s client app on Samsung TVs was first spotted by Linuxiac (via XDA Developers). A few days later, one of the app’s developers officially confirmed its availability. The app supports Samsung TV models released in 2021 or later, as Samsung appears to have disabled the option to publish new apps for TVs launched in 2020 or earlier.

Jellyfin is an open-source media streaming platform that lets users stream their own video content from self-hosted storage, such as a network-attached storage device or a PC. It supports a wide range of video formats, with most content being transcoded by the Jellyfin media server app running on a NAS or computer. This allows videos to play smoothly across different devices, including TVs.

The developers have been working on a Tizen-based version of the Jellyfin client app for at least three years. The app was submitted to Samsung for review last month but initially failed testing, as additional work was required. Now that Jellyfin is finally available on the Samsung TV app store, users have another strong option for streaming their personal media libraries directly to their TVs.