jellyfin-kodi

Adding Jellyfin to the mix was the best thing I’ve done for my Kodi setup. I agree re transcoding - overused these days - I keep all that disabled Jellyfin-Kodi gives fast and automatic library updates - no waiting 5 minutes for ‘update library’ on large collections - new content appears automatically. Also some nice QoL improvements like synced progress, slightly better metadata fetching, automatic subtitle fetching https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-kodi

They work very well together. There are two different Kodi plugins that make Kodi into a Jellyfin player. I personally prefer JellyCon as it’s more lightweight and works smoother for low-resource devices. Jellyfin-Kodi has more features and deeper integration with the library. https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-kodi https://github.com/jellyfin/jellycon

I set up a Mac mini as my HTPC about a year ago, and settled on Jellyfin to manage my media. Overall it's been great, and I'm really happy that Jellyfin exists. I use Kodi for the TV interface, with the Jellyfin for Kodi add-on to link the two [1]. I looked into Plex, but was turned off by how commercial it was and how hard they tried to push their paid services. The big advantage to Jellyfin is that I can start watching a show on my TV, and pick up exactly where I left off on any of my devices (I use the Jellyfin iPhone and iPad apps, as well as the web interface). I can also access my music library through Jellyfin, and at the recommendation of a comment on this post I just downloaded finamp, which seems like a great music player [2]. The initial setup took a bit of work, and there are definitely some quirks, but all-in-all it's worked

I would recommend installing Kodi on your chromecast and using the jellyfin addon[1] into Kodi instead. The app is garbage and Kodi is awesome. (Don't use the Jellyfin Connect addon, it's different and I wouldn't recommend it) [1]https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-kodi