Interesting problem here. So I self host jellyfin, happy to share my (owned) movies with my family. Well, my mother has asked me to digitize her collection too and have me host it. Originally, fine, you give your movies to me, I host them, same thing.

However, what I didn’t bet on was the amount of garbage, terrible movies she would give me. There’s a few that are fine, but the vast majority are, well I’ll just put it bluntly, christian propaganda. I don’t think any of them are as terrible as some of the worst case, but think “My life was horrible until I found god now look and see how fulfilled I am” type propaganda - and they make for horrible plots. Left Behind with Kirk Cameron is a good example. Even removing the blatent boring christian plots - it’s just a horribly made movie. Cheap, not thought out well, and honestly I read the book decades ago, it’s a horrible adaptation too.

Not that I keep only top tier movies in my libraries, but these are, well they just bring a pit to my stomach.

What would you do in my situation? (And I’m going to go ahead and say the pure atheist comments aren’t needed, yes of course I could burn them, or dance around them, but I’m not looking to just burn the bridge between my mother and myself over a lifetime of her indoctrination and bad taste in movies). I’m more looking for generic, how do you handle your users asking you to put content you don’t find appealing on your server?

  • Avid Amoeba
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    2026 days ago

    I don’t know if you can do this with Jellyfin but this is what I could do with Plex:

    • create an account for her
    • create a new dir for her movies
    • create a new movie library called “Mom’s special” which watches this dir
    • share the new library with her account
    • share the rest of the libraries with her account
    • drop the garbage in the special dir

    In the end no one else sees Mom’s special, while your mom sees everything and Mom’s special.

      • Avid Amoeba
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        726 days ago

        Perfect. That checks one more requirement on my migration checklist. 🥹

        • rudyharrelson
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          526 days ago

          I migrated from Plex to Jellyfin maybe a year and a half ago and haven’t looked back. Great user experience and works so well out of the box IMO. Good Android app, too. Works with Chromecast, too (though I’ve been trying to ditch Chromecast in favor of just a laptop connected to the TV via HDMI).

          I started digitizing old home movies that were on VHS and created a “Home Movies” library for my family; none of us had watched them in ages since none of us have a VCR anymore, lol. Great mother’s/father’s day gift for one’s parent if you’ve got the time and equipment. It’s nice having the whole family able to easily stream our home movies.