AppleTV and Jellyfin

 I like the AppleTV - what a great little bit of kit. The sad thing is, the application that connects to my Jellyfin server has been very hit and miss. I've tried a few different things and it has not been a great outcome at times. 

Swiftfin was OK but had issues with some file types and then stopped working entirely. I'm not sure what happened with it, so I got frustrated and ditched it.

JellyTV was initially promising and the carousel look was pretty neat, but the connection to my server was consistently crap and fell over a lot. It would stop playing videos, lag, and have all kinds of problems. No network issues or anything like that so again, I got frustrated and got rid of it.

Infuse looked amazing, but as soon as I tried to play anything it wanted to upgrade to Pro and that was that. Off with it. Open Source for the win!

Ah look! A new version of Swiftfin has arrived. I installed it - it looks different, and the functionality has improved. OK that's exciting - initial testing is going very well.

At the back end of all of this I added an Nvidia graphics adaptor to my server to try and improve Jellyfin's capabilities and it has certainly helped, especially with the higher end formats of videos (8K for example). I thought this would help the AppleTV deliver vision to my eye balls better, but it did not. It appears the app you use is a big chunk of the problem and so getting the right one is key. My continued testing has shown Swiftfin to work pretty well. It's supposed to be a native app so my expectations are it will work fairly well. 

I have read that the Jellyfin leads have finished up or walked off? I'm not sure, but I want to thank everyone who has worked on the project - it's pretty amazing and works really well. You all have done a great job and end users like me are very grateful. 

Humbled playing Elden Ring

 I've been a computer gamer for a long time - and I mean like, a really long time. Think Double Dragon on an old Amstrad around the late 1980's old.

To wind down and relax I've picked up a few different games, and being older and behind the time I'll often grab a game that's a couple of years old, cheap on the Microsoft Store or Steam and then launch into it. My little fella encouraged me to try Subnautica - saying it looked pretty cool. 

And it is! I dived into the game (see what I did there? :-) ) and got into it, dying very frequently and enjoying some of the jump scares as the aquatic life decided I was a tasty morsel and good for a bite. Lots of fun indeed. I finished it, ran through it again with a lot more panache and far fewer deaths and got into the second iteration - Subnautica Sub Zero which adds some entertaining cold environment and ice related elements to it. While not as long as the first one, it was very enjoyable and the new equipment and habitats fun to mess around with.

Subnautica 2 has come out in a pre-release version and I've gotten as far as I can in that too. My advice is simple when playing these games - pay attention and search everything! Also, watch out for the big fish!

I quite like the Dungeons & Dragons style of games and have spent many, many hours in Skyrim, Oblivion and Baldurs Gate (1, 2 and 3), so I decided to try out another in development game Enshrouded. Quite fun indeed and nearing the 1.0 release so it's quite polished. I've risen in levels and found that the inevitable grind has impacted my enjoyment somewhat. My nephew suggested Elden Ring, citing it was the best game he's played, he's finished it and it is a challenge.

A challenge you say! Well let's get to it.

Yes it indeed is a challenge and I had my butt whipped on a very constant basis. One cannot simply swing a sword with abandon in Elden Ring - you get killed, and you get killed frequently. The very first major dude kicks your arse and that's when I thought it might be worth checking out a bit of Youtube or other media to learn about this game before I rage quit forever. It turns out that the designers really don't want you to just bash your way through, and you need to take your time. I have not yet passed through much of the game - I am still learning all the ways that this game subtly differs from the aforementioned fun I've had in the more survival, base building type games. Elden Ring is not that kind of game. 

It's refreshing to come up against a game I can't just blast through, but equally frustrating because a lot of the tried and true techniques I've used in the past are not applicable. I'm also battling with the keyboard and mouse - my normal modus operandi, as I'm playing on my Legion gaming laptop. Sadly, I think this might be easier with a game pad of some type. As I've bought it through Steam, I'm not that keen to re-buy it on PS5 which is a bummer. 

So far, it's been very swearingly frustrating, yet equally entertaining. Stay tuned as I attempt to get myself through a play session without dying (it hasn't happened yet).