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?
I don’t have this problem exactly, but what I would recommend is putting it in a specific separate library. You could even set it up so only your mother’s account can access it, and you never have to see it, or you could have it visible but never go to it.
Would probably do this, but also rip it in very poor quality to be sure it does not take too much space :D
Malicious compliances in action. Not that you can’t do, but this can tense up the relationship.
Lol go the old school yify method. 700mb h.264 encode.
Enjoy your 7 pixels!
This is a good idea, and an approach I’m going to think about and probably take. Then it’s away from everything else, and not polluting my actual good movies.
Separate library for her movies, only her user can access, done.
This here OP! ☝️
Jellyfin lets you do this easily.
A solution would be to place these movies in a seperate Library and only give your mother access to that library, so it does not show up for you other users.
This is it. Also given the low quality of the movies production wise you can even rip them at suboptimal settings. I am sure Mom won’t care if she watches her Christian propaganda at 4k or 720p with some visual artifacts.
720p? Pfffft. 240i. Rip them in ‘2014 YouTube over 2G’ quality.
Pretty much this it gets it’s own folder and in jellyfin it’s own library. You just give mom access to this and whatever else you want to. you unselect that library for everyone else. The setting is under users. It’s straightforward and is a check mark based select. You probably have it set to all libraries right now. Uncheck that and you can pick and choose per user.
I’m not entirely sure what those movies are like, and don’t want to know, but ……
My Mom watches horrible Hallmark stuff constantly. As far as I can tell, every movie has the same plot, they are low quality, etc. The thing is they are simple feel good movies for her. She finds them relaxing and gets good feelings from them, perfectly appropriate for “entertainment “.
If there is any parallel here, my point is that you don’t have to appreciate them for your Mom to. Why does it matter whether you agree with the movies or not: do you love her? Do you want to help her with entertainment that makes her feel good /relaxed/entertained?
Yeah this is the only post that I agree with so far.
To op, also have in mind that re watching movies many years later can feel a bit cringe even with great and recognized movies. People change their expectations over time and the collective aesthetics do too.
Honestly I’d be fine if it were hallmark movies. This is pure christian propaganda - very clear jabs that if you aren’t christian then you are not happy. Take the lame hallmark plots that are fine, but then add in that they finding jesus suddenly made them happy, they gave up all of their non christian friends, and renounced their old life type stuff. Face value it’s fine, but the undertone is just vile to me.
The only good reply in the thread. Thanks for saying this
I tell people, like my friend that wanted a bunch of drivel kids stuff, that if they give me 2 hard drives I’ll set them up as their own library.
You made an offer likely knowing what content your mother consumed.
Also, doing this for her means those charlatans aren’t actually getting her money.
Something to consider in favor of doing your mom a solid.
Just make sure you out satanic films in the folder and rename them to Christian themed titles.
It was a mistake to agree to that. Also I don’t see how the types of movies change a thing
For my wife, I have a separate library folder, mapped to just her account in Plex. It doesn’t appear in my library at all, so I don’t really care. Even better, I’ve spun up an Overseerr instance for her, so she can just search and auto-add anything she wants for herself.
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.
Just say you can’t rip them because they have godly protection;)
They’ve got strong DRM (Divine Rights Management)
If there are just a few movies just make a separate library or something. If there are a fuck ton of shit movies that takes up lots of time to rip or use lots of storage, just say no.
Separate library was my thought as well. I’m also hesitant to put any requested movies on my server that are along the same vein, but if it’s not too many, it really doesn’t matter at the end or the day. It’s just some crappy movies in a sea of other movies.
I say “no”, but for your case and for your mom, I’d agree with what others have said, a standalone library.
BUT! Only the Christian movies. Put them in a library called “The Christerion Collection”.
SkyDaddy Drivel
Do one of the following:
- Tell your mother you’re not comfortable hosting that type of content as a non-believer.
- Lie and hand back the propaganda movies and say you couldn’t rip them to some unknown rip protecting they use and there’s not enough resources online to figure it out.
- Host the content and let your mother liver her life and don’t say anything.
I’d personally use option 1, but you do you.
- You cant host them because your heathen server catches fire every time you rip one of the movies
You could make a new movie library named “Christian Propaganda”, put them all in there, and only give your mom access. She’ll probably be mad, but it’ll be funny and you’re technically abiding by her request. Once you have your laugh, you can change the name to “Christian Movies”.
I’d just host them in a library only visible to mom and members that would want to view it.
Also consider the unintentionally comedic value of such films, they’re sometimes fun to watch just because of how bad they are.
Watch them. Start a podcast.
Chaotic good, right there.
