Starting playback
- Open a movie or episode.
- Select Play, or Resume if you already started it.
- The player opens full screen.
When you resume, the player can rewind a few seconds first. Set it in Settings → Playback → Resume rewind (Off, 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 seconds).
Controls on TV
With the controls hidden, D-pad Left and Right skip back and forward, and Up, Select or any other key shows the controls. The skip length is 5, 10 or 30 seconds (Settings → Playback → Skip duration, default 10). Remote skip chooses whether a skip opens the full control bar or only shows the new position.
Media keys on your remote work too: play, pause, fast-forward, rewind, next and previous episode, and record on Live TV.
The control bar shows, from the centre outward:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Previous / Next episode | Shown when an adjacent episode exists |
| Rewind / Forward | Skip by your chosen interval |
| Play / Pause | Toggle playback |
| Speed | 0.5×, 0.75×, 1×, 1.25×, 1.5×, 1.75× or 2× |
| Aspect | Fit, Crop or Stretch |
| Quality | Original or a lower quality. Shown when more than one option exists. |
| Audio | Switch audio track. Shown when more than one track exists. |
| Subtitles | Choose a track, turn subtitles off, or search online. See Subtitles. |
| Stats | Live overlay: decoder, audio output, HDR mode, dropped frames, buffer and more |
| Watch Party | Shown while a Watch Party is active |
| Picture in picture | Keeps the video in a floating window (Android 8.0 or later) |
| Cast | A panel to browse the cast and their filmography (CastSpotlight, Premium, off by default) |
| Record | On a live channel, records the programme on air |
When the title has chapters, press D-pad Down on the controls to open the chapter strip. The top of the screen shows the clock and Ends at ….
Controls on phone and tablet
- Tap the video to show or hide the controls.
- The transport row has previous, skip back, play/pause, skip forward and next.
- Drag the seek bar to scrub. Chapter marks appear on the bar, and a preview thumbnail appears above it when the server provides trickplay images.
- A brightness icon on the left and a volume icon on the right open a vertical slider that hides after a few seconds.
- The bottom row has Quality, Audio, Subtitles, Speed, Aspect, Chapters, Stats, Cast and Picture in picture.
- A speed badge appears at the top when the speed is not 1×. Tap it to change.
- Pressing Home during playback moves the video to picture in picture.
- Settings → Playback → Lock landscape in the player keeps the player in landscape.
Skip intro, credits and other segments
On Jellyfin 10.9 and later, the server can mark intros, credits, recaps, previews and commercials. When the player reaches one, a Skip button appears. Configure it in Settings → Skip Segments. Each type can be Off, Button (ask to skip) or Auto (skip silently). Defaults: intro and credits use Button, the others are Off. Auto needs Premium. Skipping credits opens the Up Next card instead of jumping inside the video.
Up Next and Still watching
At the end of an episode the Up Next card shows the next episode with a countdown and Play now and Cancel buttons. Settings → Playback → Auto next episode sets the countdown: Off (the card stays and nothing starts), Immediate, or a number of seconds (default 10).
After several episodes in a row without any interaction, a Still watching? dialog appears. It stops playback after 60 seconds without an answer. Choose the threshold in Settings → Playback → Still watching? (Off, or after 2, 3, 4, 5 or 8 episodes; default 3).
If Anti-spoilers is on, the Up Next card follows the same rules.
Playback methods
| Method | Description |
|---|---|
| Direct Play | The file plays as is. Best quality. |
| Direct Stream | The container is repackaged, the codecs are unchanged |
| Transcode | The server re-encodes the stream. Used when the device cannot play the file. |
The app chooses automatically from what your device supports. Image-based subtitles or styled subtitles can force a transcode when burn-in is needed.
Player engine
Settings → Playback → Player engine lets you choose ExoPlayer, MPV, or an automatic mode with fallback in either direction. MPV can decode rare formats such as VC-1 and RMVB. See Audio and video settings for the rest.
Kids profiles
Kids profiles hide Speed, Aspect, Quality, Stats, Watch Party, Picture in picture and Cast. Audio and Subtitles stay.
