I thought this video was rather interesting, because at 12:27, the presenter crunches the numbers to find out how many years it would take for a new computer purchase to be more environmentally friendly (in regards to total CO2 expended) compared to using a less efficient used model.
Depending on the specific use case, it could take as little as 3 years to breakeven in terms of CO2 if both systems were at max power draw forever, and as long as 30 if the systems are mostly at idle.
Well TBH my familiarity with Jellyfin is rather limited, I installed it, it works, I don’t mess with it.
The only problems I’ve had is when some friends had trouble logging in, which was solved with a cache and cookies cleanup. At least the only problems I know of: turns out my friends don’t complain when it doesn’t work.
I know that Jellyfin CAN serve without transcoding (you can disable it on a per-user basis IIRC), but as to why it decides you can’t, I have no idea. Have you tried filing a bug report? Sometimes it’s a bug, sometimes they give you a solution. Sometimes both.