Strit

Yes, you can expose jellyfin via a reverse proxy or through a vpn like tailscale to your friends.

Quality and speed depends on what client they use, what transcoding hardware is in the server and your internet speed. For most usecases, a newer Intel based CPU can do 5-8 streams at once without issue, so it will likely depend on your internet connection.

I have an Intel N100 based mini PC on a 1Gbit/s upload connection running Jellyfin that I share with some friends. Usually 2-3 streams at once and it handles it well. Most of my media is in H264/MP4 with AAC audio, so they rarely transcode.

I’d recommend either an african or european swallow.

Matter sounds neat and all, but it’s still wireless on the 2.4 GHz band, so it will still have the same amount of noise that Zigbee does.