ConceptDocs/goals.md

Core Features

• Media Playback: Support on-demand playback for media files in various formats.
  • Caching & Performance:
    • Use cached segments for seamless seeking and fast resume.
    • If another user starts playback with the same parameters, reuse existing cached data to minimize transcoding and bandwidth usage.
• CDN capabilities and P2P federation
  • TODO: Define this feature in detail.
• Metadata Management:
  • Automatically identify and fetch metadata from databases like IMDb, TVDB, etc.
  • Allow users to edit and correct metadata manually.
• Transcoding Options:
  • Pre-encode media into multiple formats for reduced compute load (at the expense of storage).
  • Or use dynamic, on-the-fly transcoding for flexibility and storage efficiency.
• Clients
  • Web Client
  • Native Clients: Desktop (Windows, Linux, MacOS), Mobile (Android, iOS), TV (Android TV, Apple TV, WebOS, Roku, Someone could create one for Xbox)
  • Multiuser Support in clients: You are able to login with multiple users and change between them.
• Offline Access:
  • Clients can batch-download content for offline playback.
• Scalability:
  • Support distributed and remote ffmpeg-based transcoding pipelines for high availability and load balancing.
• User Management:
  • Authentication, profiles, access control, and session tracking.
• Library & Personalization:
  • Organize and manage libraries by media type (movies, shows, etc.).
  • Create and manage playlists and collections.
  • Track user history, progress, and play counts.
  • Allow users to group media into watchlists, favorites, or custom categories.
  • Provide statistics and usage insights (e.g., most watched, time spent, active users).
    • Show statics for users about themselves
  • Resume from last position across devices.

Nice to Have / Later

• Sync Play: Watch movies or shows together in real time across multiple clients.
• Integration with ARR Stack: Compatibility with Radarr, Sonarr, Lidarr, and similar automation tools.
• Parental controls
• Jellyfin-Compatible API and Plex-Compatible API
• Plugin Support: Extend functionality with custom or third-party plugins.
• Smart Playback Features:
  • Intro, outro, recap skipper.
• Recommendations: Personalized movie and series suggestions based on user history and preferences.
• External Sync: Sync watch history, ratings, and metadata with services like Trakt.tv.
• Subtitle Management: Automatic subtitle fetching, editing, and syncing with playback. - Probably bazarr is enough for that.
• Multi-Format Detection: Detect multiple versions (e.g., 1080p, 4K, HDR) of the same media and show them in a unified view.
• IPTV / Live TV: Stream and manage live channels alongside on-demand content.

Architecture

• Frontend/Backend Separation: Clearly separated user interface and backend services.
• Microservice-Ready: Modular, loosely coupled components that can scale independently.
• Resiliency: Temporary outages in one service should not disrupt the viewing experience.
• Extensible Protocol Support: Easily add or replace streaming and media delivery protocols.
• Telemetry & Observability: Built-in tracing, logging, and metrics collection.
• Plugin System: Enable community and custom extensions.
• Robust API Design: Clean, well-documented REST and gRPC interfaces for interoperability.

Patrik's Dreams (Not Necessarily Realistic Goals)

• On-demand streaming over QUIC. (WebRTC was suggested but may not fit our use case.)
• Segmented Formats: Support CMAF alongside traditional MPEG-TS for more efficient adaptive streaming.
• Streaming Standards: Full compatibility with both HLS and MPEG-DASH.
• Processing Backends: Flexible support for ffmpeg, GStreamer, or alternative media frameworks.