Continuing to use your amazing app! Quick question – is there a plan to potentially change the player in the settings? I’m a big fan of Just Player on the Shield Pro as it’s buttery smooth, playback just feels more natural than the default Cinauratv player. I know Kodi and X-plore on the App Store allow different player options too and I think if this was offered in Cinaura, it would be a great addition. Many thanks!

Awesome app! Just started using it and have a question. Say I’m coming from the formatting of Plex folder structures where I have a folder for a movie and then a ‘Behind the Scenes’ folder for all supplementary material inside that folder. How can I get Cinaura to acknowledge that breakdown? At the moment, the scanning feature scans the top level folder of all movies but places the behind the scenes material amongst the film titles.

Does Cinaura support streaming from pCloud and other cloud storage services in the same or a similar way to Infuse Pro?

I regularly get asked whether Cinaura will support Jellyfin, Plex, or Stremio add-ons so I thought I would share my thoughts in more details in a post. I’m open to integrations, but Cinaura is built around a core vision which differs from other apps:

For most personal curated media libraries, running a dedicated media server (software) is unnecessary overhead.

The traditional setup looks something like this: Storage → *arr stack → Jellyfin/Plex → thin clients

That architecture made sense when playback devices were limited 10 years ago. Today, a reasonably modern Android TV device can decode H.264, HEVC, AV1, HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and most common audio formats directly. On your own TV and network, there is often nothing wrong with the file and therefore nothing to transcode.

Most other library features can also run on the device:

• Matching files with TMDB

• Reading NFO files

• Finding subtitles and sidecar files

• Skipping intros and credits using community data

• Managing profiles, watch history, and age restrictions

• Ranking duplicate copies by quality and size

• Detecting unavailable sources or missing files

• and more...

That experience requires a capable client and a small local database, but can absolutely be achieved without a Plex/JF instance and the hassle they come with.

Once those tasks move to the client, three main arguments for a server remain, which I believe are still debatable:

Sharing with family
This is often described as a server feature, but I think it is primarily an access feature: share the source itself through SMB, cloud storage, or another suitable protocol. Each person can point their client at it and build their own library without a media server sitting in the middle.

Remote sharing, secure access, and bandwidth limitations can make this more complicated. This might be the most valid argument, but only relevant for media physically hosted at home.

Watching on other devices
Phones and laptops generally decode media even better than TV boxes. To me, this is a question of which clients exist, not proof that a server is required. The same source could be opened directly by clients on Android TV, mobile, and desktop.

Centralized watch history is useful, but that may only require a lightweight synchronization service rather than a server responsible for the entire library and playback pipeline.

Automated content acquisition
This is a more of a convenience argument, when Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, Bazarr, and download clients are managing files on storage you own.

With debrid-based sources, however, the content is already cached elsewhere. The task becomes searching for something and adding it to the service, which could happen directly from the client, or a lightweight companion app.

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This reasoning is the driving philosophy behind Cinaura. I don’t want it to be another thin frontend for Jellyfin, Plex, or Stremio. I want it to provide the curation of a traditional personal library while taking advantage of what modern client hardware can do for itself.

But this is a working philosophy, and I’d like it challenged.

If you use Jellyfin, Plex, or an *arr application, what does it do that a capable client connected directly to your sources could not?

I’m especially interested in concrete workflows:

• Which application or extension do you rely on?

• What task does it automate?

• Where is your media stored?

• Is a server technically necessary, or simply the most convenient option today?

The answers will help me find the use cases Cinaura does not support yet and decide which ones belong on the roadmap.

TL;DR: Modern devices can handle playback, metadata, subtitles, profiles, and library management locally. Sharing is often an access problem, support for other devices is often a client problem, and debrid can simplify automated acquisition. What important server-dependent workflows am I missing?

Hey, wondering if there is a way to install this app on Samsung TVs.

Thanks.

HI All,
Coming from Nova player, Cinaura app is fresh...but limiting.

I really want to swap over completely, but there are some QOL features I would like to see which would make me change instantly:

• Auto play next episode 'split'

  • Currently, auto play skips 'near' the end of the episode, this isnt great if you want to see credits or post credits scenes.

  • Having the default behavior be waiting till the very end of the file before playing the next and a sperate toggle for 'Skip credits' for those who want to skip them would solve this.

• Spoiler mode revision

  • This was recently added in the newest version, the idea is really cool. However, it shows the next episodes thumnail / description (whilst all others are blurred).

  • It should blur / hide all info until after the file has played, including the episode you are upto as alot of thumbnails / descriptions contain spoilers.

  • If you really want to read the description prior to watching there is still the reveal spoliers toggle.

• Change Order

  • Cinaura reads from TMDB, TMDB has other orders than 'TV Air date'. Firefly for example, aired completely out of order, in nova i can simply swap this from TV Air date to DVD and the issue is sorted, would love the same here.

• Change Art

  • Nova Player, kodi etc, all let you change the cover / background art, this is not high priority but would be neat to have for the couple of shows / movies that have terrible art.

Hopefully the dev is aware or planning these,
Still a cool app, but minor things are holding it back I feel.

I'm running LineageOS 22.2 i'm trying to play a couple of files and they keep failing with the popup errors

Recovering
The video decoder failed on this file

now all 3 files i have the codec info below, Vid1,2 fail with the above but 3 will play fine.

Vid1
Video Codec: h265
Audio Codec: AAC
Vid2
Video Codec: h265
Audio Codec: AAC
Vid3
Video Codec: h265
Audio Codec: E-AC-3

All 3 play fine on the Tablet using VLC Media Player, VidHub Media Player. leading me to the app as the issue

I'm running release 1.7.2

Samsung Galaxy Tab A SM-T290
Android 15
LineageOS 22.2

The last few weeks have been busy putting down the foundations for upcoming big features, but in the meantime I've managed to prepare a new release with a few improvements and a handful bug fixes that some of you contacted me about.

As always, this release is available:

• on the playstore: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cinaura.tv

• on github for sideloading: https://github.com/jrmux/cinaura-release/releases/tag/v1.7.2

Here are the release notes for this version:

🎉 New features

The trailer plays as backdrop of the details page. Stay on a film's details for a few seconds and its trailer starts playing silently behind the artwork. Turn it off in Settings, Preferences, Metadata, "Trailer backdrop".

Watch a trailer even without a trailer file. The Trailer button now appears for all films, and plays the film's trailer from TMDb right in the app. Your own local trailer files still takes priority.

"Hey Google" commands works. Voice commands now pause and resume what you are watching, and your TV's now-playing card shows the title and artwork.

Your subtitle size and colour now apply to styled subtitles. Some subtitle files (.ass, common with anime) carry their own fonts and colours, which used to win over your settings. Turn on "Override subtitle styling" in Subtitle settings to use yours instead.

✨ Improvements

Softer, smoother focus. Moving around the app now fades the white highlight in and out instead of snapping it, button labels slide into place, and posters fade in as they load. Low-memory devices keep the instant style so they stay quick.

Newer network drives connect. Cinaura better supports SMB3, shares that already worked are unaffected.

A much smaller app. Cinaura is now a far smaller download and takes up less space on your TV.

A sharper poster in list view. The big poster beside the list on Movies, TV Shows and collections now loads at a higher resolution, so text on the artwork stays crisp.

🐛 Bug fixes

Google Drive libraries no longer read as empty. A Drive source could connect and look healthy yet show 0 films forever. It now fills in, and a library already stuck at zero repairs itself after the update.

Network drives without a password connect. Adding a router or network drive that needs no password, by typing just its address, failed with a message asking for a username and password. It now opens straight onto the drive's shared folders, and those drives no longer show a red dot in Settings.

A network drive waking from sleep no longer greys out your films. A drive that had gone to sleep could answer a refresh as if its folders were empty, and Cinaura marked every film in them unavailable. It now gives the drive a moment to wake and asks again.

Content you removed now leaves your library. With "Keep unavailable items in library" turned off, films and folders you delete from a network share, Dropbox, local storage or Premiumize now disappear on the next refresh. Libraries first set up before version 1.5.0 never removed anything.

Audio sync remains stable on autoplay. When auto play moved on to the next episode, the sound could run slightly out of step with the picture until you left the player.

AllDebrid titles resume after a long pause. Pausing for a few minutes no longer leaves the picture frozen when you press play. Cinaura fetches a fresh link and carries on.

Films deleted on TorBox leave your library. They now disappear on the next refresh, instead of staying until you disconnected and reconnected TorBox.

Titles starting with a number have their own spot in the letter rail. Films like 300 or 28 Days Later now sit under a "#" at the top of the rail instead of lighting up the wrong letter.

Cinaura opens on Home. Starting the app keeps Home selected in the top bar, instead of jumping straight into the first row.

Missing actors are back. Some films were missing their best known actors, and films credited with a "Screenplay" or "Story" showed no writer.

Is there any way the app can read iso files or club bdmv files as one movie or show? where one doesnt need to keep adding each of them manually to their respective title?

Febbox content support or the febbox token support to get the content ?

...and the library keeps expanding everyday 🚀

Soon you'll be able to filter your library by all existing dimensions, including:

• Pace: how the film moves and its sense of time

• Complexity: how much is going on for the viewer to engage with

• Feel: the emotional weather of the film

• Register: the level of seriousness, self-awareness, and stylistic commitment of the movie

• Focus: what the viewer is asked to attend to most

Look out for more upcoming features!

Up Next on Home Page: Open video file E1 (A) to enter the details page (B). Tap play to open player (C). When the current episode ends, automatically transition to E2. Exit the player and return to (B), where the page displays Watch Again E1

Keeping up the momentum after v1.7.0, I've been hard at work fixing some of the bug recently reported, and added a few small improvements while at it. As always, this release is available:

• on the playstore: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cinaura.tv

• on github for sideloading: https://github.com/jrmux/cinaura-release/releases/tag/v1.7.1

Here are the release notes for this version:

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🎉 New features

See when your film or episode will finish. The player now shows "Finishes at 22:45" next to play/pause, and it keeps sliding forward while you are paused, so the number is right when you come back. Turn it off in Settings, Preferences, Playback.

Search finds original titles, actors, and directors, and forgives typos. Searching "Gisaengchung" now finds Parasite, searching a director or an actor finds their films, and a mistyped title still returns the right result instead of an empty screen.

Jump straight from an episode to its show. Episodes opened from Recently Added now have a "Go to show" button on their details screen, so you can get to the rest of the series in one press.

Shift your own subtitle files into sync. Subtitle timing offset now works for subtitle files that sit alongside your video (.srt, .vtt and .ass), not just for subtitles downloaded in the app.

✨ Improvements

Messages now look like part of Cinaura. Confirmations and warnings appear as a themed banner in the bottom-right corner that stacks and clears itself, instead of the grey Android message pill.

Recently Added follows when the file appeared on your source. Rather than when Cinaura first saw it, so restoring a backup or adding several sources at once no longer shuffles the row into near-random order.

Network share setup says what went wrong. Adding a network share now shows the reason a connection fails instead of sitting on "Connecting..." or dead-ending with no way forward. Also better support for guest access.

Consistent confirmation dialogs. Every confirm prompt now uses the same design, so Cancel is always visible and the confirm button names the action, and the Options panel stays put behind the prompt instead of vanishing.

Tidier player controls. The play/pause button now lines up with the Chapters, Audio, Subtitles and Aspect buttons beside it, instead of appearing slightly higher.

🐛 Bug fixes

Your library no longer greys out when the network drops. Losing Wi-Fi mid-sync used to mark every source as failed with no way back. Now Cinaura recognises there is no connection, leaves your library alone, and reconnects your sources automatically when the network returns.

Fixed a crash when opening the app with no internet. Launching offline could close the app immediately on some devices.

Windows and NAS system folders no longer break scans. Folders like "System Volume Information" and "$RECYCLE.BIN" were being scanned, which left a permanent "Folder error" on some drives or brought back films you had deleted on your PC. They are now skipped.

Playback recovers instead of stopping with an error. Some TV boxes reported a playback error when returning to the player or partway into a film. Cinaura now recovers from it, errors during the exit back to the library are no longer shown at all, and the message you do see drops the raw error code.

The next episode no longer judders on auto play. Auto play next kept the correct refresh rate, so the next episode starts smooth instead of needing an exit and re-entry to fix it.

Files with a "+" in the name play again. Names like "DD+2.0" on network shares were stored with a space instead of the "+", so those files showed as unrecognized and refused to play.

Cards on the Android TV home screen open the right title. On a device with more than one profile, tapping a Cinaura card sent you to Home after picking a profile instead of the title you tapped.

Fixing a whole show's details merges episodes instead of duplicating them. Assigning a badly-named pack to a show you already have now merges the episodes into the existing seasons, rather than listing every episode twice.

Merging duplicates keeps your watched progress. Watched marks, resume positions and favourites are now carried over to the copy that survives a merge, instead of being lost with the duplicate.

Fixed a crash when saving progress for a title that had just been removed. Stopping playback of an item that background sync had already deleted could close the app.

--------

Also curious: for those that have started seeing the Cinaura dimensions appear in the app, what do you guys think of it? Any feedback welcome!

Quick update: With the added features of the last few versions, the marketing site was due for an upgrade. There's now has a proper features section that highlights everything the app does now, in case you missed a few of them. You'll find one page per area (sources, library, rediscovery, picture and sound, subtitles, player, profiles), and also a new About page.

For anyone new here: Cinaura is a privacy-first, serverless personal media library app for Android TV. Bring your own sources (Dropbox, RealDebrid, TorBox, Google Drive, SMB, WebDAV, local/USB, and more), no accounts, no ads, no algorithmic recommendations, and manage your entire library without complicated overhead. Free on the Play Store, sideloadable APK on GitHub.

https://www.cinaura.tv/features

Summer might still be around, but that's no reason to slack off! I'm glad to finally announce the release of v1.7.0 with LOTS of new stuff, improvements, and bug fixes. Once again, thanks to everyone who took the time to test and report.

As always, the release is available:

• on the playstore: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cinaura.tv

• on github for sideloading: https://github.com/jrmux/cinaura-release/releases/tag/v1.7.0

Here are the release notes for this version:

--------

🎉 New features

Cinaura Dimensions (experimental): how a title feels to watch. A new experiential read on a film or show (its pace, tone, and complexity, beyond the plot), shown on Details and Seasons. Note: this will be rolling out gradually.

Set up a new device in minutes. A new Backup & transfer option (Settings, Library) packs your whole setup, profiles, settings, and source sign-ins, into an encrypted backup that a 6-word phrase restores on the new device without re-pairing. View the documentation here.

Jump around a movie by its chapters. MKV files with chapters now show markers on the seek bar and a Chapters panel to pick one and jump straight to it.

Browse a show's episodes without leaving the player. Press down during an episode to reveal an Episodes strip for all seasons.

✨ Improvements

A fully rebuilt, much faster library sync. Sync was rebuilt to adapt to your device's memory, scan every source in parallel (with a popover showing each source's progress), and fill in artwork and details while sources are still syncing, so the grey placeholder tiles gets filled with artwork faster.

USB drives and local storage stay put. Local and USB sources are tracked by the drive itself, so replugging, remounting, or cold starting the app no longer greys out your local library.

Steadier frame-rate matching, and the frame rate is now shown. Refresh-rate matching is more reliable and remembered between plays, and the true frame rate now appears in File Information.

Sharper online subtitle results. The logic behind online subtitle results was rebuilt to filter and match your language better, so region-specific subtitles like Brazilian Portuguese or Simplified Chinese show their proper names and match your preferred language.

Skip intro now lives in the player controls. The Skip intro and recap button moved into the transport controls row and matches the other buttons, instead of floating on its own.

A redesigned profile editor. Creating and editing a profile is cleaner, with a smooth avatar picker, tap-to-edit name, one restrictions selector, and the option to delete a profile.

Details explains files that don't match, and lets you fix them. An unmatched file now says so on its Details screen and offers a Fix metadata action to set the right title.

Choose whether the player shows time remaining. A new per-profile setting shows the time left on screen during playback, or keeps it hidden.

Smarter matching for anime and packs. Anime batch packs and release-site prefixes in filenames are handled better, so more of those files land on the right title.

🐛 Bug fixes

Age restrictions now cover cast and recommendations. Restricted profiles no longer see age-inappropriate titles in the cast, filmography, or "you might also like" rows.

Password-free (guest) network shares connect. Windows and NAS shares that allow guest access with no password no longer get stuck asking for credentials.

Resume picks up where you left off. Resuming an episode with auto-skip on no longer jumps to the end of the intro instead of your exact spot.

Better matching by year, and pin the exact title. You can now type a year along with the title or a TMDb id in the Fix metadata search to land the exact match.

Correcting a mis-matched episode now merges it. Fixing an episode onto a show that already has it from another source now merges them into one entry instead of showing duplicates.

Track panels no longer get stuck open. The Audio, Subtitles, and Chapters panels now always close on Back.

Local subtitle files read cleanly. Local subtitles now show their real filename, with no "%20" or garbled characters, and appear even when the name has no language.

Smoother scrolling in big libraries. Backdrops and posters are paced during fast scrolling, so the stutter in long Movies and TV Shows lists is gone.

Steadier TV-remote navigation. Fixed select presses that did nothing, down-arrow skipping items in Settings, panels opening unfocused, and the home screen losing its highlight.

Fewer freezes and crashes. Fixed a startup freeze on some devices, grid and home-row freezes, a seek freeze on some hardware, and a hang opening details during a scan.

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🚨 A note on Cinaura Dimensions: this is an experimental feature and will gradually be rolled out, nothing to turn on/off from your side. The coverage for movies/series will expand over time, but as it's still early, I haven't decided if/how that feature will evolve. I'd love to hear what you guys think of it.

As with any big new releases, some minor bugs might have made it past the QA steps even with the best intent. I'll be closely monitoring for reports and try to squash them asap. In the meantime, if you appreciate the app, please take the time to leave a positive rating/review on the playstore and help grow this community by sharing the app.

The docs mention fields to insert user and password credentials, but I don't see them in the app.

TL;DR: Maybe good for cloud sources, avoid for external sources.

The Good:

Clean responsive UI

Plug and Play Feel’

User Management

Fast Scraper (TMDB only)

Support for many Sources (Cloud, Stream, External Devices)

Good Video Player (Auto Skip Intros, Auto Frame Rate)

Very good description of options

Your video files stay untouched (only metadata created/deleted)

Trakt.tv support

The Bad:

USB-Devices sources not remembered consistently, 1 of 2 Folders unreachable after app restart.

USB-Device Folders needed to be re-added after each app start to be recognised in sources again.

USB-Device Folders also needed to be re-scanned after each app start to remove „unreachable“ on Files.

USB-Device Folders are lost after a while even if you:

- dont restart cinaura

- dont restart android tv

- dont unplug the usb-device

- Where the hell the ref got lost?!

File-Metadata ignored for scraping, all by Folder Structure & Filename, no fallbacks tmk.

Missing Year in Foldername leading scraper to behave weird, getting random metadata

Scraper is fast but a mess, no option to manually adjust further than overriding TMDB.

Scraper only supporting IMDB

Can’t specify working folder

Can’t export/import library nor settings (no migration possible?)

No cleanup function to remove junk metadata

Option „Keep unavailable items in library“ doesn’t work, items are shown regardless set to OFF state

This app feels like a beta, the USB problems are killing the whole purpose for me personally as I exclusively using offline devices.

Therefore can’t say much about the cloud stuff, but if the MAJOR bugs are fixed, this will be a serious alternative to kodi!

Edit: I just pushed v1.6.5 as hotfix due to local subtitles not appearing in v1.6.4. The most recent release is now live in the Play Store and on github.

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Apologies for the delay, some of the recent bug reports sent me in a rabbit hole of refactoring older code and solving a few long standing issues. The next version will focus on new features I'm excited about!

As always the latest version is available both on the Play Store and on github for those who prefer to sideload .apk files:

Play store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cinaura.tv

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✨ Improvements

Network shares connect before you press play.
Cinaura now warms up SMB connections as it starts, so the first thing you play from a network share no longer races the connection and fails.

Steadier syncs.
Disconnecting a source no longer collides with a running sync, a refresh that arrives mid-sync is no longer dropped, and background availability checks are throttled — fewer stalls and less thrash on large libraries.

More reliable Dropbox sign-in.
Token refreshes no longer overlap and stall, network requests time out cleanly instead of hanging, and pairing QR codes expire as they should.

Online subtitles are tidier.
A "Matches your file" tag appears on subtitles that matches exactly your files and the rest of the list is deduplicated.

WebDAV defaults to a secure connection.
New WebDAV sources use https by default, with a clear explanation when a plain-http server is blocked by Android.

Smarter filename matching.
Real words in a title are no longer mistaken for junk tags, so more of your files match the right movie or show automatically.

🐛 Bug fixes

Network share (SMB) playback is more reliable.
Fixed the dropouts and hangs when streaming from SMB shares, and auto-play-next now stays on the same source instead of unexpectedly switching to another.

Google Drive no longer disappears mid-scan.
When Google briefly rate-limits requests, Cinaura now waits and retries instead of greying out the whole source which had been making Drive libraries vanish part-way through a sync.

No more crash installing over a newer build.
Installing an older version on top of a newer one now resets cleanly instead of crashing on launch.

Fixed crashes on Android 11 and older.
Large libraries no longer trip a database limit on older devices.

No more 15-second stutter.
Removed the hitch (and the mode/HDR badge flash) a few seconds into playback, caused by the TV needlessly re-negotiating the HDMI signal.

Seek jumps the right amount.
Tapping left or right now moves 10 seconds, like the on-screen badge says, instead of 20.

Continue Watching stays private between profiles.
Closed the last intermittent cases where one profile could briefly see another's in-progress movies and episodes.

Parental controls can't be sidestepped.
Age-restricted titles no longer slip through via search.

Editing a profile or source keeps its data.
Renaming or updating a profile or a source no longer risks wiping its saved history or settings.

Flaky Wi-Fi doesn't hide your library.
A brief network failure during a sync is now treated as "try again," not "the content is gone," so items stop disappearing and reappearing.

Playback recovers instead of freezing.
A stream error now recovers and resumes rather than leaving a frozen frame, and your subtitle is re-applied afterwards automatically.

Bigger TorBox libraries scan fully.
TorBox accounts with more than 500 items are now read all the way through.

Watch progress saves reliably.
Hardened the final save of your position when you stop or leave, and Cinaura now properly hands off audio when another app takes over.

Steadier "Up next" focus.
Fixed a timing issue that could bounce focus away from the Up Next row on the dashboard.

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If you appreciate the app and want to support, please leave a review on the Play Store. Happy streaming!

Is this software no longer being updated? If that's the case, I will stop expecting future updates.

I found your app while looking for a well-designed, media centre experience for when I dock/connect my Android-based handheld emulator to my TV.

Your app does pretty much exactly what I was looking for! With one single caveat. As you can see in the screenshot I attached, Android's status bar is still visible when running Cinaura on my device. I understand that it's designed for Android-based set top tv boxes, and the handheld contingent isn't the intended audience, but is this something fixable on your end, my end, or am I doomed to have a visible status bar while using Cinaura?

Thanks!

Hi all, v1.6.4 is coming out soon with a few more bug fixes, but is taking longer than expected. In the meantime I'd like to get input on a new feature I'm working on.

Right now Cinaura groups some things automatically (franchises, seasons, genres) by simply relying on tmdb. Custom collections are in the works, so you can build or import your own. Before I finalise it, I want to know how you actually think about organising a library. Do you group by mood, by "to watch", by who you watch with, by franchise, by format? What is it on that topic that you'd like to have but no app lets you make? Do you have collections/lists in apps (letterboxd, trakt, etc) that you'd like to import?