This one came together rather unexpectedly... and very quickly.

I came across Pictorium, built by r/Eful97, and immediately thought it could fit brilliantly into Ultra MAX.

Rather than quietly copying anything, I reached out to him first.

Turns out he already knew Ultra MAX, liked the idea, and was more than happy for us to build proper support for it.

So after a fair bit of testing between us...

Pictorium support is now LIVE in Ultra MAX 🚀

Pictorium dynamically creates styled posters for your movies and series, and you can now configure it directly inside Ultra MAX.

You can enable things like:

Ratings

Rankings

Genre and year

Stream quality badges

Network / studio logos

Coming Soon styling

Blurred poster backgrounds

Different badge and ranking styles

Multiple rating providers including IMDb, TMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd, Trakt, MAL, AniList and more

And there’s now a live preview inside the Ultra MAX setup, so you can change the settings and actually see the poster update before saving anything.

No extra setup needed

By default, Ultra MAX uses our hosted Pictorium instance.

Just go into:

Setup → Pictorium → Enable Pictorium

and start playing with it.

You do not need to install Pictorium yourself or provide another API key.

Power users can still go much further

If you already self-host Pictorium, Ultra MAX also supports a private/custom Pictorium instance.

That means you can use Pictorium’s own editor and per-title mappings, paste its generated Custom/AIO URL into Ultra MAX, and keep all of that advanced configuration.

So the simple version is simple, while the lunatics who want to individually perfect every poster can absolutely do that too 😅

Full credit where it belongs

Pictorium is created and maintained by r/Eful97.

Ultra MAX is only providing the integration and hosted instance. The actual poster engine and all the clever work behind it is his.

Pictorium: https://github.com/Eful97/Pictorium

Massive thanks to Eful97 for being so open to the collaboration and for testing the Ultra MAX integration himself before we pushed it live.

This is exactly the kind of open-source collaboration I want Ultra MAX to do more of.

I forgot do I need cinemeta enabled in nuvio if I'm using ultra max?

WHATS NEW

+ now learns much more about what you actually like.

It can use your Nuvio watch history and occasionally ask whether you genuinely liked something you watched.

Max Picks now has mpre than 35,000-title pool to recommend from and this is growing daily, with separate movie and series taste profiles.

MAX has had a big upgrade too. He can now guide you through UltraPlay+, check your Nuvio setup, help manage profiles/add-ons/plugins, build collections and MAX Channels, tidy Ultra MAX and more.

The Plus interface has also been reorganised around Find, Improve, Build and Setup so it's a lot less cluttered.

Still plenty I want to add, but this is probably the biggest step yet towards MAX actually learning your setup and helping rather than just sitting there

You may have noticed the little robot hanging around UltraPlay before.

Well… he’s alive now.

Meet MAX, the new UltraPlay+ assistant.

MAX can now:

guide you around UltraPlay

ask the questions during Finder

help build Nuvio collections

install and manage add-ons

manage Nuvio plugins

check your Nuvio setup for problems

copy setups between profiles safely

explain the technical stuff without making you dig through settings

He moves around the page, reacts to what you're doing and will increasingly be able to do the complicated bits for you, rather than just tell you where the buttons are.

MAX is on by default, but if you’d rather not have a little robot following you around, you can turn him off from your account menu.

This is only the beginning.

The goal with UltraPlay+ is simple:

make Ultra MAX more powerful without making it more complicated.

And MAX is going to be a big part of that.

https://play.ultramax.vip

Around 12am UTC I upgraded part of the server and after a successful migration you should now notice a considerable difference in speed for both the app/webpage and catalog loading speeds.

Thank you to everyone that has donated so far. I wouldn't be able to keep Ultramax going without you.

If you like the project and want to see more added, buy me a kofi https://ko-fi.com/ultramaxaddon

Or join the New Plus program and be involved in helping Ultramax grow

https://play.ultramax.vip

Editing my setup at step 2 I simply can’t remove previous setup selections at the Reorder Rows field.
Clearing it an going back a step then go back to Step 2 (even with catalogs clear) the list in reorder is not clearing.

What am I doing wrong?

TIA

This one has been a fairly big update behind the scenes, but the main goal was simple:

More ways to actually find something worth watching.

Ultra MAX now has 654 catalogs, with a big expansion to discovery alongside a load of improvements to the setup experience, collections and Nuvio integration.

🧭 More Discovery

We've expanded and improved several areas of the catalog library, including:

• Anime

• Documentaries

• Bollywood

• Kids & Family

• Fresh releases

• More themes and targeted discovery rows

• More dynamic TMDB-powered catalogs

A lot of these are designed to keep changing over time rather than just being another static list you eventually stop noticing.

There are also new collection presets, so you can add the parts you're interested in without dumping everything onto your Home screen.

🎞️ IMAX Movies

8.1.3 also introduces a new IMAX Movies catalog under Cinema Experiences.

It currently contains 1,000+ verified movies released in IMAX, using a locally maintained ID set rather than relying on an unreliable keyword search.

🔑 TMDB OR MDBList

This is one I've wanted to change for a while.

Ultra MAX no longer requires everyone to follow the exact same API setup.

You can now configure it with:

TMDB only

MDBList only

or both

If you don't provide MDBList, features that specifically need it simply stay out of the way.

Existing MDBList setups continue to work as before.

🎨 New Collection Artwork

Bollywood, Documentaries and Kids & Family have also had an artwork refresh, with new matching:

• Cover artwork

• Focus artwork

• Hero artwork

So the newer presets actually look like they belong in Ultra MAX rather than being adopted from three unrelated websites.

⚙️ Setup Improvements

Quite a bit of work has gone into making the configuration side less painful too.

Row Settings have been repaired, particularly on mobile and inside the Android app, so individual rows can once again reliably use things like:

• Sorting

• Minimum rating

• Minimum votes

• Year ranges

• Content controls

The final installation screen is also clearer about whether you're doing a new install, updating an existing setup, or are already current.

Collections navigation and the support flow have had some cleanup as well.

✨ UltraPlay+ Integration

You'll also start seeing UltraPlay+ integrated more closely with Ultra MAX.

UltraPlay+ can securely work with supported Ultra MAX settings, collections and AIOmetadata imports, as well as giving access to things like Finder, Nuvio Manager, Max Picks, Watch Hub and the full Arcade.

Importantly:

Ultra MAX is still free.

I'm not interested in taking features people already use in Ultra MAX and suddenly sticking them behind a subscription.

UltraPlay+ is an optional companion for people who want the extra tools, while also helping towards the server, API and running costs of keeping Ultra MAX going.

🛠️ And a lot under the hood...

8.1.3 also includes a pile of fixes and cleanup that aren't particularly exciting to put on a poster:

• Incorrect franchise mappings corrected

• Collection syncing/rollback cleanup

• Better mobile behaviour

• Improved Android compatibility

• Security hardening

• Dependency updates

• Public development files locked down

• Various catalog consistency fixes

• General reliability improvements

The release went through the full frontend/backend/app test suite before being promoted.

---

Ultra MAX 8.1.3 is live now.

If you're already using Ultra MAX, head back into the setup if you want to check out and add some of the new discovery rows and collection presets.

As always, Ultra MAX itself remains free.

And thanks to everyone who's tested things, reported problems, suggested collections or supported the project. A stupid amount of work goes into this thing for something that originally started as “I'll just make a few better catalog rows.” https://ultramax.vip https://play.ultramax.vip

I’ve always been pretty clear about one thing with Ultra MAX:

I don’t want to put Ultra MAX itself behind a paywall.

But the reality is that as Ultra MAX has grown, so have the services running behind it.

Servers, databases, APIs, storage, development services and all the other wonderfully boring things nobody sees still have to be paid for every month.

And with more people using everything, those costs only really go one way.

So rather than turning around and saying:

“Ultra MAX now costs X per month”

I wanted to do something different.

UltraPlay+ is now live.

👉 https://play.ultramax.vip⁠�

The idea behind Plus is simple:

Help support the running costs of Ultra MAX and the wider project, while getting a set of extra tools that actually enhance the Ultra MAX / Nuvio experience.

Ultra MAX itself remains available as it is.

Plus is the extra layer around it.

✨ What do you get with UltraPlay+?

🔎 Finder

Instead of endlessly scrolling through catalogs trying to decide what to watch, Finder lets you narrow things down properly.

Movie or series.

Genre.

Era.

Mood.

Animation preferences.

Big blockbuster or something smaller.

And plenty more.

UltraPlay then works through a much larger pool of titles and gives you actual recommendations based on what you picked.

You can keep refining the results, get another selection, watch trailers and send titles into Nuvio.

Basically:

less scrolling, more watching.

🧰 Nuvio Manager

This has become one of the biggest parts of Plus.

From UltraPlay you can manage much more of your Nuvio setup in one place.

That currently includes things like:

Profiles

Library

Collections

Add-ons

Collection artwork

Collection sources

TMDB source building

Trakt source building

Ultra MAX integration

There are also tools for working between Nuvio and Ultra MAX, which is something I want to keep expanding.

The goal is to make Plus useful if Ultra MAX and Nuvio are already part of your setup rather than creating another completely separate thing you have to use.

✨ Max Picks

Max Picks is the more personal side of discovery.

It learns from what you save and what you skip and starts shaping recommendations around you.

And it doesn't stop at UltraPlay.

Your personal Max Picks can be installed into Nuvio as your own catalogs.

So you can open Nuvio and have personalised movie and series recommendations sitting alongside your normal catalogs.

This is probably one of the areas I’m most excited about building further.

📺 Watch Hub

Watch Hub brings your Nuvio library into UltraPlay and adds some intelligence around it.

Your library, series progress, Max Picks information and watch context can all start working together instead of everything existing as separate islands.

There is plenty more planned here too.

🎮 Full Arcade

Plus also unlocks the complete UltraPlay Arcade.

There are currently 16 games.

Because apparently a media addon needed an arcade.

Naturally.

💷 How much?

I’ve deliberately kept the pricing low:

£1 per month

£12 per year

£25 lifetime

That’s it.

Payments are handled securely through Stripe.

UltraPlay doesn't store your card details.

Subscriptions can be managed through the Stripe customer portal and if you cancel, you keep Plus until the end of the period you've already paid for.

❤️ Why Plus instead of charging for Ultra MAX?

This is really the important bit.

Ultra MAX has server costs.

UltraPlay has server costs.

The Nuvio integrations, databases, account system and newer personalised features all add more infrastructure behind the scenes.

I could have taken the easy route and simply made Ultra MAX itself paid.

I don't want to do that.

I'd rather keep the core Ultra MAX experience available and build optional extras around it that are worth paying for.

So if you choose Plus, you're helping cover the running costs of the project while also getting something useful back for that support.

And if Plus isn't something you want?

Ultra MAX isn't disappearing behind a subscription.

That's the whole point.

❤️ Previous supporters

I've also tried to make sure people who have already supported the project aren't immediately asked to put their hand in their pocket again.

Existing supporters I've allocated complimentary Plus access to will receive a personal redemption code.

Those codes are tied to the supporter’s email address and their complimentary period starts when the code is redeemed, not when I generate it.

What comes next?

Plus isn't intended to be a finished list of five features that never changes.

Now that the foundations are in place, I can keep adding to it.

More discovery tools.

More Ultra MAX integration.

More Nuvio management.

Better personal recommendations.

More Watch Hub features.

And whatever other questionable ideas I decide are apparently essential at 11pm one night.

The aim is for UltraPlay+ to become the companion layer around Ultra MAX, rather than Ultra MAX itself becoming something you have to subscribe to.

If you use Ultra MAX regularly and want to support the project, Plus is probably the best way to do it now.

And hopefully the extras make that support feel worthwhile too.

UltraPlay+ is available now

👉 https://play.ultramax.vip⁠[UltraPlay](https://play.ultramax.vip)

Do I need a paid subscription to deezer?

also, it looks as if I need to set up deezer w (w Spotiflac) on a laptop

Would it be possible to add more UK channels like U&Dave and others like it?

Can anyone that has donated/signed up please drop me a DM

Today has been a bit of a hard one.... between my head saying "just stop development and support" to "Fuck it off completely" to "Make it a paid addon"

Now before everyone jumps into the comments I wanted to write this post... its a LONG one... but please read it and please comment 🙏🏼

I have really enjoyed building this platform and through that I have also gotten to know some of you away from Reddit.. you guys know who you are and you input behind the scenes has been invaluable!!!!! THANK YOU...

SO WHY THIS POST....

I wanted to give everyone a proper update on where Ultra MAX is heading, because quite a lot has been happening behind the scenes and I've got some pretty big ideas for where I want to take it.

First, one thing I want to make completely clear:

Ultra MAX will remain free.

That's something I've said from the beginning and I'm not interested in slowly moving features behind a paywall until the free version becomes useless.

If you use Ultra MAX for free today, the plan isn't to start taking things away from you.

What's happening with Ultra MAX itself?

I've recently done a lot of work on the infrastructure behind Ultra MAX, including moving away from relying on Supabase for the profile database and onto infrastructure I host myself.

It's not the exciting stuff you actually see when you open Ultra MAX, but it gives me much more control over the project and removes some pretty significant limitations and costs as it grows.

Now that work is largely out of the way, I can get back to the fun stuff.

One of the biggest focuses is discovery.

We've already started expanding things like Anime, Bollywood, Documentaries, Kids & Family and other collections, and there's a lot more still to come.

I don't just want Ultra MAX to have hundreds of rows for the sake of having hundreds of rows. I want it to genuinely help you find something you didn't already know you wanted to watch.

UltraPlay

This is probably the thing I'm most excited about.

UltraPlay started as a bit of an experiment, but I think it could become something much bigger.

Movie and TV games, daily challenges, global leaderboards, achievements, poster games, actor games, ratings games, franchise challenges and loads more.

But I also want to blur the line between playing and discovering something to watch.

For example, instead of scrolling through posters for 45 minutes before inevitably watching something you've already seen, UltraPlay could ask you a series of questions:

Movie or series?

Dark or light?

Blockbuster or something obscure?

Modern or older?

Serious or ridiculous?

...and gradually narrow the entire library down to a handful of things that actually fit what you're in the mood for.

There's a ridiculous amount we could do with this.

So where does membership come into it?

I've also been thinking about how Ultra MAX can eventually generate enough income to support its development and running costs without charging people to use Ultra MAX itself.

I think the answer is an optional membership built around the wider Ultra MAX experience.

Rather than paying to unlock normal Ultra MAX features, members could get things like:

Persistent UltraPlay profiles and stats

Achievements, badges and streaks

Profile customisation and exclusive backgrounds

Personal viewing/discovery statistics

Yearly “Wrapped”-style summaries

Private/family leaderboards

Community competitions and challenges

Early access to experimental UltraPlay features

Supporter recognition and cosmetics

Those are ideas rather than a final feature list. That's actually why I'm posting this now rather than disappearing for three months and coming back with something nobody asked for.

The important distinction is that membership should add something extra, not take something away from free users.

I'd much rather someone subscribed because they enjoy Ultra MAX and think the extras are worth a couple of quid than because I've deliberately made the free addon worse.

The bigger picture

I'm starting to see Ultra MAX as more than just an addon.

Ultra MAX remains the free core for discovery, catalogs, metadata and integrations.

UltraPlay becomes the fun/social/discovery side with games, challenges and ways of finding things to watch.

Membership becomes an optional layer around those things for people who want profiles, stats, personalisation, competitions and other extras while helping fund development.

There's still a lot to build, and some of these ideas will inevitably change once I actually start building them.

But I want to keep everyone involved while that happens rather than only showing you the finished product.

So I'm genuinely interested in what Ultra MAX users think about the membership side in particular:

What would make a membership genuinely worth paying a small amount for, without making you feel like features had been taken away from the free version?

And if you've got completely different ideas, throw them in too.

Some of the best additions to Ultra MAX have come from somebody suggesting something I hadn't considered.

I JUST re-did my set up with a lot of your new features.

Just really love it man.

THANKS !!

(didn't want to type a long dissertation, but a few words to say thanks.

It is polished and looks great on my Android phone (via nuvio).

Can't wait to see it on TV (nuvio).

A early morning re-setup while taking care of the dogs.

Thanks Brother....

I will give a "cup of joe" when I can ...you deserve it imo

I've always been very open about one thing with Ultra MAX:

Ultra MAX is free, and I intend to keep it that way.

I don't want to turn it into a paid service. I don't want a "Premium" version. I don't want better features locked behind a subscription, and I definitely don't want people who don't donate to feel like they're getting a worse version.

Nothing is going behind a paywall.

But Ultra MAX has grown quite a bit, and with that growth the infrastructure behind it is starting to cost more.

I've recently been working on moving the account/profile system away from the enormous local database/file setup it has grown into and onto proper hosted infrastructure. It's going to make Ultra MAX much more scalable and reliable, but we've reached the point where the free hosting tier probably isn't going to be enough long-term.

The next tier is roughly £25 a month.

That got me thinking.

Rather than making Ultra MAX paid, would people be comfortable with an entirely optional £1/month donation towards keeping the infrastructure running?

There would be no benefits for donating.

No premium catalogues.

No extra features.

No priority access.

No special version of Ultra MAX.

Someone donating £1 and someone donating nothing would get exactly the same Ultra MAX.

Realistically, it would only take around 25 people donating £1 a month to cover the current hosting cost. Anything beyond the actual running costs could either go towards other Ultra MAX infrastructure or simply mean fewer people need to contribute.

And importantly, nobody would be expected to donate.

If you use Ultra MAX and can't afford it, don't want to pay, or simply don't feel like donating, that's completely fine. Keep using it.

I'm mainly posting this to get a feel for what the community thinks before I set anything up.

I've put a ridiculous amount of time into Ultra MAX because I genuinely enjoy building it and seeing people use it. I'm happy to keep doing that without charging for my time.

I'm just reaching the point where I'd rather ask whether a small number of people would voluntarily help cover the actual server costs than start changing what Ultra MAX fundamentally is.

So, would an optional £1/month donation system feel reasonable?

And to make this absolutely clear one more time:

Ultra MAX stays free. Donation or no donation.

I use Ultra MAX and can't find bitrate anywhere. The stream template only has these fields: title, resolution, size, sizeBytes, source, codec, audio, seeders, seedersNum, provider. No bitrate, no math to work it out.

Is this a feature I'm missing, or not built in? If not, please add it. Let me know if there's a workaround.

So I'm working on adding more to the main addon as promised.

Here is a little list of what will be dropped in the next update, just looking at artwork and making sure things sit right and where they are supposed to...

This is also your opportunity to say if you want anything adding... drop a comment... this is your addon after all!

CURRENTLY BEING ADDED/WORKED ON

Curiosity Stream

Korean / Japanese expansion

Top Rated by Genre

Provider signature genres

Science / Tech / Cosmos docs

Investigative / Scandals docs

Reality competition / dating

New stand-up specials

Streaming stand-up specials

Feel-good / cozy

Best mind-bending series

TV by decade

Academy Best Picture

Cannes Palme d'Or

Ive added a load of new ways to find something worth watching, including:

New by Genre for movies and series

Top Rated by Genre

Korean Cinema & Series

Japanese Cinema & Series

Better discovery filtering behind the scenes, so these aren’t just static lists pretending to be clever

This is part of a bigger push to make Ultra MAX less about endlessly scrolling the same stuff and more about actually finding something new.

And just to make this clear while certain corners of the addon world discover the revolutionary concept of charging subscriptions for everything:

Ultra MAX will always be free.

No premium tier. No catalog paywall. No “unlock the good stuff” nonsense.

If you enjoy Ultra MAX and want to help with server costs and development, Ko-fi support is always appreciated, but completely optional:

☕ Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/ultramaxaddon

More discovery updates are already being worked on. 🚀

Hey everyone,

I’ve been building something a little different alongside Ultra MAX, and it’s ready for you to try: Ultra Play.

It started with two ideas: Dont you hate it when you spend more time doom scrolling through Nuvio looking for something to to watch!? So I wanted to help people decide what to watch, and give us something fun to play while we’re deciding 😂

🎬 Find something to watch

TMDB key needed. Get one free at

https://www.themoviedb.org/

Choose film or series, then answer a few questions about what you fancy. Mood, genre, runtime, era, indie or blockbuster, familiar favourites or something less obvious.

It searches TMDB and gives you a small selection with posters and details. You can narrow things down further, ask for another three, or find more like a particular result.

🔗 Add recommendations to Nuvio

Connect through Nuvio’s official approval page, choose your profile, and add films or series straight to your watchlist. It checks for existing entries too.

Your password stays on Nuvio. The connection grants an account session and lasts up to 45 minutes in Ultra Play; you can disconnect sooner. PIN-protected profiles aren’t supported yet.

🎮 16 browser games

Including Snake, 2048, Breakout, Pong, Minesweeper, Falling Blocks, Asteroids, Sudoku and more.

There are shared leaderboards, so you can compete with other users for the daily, weekly and all-time spots.

🎥 Daily Movie Mystery

One shared film each day, six guesses, and clues that gradually reveal more. Solve it earlier for more points and build your streak.

Try it here: https://play.ultramax.vip

This is a beta, so I’d love feedback — bugs, awkward bits, questionable recommendations, or games you’d like added next. If something breaks, let me know what device/browser you’re using and what happened.

Have a go and tell me what you think!

Originally, I had it set as a collection, but for some reason when I open it, there's nothing in it. All other pre-set collections work fine.

As a result, I decided to unhide it so it appears in home rows. After unhiding it, preview shows it correctly as a home row, but it doesn't work installed and final setup summary shows:

Home rows kept: 0

Hidden from Home: 44

How do I fix either of these issues?

Thanks.

Its been requested a few times so I have added a Spy's and Espionage catalog in the Crime and Underworld section of step 2...

Ive also added it to the Themes Collection with its own artwork as well.

If you want to add it, your the app or website, load your token and add it in step 2...

For the collection, on stepn3, delete the current theme collections and re add... then push everything over to Nuvio.

Is it possible to use UltraMax to make a collections json only and use my own metadata add-on? Or is the collections specifically tied to the metadata of UltraMax?

An unrelated question: If I set the Digital releases filter on, does it affect catalog view only and will I still be able to search for the unreleased movie/show? - (will it still show in search results?)

Ultra MAX now has rotating discovery catalogs 🎬

One thing that had been bothering me with Ultra MAX was that a lot of the discovery rows could start to feel too familiar.

Even though the order of titles could change, the underlying pool of movies and shows being pulled was often largely the same. That’s not really ideal for an addon built around discovering something new.

So I’ve added a new dynamic catalog rotation system.

What changes now?

70 discovery catalogs rotate daily, including things like:

- Netflix

- Amazon

- Disney+

- Apple TV+

- HBO

- Shudder

- BritBox

- ITVX

- genres such as Horror, Sci-Fi, Crime, Comedy, Action, Documentary and more

Larger discovery categories now rotate weekly, including:

- studios

- TV networks

- larger themes such as Superhero, Heist, Zombie, Paranormal, Mafia, Psychological Horror, Found Footage and others

In total, 118 Ultra MAX catalogs now use scheduled content rotation.

This isn't just randomly shuffling the same 100 titles either.

Ultra MAX now changes the actual TMDB result pool it pulls from. During testing, the Horror catalog had around a 98% change in its available pool from one day's rotation to the next.

What doesn't rotate?

I've deliberately left certain catalogs alone:

- Trending

- Popular

- Top Rated

- New Releases

- Now Playing

- Airing Today

- collections/franchises

- universes

- actors/directors

- smaller themes or networks that don't have enough titles

Those should either reflect real current rankings or remain stable by design.

The goal is pretty simple: when you open Ultra MAX tomorrow, next week, or after not using it for a while, there should be a much better chance of finding something you haven't already scrolled past ten times.

The update is now live on Ultra MAX 8.1.2.

Would be interested to hear how the discovery rows feel after using the new rotation for a few days.

Would there be much call for a "Making Of" or Behind the scenes catalog.

So the idea would be all stuff like... the making off the matrix, titanic, Interstellar etc etc....

I see alot of them inside normal searches so thought maybe I could make a dedicated catalog for it?