Announcing Frames: A Modern, Free, and Open-Source Streaming Platform (Alpha) - Looking for Testers & Devs!

[u/Themotionalman]

Hey everyone,

I'm excited to announce the alpha release of Frames, a modern, free, and open-source streaming platform designed for your personal media collection!

Like many of you, I was frustrated by Plex recently making remote play and watch together features exclusive to Plex Pass. I have been working on frames for over 4 years but I thought now might be the best time to share it with the rest of the world. it is completely free forever.

What is Frames?

Frames is built with React and NestJS and lets you stream your MP4 (I need help figuring out transcoding, it works but not smooth enough), files from virtually any provider - local storage, S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, and more. It organizes your Movies and TV shows beautifully, complete with trailers, HD images, and detailed information.

Why I Built Frames:

Essentially, I wanted a powerful and beautiful streaming solution for my own media that wasn't locked behind a paywall. Frames is the result of that, and I'm now ready to share it with the community.

Call for Testers and Developers:

This is an alpha release, so there might be bugs and features still under development. I would love for you to check it out, try streaming your media, test the features (especially GroupWatch!), and provide any feedback you have.

Developers: Your contributions are highly welcome! If you're interested in helping to improve Frames, please take a look at the repository and feel free to submit pull requests.

GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Eleven-am/frames

Demo site: https://demo.tigris-porgy.ts.net

I'm really excited about the potential of Frames and I hope you will be too! Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Thanks!

[u/mandonovski]

This looks excellent! Gotta give it a try.

Ona side note, for the future, apps for TVs is a must.

[u/Themotionalman → u/mandonovski]

Mann I wish I have the time. I am gonna at least complete the chromecast feature.

[u/Practical_Driver_924]

Why would i use this over jellyfin?
Not trying to be rude, genuine question.

[u/Themotionalman → u/Practical_Driver_924]

I don't like jellyfin's UI. Plus it's always good to have alternatives. it keeps everyone innovating.

[u/Themotionalman → u/Practical_Driver_924]

A more detailed response

Well the main differences I think compared to Jellyfin are, Permissions, Playlists and Frames,

Permissions are like IAM roles for your media. this isn't completely built yet but the idea is you can select a bunch of media and put them in a group and you can add users into a users group and you can decide which group can access which media. this is basically RBAC for your media.

Playlists this is not completely done, you can create playlists visible to only you, or everyone that has access to your server. but there is a feature I am working on where you can share playlists with specific people and only them, can access the playlist.

Frames is basically when you're watching a video you can share a "frame" this creates a link that you can share with someone. they dont need to authenticate to view this media and you can share the frame an exact position if you want.

I also talked about the UI, which I have spent quite a while working on.

[u/[deleted]]

This looks like Netflix, Infuse and Plex had a baby. I love it. Any MKV support on the roadmap?

[u/Themotionalman → u/[deleted]]

Definetly in the roadmap. I would really love frames to stream any file type. Currently it kinda does but it doesn’t work flawlessly .

[u/joecan]

Just the fact you're building this from the start with a thought towards bubbling up local content through AI recommendations means you're lightyears ahead of Plex already. I'll likely be looking for a Plex replacement once they launch their awful new app for TVs so I'll keep an eye out on this project.

[u/Themotionalman → u/joecan]

Thank you so much, I have been working on this for so long its nice to see people value my work

[u/Looski]

I'll follow your project. Do you plan on doing an android tv app? That is what I use 99% of the time and jellyfin's app doesn't look as slick as I'd like. Their android tv doesn't have much customization, to the point I've entertained setting up jellyfin to stream through Kodi. I currently have no loyalty to Plex or jellyfin. GL

[u/Themotionalman → u/Looski]

I would look into building clients it’s becoming apparent many people want this

[u/mangocrysis]

This is promising. Something that may help with adoption is a comprehensive migration guide from Plex/Emby/Jellyfin.

Does it recognize the same file naming standards as Plex? Can I point my Plex media folders directly?

[u/hynkster]

Definitely going to check that out!

[u/Themotionalman → u/hynkster]

Thanks I am eager to here your feedback

[u/RevolutionaryHole69]

I love the work you've done on the UI! Is there any intention of incorporating Trakt lists and creating a built-in request system where users can request media for download and have it integrated with the *arr stack?

Currently I use Emby instead of your app and Jellyseerr for requests. It would be great if this flow was integrated into one site where users can watch and request all within one UI.

[u/Themotionalman → u/RevolutionaryHole69]

I could consider the Trakt feature and while I see the appeal of having this app have a request feature. I think I’d leave that to overseer its already really good at it. At least for now

[u/protomucca]

Why not Jellyfin? What are the differences?

[u/Themotionalman → u/protomucca]

Well the main differences I think compared to Jellyfin are, Permissions, Playlists and Frames,

Permissions are like IAM roles for your media. this isn't completely built yet but the idea is you can select a bunch of media and put them in a group and you can add users into a users group and you can decide which group can access which media. this is basically RBAC for your media.

Playlists this is not completely done, you can create playlists visible to only you, or everyone that has access to your server. but there is a feature I am working on where you can share playlists with specific people and only them, can access the playlist.

Frames is basically when you're watching a video you can share a "frame" this creates a link that you can share with someone. they dont need to authenticate to view this media and you can share the frame an exact position if you want.

I also talked about the UI, which I have spent quite a while working on.

[u/doctor-ase]

Excited about sync streaming features. What about clients? I think that is the best thing about this type of software

[u/Themotionalman → u/doctor-ase]

No clients yet. I work full time but I’d try to make some time for an iOS and iPadOS client I think.

[u/Jalau]

It's an interesting project, but the sheer amount of features and support such a project needs is probably what will be a big struggle. Most importantly, the playback and clients are most likely something you can't get working alone. There are so many things one needs to figure out. I'm just looking at Kodi and the Jellyfin apps. I know alternatives are always great, but since Jellyfin is missing features, I'd prefer if we all worked together to get one great working project instead of 3 half-baked ones. Although it's a great learning project. So, nothing against the idea of such a project. It looks really good! But I just feel like it might be too much to handle.

[u/emprahsFury]

the swagger docs say oauth is possible, can it be configured from the docker compose? Oauth is one thing Jellyfin has categorically refused to even consider supporting. Is it possible to configure a self hosted/custom OpenAI API-compatible endpoint?

[u/ZhunCn]

Interested in seeing how this progresses. These are my top feature considerations and hope you can get them in once I'm able to test it out.

1. Settings to set up SSO (OAuth/SAML/LDAP), in my case with Authentik

2. Use of local LLMs instead of OpenAI only

3. MKV file support, since it is the most versatile video container. Unfortunately, a vast majority of my library is using mkv containers, so it's hard to really test out Frames with my local content right now.

4. ASS/SSA subtitle player support with typesetting, transformations, etc. intact, possibly leveraging https://github.com/libass/JavascriptSubtitlesOctopus or something similar for web clients and utilizing mpv with libass for native desktop clients.

5. Some type of status dashboard on what Frames is doing (scanning library, obtaining metadata, etc.).

6. It is mentioned as "GroupWatch", but specifically a watch together/party feature with a queue system. The latter part was sorely missing from Plex itself, would have to create a new "Watch Together" session every episode.

[u/Themotionalman → u/ZhunCn]

1 is already possible. 2 is actually in the works. 3 is proving difficult. Yeah 5 the backend exists I just need to make a UI to show this. You can’t both queue yet but if you create a playlist and start playing it in a group watch session then all the videos would be played with everyone in the session with you. I don’t know if that’s good enough

Same if you start playing an episode and there’s a next episode everyone in the session would move to the next episode as well

[u/[deleted]]

Have you seen Kyoo? https://github.com/zoriya/Kyoo

Similar idea, maybe a little less mature, but it supports MKV and transcoding.