A media server with a grudge

Everything you own,
on every screen.

Spite plays the music, movies and TV you already own, off one box in your house, on every screen in it. No account, no ads, no subscription, and nothing taken away in next year's update.

See what it does Can I have it?

0 accounts to sign up for

0 ads, ever

4 apps: web, iOS, Android, Roku

10k albums, and it still opens instantly

Your records

Covers big enough to judge an album by.

Art comes first on every screen. Albums that arrived without a cover get one from MusicBrainz and the Cover Art Archive, if you let Spite look.

These records are made up. Yours will be better.

Video

It plays the file. Whatever the file is.

MKV, HEVC, 10-bit, DTS, that DivX rip from 2004. Every device says what it can play and Spite handles the rest: plays it straight when it can, rewraps it when only the container is wrong, transcodes it when it has to.

Your GPU does the work

Intel and NVIDIA encoders, tested by Spite itself, with a fallback to software instead of a failure.

HDR that isn't grey

HDR10 and HLG are tone-mapped whenever video is re-encoded.

Subtitles, found

Embedded, sidecar, closed captions from TV recordings, and missing ones fetched in the background.

Skip intro, skip credits

Found by listening across a season. Nobody has to tag anything.

Pick up anywhere

Stop on the TV, finish on the iPad. Seek previews and watched marks follow you.

Everyone gets their own

Progress, favourites, playlists and home screen, for every user in the house.

Music

Built for people with too many records.

Ten thousand albums opens as fast as ten, even on a Roku. Every list is paged, so nothing chokes.

  • The real numbers: FLAC · 24-bit / 96 kHz, DSD64, MP3 · 320.
  • Gapless playback, so live albums run straight through.
  • ReplayGain, from tags or measured. Never louder than the file.
  • Synced lyrics, a visualizer, and a sleep timer that fades out.

Live TV

Plug in an antenna. Cancel cable.

Point Spite at an HDHomeRun-compatible tuner and live channels appear in every app, with what's on now and next. Tablo owners get recordings copied into the library too.

  • Channel up, channel down from the remote, tuners shared fairly.
  • Ads are marked on recordings and skipped after a three second countdown.
  • Closed captions on live channels and recordings.

Apps

Every screen in the house. None of them second class.

A feature isn't done until it's on every app, or there's a written reason it can't be.

Web

Any browser, installable. Settings, users and libraries live here.

iPhone + iPad

Lock screen controls, downloads for the plane, AirPlay, picture in picture.

Android

Tablet first. Music in the background, video that keeps the screen awake.

Roku

Built for a remote: search, playlists, live TV and skip intro, no keyboard.

The rules

  1. Your files stay yours.

    Spite runs on your network, in Docker, on a box you own.

  2. Nobody's watching.

    It reports what you watch to no one. Posters, subtitles and lyrics are fetched only if you switch that on.

  3. Nothing gets taken away.

    No subscription to lapse, no feature moved behind a paywall.

  4. Share what you made.

    Got a band? Put an album on a public page with its own player and an embed.

Status

Can I have it? Not yet.

Right now Spite runs one house: a Roku, an iPhone, an iPad and an Android tablet, every day. There's no download, no app store listing and no sign-up. A licence and an install guide come first. When it's ready, it goes up here.

What will it run on?
Any computer that runs Docker, with your media on its disks. An Intel or NVIDIA GPU helps but isn't required.
Does it need the internet?
No. Everything plays over your home network.
Chromecast?
On the list. Not built yet.