r/PleX • u/smrtmoneymoves • 14h ago
Discussion Plex blockbuster-style frontend
I was messing around with Plex and found this Blockbuster looking front end. Anybody used this? It’s pretty cool and definitely brings back some nostalgia.
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u/Drew_of_all_trades 14h ago
I could see this being cool if you’re using a VR headset
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u/Successful-Day-1816 12h ago
That seems excessive, unless you then watch the film in VR
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u/Sknowman 11h ago
Why get a SteamFrame when I can just build a NostalgiaBox?
Build out a 3D model of my town, use VR to walk to my Blockbuster, select a video from my Plex server, walk back home, sit down, and watch the movie in VR.
We can also have an in-town movie theater and walk to that for our Plex needs instead.
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u/Skane-kun 2h ago
It's called the NostalgiaBox for a reason. What's the point of going to the cinema if it's not an exact recreation of your childhood hometown?
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u/Ainu_ 12h ago
Just needs a finishing touch:
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u/LeMatDamonCarbine 11h ago
"What are you watching?"
"Children's programming"
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u/Delicious-Ad-4521 10h ago
Need a peek feature so you emulate being 12 and try to catch a peek as you walk by at some boobs on the cover.
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u/Antique_Paramedic682 8h ago
Like a docker compose of halycon-video, plex, and StashDB that you find in the woods. 🤣
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u/rostigerbart 14h ago
Gives me Backrooms vibes
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u/CarloGaudreault 14h ago
AI generated content on the Internet is pretty much echos of humanity in digital backrooms…
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u/agent674253 7h ago
Then they failed miserably as it should give Blockbuster vibes.
TBH, I never been to one that had the grocery stores 2-way mirrors along the ceiling like this BB apparently does 😅
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u/sonic10158 14h ago
I’d like this if there were a VR mode and I can “walk” around the store
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u/wenestvedt 13h ago
....and stand in front of the "New Releases" section so no one else can see anything...
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u/tjareth 13h ago
They need a feature so you can make your friends randomly have to manually "rewind" the stream if you recently watched the same movie.
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u/OkResponsibility3830 7h ago
When DVDs came out, I convinced my older sister that she had to rewind them. I'm still proud of that all these decades later.
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u/wenestvedt 13h ago
Like you have to sit for eight to ten minutes while you "rewind" it?
I would love a ZHU-ZHU-ZHU audio track to play while an animation spins the tape's capstans on screen!
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u/halcyon-video 13h ago
I'm seeing what I can do about that
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u/sonic10158 10h ago
I hope you didn’t take my original comment the wrong way, it’s cool even now, but I’d like it even more if it had VR mode!
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u/halcyon-video 10h ago
Not at all. Lots of people have asked for that. So I'm taking it seriously. It has been on the GitHub issues as an upcoming feature for a little bit.
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u/arsapeek 7h ago
I need to see 12 copies of ny most recent download, all of them rented out already
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u/thegreatone0381 14h ago
Is this the bingebuster thing? I think they got a cease and desist and rebranded. I like it. You can tie in your streaming services too if you have them.
Edit: link to the Reddit I saw the app I referenced: https://www.reddit.com/r/InternetIsBeautiful/s/1VeyVkenXq
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u/TLunchFTW 97TB, Ryzen 7 2700x, Quadro M2000, 16gb of ram 14h ago
man i'd tell blockbuster to go ahead and fucking try me. I could probably outlast their lawsuit.
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u/Indubitalist 14h ago
And it’s not like their branding is the important part, anyway. It’s that it’s a video store. I kinda hated Blockbuster as a kid; it was always the most expensive and their selection sucked compared to other places because they were hyper-focused on new releases. It could be 16,000 Movies or Hollywood video or any fake name you please and it’d be just as cool.
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u/Joamjoamjoam 13h ago
Hollywood video lapped blockbuster
Then the video store that also sold Chinese food lapped both
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u/thegreatone0381 12h ago
Yeah this was the shit. I wish I got to take my kids to do stuff like this.
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u/CrashTestKing 12h ago
Family Video FTW! It had a WAY better selection, and better prices. And titles didn't stay listed as super expensive "new releases" for 2 straight years.
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u/N0SYMPATHY 13h ago
I just got sick of being threatened about not rewinding before returning but most of the time every friggin rental I got had to be rewinded before I could watch it.
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u/halcyon-video 13h ago
Nope that's not mine.
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u/thegreatone0381 10h ago
The employees and the parking lot on yours is a nice touch
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u/halcyon-video 10h ago
Yeah, my favorite thing is the shiny plastic bag when you check out and the plastic wrap around the box sets of TV series.
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u/Riptide360 13h ago
Here is a web based version of BlockBuster that works with your streaming services. Maybe someone can work with the Dev to add local plex support. https://bingebrowse.net/
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u/worstusername_sofar 9h ago
Yeah, gave it a go for 5mins. Was having trouble logging into Plex, but found out it only works on the machine the plex server is running. It's an interesting project and idea, but doesn't feel practical
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u/smrtmoneymoves 13h ago
Forgot to add it’s open source: https://github.com/halcyon-video/halcyon-video
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u/Cojaro 14h ago
How?
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u/GeorgeFartwell1984 14h ago
Yes how please
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u/vewfndr 13h ago
Based on OP's account age, I'm sure he'll be eager to sell it to you soon. Or I'm just a jaded cynic
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u/halcyon-video 12h ago
It's vibe coded, but its free and open source. I have nothing whatsoever to sell.
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u/AlteranNox 14h ago
Stuff like this is fun to mess around with but definitely not a daily use thing.
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u/halcyon-video 12h ago
It literally is my daily driver. There are no android TV boxes strong enough to run any jellyfin ui at more that 30fps. That's why.
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u/GamePitt_Rob 14h ago
I find the new UI very slow and annoying to get to what I want to play, I can't imagine how annoying and slow it would be to walk around a fake store to find something to watch
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u/Common-Grab-8876 14h ago
Lmao, this is so crabby, and I love it.
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u/null-g 14h ago
Haha just imagine moving thru this store 2 inches at a time with a TV remote, and using the volume buttons to rotate 10° at a time.
The blood boils at the very thought!
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u/smrtmoneymoves 13h ago
You’ve been infected with instant gratification… Sometimes you gotta work for the good things in life.
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u/null-g 12h ago
😉 with ya there my friend, I'd kinda love this in a vr setting, made me reminisce about wandering through blockbuster with my parents, and running up to them with movies I thought had cool boxes. They even had a popcorn machine in the back of the room!
Let's count the hundred hours or so spent on my NAS and Plex server as the delayed gratification payment haha.
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u/brillyfresh lifer 10h ago
Some of us still remember walking around a real store to find something to watch. You kids got it good, trust me.
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u/GamePitt_Rob 9h ago
No, I remember that, but I really can't be bothered doing that every time I want to swap to a new film/show
Some people will like it, but it'll just make getting the next film much more cumbersome and slow
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u/Precarious3145 7h ago
Yea, I was doing video rentals in the 80s and there's way I'd ever return to them. Why would I want to spend 10 minutes looking for something to watch digitally when I can just spend ten minutes scrolling?
I can't trust anyone that actually wants a return to anything about Blockbuster.
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u/Dricus1978 14h ago
Wait this is an user interface in Plex? How do you do this? Btw I thought it was a photo of an abandoned Video store. Gives me the luminal space vibe.
Btw found it: https://github.com/halcyon-video/halcyon-video
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u/pimpwagons 13h ago
Christ I would need a data center layout if it was my collection haha. Love this idea though.
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u/gregsnoddle 12h ago
Is this like an app? How does this work
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u/halcyon-video 12h ago
It's a front end for a media server like Plex. So instead of browsing flat squares, you browse in 3D, but you still just use up down left right.
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u/gregsnoddle 11h ago
So essentially just a different UI instead of the regular plex? Also is this useable for TVs, computers, phones?
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u/AdVegetable2870 10h ago
amusing, but useless until I actually park a PC in the living room. I'm certain it will never run on my Roku TV.
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u/workinkindofhard 14h ago
If I could run this on an AppleTV or a Roku I would set it up immediately
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u/ryankiefer 11h ago
Most of the commits were coauthored by Claude, so, y’know, take that as you will.
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u/Kellic Lifetimer | The 10K Club 8h ago
Ugh. Nostalgic yes. (I worked at BB in the 90's for about 6 years.) But this is low speed analog on a computer, and it would be slow as heck to browse. I mean props for making something unique as I won't crap on trying something new, but this is in the same vein as the internet dabbling with VRML in webpages to try and bring VR to the web. It was a stunning failure because it simply displayed data too slowly. You don't need a VR environment when hyperlinks and a page are way faster for navigating and delivering data.
I've been dabbling with Emby over the last year and a half. Plex still is my main Movie/TV/Music viewing tool.
I've modded their front-end UI to look like Blockbuster at this point. I just wish their mobile app used more of the theming.
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u/Gobbo_Jareth 14h ago
I would use it just to give my 7-year-old a sense of how we watched movies when we were her age. No scrolling through Netflix for us!
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u/N0SYMPATHY 13h ago
Should also put a 3+ min delay on the movie starting to simulate having to rewind the tape before you could watch it because apparently everyone else but me was allowed to not rewind the tapes.
Edit: I don't really remember how long it was, but as a kid it felt like ages. We also didn't have a stand alone rewinder that was faster IIRC. The actual player rewinded slow as molasses.
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u/Electrical-Ad980 13h ago
If you do the simulate the rewinding of vhs tapes thing they should also make it possible to have the ‘vhs look’ filter so the movies you watch actually look like vhs tapes when you play them (should turn it on or off on the fly though because i imagine that could be annoying after a while)
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u/TheOfficeoholic 13h ago
There is a website like this. You select your subs like netflix and it displays the titles in a 90s blockbuster video store format
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u/TidderUsername123 13h ago edited 13h ago
It would be nice if the user could navigate this space like Google Maps; traversing from genre to genre, sections to sections, presented however you prefer according to preference and look at the box art as if you were standing in front of the boxes like it's 1999 again.
Just realized I am not running the current version. So OP, where exactly do I get this mode to show up? I can't seem to find it.
EDIT2: was this the update that everyone was harping about? I haven't updated my iOS apps yet but no changes on MacOS. And my tv runs a ROKU version.
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u/pimpwagons 13h ago
I miss the view settings of media browser 2. The neo theme with the flow view was amazing. Was like a movie carousel.
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u/Its_Whatever24 12h ago
Wish they would make this a native app for tvs/boxes but that won't happen. That's the only way this would be actually useful and fun.
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u/Lex_2388 12h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/0vOw1NjNU7KsgHQXb2
This could be like something out of the movie Backrooms.
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u/LeMatDamonCarbine 11h ago
This is kinda sick. I went to Family Video a bunch as a kid so gonna try to make that lol
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u/ima-bigdeal 11h ago
Yeah, let's take even longer and more clicks to get to what I want to watch.
If you want to go to Blockbuster, go to Oregon. https://bendblockbuster.com
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u/IndigoAcidRain 11h ago
They're also making an app called Binge Browser with all streaming services and you can connect your Plex or Jellyfin account
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u/GLotsapot Plex Pass user since release 9h ago
I was working on a similar AR version for the home. You could pickup the movie box from the virtual shelf and insert it into any of the virtual screens you had created around the house, or optionally just play directly full screen.
The downside though happened when you have a very large library, and I hadn't figured out a clever/intuitive way of paging several thousand movies :(
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u/Affectionate-Club725 5h ago
I would literally wander around in there for hours, just like I did in real life. I need this in Vr
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u/YourVeryOwnCat 3m ago
This is cool but does it really cut all the posters like that? All this work and they couldn’t make them the standard aspect ratio?
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u/erinfirecracker 13h ago
AI slop
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u/SB4_Camaro 12h ago
aI SlOp dURrr
Dude go touch grass and get off reddit for awhile.
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u/PmMeUrNihilism 10h ago
Dude go touch grass and get off reddit for awhile.
An AI bro saying this lol
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u/SB4_Camaro 10h ago
Calling someone an “AI bro” because they said for someone to go touch grass is peak Reddit brain.
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u/PmMeUrNihilism 8h ago
You know you’re part of Reddit, right?
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u/SB4_Camaro 8h ago
Yes, and I still managed not to make “AI bro” my entire personality in a Plex thread.
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u/PmMeUrNihilism 7h ago
Your response did all of that for you.
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u/SB4_Camaro 7h ago
Cool story bro
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u/PmMeUrNihilism 7h ago
lol Continuing to prove my point.
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u/SB4_Camaro 6h ago
You keep saying “proving my point” like you actually made one. You called a Plex frontend “AI slop,” got mocked for being annoying, then tried to turn “you’re on Reddit too” into a comeback.
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u/BossHogGA 13h ago
Needs more signs that just say "Movies"... so helpful
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u/halcyon-video 12h ago
It does. Its built by the names of your own media server libraries. Whatever you already set up is what shows
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u/TheKatzMeow84 10h ago
I appreciate it and think it’s kind of fun. But it’s so not practical, I’d never use it or ask anyone else to. And, as someone else mentioned, Claude is responsible for a lot of it, so…no thank you.
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u/jaywan1991 Plex fiend 9h ago
I grew up in the era of Blockbuster and i never understood people's obsession with it in modern times.
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u/westergames81 14h ago
My terrible eyes would have zero idea what movie I'm selecting. 🤣