Show HN: Media Hoarder v1.4.0 Supporting TV Series, Introducing Episode Heatmaps
github.comFellow hackers,
Media Hoarder is celebrating its 2nd birthday today and it finally supports tv series with the freshly released v1.4.0.
Here's a video showcasing the new features: https://www.youtube.com/watch/3qfb5UWJrdQ
Development wise I've been joined by an individual named kolbdog323 providing lots of feedback and requests over multiple months which I'm truly grateful of, because Media Hoarder is still an absolute side-project developed by a father of two in his limited spare time :D
Please feel free to discuss features, development and sideproject-y things, I'm really curious!
Media Hoarder Website: https://media.hoarder.software
Blog post "2nd Birthday - TV Series Support": https://media.hoarder.software/blog/2nd-birthday-tv-series-s...
GitHub project: https://github.com/theMK2k/Media-Hoarder
cheers
-- MK2k
Thanks so much for posting this. Instant bookmark.
Do you plan on writing comparisons with other tools like Jellyfin and Kyoo?
So can I "cast" content managed in this system? Does it integrate with Jellyfin? Or is this STRICTLY about managing the files + metadata and you're still expected to use it alongside Plex/Jellyfish's own metadata management?
I found it surprisingly hard to answer this question poking around at the website and links shared in this thread.
If "alongside Plex, Jellyfin" would be an intended use-case then I would've involved those names in the README or website.
Of course you can run Media Hoarder alongside them, it won't interfere, but that'd be about it.
I had similar questions after seeing the release info and doing a quick scan.
I came to the HN Comments here and the first thing I see is someone asking exactly what I was wondering, followed by this:
> If "alongside Plex, Jellyfin" would be an intended use-case then I would've involved those names in the README or website.
I appreciate that this is an open source project you've likely put hundreds or thousands of hours of work into. You're under no obligation to be 'nice' or polite to people.
But the perceived tone of this reply doesn't leave a positive impression.
I see others have also left similarly... negative? sarcastic? replies to other questions about it.
While it may be obvious to you, and other dedicated users - seeing that it's a "frontend" to a media collection doesn't really clarify it.
I still have no freaking idea if I can play media through it or with it and at this point, I really don't care.
Information that you can and it doesn't interfere would be useful information.
Having an alternative to Tautili and/or getting more information on my media sounds nice. But I have the media so I can watch it, and if it interferes with that then I am not personally interested.
From a former obsessive media hoarder of over a decade, to my fellow media hoarders, my sincere advice: give up. Just stop. Delete it all and embrace streaming or ad hoc torrent if you need it. All of this hoarding is just not worth your time.
It's not worth it obsessively, but casually or with-specific-purpose I believe it is worth the time and effort. It uses 'muscles' that I occasionally need, and would rather not let atrophy - primarily related to the enshittification of all things.
In specific scenarios local copies are far more valuable than 'cloud' availability.
Having said that, maybe we're quibbling over the definition of 'hoarding', which maybe (hah! definitely!) implies obsessive, and therefore implicitly unhealthy - in which case I agree.
Would it be possible to import titles as a text list, instead of requiring files?
I'm not a hoarder, but I do have a (very) long Excel file of movies and documentaries that I want to watch or have already watched. Most of them are available on streaming sites or for rent/download on demand.
You've got a great IMDb scraper and filtering UI. That's all I really need! :)
Still based on files, however, Media Hoarder doesn't care if you feed it 0-byte files. So yes, you can export your Excel file as such.
Actually, I do use 0-byte files in my tests and demos. They are artificially created in the following way: https://github.com/theMK2k/media-hoarder-testset-generator
Sounds like you can generate a folder of files from an input excel using FUSE.
This looks cool but I was thrown by how the heatmaps were organized; having seasons as rows and episodes as columns would be more natural to me.
Agree that rows/columns following normal latin writing feeling more "natural" to me, but a bigger roadblock is that the chosen colors are completely identical for people with the most common type of colorblindness. :(
At least I can tilt my screen until the colors get wonky and see the pattern! For a while I admit I didn't even notice there was color coding at all.
I might introduce an option for self-defining the color scheme. Care to head over to GitHub and create an issue on it and volunteer for testing?
Feel free to open up an issue on GitHub, maybe we introduce an option on how heatmaps are shown :)
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I just _refreshed_ my setup replacing my shield and trying to get Emby and Kodi working together…
This looks great especially since I have complete collections of various sci if stuff I loved growing up (Star Trek: TNG, Star Gate). The big thing for me is how this supports sitting on the couch and looking for something to watch.
I've been using Jellyfin on Windows server (Arc GPU) for server, Shield for client, it's been working pretty well. What hardware are you using?
I am thinking about picking up a shield as a client in a similar setup. If you're using subtitles -- does the shield handle them well? That's the part that keeps breaking in the native TV client.
I use Kodi with the jellyfin plugins on my shield and it works well. Subtitle support is pretty good but occasionally I need to restart the app to get new subs to display for a show.
The native jellyfin client is ok for simple things but it's far more limited than Kodi.
The Shield uses the same Jellyfin client as any AndroidTV/GoogleTV box. You can use Kodi on the Shield if you want native support for more subtitle formats, but that's also true of other AndroidTV/GoogleTV devices.
Has anyone rolled this into a docker container yet?
Would you like me to share if I can't find one and wind up doing it myself?
I'm more of a streamer and used to things like JustWatch and like it a lot. But your solution provides such an intuitive, comprehensive and complete UX at a really amazing speed. Like IMDB and JustWatch combined on steroids. Kudos!
Going up against the *arrs is no small feat. What sets you apart?
First of all, I don't use any arr. From what I see the arr tools are used for obtaining media, less so presenting and providing a UI. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume that *arr tools and Media Hoarder might actually go well together.
Each project is separated in terms of the type of media they're used for (ex. Sonarr for TV, Radarr for Movies), but they share a common design language. They don't obtain media directly, but are commonly paired with Usenet/BitTorrent to obtain media. Aside from that, they allow similar functionality in terms of a pretty UI to organize and manage your collection. They have no playback functionality, though.
You should definitely look into them more because there's a huge overlap. Focus on what can set your project apart.
It would be interesting to integrate it with Trakt data so I can sync the watched / watchlist from my Trakt library and find new movies and series to watch.
My personal thoughts;
When there are quite a few well-established media storage/player solutions/toolings, you should look into starting your marketing page with why you are different or better than the others. Most reasons for people moving between tools is the lack of the features in the ones that users are using and hoping it is in the new one.
Of course, if you can get a lot of testimonials then that should work better.
You're right and I am and was hesitant to put Media Hoarder directly against established solutions on the front page.
I created a blog post about this when v1.0.0 was released (maybe a bit too hidden): https://media.hoarder.software/blog/why-media-hoarder
I can't wait until he's so successful that he abandons all of his original users/customers, and tries to become some sort of third tier streaming solution that can only license movies that used to be completely unknown outside of Walmart "2 DVDs for $5" bargain bins.
this made me chuckle, yes, it's not gonna happen :D
Can it save metadata in nfo files so that kodi can read them? Kodi scraper is really inaccurate imo.
Yes, someone (you?) can create a "Kodi .nfo" exporter from the SQLite database.
So, like, this is for pirated movies and TV shows, right? This and all the alternatives mentioned in the comments too?
Or are people really ripping DVDs and Blu-Rays from huge personal collections?
The library is a pirate's best friend
> So, like, this is for pirated movies and TV shows, right?
Can be used, probably yeah. Doesn't mean that's the primary purpose. I know plenty of people who buy DVDs and rip them as it's easier to play it back than letting kids fiddle around with DVD players and disks.
Can confirm I know some folks who rip their DVD/BluRay collection to stream in the home.
There's other use cases as well:
- DVR'd recordings
- Public domain videos
- Archived web content
- Home videos / Phone videos
I actually use JellyFin for all of these use cases, and also rip my movie collection using Handbrake. Do most people use it for pirated content? Probably.
Interesting license choice. Where'd you find it/what motivated you to choose it?
Thanks for bringing this up. I hadn't noticed it.
> The software may not be used by anyone for systems or activities that actively and knowingly endanger, harm, or otherwise threaten the physical, mental, economic, or general well-being of other individuals or groups
I'm not sure how the United Nations defines economic harm, but if anybody's using this to view pirated content, it seems like they might not have a license to it (and using it would be a separate copyright violation).
But I suppose if you're pirating your media anyway, violating the media center's copyright wouldn't really be a concern.
My pacifist nature lead the choice and I probably saw that license on some other random projects iirc.
I think this may be one of the wares I looked at when I was hoping to build a catalog of at least my visual media. Something in the sense of "I have this on a DVD, I have that on Blu-Ray" or "I have this as an .mp4." However, this was complicated by looking for something open-source enough that I could stick my fingers in the database and go from there to bring the catalog, or something like it, to a webpage.
I love pricing page.
This really needs some explanation, in text, of what it's actually doing and what media means here.
Thanks, I wasn't aware that it might leave room for interpretation or confusion.
Literally the first sentence is "Media Hoarder is THE frontend for your Movie and TV Series collection if you love metadata, filter abilities and easy management." and secondly there is a huge screenshot below that with everything you need to understand.
Not sure how it can be made any more clear than what it is?
This is not really explaining the purpose. Does it scan video-Files to collect entries? Or is it manual input? Can I import data from somewhere? Does it play files? Does it integrate into netflix&co. to gather new entries? And let's not talk about more special features..
Why is it called media, when it seems to only handle movies & series? There are many more types and categories of media. And why is the feature-list on Github just a long list of filters, while it at the same time sells itself as "THE frontend" for whatever it's doing. The small bit of data managment and filters I see on github is on the level of an excel-sheet, which very far from what I would call "THE frontend".
So my question is, what is missing here?
> This is not really explaining the purpose. Does it scan video-Files to collect entries? Or is it manual input? Can I import data from somewhere? Does it play files? Does it integrate into netflix&co. to gather new entries? And let's not talk about more special features..
Those are all either answered in the README, answered in files linked from the README or not mentioned in the README/docs (like Netflix integration, playing files) so one can feel safe to assume it's not a feature if it's not listed as a feature.
> playing files
Thanks for pointing this out. Of course, Media Hoarder "plays files" - by launching the media player of your choice. I quickly updated the README :|
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It's more Kodi-like (no client-server) necessary.
The only "AI" in it is that you can run a ChatGPT session which creates a filter (e.g. "give me the top 10 oscar winning movies of the 90s"). It's a nice feature but not the heart of Media Hoarder. -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi2vfPpOEGQ
What justifies you using the pejorative ‘knock-off’ when the same descriptor could literally be used for projects that you included in your list? No need to be so disparaging.
It feels like you did a quick skim of the README, picked out one thing you didn’t like, and worked backwards from that negative kneejerk reaction. Don’t misrepresent that as you having had a real look.
Exactly. Take a look at the GitHub repo and the shit-ton of work that obviously went into this product - for free.