Month: November 2025

I like to post updates on Thanksgiving since the disastrous one 2023 was the first time this app was more widely used and we learned so much. Thanksgiving 2024 was much better and it showed how well the app can now scale and adjust to higher traffic levels. In 2025 we have had a much more stable service, iOS and AppleTV versions launched in the app store in January and we have clients on Android devices too. There are now around 11k users using the app and it is able to comfortably handle above 800 concurrent viewers. We’ve upgraded our video hardware to nvidia encoders that are much better. In 2026 we’ll switch to the more modern h265 standard for better video and lower operating costs. We are currently building our new servers that will be located in different locations for higher availability. A general focus for 2026 will be maintaining a more reliable service

Last year I wrote a cheap Apple hardware guide for people who wanted to use this service while it was only on iOS and AppleTV. On AndroidTV I have been using the Onn streaming devices as reference hardware to test with. These devices are generally well reviewed and got for $14 for a stick and $19 for the box. This is probably the least expensive way to use this service. I regularly test with the box and have heard from others that the stick, which is hardware wise similar works fine as well.

We have made a lot of progress toward our goals for the year. The Android client is stable and undergoing polish and testing. We are making a lot of progress on Android tv. A hardware donation of an onn streaming box has allowed increased testing on that platform. We’ve had several betas in the past week each improving pain points in the ui observed while “dog footing” the service on Android tv. The goal is to reach feature parity on all platforms.

We have added subtitles to nearly every channel now. We’ve received several new servers and nvidia encoders. The new encoders have allowed us to increase the quality of the channels without increasing file size. A major goal going forward is to move from h264 to h265. In theory this should reduce our file sizes by about 50% (and as a result reduce the cost of bandwidth) while maintaining the same quality. We are very close to 10k users so reducing bandwidth costs will be key to maintaining sustainable project.

The new servers should also let us add more nodes to our kubernetes cluster as well as better remote management. The most tangible benefit of this will be improved reliability.