App to Manage Streaming Contents and Self-Hosted Media Discoveries

by Rian

I know the title can be mouthful. So let me start by describing the problem first. There are different services available on the internet showing what streaming services in your region carry the contents you are after. The problem I had with these services were: one. it often fails to parse the localized titles used outside of North America, two. these services are not always up to date with licensing. What it means, in the real world, is you might be buying or adding a new subscription to watch a movie or a TV show that either you already own but forgot, or your other subscription was able to scoop it up from a competitor.

Seerr is an freely available open source application that primarily links with self-hosting streaming server, such as Plex. From the web UI of Seerr, it is possible find out where the movie or TV show of your choice is available. If it’s from the streaming service (e.g. Netflix, Disney+) in your region, it will show up. If it’s on your Plex media server, it will show up. It even manages “requests”, whereby asking the sysadmin to acquire the media in question. Good place to keep the wishlist of Blu-rays.

Of course, it is not all sunshines and rainbows. During 2000s, I used to buy quite a lot of contents through iTunes. And the store is nearly abandoned since then. The metadata, if the media is pulled from the store, is either broken or not kept up to date. But it is a form of digital media I own nonetheless. Seerr doesn’t support marking a media saying “I own this on store X”. I understand buying digital media fell out of fashion as soon as streaming became the mainstream, but it is a shame how it’s losing support left and right.

On the other hand, I think Apple’s own TV app (not to be confused with Apple TV service or the hardware) was aiming to be like Seerr. I am surprised it is still struggling to be that “one” manager product. As far as I know, most of Korean streaming services don’t support Apple TV’s “How to Watch”. So does Netflix. You would think streaming services would unite under the banner of “making ‘my’ contents accessible as possible”. Netflix, despite being a pioneer in the streaming game, is not the bastion of unyielding provider. I think it speaks volume as to why the community effort still exists.