Introducing Collectoh

Most of us keep a collection somewhere, whether or not we'd call it one. Films bought on disc and ripped to a drive. Albums tagged by hand, one evening at a time. Audiobooks, comics, a folder of courses bought in a sale and saved for later, and every photo since the children were small. It's yours, it took years to gather, and it usually lives in a tangle of folders that only one person in the house can find their way around.

Collectoh is a media server for that collection. You install it on the computer or NAS where your files already live, point it at your folders, and it turns them into a library the whole household can browse, search and play from any modern browser, at home or away.

#Your collection, not a catalogue you rent

Streaming services lend you a catalogue, and the catalogue changes whenever someone else decides it should. Collectoh works the other way round. It organises and plays what you already own, and nothing else: there's no shop, no rentals and no adverts.

It starts from the way your files are already arranged. Collectoh reads the names you've given things, the NFO files and artwork you keep beside your media, and the tags inside your music, so a library organised for another media server comes in as it is. One library can take in folders from several drives. Posters, cast lists and descriptions come from catalogues such as TMDB and MusicBrainz or, for a library you'd rather keep to itself, only from the files beside your media. When it gets something wrong you can correct it, and your correction is locked so the next refresh leaves it alone.

Your files stay yours. Deleting something in Collectoh puts it in a trash inside the app, and emptying the trash never touches the files themselves. What you watch stays yours too. Each person's history is their own: an admin can see what's playing right now and what's most played across the server, but not which titles a given person has watched. Nothing about your viewing is sent to us.

#A proper home for every kind of media

A film, an album, a course and a photo album aren't the same thing, so Collectoh doesn't pretend they are. Each kind of library gets the views and controls that suit it.

• Films and TV keep every edition of a film on one card, each with its own watched state, gather extras on the film's page, and offer to skip a show's intros and credits once they've been found.
• Music plays gaplessly with ReplayGain levelling, synced lyrics and radio from any track, album or artist.
• Audiobooks remember your place to the second, with chapters, speed control and a sleep timer.
• Books and comics open in a reader inside the app, from EPUB and PDF to MOBI and comic archives, and pick up at the page you left. Series are shown in reading order.
• Courses become real courses, with sections, progress, learning streaks, timestamped notes and transcripts you can search.
• Photos and home videos get a timeline, albums, a map and slideshows, and home videos can be browsed by folder or by date.

There's more about each kind of library in the docs.

#Runs on your hardware, plays everywhere

Collectoh runs on the computer or NAS that already holds your media, and installing it is the first step. After that a four-step setup wizard takes over, and before it scans anything it shows you the first things it would find in the folder you picked, so a wrong folder is caught before it becomes a wrong library.

When a screen can play a file as it is, Collectoh sends it untouched. When it can't, Collectoh converts it as it streams, using your graphics hardware where there is some, and tone-maps 4K HDR for ordinary screens. Playback has the details.

It plays in any modern browser, on a phone, a tablet, a laptop or the television, and there's a TV mode built for a remote control. You can send what you're watching to a Chromecast or to another screen running Collectoh, and older televisions and receivers can play from your libraries over DLNA if you switch it on. With Plus, Watch Together keeps friends in different houses in step, with a chat alongside.

Everyone gets their own profile, history and place in every film. You invite people with a link, choose which libraries each of them sees, and set age ratings, labels and viewing hours for the children; sharing explains the options. Away from home, you connect straight to your own server. There's no relay of ours in the middle, unless you switch one on for a server nobody can reach from outside.

#Free, with Plus for the extras

Collectoh is free to download and use. For people who want more, Collectoh Plus is a paid edition with extras on top, and the Plus page sets out what it includes.

#Where to start

Download Collectoh and follow getting started. Begin with a single folder, your films or that folder of courses, and watch it fill in. It's your collection. We just want it to feel like one.