PearCinema

com.pearcinema
by PeerLoom LLC

Your film and television collection, playable anywhere, without exposing your server to the internet

PearCinema plays the film and television collection on a machine you own - an Umbrel, a NAS, an old desktop - from anywhere, over a direct encrypted connection between your phone and that machine. No port forwarding, no VPN, no dynamic DNS, no account, and no copy of your library in anyone's cloud. Your files never leave your hardware: they stream through the live connection while they play, and you can skip to any point in a film without downloading it first. It reads the library you already have. Point it at the Jellyfin or Emby you already run and it uses that library, its artwork, its seasons and its episodes. Or point it at a plain folder of files and PearCinema reads them itself: it works out films from shows, sorts episodes into seasons, and picks up the descriptions and posters that Kodi, Sonarr or Radarr already left on the disk. So a folder is a real library rather than a list of filenames, and it needs no internet lookup and no account with anyone. It makes your files play. Anything your phone can already handle goes straight through untouched. Anything it cannot, the machine holding the films repackages or converts as you watch, using its own graphics chip - Intel, AMD, NVIDIA or Apple - so it costs that machine very little and never changes your original file. Subtitles come along, including the picture subtitles from discs, which are drawn onto the film where a phone cannot show them by itself. Features: - Browse films and shows with posters, descriptions and episode thumbnails - Search the whole library - Carry on where you stopped, and when an episode ends the next one is offered - Resume points and watchlists that follow you between your own devices - Everyone in the house has their own list rather than sharing yours - Downloads: keep a film on the phone for a flight, converted in advance if your device needs it - Send a film to a Roku or a Samsung television and drive it from your lock screen - Pair with more than one machine and they look like one library - Ask the owner for something you cannot find, and see what they did with it - Pair a phone by scanning a QR code - there is no password to type The library does not have to be yours. Someone can let a friend or a family member in, each as their own person with their own devices, their own place in whatever they were watching, and no login to pass around. The owner sees every device and can revoke one, or everything one person holds, within seconds - mid-film, not "on next login", and it stops a television that device had started. Nobody who is let in ever receives a copy of a file. Two things worth stating plainly. First, PearCinema needs that machine running the free PearCinema host - it is the source of the films, so this is not a player for files on your phone, and it comes with nothing to watch. Second, some mobile networks and locked-down wifi stop a phone and a host connecting directly. When that happens PearCinema can fall back to a relay PeerLoom runs, which forwards encrypted data it cannot read and keeps no copy of it. Your phone always tries a direct connection first, and while a film is coming through the relay its quality is held down so that watching away from home does not quietly consume a data plan. One switch in Settings turns the relay off, and you can paste in your own instead.

First release: Aug 28, 2026, 5 total releases.

Most recent release: Sep 10, 2026.

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Releases

  • Sep 10, 2026 1.1.4
    New Features • Leave trailers and disc scraps out of your library. Each library now has a minimum length, chosen on the dashboard, and shorter videos are left out. Nothing on your drive is touched, and a button lists everything left out with its length. Files whose length cannot be read count as short, which is what catches the leftover pieces of a ripped disc. Improvements • Films now fill the whole screen on phones and tablets. The clock and the on-screen buttons move out of the way while a film plays, and the picture reaches every edge instead of sitting below a black band. Swipe in from an edge to get the buttons back, and everything returns the moment you close the film. Security
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    • A show's poster can no longer be fetched by somebody who is not allowed to see that show. Series and season posters were not checked the way film posters were, so a person whose access had been narrowed could still load one they had seen before. The image only, never the film. • A web page you visit can no longer reach the dashboard running on your own machine. The desktop app leaves its dashboard without a password because it only listens to your own computer, but nothing checked which site a request came from. Now it does, and setups with a password are unchanged.
  • Aug 31, 2026 1.1.3
    New Features • Choose what each person can see. On the People page, every person now has a "Can see" line: tick the drives or folders they may watch, to any depth, and everything else disappears for them. Tick nothing and they see everything, as before. Films they have already downloaded stay on their phone. • Decide it when you invite them, not after. Pairing a new device now asks what it will be able to see before it shows you a code, so a device can be limited from the moment it joins. Handing over the whole library asks you to confirm. • The phone app works sideways, and on tablets. Turn it and the page fills the screen instead of staying a narrow column. Improvements
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    • Films and TV shows with unusual filenames now get proper episode numbers. Anime numbered 01, 02, 03, files named only "E01", and several other naming styles were being filed with no episode number at all, so they could not be sorted or resumed. • Specials, OVAs and bonus episodes are now filed under "Specials" instead of sitting numberless, and creditless openings and disc menus no longer show up as episodes. • Films that cannot be read are now named on the dashboard. Previously a damaged or half-copied file simply never appeared in the library, with nothing said anywhere. • Converting on an NVIDIA graphics card now works with the drivers Linux Mint and Ubuntu ship. The bundled converter needed a newer driver than those systems offer. • When the video engine test fails, the page now shows what each graphics option said, in plain words, instead of one unexplained error. • A television waiting on its Media Assistant channel is now named in the phone's TV picker, with the one step needed to fix it. • Changes to what somebody can see reach their phone in about a second, without needing to refresh. Security • The file holding this machine's private key for reaching other libraries is no longer readable by other users on the same computer. Reported by a user; it is tightened automatically the next time PearCinema starts.
  • Aug 29, 2026 1.1.2
    ## What's Changed Bug Fixes - Films with Dolby Digital or Dolby Digital Plus sound (common on x265 downloads) now play with sound on Android phones that cannot decode Dolby themselves. The host converts the soundtrack on the way; the picture is untouched. - If a film ever starts playing with no sound on Android, the app now notices, asks the host for a converted copy and picks up where it was. Improvements - When a Roku is on your network but is not ready for casting, the television picker now names it and tells you the one step needed: install the free Media Assistant channel from the Roku channel store.
  • Aug 29, 2026 1.1.1
    ## What's Changed ### Bug Fixes - Fixed a crash that closed the app after a few minutes of watching. While a film played, the app kept hold of far more of it than it needed, until the phone ran out of memory and shut the app down. It now keeps only the part it is about to play, so a film runs as long as you want to watch it.
  • Aug 28, 2026 1.1.0
    # PearCinema 1.1.0 Your film and television collection, playable anywhere, without exposing your server to the internet. PearCinema plays video straight off a computer you own: an Umbrel, a NAS, an old desktop. Your phone reaches it directly over an encrypted connection. No port forwarding, no VPN, no dynamic DNS, no account, and no copy of your files on anyone else's server. And that machine does not have to be yours. If a friend or a family member lets you into
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    theirs, their library simply appears in your app, with no login handed out and nothing copied. ## Getting started 1. Install the host on the machine with your films (macOS, Windows, Linux, Umbrel or Docker). 2. Open the dashboard and point it at your library. 3. Scan the QR code with the app on your phone. That is the setup. ## What you can do Watch your library from anywhere. Browse films and shows with posters, descriptions and episode thumbnails, search the whole collection, and skip to any point in a film without downloading it first. When an episode ends the next one is offered. Watch it here too. The dashboard is a player, so any laptop or desktop on your network can open the library and start a film without installing anything. Let people in, and cut them off. Access is per person and per device: your phone, your tablet, a friend. Revoke any one of them without disturbing the others, and it takes effect within seconds, mid-film rather than on next login. It also stops a television that device had started. Guest passes expire on their own after a time you set. Take films with you. Keep a film on the phone for a flight, converted in advance if your device needs it. Pick up where you left off. Resume points and watchlists follow you between your own devices, and everyone you let in has their own rather than sharing yours. Send it to a television. Play on a Roku or a Samsung and drive it from your phone's lock screen. More than one library at once. If you are let into several, they blend into one. Ask for something you cannot find. Anyone you have let in can request a film, and the owner works through the queue in the app. ## Your films, wherever they already live Point the host at a Jellyfin or an Emby server you already run and PearCinema uses its library, artwork, seasons and episodes. Point it at a plain folder of files instead and it reads them itself: it works out films from shows, sorts episodes into seasons, and picks up the descriptions and posters that Kodi, Sonarr or Radarr already left on the disk. So a folder is a real library rather than a list of filenames, and it needs no internet lookup and no account with anyone. ## It makes your files play Files your phone can already handle go straight through untouched. Anything it cannot, the machine holding the films repackages or converts as you watch, using its own graphics chip (Intel, AMD, NVIDIA or Apple), so it costs that machine very little and never changes your original file. Subtitles come along, including the picture subtitles from discs, which are drawn onto the film where a phone cannot show them by itself. ## Staying connected Most of the time your phone talks straight to your host. Some mobile carriers and locked-down wifi refuse a direct connection, and PearCinema then falls back to a relay run by PeerLoom. The relay only passes along traffic that is already encrypted: it can see that your device is talking to your host and how much data moves, never what is in it, and it keeps no copy. While a film is coming through the relay its quality is held down so that watching away from home does not quietly consume a data plan. You can turn the relay off, or paste in your own. ## Keeping it running On Linux the host installs as a proper background service: your library keeps serving after you log out and starts again by itself when the machine reboots. On macOS and Windows it runs while you are signed in. ## Downloads | Your machine | File | | --- | --- | | macOS (Apple Silicon) | `PearCinema-1.1.0-arm64.dmg` | | macOS (Intel) | `PearCinema-1.1.0.dmg` | | Windows | `PearCinema-Setup-1.1.0.exe` | | Linux | `PearCinema-1.1.0.AppImage` or `pearcinema-desktop_1.1.0_amd64.deb` | | Android | `pearcinema-v1.1.0.apk` | | Umbrel | Add the PeerLoom community app store and install from there | The macOS app is signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens normally. Windows will show a warning. The installer is not signed with a certificate yet, so SmartScreen says "unknown publisher". Choose More info, then Run anyway. ## Good to know - PearCinema provides no content. It is a player for files you already have: it hosts nothing, indexes nothing and has no catalogue of its own. - The phone apps are not in the app stores yet. iOS is with App Review; on Android, install the `.apk` above or get it on Zapstore. - On Linux the `.deb` sets up the background service for you. The AppImage can do the same with `--install-service`, and otherwise runs when you log in. - On an Umbrel, plug an external drive in and PearCinema can see it, including a drive connected after the app started. - The host tells you where to find new versions, but does not update itself yet.