Channel-surf your home media server

Just like the old days. You sit down, and you see what's on.
All you have to decide is how long you want to watch.

 Get it on the App Store
Coax product image - runs on Mac, AppleTV, iPad, iPhone, and Vision Pro

What is it?

Coax is a privacy-first, on-device client app for viewing the content you've already got on your home media server. Currently, only Plex Media Server is supported.

This app will not give you access to any content you don't already own, and how well it performs depends a lot on your setup. Direct Play support is based on the codec used by the files you're serving. If Direct Play is unavailable, Coax will fall back to transcoding. It's best if your server is able to handle multiple streams at once (in case you're sharing with others!)

If you have feedback or need support, please visit the r/coax subreddit. We'd love to see you there.

Features & Benefits

"What do you want to watch tonight, honey?"
Turns out, we got some things right back then

We got what we always dreamed of - instant access to all of our favorite movies and TV shows, tailored exclusively to our tastes and whimsy. But that created a new problem: when we can watch whatever we want, how do we actually make a decision?

BigAlgo's answer to this is to collect every single piece of data available on you, then serve you "recommendations". But it's just more slop, more invasion of privacy, more fine-tuning and experimentation.

The Coax approach to this is simple: make it the 1990s again through science or magic. Not only is it your favorite stuff, it's already playing, waiting for you to jump in.

Zero Setup, Privacy First
Automatically generates a guide in seconds

Coax uses the metadata you've already got on your home media server to build channels. No data ever leaves your device except to talk to your server.

Fast & Furious
Quicker and slicker than the rest

Connect directly to your media server and start streaming right away. On a local connection, channel-change time is usually under 2 seconds.

Unite the Libraries
Create a single guide

Combine your TV and Movie libraries into a single unified channel set. Pick and choose your libraries to create your own custom cable guide, and use the Chaos channel to shuffle all your content together in one single, unending stream.

Only buy it once
One purchase, every platform

Coax runs on your AppleTV, iPad, iPhone, Mac, and Vision Pro, all for one price. Family Sharing is enabled, so your iCloud family can enjoy it too.

F.A.Q.

Can Coax play all of my content?

  • Coax uses the system player provided by Apple's AVFramework
  • Here's a list of what can be direct played by the player
  • When a file that can't be direct played is loaded, Coax will send a request to your Plex server to transcode the item
  • Transcoding works for almost all file types, except for certain 4K formats
  • For transcoding to work, you must turn off the "Disable transcoding" setting in your Plex Server's Transcoder settings

Why isn't my content playing?

  • If Direct Play fails, Coax will attempt to transcode your content
  • Not all content can be transcoded in realtime by Plex Media Server
  • Your server's processing power will play a big role in how quickly your streams start, as well as your connection speed
  • As a last resort, if it's nothing but static, you could try restarting your server - this tends to reset most stuck streaming issues

What is a "Unified Library"?

  • Plex requires that your media live in specifically-typed Libraries
  • But cable channels used to have all sorts of content!
  • To allow you to create exactly the type of experience you want, Coax can create a Unified Library with two or more of your Plex Libraries
  • Use the "Unify +" button for a Library to add it to the Unified Library, then configure the Unified Library with additional settings:
  • Interleave Unified Library Types: The schedule will alternate media types, so you'd have an Action TV channel, then an Action Movies channel. Turn this off to list all of the movie channels first, then all of the tv channels, for each category type
  • Unified Channels: Mix together all your media types when they share channel categories, like Genre, Decade, even Collection names

What are the configuration options?

Each Library has a gear icon next to the Play button

  • Channel Amount
    Adjust how many channels are generated. Higher levels will create multiple channel instances.
  • Max content rating
    Filter out content that's rated higher than this setting. Good for viewers who don't always want to see R-rated movies.
  • Enable / disable static when changing channels
    Visual preference, maybe the flashing bothers you, whatever it can be turned off.
  • Interleave or separate TV Shows and Movies in a unified guide
    TV Shows and Movies use the same metadata and generate the same channels. This setting determines whether you'll see an Action (Movies) channel, then immediately an Action (TV) channel, instead of seeing all of the Genre Movie channels, then the Genre TV channels.
  • Select which channel categories appear in the guide
    Control which of the categories you're interested in seeing, and in what order.
  • Generate Gaps in Schedule
    To maintain an authentic schedule grid, like the old days, Coax will round up your media item durations to the nearest quarter hour (for movies) or the nearest 5 minutes for TV shows. When a media item finishes before the end of the scheduled program time, there's a gap. Disabling this option will mean that Coax will NOT schedule gaps, and your media items will just play back-to-back.
  • Show stream status
    When something starts playing, briefly show a "Direct" or "Transcode" indicator to let you know how Coax is streaming this item

What are the Channel Categories?

  • Genre
  • Decade
  • Actor
  • Director
  • Studio
  • Recent Additions
  • Collections
  • Chaos Channel

How do I create custom channels?

  • Create a custom Collection on your server and add content to it
  • Next time you press Play from the Library view, Coax will detect changes and generate Collection channels automatically
  • If you're not seeing Collection channels being created for a new Collection, go into the Library Settings, go to the very bottom, then press the Collections button in the "Re-enrich from Plex" row

How do I prevent Coax from scheduling certain content?

  • Create a Collection called "NoCoax" (exactly that, it's case-sensitive), and add any content you don't want to be scheduled to it
  • For TV libraries, you can create a NoCoax Collection for each type of media: Show, Season, and/or Episode