Your self-hosted media foundation

Tater Tube Server

Bring your movies, shows, music, discovery feeds, and personal live channels into one server. Every paired Tater Tube Player gets the same library, watch progress, Tube TV lineup, and playback options.

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Tube TV

Build automatic and custom channels from local media, then tune the same scheduled lineup from every paired Tater Tube player.

Shared ScheduleGuideTaterText

Stream + Local

Use Newznab Stream for releases and Local Media for movies, series, music, resume playback, and category browsing.

NewznabLocal MediaMusic

Pair Players

Create short-lived PINs in the web UI, give players friendly names, and revoke or rename them later.

PINRenameDashboard

Native macOS app

Run the server from your Mac's menu bar.

On an Apple Silicon Mac with macOS 14 or newer, download the DMG, drag Tater Tube Server to Applications, and open it. The app starts the server, opens the dashboard the first time, and keeps everyday controls in its own menu bar icon—no Docker or Terminal setup required.

Apple Silicon macOS 14+ VideoToolbox Automatic Updates

Download the macOS app Compare install options

Persistent server data

~/Library/Application Support/Tater Tube Server

Tater mascot beside a home media server representing the native Tater Tube Server Mac app — The app bundles the dashboard, FFmpeg, ffprobe, and Apple VideoToolbox hardware encoding.

Docker + Unraid

Prefer a container? Start with the latest image.

Docker remains the recommended path for Linux servers and NAS systems. The web UI runs on port 8080, and login is disabled by default so setup is quick on a trusted home network.

Docker pull

docker pull ghcr.io/tatertotterson/tater-tube-server:latest

docker-compose.yml

services:
  tater-tube-server:
    image: ghcr.io/tatertotterson/tater-tube-server:latest
    container_name: tater-tube-server
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      - /mnt/user/appdata/tater-tube-server/config:/config
      - /mnt/user/media/movies:/media/movies:ro
      - /mnt/user/media/tv:/media/tv:ro
    restart: unless-stopped

Configure GPU access

Open http://SERVER-IP:8080 after the container starts.

Tube TV

A shared, scheduled channel lineup built from your library.

The server plans the timeline ahead so every paired player sees the same program or commercial at the same moment. Automatic channels use library metadata for genres, decades, movies, and series; custom channels can include movies, entire series, seasons, or individual episodes and can claim a specific VCR-style channel number.

Automatic channels Editable custom channels Assigned channel numbers Shared timeline

Tater mascot for The Tube — Tube TV appears above Stream and Local when enabled on the server.

Station details

Commercial breaks, channel logos, a guide, and TaterText are part of the schedule.

Commercial Library

Upload local commercial videos into server categories. Tube TV selects only enabled categories, avoids repeats until the pool is exhausted, and keeps logos off during breaks.

Local UploadsCategoriesNo Repeat

Channel Logos

Choose a logo and its screen corner for each custom channel. Automatic channels can select fitting station marks from the bundled TV logo catalog.

WatermarkFour CornersPer Channel

Guide + TaterText

Channel 999 is a time-synced scrolling guide. High channel pages provide authentic blocky TaterText screens for status, now playing, server information, and controls.

CH 999Pages 100-888VCR Style

Downloads

Choose the native Mac app or Docker.

Both editions run the same Tater Tube Server and dashboard. Pick the DMG for a guided Mac experience or the multi-architecture container for Linux, Unraid, and other NAS systems.

Recommended on Mac

macOS App

A signed and notarized menu-bar app with the server, FFmpeg, VideoToolbox hardware encoding, and built-in updates included.

Apple SiliconmacOS 14+DMG

Download from latest release Setup details

Linux + NAS

Docker Image

Multi-architecture container image for amd64 and arm64 hosts.

Dockeramd64arm64

Pull latest

docker pull ghcr.io/tatertotterson/tater-tube-server:latest

Open package

Persistent data

Your Server Data Stays Put

Settings, player tokens, metadata, playback history, Tube TV schedules, commercial uploads, and working cache remain outside the app or container.

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Tater Tube Server
Docker: Map a host folder to /config

Server GitHub

Local Media

Add your media folders, then scan from the dashboard.

On macOS, add native paths such as /Users/you/Movies. With Docker, mount host folders into the container and use paths like /media/movies. Scanned metadata powers library browsing, Continue Watching, Tape Deck music, automatic channels, and the custom channel builder.

Movies

Scans titles, dates, genres, duration, and artwork into a browsable movie library.

MoviesMetadataResume

TV Shows

Browses by series, season, and episode while tracking the next episode and current resume point.

SeriesSeasonsContinue Watching

Music + Folders

Provides server albums to Tape Deck and can also preserve a source folder's directory structure.

MusicTape DeckFolders

Dashboard + Activity

See what every player is doing.

The dashboard shows paired players and active streams. Activity keeps playback history for Tube TV, Stream, and Local with the player name, media title, time, duration, progress, and direct, software, or hardware-transcode details.

Named Players

Name each paired box for its room, then rename or revoke it from the server.

PIN PairingFriendly Names

Active Streams

See what is playing now, current progress, throughput, selected profile, and acceleration engine.

Now PlayingLive Stats

Playback Activity

Review completed and interrupted local, Tube TV, and Newznab playback in one VCR-themed history view.

HistoryPlayerHW Engine

Hardware acceleration

Give Docker the GPU access it needs.

Direct-play titles do not need transcoding, but incompatible media, Tube TV, and AI processing depend on the server seeing the correct hardware. Recreate the container after changing these settings.

NVIDIA

NVENC plus local AI processing

Install the NVIDIA driver and Container Toolkit on the host—or the NVIDIA Driver plugin on Unraid—then expose the GPU and its complete video and graphics capabilities.

Docker Compose

services:
  tater-tube-server:
    image: ghcr.io/tatertotterson/tater-tube-server:latest
    gpus: all
    environment:
      NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES: all
    volumes:
      - /path/to/tater-tube-server/config:/config

Unraid: set Extra Parameters to --gpus all and add NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES=all as a variable.

--runtime=nvidia is optional compatibility support for older setups; current NVIDIA Container Toolkit installations normally need only --gpus all.

The image automatically selects NVIDIA's headless EGL Vulkan path when the injected GLX path cannot initialize AI processing.

Intel + AMD

Quick Sync, VAAPI, and Vulkan

Expose the host's DRM devices so the server can reach Intel or AMD hardware encoding and compatible Vulkan processing paths.

Docker Compose

services:
  tater-tube-server:
    image: ghcr.io/tatertotterson/tater-tube-server:latest
    devices:
      - /dev/dri:/dev/dri
    volumes:
      - /path/to/tater-tube-server/config:/config

Unraid: add a Device with /dev/dri as both the host and container path.

Leave Hardware Device blank unless a specific render node such as /dev/dri/renderD129 is required.

1. Recreate

Apply the updated Compose or Unraid settings by recreating the container, not only restarting the old one.

ContainerGPU Access

2. Detect Transcoding

Open Hardware Transcoding, run Auto Detect, confirm the encoder says Ready, and save the selection.

NVENCVAAPIQSV

3. Detect Upscaling

Open Upscaling and run Auto Detect separately to test Standard scaling, Vulkan, and every bundled AI model.

VulkanAI ModelsFallbacks

Experimental · Local processing

Give lower-resolution video a sharper path to the big screen.

When the connected TV has more pixels than the source, Tater Tube Server can enhance compatible video with optional GPU-accelerated AI upscaling. Everything runs on your server, so paired players benefit without an app update or sending your media anywhere else.

Runs locally Auto Detect Movies + animation Safe fallbacks

01 Check

Auto Detect tests Standard scaling, the GPU path, and every bundled AI model.

02 Match

Choose FSRCNNX for general video or Anime4K and ArtCNN for animated detail.

03 Keep playing

If AI is unavailable, the server steps down through compatible models to Standard.

Built for choice, not guesswork. AI upscaling is optional and experimental. Compatibility and real-time speed depend on the GPU, drivers, source resolution, and current server load.

Tater mascot transforming a blocky low-resolution video into a crisp high-resolution picture with local AI processing — Compatible SDR video can be enhanced locally at up to 2× while automatic fallbacks protect playback.