Photon Player vs cipherStream

Photon is a native player for the library you already own. Connect your media servers, your cloud and network storage, and your Live TV subscription, and everything you can watch appears in one place — on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Mac, from a single purchase. YOUR OWN LIBRARY, TOGETHER • Works with Plex, Jellyfin, Emby, Photon and Silo • Connect a server free, or as many as you like with Pro. Home and Search bring them all together; the Library tab keeps each source's own shelves separate, so you can still ask what is on one server. • Play straight from an SMB, NFS, FTP or WebDAV share, a UPnP server on your network with no media server at all • Live TV from an Xtream Codes subscription, M3U: a full programme guide, favourites, and a channel list built for thousands of channels • Open a video from Files or the Finder and it becomes a title like any other — with a resume point, artwork and a name you can match against your servers AS IT WAS MADE • Dolby Vision and HDR, with AVPlayer driving the display for real HDR output • MKV and 4K play as they are. Nothing is quietly downscaled or re-encoded behind your back. • Subtitles drawn as overlays, never burned into the picture • Standing choices for audio language, subtitle language, and when subtitles should come on at all • Skip intros and credits, and go straight into the next episode EVERYWHERE YOU WATCH • Download for offline with Pro. Transfers carry on while you are elsewhere, with a Live Activity on the Lock Screen and a notice when a title lands. • Handoff picks a film up on the next device at the frame you left it • Spotlight opens a title directly • Top Shelf on Apple TV, a real menu bar on the Mac, and one design across all four platforms BUILT FOR THE PLATFORM Written in SwiftUI for iOS, tvOS, macOS and visionOS, with full Dynamic Type, VoiceOver labels on every control, and Reduce Motion respected throughout. There is no account to create and no service of ours in the path: Photon talks to your servers and to your own iCloud, and to nothing else. PHOTON PRO The free app is the whole player: one media server and one Live TV subscription, every drive and network share, and every format — 4K, MKV, Dolby Vision, TrueHD and DTS — with browsing, search, Handoff and SharePlay, no advertising and nothing to sign up for. Pro adds: • Every source at once: as many servers and Live TV subscriptions as you like, together in Home and Search • Downloads, for watching offline • AirPlay to an Apple TV or any AirPlay screen • Your servers, settings and the way you have arranged Home, on every device you sign in on Available monthly, yearly, or as a one-off Lifetime purchase, with a free week on either subscription. One purchase covers iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Mac. Photon plays the media you already have on servers and storage you control. It is an independent client and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Jellyfin, Emby or Plex. Terms of Use (EULA): https://photon.oliverwalton.uk/terms/ Privacy Policy: https://photon.oliverwalton.uk/privacy/

cipherStream is the iPhone and iPad app for a cipherStream server: the media server you run yourself, on your own computer or NAS, for your own films, series and music. Sign in with the account your server's owner gave you and your library is there: posters, cast, ratings, seasons and episodes, with Continue Watching and favourites that follow you between your phone, your television and your browser. • Your originals, played as they are. The app plays the files on your server directly, without the server converting them: HEVC and H.264 video (AV1 on devices that decode it), with AAC, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, FLAC and MP3 audio. DTS, TrueHD, Opus and Vorbis soundtracks are converted on your iPhone or iPad as they play. • Picture in Picture, and AirPlay to an Apple TV. • Blu-ray image subtitles, as well as the subtitles your server provides. • Encrypted end to end. Every request and every byte of video is encrypted by the app itself, on top of HTTPS. • Audio tracks and subtitles. Switch a title's language while it plays. • Music. Albums, artists, songs, folders and playlists from your server's music library. • Watch parties. Watch in step with other people on the same server, with live chat. • Your phone as a remote. Drive a television signed in to the same account, or move what you are watching to it at the same moment. • Quiz night. Play the trivia game on your television from your phone. • More than one server. Keep a friend's server beside your own and switch between them, or combine their libraries into one. Requires a cipherStream server. The app contains no media of its own; everything you watch comes from the server you choose.