Reel Beta preview Coming to the Roku Channel Store

For people who run their own Plex Media Server

Now showing: your library.

Reel opens straight into your library - the media you share with family and invited guests, presented with care. Reel talks to one server: the Plex Media Server you already run.

Reel's Home screen: the left rail collapsed to a slim icon gutter, a focused film re-tinting the whole page its own colors, a Continue Watching row below.
Beta build · polish in progress

Built on these design standards. Everything else follows.

Familiarity

Navigation, controls, and focus should follow conventions other apps have been using for years, and the same action must keep the same meaning from one screen to the next. Users should not have to relearn how to browse, select, play, or return. New features must extend what the app does, not redesign user habits.

Configurability

Meaningful choices about appearance, behavior, and available features must belong to the server owner. Once configured, the experience cannot be changed, expanded, or reinterpreted by an update. Any new feature that alters what users see or how the app behaves must remain disabled until the owner enables it.

Craft

Every screen and interaction has to hold up after the first impression wears off. Focus must be obvious, navigation can't do anything unexpected, and getting somewhere should never take more clicks than it reasonably needs. A feature isn't finished until it feels deliberate, predictable, and easy to use.

The Usher · Navigation

Knows the house. Shows the way. Steps aside.

The Usher lives on the left, where years of streaming apps have taught your hand to look. It stays tucked away while you browse, then opens to name each destination when you move into it. Travel the rail and your place in the room stays put; choose a destination and the house takes you there.

The access you have already arranged in Plex is the ticket. If you keep several libraries, they unfold beneath Movies, TV Shows, Collections, and more, with a count beside each door. If your server has only one or two libraries, the rail stays just as simple: one doorway for each. However you organize your server, Reel carries that structure to the screen.

You can shape the rail to suit the way your household watches, and each viewer can adjust its size on their own screen. Wherever the rail takes them, Back has a clear and predictable destination.

The rail expanded over the page: profile row on top, then Search, Home, Movies, TV Shows, Collections, Settings - with a beta version badge at the bottom.
Beta build · polish in progress
The rail's accordion open under Movies: All Movies 2,489, followed by the owner's smaller libraries, each with its own count and thread color.
Beta build · polish in progress

The best part of The Usher? The libraries you share in Plex are already in your guests' navigation. Their first decision is what to watch.

The House · Media grid

Every button press should take you somewhere.

Reel gives your library room to breathe: seven poster columns built for the television, with every title and year kept in view. The grid is easy to read from across the room and quick to travel with a Roku remote, whether someone arrives with a title in mind or stops when a familiar poster finds them.

A remembered title, a familiar face on a poster, or something that simply catches the eye. The media library you've built gives your guests plenty of ways to choose their evening.

And when they want to narrow the choice, the tools come to them. The grid has a shortcut worth a closer look.

A movie library grid: seven poster columns with title and year under every poster, and a quiet alphabet rail along the right edge.
Beta build · polish in progress

The best part of The House? The media library you've built is the whole attraction. Every shelf has a clear address and a short path to it.

The D-pad · Directional shortcuts

Options, direction, OK.

The Roku remote's Options button opens a directional shortcut over the grid. Up opens alphabetical Jump, turning a long walk into a short hop. Left opens Search, Down opens Sort & Filter, and Right restores the opening view.

Four destinations stay in fixed places beneath the viewer's thumb. Each takes the same three presses to reach, wherever they happen to be in the grid.

That small movement can cross the alphabet, narrow the library, open a search, or bring the view back to its starting point.

  1. Options
  2. Direction
  3. OK
Gesture diagram · interface capture to follow

Three ways to reshape the grid and one reliable way home.

The Atlas · Episode guide

A TV show opens like a book falling open to your bookmark.

The entire show is one continuous run of episodes. It opens at the viewer's next episode, with the previous one resting just above it for context. Move through the list and one season gives way naturally to the next, while the season map follows along and quietly keeps your place.

That map is always one press of Left away. Move into it and seven seasons become seven short steps; choose one and the episode list meets you there. The same arrangement remains comfortable when a show has seventy-three seasons and more than a thousand episodes. The distance changes. The navigation does not.

Every focused episode tells its story at a glance: number, title, runtime, air date, summary, resolution, codec, audio, subtitles, and file size, arranged around the still without asking the viewer to open another screen. Everything needed to choose the next episode is already in the room.

The Episode Atlas crossing from Season 2 into Season 3 of The West Wing: a focused episode beside the season map, with its title, summary, air date, runtime, and file facts all in view.
Beta build · polish in progress
An episode's own page: its still as the hero, a kicker naming the show, season and episode, the facts line, and guest cast below.
Beta build · polish in progress

The best part of The Atlas? Browse straight through every season in one episode list. Pick a season only when you want to jump ahead or back.

The Callboard · Long press

Hold OK. Keep your place.

Sometimes the title is already in front of you and you know exactly what you want to do. Hold OK on a poster on Home or in a movie or TV grid, and The Callboard brings its actions into reach.

Open the details, go straight to a show's episode guide, or mark a title watched or unwatched. The choices belong to the title you've selected, right where you were browsing.

Back closes the panel and returns you to the same poster. A small gesture gives a familiar button a little more to offer.

Action diagram · interface capture to follow

The best part of The Callboard? The next action starts at the title you've already found.

House Rules · Owner settings In development

Shape the experience you share.

You built the media library. You should be able to shape the experience around it, too.

Choose how Reel looks, which features are available, and where each viewer can make a choice of their own.

House Rules is being built around a simple commitment: the choices you make stay yours. New features wait for your say-so before they change the experience you share.

The owner sets the program. An update never rewrites it.

The Projection Booth · Player controls In development

Make the interruption worthwhile.

When someone brings up the playback controls, they have a reason. Reel's player is being shaped around that moment: useful information about what's playing, the controls they came for, and a clear way back to the film.

The details are still taking shape. The purpose is already clear: make that moment as considered as the viewing that surrounds it.

Player controls · preview to come

The Changeover · Seeking In development

Find the moment. Stay with the film.

Revisit a line, move past a familiar scene, or find the place someone remembers. Seeking should make it easy to see where you're going and settle on the moment you want.

We're refining how Reel scans through a title, shows the destination, and returns to playback.

Seek and scan · preview to come

Collections In development

Some titles belong together.

A director's work. A run of sequels. The films everyone asks for when they visit. Collections give those connections a place in your library.

We're shaping how Reel presents them, so the care you put into gathering titles becomes part of the pleasure of choosing one.

Collections · preview to come

The House Standard · Craft Work continues

The details have to hold up.

The title that runs long. The library with one film. The artwork that hasn't arrived. These are ordinary parts of a media library, and they deserve the same care as the screen that makes the best screenshot.

We're working through those edges: readable text, unmistakable focus, helpful waits, and a predictable way back. The measure is how it feels when someone picks up the remote.

Reserved feature · 01

A place for the next feature.

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Reserved feature · 02

Another part of the story.

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From one living room to yours

A library takes care. So should its player.

Reel is built by a server owner who hosts movie nights for family and friends. A media library takes time and care to build. The people you share it with deserve that same care on the screen.

Reel is in beta with an invited crew. Coming to the Roku Channel Store.