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.
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.
Beta build · polish in progressBeta 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.
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.
UpJumpLeftSearchOKRightResetDownSort & Filter
Options
Direction
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.
Beta build · polish in progressBeta 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.
Search · Discovery
Start with the part you remember.
Search is built for the fragment you remember: part of a title,
an actor's name, even a word from an episode title. Start typing
and your server answers across the library. Reel gathers related
episode matches beneath their series, keeping the results broad
enough for discovery and calm enough to browse.
Movies, shows, and episode matches share one set of results.
People get a row of their own. A remembered name can lead to
tonight's film, an episode worth revisiting, or something you
forgot was there.
Search has a place in the navigation and a shortcut from the
grid. It's close at hand whenever a little browsing becomes
a particular idea.
Earlier beta · new capture to follow
A few remembered words can open up a whole evening.
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.
ReelA show in your library
Hold OKShow DetailsEpisode GuideMark Un/Watched
Back returns to the poster
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
Fewer steps · Throughout Reel Work continues
The shortest route is part of the design.
The D-pad brings the tools to the grid. A long press brings the
actions to the poster. The Atlas lets an entire show stay in
one episode list.
That thinking continues throughout Reel. Every place a choice
can stay on the same screen, a useful action can move closer,
or Back can preserve someone's place is worth another look.
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.
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A place for the next feature.
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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.