I built a cloud media server because I couldn’t tell my friends to buy a NAS

Source: Dev.to

I am a DevOps engineer. 🖥 For the last ten years, my home has been a construction site of physical servers, blinking racks, and the constant hum of cooling fans. I love the hardware and the freedom that self‑hosting provides. A Saturday spent configuring ZFS pools or debugging a kernel panic isn’t a chore—it’s a hobby. I’d host my own library anyway, even if it were more difficult, simply because I love the process.

I also love physical media. I still buy Blu‑rays and DVDs because I trust plastic more than digital licenses. Like a bookshelf, a physical movie library is a design choice; it’s beautiful and says a lot about who you are. But, just as I own books yet read most of them on an e‑reader, I want a convenient way to bring my movies with me on the go. 📖

For years I had the perfect setup: my ripped library hosted on my own iron, streamed via Jellyfin and Tailscale. It was private, it was mine, and it was fine. The problem was that whenever someone saw it, they wanted it, and I never knew how to help them. Whenever a friend asked for the same thing, I gave the same four reasons why it was a “no‑go” for them:

• 🛑 Too technical – Unless you’re willing to learn Linux, DNS, and networking just to watch a movie, you’ll get stuck.
• 💸 Too expensive – A Raspberry Pi is fine to start, but drive redundancy and hardware failure quickly raise costs.
• 🔌 Energy bill – Running a server 24/7 in your living room isn’t free.
• 🤯 Stress – You become the IT department, handling drive‑failure notifications, replacements, and data‑loss worries.

I do it because it’s my job and I love it, but I couldn’t recommend it to them.

The “Rental” Trap

The only other option for my friends was the ever‑changing streaming industry. Netflix prices are rising, commercials are being added to paid plans, and services fight over content ownership, meaning the movie you want today might be gone tomorrow. As someone who truly loves movies, I hate seeing brainless content pushed by algorithms to pander to people who just want “something in the background.”

My library doesn’t have that noise. It contains only media I’ve actually chosen, so I never get stuck in the dreaded endless‑scroll loop that defines the modern streaming experience. I kept thinking there had to be a way to get the best of both worlds: a hands‑free, cloud‑based storage that serves your own content, respects your privacy, and doesn’t require a degree in systems administration.

Why I Called It “TimeForPopcorn”

I decided to build that “third path.” The name is a pun—a nod to the infamous PopcornTime software from years ago—that just stuck as I talked about it. I’m an engineer at heart; I love building things but hate naming them. The name works in my favor: people already associate it with video, and it fits the vibe. If you’re tired of price hikes and privacy leaks, then it really is Time for Popcorn.

The Dream of Open Source

My career has been built on a passion for Open Source, and it’s always been a dream to have a project that fits that ethos perfectly. That’s why the client code for this project is Open Source. I’m not hoarding anyone’s data; the architecture is Zero‑Knowledge: your files are encrypted on your device before they are uploaded, so I only see random noise—you hold the keys.

Privacy Shouldn’t Be a Luxury

I store and log only the bare minimum needed to keep the system running and debugging simple. I like being a customer—paying for products so I’m not the product—but I want this to be accessible.

• Ghost Mode 👻 – Power users can bring their own TMDB API key, so I never see what movie titles you’re looking up. By default the call goes through my servers to keep things simple for average users. I don’t store that information, but the option to opt‑out entirely is available.
• Free Tier – 20 GB of storage with the same privacy and encryption as everyone else. Privacy isn’t a premium feature; it’s the foundation.

The Mission

This project is for people who love movies, for curators who want to build a permanent library rather than consume a feed, and for “reluctant admins” who want the privacy of a homelab without the hardware stress.

• Status: Pre‑Launch (not a pre‑sale; no money is requested until the product is live).
• Waitlist: Join the list of interested users to follow the development journey.
• Beta Access: Early doors will open for registered users who want to help test the system and give feedback on Discord.

If you’ve been looking for a way to take back your library from the streaming giants, I’d love to have you on board.

Join the Waitlist and let’s go back to just watching movies. 🎬