Movie Night

Everyone presses play at the same moment, however far apart they are. Someone pauses for the kettle and it pauses on every screen. Talk over the film and the film gets quieter so you can hear each other.

Nobody is watching a screen share. Everyone plays their own copy at their own quality, on their own connection. Only the timeline is shared, which is why a 4K TV and a phone on mobile data can be in the same Movie Night without either one being ruined for the other.

Starting one

From any film or show: ⋯ → Start Movie Night, or start one from inside the player if you have already begun watching, in which case everyone joins you where you are.

The host is whoever started it. Anyone in the night can pause, seek, or skip, which is how a living room works. The host is the only one who can queue up what to watch, remove somebody, or end the night.

Inviting people

Two kinds of invitation, and the difference is who they are.

People you share your server with

They see a banner offering to join. That is it. They are already signed in and already have a profile, so their watch history is credited normally.

Anyone else

Share in the night gives you a six-digit code and a link:

multipass.theater/night/482913

Send them the link. On a phone with the app installed, it opens straight into the night. Without the app, it lands on a page that shows the code very large, along with where to get the app, because a code survives an app-store install and a tapped link does not.

They open the app, choose Join a movie night on the server picker, type the code, pick a name to show, and they are watching with you.

Guests are anonymous and temporary:

• No account, no sign-up, nothing to create.
• They can see the one thing being watched and nothing else on your server. Every other part of your library returns nothing for them.
• When the night ends, so does their access.
• They get chat, reactions, and voice like anybody else.

Worth knowing. A remote guest uses one of your five remote streams while they are watching. Someone joining from your own Wi-Fi does not.

Chat and reactions

Text floats over the picture, sized to be legible from a sofa. Emoji reactions drift up the screen. On a TV your phone is the keyboard; see the companion below.

Voice

Voice is peer-to-peer between the people in the night, so nothing goes through us unless a network refuses a direct connection, in which case it falls back to an encrypted relay. The server never hears your audio.

The film ducks while somebody is talking and comes back up when they stop, so you are not fighting the soundtrack or reaching for the remote.

Up to eight people on voice, which is more than enough for a film night and is what keeps the quality up.

Using your phone with a TV

An Apple TV and an Android TV have no microphone and no keyboard, so your phone joins the night as a companion:

• It carries your voice
• It is where you type chat
• It is a pad of reaction buttons
• It has the transport controls

The TV plays the film; the phone is everything else. Open the app on your phone while the night is running and it offers to be the companion.

Being the host

• Queue what is next while the current thing plays.
• Mute somebody, which stops their voice and their chat. Useful and occasionally necessary.
• Remove somebody. If it was a guest, the share code is automatically replaced at the same moment, so they cannot rejoin with the code they were given. Everyone already in the night is unaffected.
• End the night, which returns everyone to their own app.

Things worth knowing

• Everyone’s watch history is credited, under their own profile, exactly as if they had watched it alone. A movie night counts for everyone in it.
• Nights are temporary. They live in memory on your server, so restarting the server ends the party. There is nothing to clean up and nothing scheduled in advance.
• Rating caps apply. A profile with a cap cannot add an above-cap title to the queue.
• Everything on every platform. Apple TV, Android TV, iPhone, iPad, Android, and any browser can host or join.