Comrade

Comrade is a synchronization program that allows a few people to watch TV series or movies simultaneously. It primarily leverages the mpv player and some of its specific features. It uses Socket.io to communicate and synchronize users.

Features

• Player Pause: When any user pauses the program, it sends a pause command to the other user.
• Player Resume: When a user resumes playback, it sends a resume command to the other user.
• Player Sync: Users can synchronize by moving to a different minute of the program and pressing the 'k' key.
• Player Subtitle Change: Users can change subtitles and relay this change to the other user.

Usage

Installation and Setup

Start the Server

To run the server file:

./server.js # OR node server.js

Start Client

Client starts mpv with itself. You can simply pass any parameter to client and it'll pass them to mpv.

./client.js movie-file.mkv # OR node client.js movie-file.mkv

This will start mpv with the movie-file.mkv and comrade will listen all changes from mpv.

For example, if you want to start a second instance of mpv on the same computer, you can do the following:

./client.js --input-ipc-server=/tmp/mpv-socket movie-file.mkv

By default, comrade opens mpv instance with /tmp/comrade-socket socket file.

To point comrade client to a specific comrade server (other than localhost:3000), use the following:

./client.js --comrade-server=<YOUR-SERVER-ADDRESS> # Arguments not starting with --comrade are passed to mpv as-is

Detailed Explanations

• Player Pause: When any user pauses the program, it sends a {"command":"PlayerPause"} JSON event to the other user. The receiving mpv project will stop.

• Player Resume: When any user resumes playback, it sends a {"command":"PlayerResume"} JSON event to the other user. The receiving mpv project continues playback.

• Player Sync: When any user moves to a different minute of the program or presses the 'k' key, it sends a {"command":"PlayerSeek","timePos":195.875} JSON event to the other user. The receiving mpv project jumps to the specified time position.

• Player Subtitle Change: When any user adds subtitles, it sends a {"command":"PlayerSubtitleChanged","contents":"fileContents"} JSON event to the other user. The receiving mpv project updates the subtitles with the provided content.