CathodeTV

CH 03 · NOW PLAYING

Your Plex library, on the TV you grew up with.

CathodeTV plays the movies and shows on your Plex Media Server through a simulated CRT television on Apple TV. Warm phosphors, scanlines and curved glass, inside a living-room set, an arcade cabinet or a 1939 picture palace.

Coming soon to the App Store See the sets
A film playing on the Living Room '96 set, a flat-faced 1990s television with fine scanlines.
LIVING ROOM '96 1996 · Composite · Cable Box
22TVs and screens, from 1925 to today
13hand-drawn sets, plus your own cabinet art
14themes for the browser, from Cable Guide to Golden Age
24/7channels built from your Plex collections

Pick a set

Every preset simulates a real kind of screen: the glass, the phosphor mask, the signal it was fed and the room it sat in. Swipe up or down during playback to flip between them, or let CathodeTV choose one from the year a title was made.

Also on the dial: Sunday Morning Cartoons, Broadcast Monitor, Kitchen Portable '86, Pocket TV, Motel Black & White, VHS Rental Night, Green Screen, Amber Monitor, Widescreen HD CRT, Silent Picture House, Multiplex '99, Premiere Night, Big Screen '91, Subtle Glow and Pass-Through. Every setting is adjustable, and you can save your own.

Always on, like cable used to be

CathodeTV turns your Plex collections into channels that are already playing when you tune in. Flip up and down with the remote, or browse a grid guide that looks the way guides used to.

  • CH 01
    Weather. The local forecast in 90s cable style, with smooth jazz and a ticker of what's on every other channel. Uses a ZIP code if you'd rather not share your location.
  • CH 02
    News. The day's top stories from Wikipedia's current events, each credited to the outlet that reported it.
  • CH 03+
    Your collections. Every TV collection becomes a channel, shuffled fresh each day. Play episodes back to back in blocks, and add 2–3 commercial breaks between shows from your own filler library.
The Weather channel's extended forecast on a living-room television.

Made for Apple TV

Plays what you have

Direct Play for files Apple TV can open, Dolby Digital passthrough, and HDR titles tone-mapped for the tube. Plex handles the rest.

Your whole Plex

Continue Watching, your Watchlist, collections, playlists, filters and Plex Home users with PINs. Skip Intro, Skip Credits and Up Next when you're watching on demand.

Top Shelf

Pick up where you left off, or jump straight back to the channel you were watching and the local weather, from the Home Screen.

Built for the room

Pure Black Room for OLED TVs, power-on and degauss sounds, a burned-in ghost if you like it, and 14 themes for browsing, from Cable Guide blue to Golden Age gold.

No ads. No tracking. No accounts.

CathodeTV talks to Plex and your own servers, and to Apple Weather and Wikipedia only for the Weather and News channels. The developer never receives anything about you or what you watch.

Read the privacy policy

What you need

No server yet? Choose "Explore the Demo Reel" on the sign-in screen to try every TV, plus the Weather and News channels.