Help

Install and launch the server

1. Download HomeVidStream.exe and run it on the computer where your videos are stored.
2. On first launch you will be asked to sign in. Enter your HomeVidStream username and password.
3. After signing in, choose your Library Folder — the root folder containing your video files. HomeVidStream will scan it automatically.
4. The top bar shows the local IP address and port (e.g. 192.168.1.x:8090). Any browser on the same network can open this address to view your library.

Sign in to your account

1. When HomeVidStream opens, enter the username and password you created on homevidstream.com.
2. If your license is not yet activated on this device, you will be prompted to activate it — click Activate and the app does the rest.
3. Once signed in, the main library window opens automatically.

Scan your library

1. Go to Settings → Preferences and set the Library Folder to the root of your video collection.
2. Click Scan Library (or press the Scan button in the toolbar). HomeVidStream walks the folder tree, classifies each file as a Movie or TV episode, and builds the poster wall.
3. Rescan any time you add new files.

Play a title

1. Find the title on the poster wall and double-click it, or click the card to open the detail page and press Play.
2. The inline player appears at the bottom of the window and playback starts immediately.
3. All connected client devices (browser or remote app) start playing the same video in sync.

Control playback

• Play / Pause: click the ▶/⏸ button or press Space.
• Seek: drag the seek bar, or press ←/→ to skip 10 s and Shift+←/Shift+→ to skip 30 s.
• Jump to position: press 0–9 to jump to 0 %–90 % of the video.
• Volume: press ↑/↓ or drag the volume slider. In the desktop player, volume can go above 100 % for quiet recordings; browser viewers are capped at 100 %.
• Speed: use the speed menu (0.5×–2×) in the player controls.
• Fullscreen: press F or double-click the video. Press Esc to exit.

Resume where you left off

HomeVidStream remembers your position in every video. When you play a title again it automatically resumes. A title is marked "watched" once you reach 95 % — after that it no longer appears in the Continue Watching row.

Autoplay and Skip Intro

When a TV episode ends, a countdown overlay appears and the next episode starts automatically. Click Cancel to stay. The Skip Intro button appears at the start of episodes and Skip Credits near the end — click either to jump past.

Find a title

• Use the Search bar at the top of the poster wall to filter titles as you type.
• Use the Filter tabs (All / Movies / TV / Recent / My List) to narrow the view.
• Scroll the auto-categorised rows: Movies, TV Shows, Continue Watching, My List, Top 10 for You, Recently Added, Browse by Genre.

Browse a TV series

1. Click a TV series card on the poster wall.
2. Season chips appear at the top — click a season to switch to it.
3. The episode list below shows each episode with a progress bar. Click an episode to play it.

My List and ratings

Open any title's detail page (right-click a card or click once to open it) and click + My List to add it to your watchlist. Thumbs-up / thumbs-down ratings are stored per profile and influence the Top Picks and Because You Watched rows.

Watch in a browser

1. With the HomeVidStream server running, look at the top bar for the LAN address (e.g. http://192.168.1.x:8090/).
2. Open that address in any browser on the same network — phone, tablet, smart TV, or another PC.
3. Browse the poster wall and click a title to start playing it in the browser.

Start a Watch Party

1. Play a title in the browser.
2. Click the Watch Party button. You join a sync room.
3. Share the LAN URL with others on the same network — when they open it and click Watch Party, everyone's playback syncs automatically.
4. Any participant can play, pause, or seek — the change applies to all screens within about 1.5 seconds.

Create a playlist

1. Open File → Playlists (or click the ☰ Files button in the toolbar).
2. Click New Playlist, enter a name, and confirm.
3. Right-click any video in the file list and choose Add to Playlist.

Edit or delete a playlist

Open the playlist from the File menu, then use the Edit button to add, remove, or reorder items. Click Delete to remove the entire playlist. Changes are saved automatically.

Create a profile

1. Go to Settings → Profiles.
2. Click Add Profile, enter a name and choose an emoji avatar.
3. Select Kids to enable parental controls for that profile (hides mature titles).

Switch profiles

The active profile is shown in the status bar at the bottom of the poster wall. Click it (or use Settings → Switch Profile) to change to another profile. Each profile has its own My List, ratings, and watch history.

Set a PIN for a Kids profile

In Settings → Profiles, select the Kids profile and click Set PIN. Once set, leaving the Kids profile requires the PIN — useful for shared devices.

Set up The Back Room

1. Right-click any poster card and choose Move to The Back Room, or click the 📿 The Back Room chip at the end of the chip bar.
2. The first time you enter The Back Room, you are prompted to create a password. Enter and confirm it.
3. Tucked-away titles disappear from the main library and all categories — only visible in The Back Room.

Access The Back Room

Click the 📿 The Back Room chip at the end of the chip bar. Enter your Back Room password to part the beads and unlock the view.

Change the password or clear it out

Go to Settings → Preferences. Under The Back Room, click Change Password (you will need to enter the current password) or Clear The Back Room to move all titles back to the main library.

Set up TMDb for real posters and info

1. Go to Settings → Preferences → TMDb API Key.
2. Follow the in-app link to create a free TMDb account and generate an API key.
3. Paste the key and click Validate. HomeVidStream will start fetching posters, synopses, and ratings.

No server found on the network (HVS-NET-001)

The client searched for a server using UDP multicast discovery and found nothing.

1. Confirm HomeVidStream.exe is running on the host PC and shows an IP address in its title bar.
2. Make sure both machines are on the same subnet — e.g. both on 192.168.1.x. Discovery uses multicast UDP (port 9877, group 239.255.42.42), which is blocked across subnets and VLANs.
3. If you use a guest Wi-Fi or a network with AP/client isolation enabled, devices cannot see each other even on the same SSID. Disable client isolation in your router's wireless settings, or move both devices to the main LAN.
4. Open Help → Network Setup Wizard in the server app — it walks you through the Windows Firewall and Avast Business steps required to allow discovery traffic.
5. If discovery still fails, use Client mode → Connect to IP and enter the server's IP address directly (shown in the server title bar or in the Account dashboard).

Server found but nothing can connect (HVS-NET-002)

Discovery found the server's IP but every connection method — TCP, HTTP, PowerShell relay, SMB pipe — was blocked. This is the most common Avast Business symptom.

Step 1 — Windows Firewall

1. In the server app, go to Help → Network Setup Wizard. This generates AddFirewallException.bat in %LOCALAPPDATA%\HomeVidStream\.
2. Right-click AddFirewallException.bat → Run as Administrator. It adds inbound TCP rules for ports 9876 (control), 9877 (discovery), 9878 (relay), and 8090 (browser server).

Step 2 — Avast Business Firewall (on every machine)

1. On each machine that runs HomeVidStream or the client: click the Avast tray icon → Protection → Firewall → Application Rules → Add new rule.
2. Browse to HomeVidStream.exe (and HomeVidStreamClient.exe on viewer-only machines). Set Action: Allow for both In and Out.
3. If managed via Avast Business Central: Policies → [policy name] → Firewall → Application Rules → add a rule for both exes, Action: Allow, Direction: Both.

Share IPC fails (HVS-NET-003)

The server runs from a network share (e.g. \\NAS\Video\HomeVidStream.exe) and announced a UNC share path for the fastest IPC channel — but the client could not connect to it.

1. Confirm you can browse to the share in Windows Explorer on the client machine — if Explorer can't reach it, the IPC can't either.
2. Check that the share path announced in the server title bar matches the path visible in Explorer. If the server moved or was renamed, restart it so it re-announces the new path.
3. After fixing share access, click Retry connection in the error dialog. HomeVidStream will fall back to TCP if the share is still unreachable.

Client connects then immediately drops

1. Intermittent TCP drops: check that Wi-Fi signal is strong on both machines. A client on Wi-Fi 5 GHz can lose packets when it switches between access points (band steering). Try 2.4 GHz or wired Ethernet for testing.
2. If using PowerShell relay (HVS-NET-002 was the fallback path): the relay has higher latency and is more sensitive to packet loss. Getting the direct TCP path working (Step 1 and 2 above) produces a more stable connection.
3. Windows going to sleep mid-session disconnects all clients. Set the host PC's sleep timer to Never while streaming (Power Options → Change plan settings).

Video stutters or buffers

1. Format: MKV and AVI files must be transcoded in real time by the host PC's VLC. High-bitrate MKV (4K HDR) can saturate the host's CPU. Switch to MP4 files for browser playback, or use the desktop client which plays the original file via VLC directly.
2. Network speed: 1080p MKV typically needs 20–40 Mbps. Check Wi-Fi throughput with a speed test between the two machines. Wired Ethernet is always more reliable.
3. Shared NAS: if the server runs from a NAS, both the host NAS read-speed and the LAN segment between NAS and server PC affect throughput. Try moving a test file to the server PC's local drive.
4. VLC buffering: in the server app go to Settings → Preferences → VLC network caching and increase the buffer from 300 ms to 1000 ms for wireless clients.

Playback is out of sync across devices (HVS-SYNC-001)

HomeVidStream corrects drift automatically — it broadcasts a sync heartbeat every second and snaps any client that drifts beyond 500 ms (playing) or 50 ms (paused). If sync is persistently off:

1. Clock skew: the compensation math subtracts the server's timestamp from the client's time.time(). If the two machines' clocks differ by more than ~1.5 s, HomeVidStream treats the difference as network latency and ignores it (to avoid overcompensating). Enable NTP time sync on all machines: Windows → Settings → Date & Time → Sync now.
2. High-latency path: if the client is on the PowerShell relay (HVS-NET-002 fallback), round-trip times can be 200–500 ms, pushing clients ahead of the server's actual position. Fix the direct TCP path to resolve this.
3. Restart: disconnect and reconnect the out-of-sync client. On reconnect it bootstraps to the server's live position.

VLC not found or won't load (HVS-VLC-001 / HVS-VLC-002)

HomeVidStream requires VLC media player to be installed on the host PC. VLC handles all video decoding and serves as the browser transcoding engine.

1. Download and install 64-bit VLC from videolan.org. If you already have VLC and still see the error, you likely have 32-bit VLC installed — uninstall it and install the 64-bit version.
2. After installing VLC, restart HomeVidStream. It searches the Windows registry and standard install paths automatically.
3. If VLC is installed in a non-standard location, set the PYTHON_VLC_LIB_PATH environment variable to point to your libvlc.dll path.
4. Still failing? Check %APPDATA%\HomeVidStream\crash.log for the exact error and include it when contacting support.

The app won't start / crashes on launch

Check the crash log at %APPDATA%\HomeVidStream\crash.log for error details. Common causes:

• Port in use: another program is using port 8090. Change it in Settings → Preferences → Server Port.
• VLC not installed: see HVS-VLC-001 above.
• Antivirus quarantine: HomeVidStream.exe or its VLC dependency was quarantined. Check your AV quarantine list and restore/exclude the file.
• Missing Visual C++ runtime: install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable (x64).

Error Code Reference

When HomeVidStream shows a structured error, it includes a code like HVS-NET-001. Look yours up here for the specific fix. The error dialog also has a direct link to the matching section above.

Collect and send a support log

If you're still stuck after trying the steps above, the fastest way to get help is to send a support log. The support log is a self-contained .zip file that contains:

• The crash log (crash.log) — Python tracebacks from the last session
• The connection log — a record of each server discovery attempt and transport tried, with error codes
• A sanitized environment report — OS build, app version, VLC version, detected network adapters and IPs, and whether firewall exceptions are present

No passwords, API keys, or license keys are included — only diagnostic information.

How to export

1. In the HomeVidStream app, open the Help menu and click Export support log.
2. The zip file is saved to your Desktop and the folder opens automatically.
3. Go to the contact form, describe the problem, and attach the zip file.

Activate on a new device

1. Install HomeVidStream on the new device and launch it.
2. Sign in with your username and password.
3. If a seat is available on your license, HomeVidStream activates automatically.
4. If all seats are used, deactivate the old device first: go to My Account → Devices and click Deactivate next to the old device, then try again.

The app says my license has expired

If you have a subscription, go to My Account to renew or update payment details. If you have a perpetual license, it should not expire — contact support if you see this unexpectedly.

I forgot my password

There is no self-service password reset on the site yet. Use the Contact form to reach us and we'll help you reset your password.