Penguin 🐧

A beautiful, cross-platform media player with a Netflix-style UI, built with Flutter.

Demo

Screenshots

Why I Built This

My main inspiration was the Infuse app on iOS, which features a modern UI and excellent metadata fetching. However, since Infuse is an iOS-only app, I set out to build something cross-platform. I wanted a simple, elegant media player that could organize my local library without any complicated setup. Many existing solutions are either too bloated, require a server, or involve a tedious setup process. Penguin is built to just work—point it to your folder, and it automatically parses your files, fetches metadata, and presents them in a beautiful, modern UI.

Features

• Zero-Config Folder Resolution: The standout feature of Penguin is its simplicity. Just add a parent folder, and the application resolves and groups everything by itself—handling complex TV show and anime file structures effortlessly.
• Beautiful Netflix-style UI: A responsive, visually striking layout with an integrated 'Continue Watching' section and unified media grids.
• Automatic Metadata Fetching: Automatically grabs posters, backdrops, and details for your movies and TV shows from TMDB.
• Video Playback: Hardware-accelerated video decoding utilizing media_kit.
• Advanced Subtitle Rendering: Prioritizes native subtitle styles (like ASS/SSA) with configurable fallbacks.
• Privacy-First: Your data stays yours. Watch states and libraries are stored completely locally using SQLite (Drift).

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Framework	Flutter (Dart)
Playback	media_kit (libmpv)
State Management	Riverpod
Database	Drift (SQLite)
Metadata	TMDB API
UI	Material 3, Google Fonts, Phosphor Icons

TMDB API Key & Privacy

To fetch rich metadata (posters, synopses, ratings), Penguin requires a TMDB API key.

How to get a key:

1. Create an account on TheMovieDB (TMDB).
2. Go to your Account Settings > API.
3. Generate a new API key (v3 auth).

How it's stored securely: When you enter your TMDB API key in Penguin, it is stored locally on your device (using shared_preferences). It is never sent to any external server other than directly to TMDB to fetch movie data. Your library, watch history, and API keys are completely private and secure.

Platform Support

• Linux: Fully working and tested.
• Windows: Fully working and tested.
• iOS, Web, Android: Architecturally possible via Flutter, but not yet officially tested.

Download & Installation

The easiest way to run Penguin is to download precompiled binaries from the Releases section of this repository:

• Windows: Download Penguin_Installer.exe and run the installer to set up the app on your system.
• Linux: Download the .deb package and install it using your package manager (e.g., sudo dpkg -i penguin_1.0.0-1_amd64.deb).

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Building from Source (Linux)

To compile and run Penguin on Linux, you will need the standard Flutter Linux build dependencies along with libmpv.

1. Install Dependencies

You'll need the Flutter Linux development tools and mpv libraries. On Ubuntu/Debian, you can install them using:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install clang cmake ninja-build pkg-config libgtk-3-dev
sudo apt-get install mpv libmpv-dev

(Note: libmpv might already be installed on your OS if you use other media players.)

2. Build and Run

Make sure you have Flutter installed. Then clone the repository and run:

flutter pub get
flutter run -d linux

To build a release executable:

flutter build linux

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Building from Source (Windows)

To compile and run Penguin on Windows, you will need the standard Flutter Windows build dependencies.

1. Install Dependencies

• Install the Flutter SDK.
• Install Visual Studio with the "Desktop development with C++" workload checked.

2. Build and Run

Clone the repository and run:

flutter pub get
flutter run -d windows

To build a release executable:

flutter build windows

To compile a standalone setup installer, use Inno Setup to build the installer.iss script in the root directory.

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Notes

• Performance (Linux only): For best performance, 100% display scaling is recommended. The app runs smoother after shaders have been compiled.

TODO

• Test and optimize for Android, iOS, and Web platforms.
• Streamline the automatic media detection and metadata fetching flow.
• Add more comprehensive custom subtitle styling options.
• Implement smart playlists or custom collections.
• Add cast info in more info page.
• Add keyboard shortcuts