Tater Tube Server

tatertube.tv

Tater Tube Server is the backend for Tater Tube players. It provides The Tube catalog, Newznab-backed streaming, local media libraries, player pairing, optional FFmpeg transcoding, queue status, logs, and a mobile-friendly setup UI.

Tater Tube Player

This server is designed to pair with the Tater Tube player image. The player repo has the Raspberry Pi images, module setup, built-in updater details, and device-specific notes for CRT composite and HDMI builds.

• Player GitHub: TaterTotterson/Tater-Tube
• Project website: tatertube.tv

Quick Start

1. Start the server with Docker.
2. Open http://SERVER-IP:8080.
3. Add at least one NNTP provider under Configuration -> NNTP Providers.
4. Add your Newznab URL and API key under Configuration -> Newznab Stream.
5. Create a player PIN under Configuration -> Tater Tube Players.
6. On the Tater Tube player, open The Tube and enter the server URL plus PIN.

Login is disabled by default. Configure users later from the web UI if you want to lock down the server dashboard.

Docker

The release image is published to GitHub Container Registry:

docker pull ghcr.io/tatertotterson/tater-tube-server:latest

Minimal run command:

docker run -d \
  --name tater-tube-server \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -v /path/to/tater-tube-server/config:/config \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  ghcr.io/tatertotterson/tater-tube-server:latest

Docker Compose:

services:
  tater-tube-server:
    image: ghcr.io/tatertotterson/tater-tube-server:latest
    container_name: tater-tube-server
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      - /path/to/tater-tube-server/config:/config
    restart: unless-stopped

The only required volume is /config. It stores server settings, player pairing tokens, stream metadata, and the segment cache.

Unraid template icon URL:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TaterTotterson/tater-tube-server/main/frontend/public/unraid-icon.png

Local Media Mapping

To use Local Media, mount host media folders into the container, then add the container paths in Configuration -> Local Media.

Example:

services:
  tater-tube-server:
    image: ghcr.io/tatertotterson/tater-tube-server:latest
    container_name: tater-tube-server
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      - /mnt/user/appdata/tater-tube-server/config:/config
      - /mnt/user/media/movies:/media/movies:ro
      - /mnt/user/media/tv:/media/tv:ro
      - /mnt/user/media/music:/media/music:ro
      - /mnt/user/media/home-videos:/media/home-videos:ro
    restart: unless-stopped

Then add categories like:

Category	Library Type	Folder Path
Movies	Movies	/media/movies
TV Shows	TV Shows	/media/tv
Music	Music	/media/music
Home Videos	Folders	/media/home-videos

Library types:

• Movies shows a clean movie title list.
• TV Shows browses as show, season, then episode.
• Music scans album folders for Tape Deck when Tater Tube Server is selected as its provider.
• Folders keeps the original directory structure.

Use container paths, not host paths, inside the Tater Tube Server web UI.

Tube TV

Tube TV builds shared server-side channels from the local movie and television libraries. Every paired player receives the same schedule, commercials, channel numbers, and optional logo overlays.

The Bumpers tab supports named station-ID groups for Before commercials, After commercials, or Before + after. Select the groups on each custom channel and Tube TV inserts one eligible bumper at each configured position. Bumpers are shuffled without repeating until every video in that placement pool has played.

Hardware Transcoding

Transcoding is optional and lives under Configuration -> Hardware Transcoding. The Docker image includes a bundled FFmpeg build with Intel QSV/VAAPI driver support. Profiles are included for CRT 480p, HDMI 1080p, and HDMI 4K playback.

For Intel, AMD, Raspberry Pi, and other /dev/dri hardware encoders, pass the device into the container:

services:
  tater-tube-server:
    image: ghcr.io/tatertotterson/tater-tube-server:latest
    devices:
      - /dev/dri:/dev/dri
    volumes:
      - /path/to/tater-tube-server/config:/config

For NVIDIA, install the NVIDIA Container Toolkit on the host, then run with GPU access:

docker run -d \
  --name tater-tube-server \
  --gpus all \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -v /path/to/tater-tube-server/config:/config \
  ghcr.io/tatertotterson/tater-tube-server:latest

The dashboard shows detected hardware and active playback cards show whether a stream is direct play, software transcode, or hardware transcode.

Updates

For Docker installs:

docker pull ghcr.io/tatertotterson/tater-tube-server:latest
docker restart tater-tube-server

The built-in updater can also update Docker installs when the container has access to the Docker socket and Docker CLI.

Local Development

go run ./cmd/tater-tube-server serve --config ./config.yaml

Frontend development:

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

The frontend dev server proxies API requests to http://localhost:8080.

Credits

This project is based on javi11/altmount. The streaming internals and queue/import pipeline come from that project. Tube TV channel logo browsing uses the public logo catalog from tv-logo/tv-logos.

License

Tater Tube Server is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0. Portions derived from AltMount retain the upstream MIT notice in NOTICE.