zinema

Questions, answered

Most of these were asked by real users. Short answers, no fine print.

What zinema is

What is zinema?

A trailer feed for what you can actually watch tonight. You scroll trailers picked for you; when one lands, zinema shows you where to watch it (or plays it via Plex if you own it).

Does zinema play movies?

No. zinema plays trailers. For the film itself, it hands you over to where it lives: your Plex or Jellyfin server, the streaming platform that has it, or the cinema if it is only out in theaters.

What does it cost?

Nothing. zinema is free for viewers. The long term plan is to charge film publishers for fair visibility of their own films, never viewers. Recommendations are not for sale either way. The full picture: how zinema makes money.

Do I need a Plex server?

No. You can sign in with just an email and tick the streaming platforms you use. Plex (as owner or invited guest) and Jellyfin make it much better though: your library and watch history are what teach the feed your taste.

Your server, your data

Does zinema touch my Plex server?

Read only, always. zinema reads your libraries with your token, syncs gently (paced requests, quiet hours), and never writes, deletes or renames anything on the server. Server nicknames and the removed trailers list exist only inside zinema.

What data does zinema use, and can I leave?

What you watch and keep: trailers seen, your watchlist, and, with your explicit consent, your Plex watch history. That is what builds your taste profile. You can export everything as JSON and delete your account in one click, both from Settings. Details in the privacy policy.

Does zinema connect to my Netflix or Prime account?

Never. The platform toggles in Settings only tell zinema which catalogs to consider for your feed. Availability comes from public catalog data. No account linking, no history pulled from platforms.

What happens if I unlink a server?

It stops feeding your feed and drops to a greyed out list at the bottom of My sources, where you can relink it anytime. Your imported history stays. The server itself is untouched.

I removed a trailer from my feed. Where did it go?

Settings, then Removed trailers. It is your personal filter: exportable as JSON, and server owners can automate cleanup with a scoped access token. Removals never feed the recommendation engine.

The feed

How do I go to the next trailer?

Scroll, or press down on a TV remote. Trailers loop on purpose: moving on is your call, and that deliberate gesture is exactly what tunes your feed.

Why is a film missing from my feed?

Films watched in the last year are excluded, that is the point. Your Settings filters can also hide things: age limit, release period, movies or series only.

How do recommendations work?

Watch trajectories: what people who watched like you watched next. No content analysis of your files, no sponsored ranking, and your data is never sold.

Apps and playback

Which devices?

Web app in any browser (installable on your phone), iPhone, iPad and Apple TV on the App Store, and Android TV or Google TV on Google Play.

Can films open in Infuse or VLC instead of Plex?

Yes: Settings, then Player. zinema hands your player the raw original file, never a transcode session. One nuance since Infuse 8.5: a Transcoding prompt can appear when opening external files. In Infuse, set Playback, then Transcoding, to Off and it always plays direct (found by a zinema user, tested on Mac and Apple TV).

Something is broken, or I have an idea

Tell the person who builds it: bonjour@zinema.tv. zinema is built by one person in France, for their own living room first, and shaped weekly by feedback like yours.