01Why it exists
The open web is full of media
The Internet Archive holds thousands of public-domain films and a century of recordings. NASA publishes its own footage. Thousands of stations stream live, artists put music on open platforms, and podcasters publish public feeds. All of it is free to play, and it's scattered over a dozen sites with a dozen interfaces. MentiPlayer asks them all at once and plays what comes back.
02Parts list
- One searchFilms, TV, live TV, music, radio, audiobooks, podcasts and video from seventeen sources at once, mixed so the first screen isn't all one site. Narrow it by type, choose which sources to ask, or switch everything on with one button.
- Plays what it findsFeature films, cartoons and classic TV from the Internet Archive and the Library of Congress, NASA's footage, live radio, and whole audiobooks and podcast feeds as playlists, with speed control and your place remembered.
- Audio that keeps goingStart a station or an album, then keep browsing: the player stays at the bottom of the screen, with lock-screen controls where the phone supports them.
- Watch throughShows that sit on another site (live news channels, Mixcloud sets, Dailymotion and YouTube videos, the Archive's own player) play right here, in that host's official player. Nothing is copied: the show stays with its owner.
- Movie nightA featured film every day with Play and Surprise me, shelves by genre (comedy, westerns, mystery, romance, adventure, drama, war, musicals, noir, sci-fi), fullscreen with keyboard keys (F, M, arrows to skip ten seconds), and shelves that scroll with arrows on a big screen.
- Ranked by Rotten TomatoesThe film shelves lead with the best-reviewed: when the site has an OMDb key, public-domain films are ordered by their Rotten Tomatoes score, shown on each card with IMDb's. Without a key they are ordered by how many people watch them.
- Safe modeOn by default and enforced by the gateway, not just the page: only staff-curated sources are asked, sources where anyone can upload stay off, and anything adult or suggestive is hidden. You can turn it off; it asks first.
- Free episodes of TV showsOpen a show and it lists the free copies that exist, classic series on the Internet Archive and, with a key, full episodes on YouTube. Current network shows get their details, schedule, episodes and cast, and links to where they air.
03Construction
The gateway
A browser can't call most of these sites directly: some don't allow it, some rate-limit, some want a descriptive user agent. So the page talks to one small endpoint on mentifaber.org, which asks each source, reshapes the answers into one record, caches them and says which sources replied. If one source is down, the others still answer.
It isn't an open proxy: every upstream is fixed in the code, and the media files themselves are never relayed. Your browser plays them straight from their owners.
Where it comes from
The Internet Archive, the Library of Congress, TVmaze, Openverse, ccMixter, Audius, Wikimedia Commons, NASA, Radio Browser, SomaFM, Apple's podcast directory (with each show's public feed), Mixcloud and live news channels, plus Jamendo and YouTube where the site has their keys and, if you turn them on, Dailymotion and PeerTube. Every item shows its licence and links back to where it lives.
What stays on your device
Your saved list, what you played recently, your place in long recordings, and which sources you've switched on. There are no accounts and nothing to sign in to.
04Tolerances
MentiPlayer plays media that is public domain, openly licensed, or streamed free by its owner. It hosts none of it, so what plays depends on each source being up. Files from Wikimedia Commons are often WebM or Ogg, which some browsers can't play. Live radio sounds as good as the station sends it. Dailymotion and PeerTube are off by default because they aren't curated, and explicit podcasts are left out of search. Check each item's licence before you reuse it.
what it is not, said plainly
05Inscription
Seventeen sites' worth of open media, one search box.